Royal Insight Forum

QuoteNo royal princesses could have been closer than the daughters of Nickolas and Alexandra. There were four girls, born right after one another in succession to the Imperial couple. The formal picture above, was taken in Alexandra's Pallisander Room of the Alexander Palace, is obviously posed, yet it cannot conceal the closeness between the sisters.

The two eldest, Olga and Tatiana shared one bedroom and the two youngest, Maria and Anastasia shared the one next door. Their bedrooms were large and airy and furnished in a hodge-podge of furniture assembled from things found around the palace and gifts from relatives. Large folding screens, covered in floral fabric were used by the girls to partition off private sleeping areas. After they outgrew cribs the princesses slept on folding camp beds covered in blue ticked covers and each bed was marked with the name of its owner. Small ikons were pinned to the striped covers which served as headboards. They slept on thin mattresses, under warm, blue blankets, monogrammed with their initials. On top were thin satin coverlets with the monogram of Catherine the Great, strange slippery covers that slid off easily. Camp beds were a tradition since the days of Catherine the Great who introduced the custom for her grandson Alexander and it became the rule from then on. Imperial children were taught from a very young age to endure hard beds and other relative discomforts - like cold baths and simple foods. The Grand Duchesses camp beds were light and easy to move. The girls moved their beds around their suite of rooms. In summer when the upstairs rooms of the palace became hot and stuffy they would set them up under the big open windows of their rooms to catch the cool night breezes. At Christmas the girls assembled their beds around the Yule tree in Aleksey's< playroom. Here they could lie in the dark, watching the sparkling ornaments and star-like lights as they drifted off to sleep.

Even though they could afford to have duplicate sets of beds, these camp beds were packed-up and followed the girls as they migrated throughout the year to Livadia, Peterhof and back to the Alexander Palace. They even went abroad. Eventually, these same camp beds followed them to Siberia.

Read more:
The Grand Duchesses - OTMA - Alexander Palace Time Machine (http://www.alexanderpalace.org/palace/gds.html)

I loved reading this! Thanks @Jennifer

Here are nice websites about the Grand Duchesses.

Olga (Olishka):
Olishka's Journal (http://www.livadia.org/olishka/)

Tatiana (Tanya):
Tanya's Diary (http://www.livadia.org/tanya/)

Maria (Mashka):
Mashka's Photographic Scrapbook (http://www.livadia.org/mashka/)

Anastasia (Ana):
Anastasia's Art Studio (http://www.livadia.org/ana/)

Thank you @Jennifer I am fascinated by the Romanov girls!  :flower: