Nikolai Konstantinovich Romanov burial place. Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich Romanov Tashkent People History

02 February 1850 - 14 January 1918

first child of Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich, younger brother of the future Russian Emperor Alexander II, grandson of Nicholas I

The youth of the Grand Duke

Nikolai Konstantinovich is a graduate of the Academy of the General Staff, which he entered on his own initiative in 1868. Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich became the first of the Romanovs to graduate from a higher educational institution, and among the best graduates - with a silver medal. After completing his studies, he traveled abroad, where he began to collect his collection of Western European paintings. After traveling around Europe, the Grand Duke joined the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment, and after some time, at the age of 21, he became a squadron commander. At this time, at one of the masquerade balls, he met an American dancer and adventurer by nature - Fanny Lear, who by that time had already traveled around Europe, was married and had a young daughter. They began an affair.

The Grand Duke's stormy romance worried his father and mother. Discussion of this problem even led to a meeting of his parents, who by that time did not live together. His father found a completely suitable excuse to remove him from St. Petersburg: in 1873, Nikolai Konstantinovich went as part of the Russian expeditionary forces on a campaign against Khiva.

Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich, who by that time already had the rank of colonel, received a baptism of fire on this campaign. He, at the head of the vanguard of the Kazalinsky detachment, which suffered the greatest losses, followed one of the most difficult routes, through the Kyzylkum desert. The very first reconnaissance group led by him came under such dense artillery fire that the detachment no longer expected them to return alive. In this campaign, Nikolai Konstantinovich showed personal courage and was an example for others. For his participation in the Khiva campaign, he was awarded the Order of St. Vladimir, 3rd degree.

After returning from Central Asia, which he was fascinated by, he became seriously interested in Orientalism. He began to take part in the work of the Russian Geographical Society: there, among scientists, the idea of ​​the Amudarya expedition matured. Its goal was to study as much as possible the region that had just been conquered by Russia and subject its potential to detailed scientific analysis. Such plans excited and captured the sovereign’s brilliant adjutant. The Geographical Society was, of course, pleased with the august attention. Nikolai Konstantinovich was elected an honorary member of this society and appointed head of the expedition.

After returning from the Khiva campaign, he again traveled to Europe in the company of his beloved, Fanny Lear. There he continued to expand his art collection.

But in the spring of 1874, when he turned 24, an event occurred that completely changed the life of the Grand Duke.

Family scandal

In April 1874, Nikolai Konstantinovich’s mother, Alexandra Iosifovna, discovered in the Marble Palace that three expensive diamonds were missing from the setting of one of the icons, with which the emperor had once blessed the marriage of his son Konstantin with the German princess, who in her marriage became Alexandra Iosifovna. Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich called the police, and soon the diamonds were found in one of the pawn shops in St. Petersburg.

First, they found the man who had taken the diamonds to the pawnshop - the adjutant of Grand Duke E.P. Varnakhovsky, whose opinion about his guilt persisted even later. During interrogation on April 15, he categorically denied involvement in the theft and said that he only took the stones given to him by Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich to the pawnshop.

Nicholas, who was present at the interrogation, swore on the Bible that he was not guilty, which, as they said, aggravated his sin. He told his father that, in rescuing Varnakhovsky, not just an adjutant, but his comrade, he was ready to take the blame upon himself. Emperor Alexander II, who took the case under personal control, involved the chief of the gendarme corps, Count Shuvalov, in the investigation.

Shuvalov interrogated the arrested Nikolai Konstantinovich in the Marble Palace for three hours in the presence of his father, who later wrote in his diary: “No repentance, no consciousness, except when denial is no longer possible, and then they had to pull out vein after vein. Bitterness and not a single tear. They conjured everything that was holy to him to ease the fate ahead of him with sincere repentance and consciousness! Nothing helped!"

Message quote PRINCE ISKANDER (ROMANOV)

Fragment from the book Ikonnikov-Galitsky A.A. Chronicles of St. Petersburg crimes: Brilliant and criminal. 1861-1917. St. Petersburg: ABC-classics, 2008. Thanks for the link to Zelina Iskanderova.

In Tashkent they are accustomed to this tall, hook-nosed old man with an arrogant and restless look. The old man stood unnaturally straight and dressed unnaturally carefully for a resident of the capital of the Turkestan region. His aristocratically elongated face rose above his cavalry guard-style shoulders, his back was straight, and only in recent years observant Tashkent inhabitants began to notice a barely visible stoop: as if this spine was tired of carrying this heavy head. The old man led a measured and secluded life, his solitary the castle was surrounded by the greenery of plane trees and mulberry trees, from the canopy of which in the evenings a dark, straight figure emerged: an old man was going for a walk. Three-piece suit, impeccable collar, hat, cane... In the city he was known by the name Iskander; and everyone also knew that it was a pseudonym. The real name was mentioned in a whisper and as if looking around.
The old man's real name was Romanov. Nikolai Konstantinovich Romanov. Grandson of Emperor Nicholas I.

Tashkent townsfolk spoke in whispers about his eccentricities, about his generosity and outbursts of unbridled rage, about his past love escapades. About the fabulous funds he invested in the construction of an irrigation canal in the desert and in the cultivation of an unknown plant - cotton. About how he once bought his daughter Daria from the Semirechensk Cossack Chasovitin for 100 rubles, built a house for her in the suburbs of Tashkent and began to live with her - from his living wife - as with a concubine. About how, at more than fifty years old, he became interested in a fifteen-year-old high school student, Varenka Khmelnitskaya, took her away and secretly married her; and how this marriage was dissolved by a special decision of the Synod at the will of the sovereign himself...

They spoke especially mysteriously about the long-standing story that changed the life of the royal grandson, depriving him of his title and the right to be called by his own name. Some saw in it traces of a political conspiracy; others hinted at a love affair in which the rival of the Tashkent exile turned out to be almost the heir to the throne and the future emperor Alexander the Peacemaker; still others heard something about the theft of some family treasure. No one in Tashkent really knew about the hook-nosed old man or the reasons for his disgrace. However, as in all of Russia.

By 1917, the Romanov family, in addition to the emperor himself, his wife and children, numbered more than 60 people. There were some quite worthy people among them, and some not so good ones. But they tried not to even mention one thing in the Romanov family, because it was one of those sins that cannot be forgiven.

1867 Nikolai Konstantinovich with his family. From left to right are sister Olga and her fiancé Georg Grechesky, mother Alexandra Iosifovna. Bottom row: Grand Dukes Konstantin Konstantinovich, Vyacheslav Konstantinovich and Dmitry Konstantinovich - younger brothers of Nikolai Konstantinovich.

In the Romanov family they called him Nikola. Nikola's father, Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich, was the second son of Nicholas I and the younger brother of Alexander II. So Nikola stood in the Romanov table of ranks only a step below the reigning emperor.

Nicholas was considered the most handsome of all the great princes. A wonderful dancer, he was the decoration of all balls. Over time, he was to inherit one of the largest fortunes in the empire. His parents owned the Marble Palace in St. Petersburg, second in luxury only to the Winter Palace, and the breathtaking beauty of Pavlovsk.

Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich with his parents

God did not offend the young man either in his mind or in his character. On his own initiative, in 1868 he entered the Academy of the General Staff. He studied on a general basis, no concessions were given to a member of the imperial family, but Nikolai graduated from the academy among the best with a silver medal.

Grand Duke at the age of twelve

Young Nikola with his sisters Vera and Olga

Grand Duke Nicholas Konstantinovich in the uniform of a squadron commander of the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment

He entered military service and at the age of 21 became the commander of a squadron of the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment. He should have become the pride of the Romanov family, but... Women ruined more than one brilliant officer career.

Femme fatale

Fanny Lear

At one of the balls, the Grand Duke met the American dancer Fanny Lear. At first, this connection in the Romanov family did not cause concern (another amorous adventure of a brilliant officer). But soon rumors began to reach that the relationship between the Grand Duke and the frivolous artist went far beyond the scope of a love affair. There were fears that everything could end in a scandalous marriage.

In the future, a successful military career and a comfortable existence awaited him, but everything changed one day, or rather the evening, when at a masquerade ball at the Bolshoi Opera he met the beautiful young lady Fanny Lear. The 21-year-old Grand Duke was captivated by a mysterious stranger who had recently arrived in St. Petersburg from Paris. By that time, Fanny, whose real name and surname sounded like Harriet Ely Blackford, had already become disillusioned with her marriage and separated from her husband, with whom she had a little daughter. In her memoirs, she described their first meeting, when they talked and joked about the “despotism of kings,” not yet knowing who was who. When she realized what kind of person was standing in front of her, she said, she was quite embarrassed. She described the appearance of the Grand Duke as follows:

“In front of me was a young man a little over six feet tall, beautifully built, broad-shouldered, with a flexible and thin figure. He had thick black eyebrows and small greenish eyes, deep in the sockets, which looked mockingly and incredulously and, as I learned later, sparkled like coals during anger; they became radiant in moments of joy. The look of these eyes, sometimes sharp and intelligent, sometimes dreamy, penetrated to the depths of the soul and forced one to speak the truth when, wanting to dispel any doubt, it rushed at the interlocutor. People who knew the Grand Duke adored and feared these eyes, and those who didn’t were embarrassed by their mocking expression...”

The prince's life was changed by his meeting with Fanny Lear. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

A romance broke out between the young people, which seriously alarmed Nikolai Konstantinovich’s relatives. They could not imagine for a minute that a foreign dancer, who did not have the best reputation, would become a close friend of the emperor’s grandson. To cool the ardor of a romantically inclined relative, they sent him on an expedition that was heading to Khiva in Uzbekistan. But after returning from a difficult voyage, he continued meeting with Fanny. The lovers even made a joint trip to Europe.

The story has been preserved that during a trip to Italy they visited the Villa Borghese, where the Grand Duke was greatly impressed by a sculpture depicting the younger sister of Napoleon I lying naked with an apple in her hand. He wanted to have a copy of this masterpiece, only to have his beloved woman, Fanny Lear, on the marble bed. The sculpture was commissioned by Tommaso Solari. Currently, the original of this sculpture is in the collection of the Tashkent Museum of Art, and a smaller copy can be seen in the Yusupov Palace in St. Petersburg.

Nikolai's worried parents, who had been living separately for a long time, met to discuss how to save their son. My father said that the best way to cure an officer of love cholera is to send him to war. And the young 23-year-old colonel of the General Staff in 1873, together with the Russian expeditionary force, set off on a campaign to Khiva.

Nikolai returned as a warrior, having been under fire and with the Order of Vladimir, III degree. First of all, he went to his beloved Fanny and, in the company of his beloved, went on a trip to Europe. The romance continued. Nikolai showered his mistress with expensive gifts. More and more money was needed to maintain it, and funds became scarce.

Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich was rich, very rich. But if anyone thinks that he could spend any amount of money uncontrollably, he is mistaken. The sums allocated to Nikolai for pocket expenses were large, but limited, and they were by no means millions. In the royal family, it was customary to save on personal expenses.

Theft

On April 14, 1874, a theft was discovered in the Marble Palace. This was not just theft, it was sacrilege. Diamonds disappeared from the setting of one of the family icons. The icon was very dear to the couple; with it, Nicholas I blessed his son Constantine and his bride Alexandra of Saxe-Altenburg for marriage. The Grand Duchess fell ill from frustration, and her enraged husband called the police. The investigation was personally taken under control by the chief of the gendarme corps, Count Shuvalov.

The investigation has stalled. Access to the icon was limited to a strictly limited circle of people: a doctor, a chambermaid, two footmen, and a court lady. All are people proven by many years of service, no one doubted their honesty. There were still members of the imperial family, but they were a priori above suspicion.

Scandal in the royal family

The detectives did not eat bread for nothing. They started from the other end and soon found diamonds in one of the St. Petersburg pawn shops. The stones were handed over by an officer from the retinue of Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich, a certain Varnakhovsky. The officer was detained and began to be interrogated.

And then the pen of the police clerk filling out the protocol hung in the air: according to Varnakhovsky, he received the diamonds from Nikolai Konstantinovich himself! And the proceeds were supposedly supposed to be spent on gifts for Fanny Lear. Count Shuvalov went to the palace to personally inform Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich the terrible news: his son is a thief.

Called for explanations, Nikola at first denied everything, but then confessed. At the same time, to the horror of his father, he showed neither regret for what he had done nor repentance. The members of the House of Romanov were by no means free from ordinary human weaknesses, but none of them ever stooped to theft.

Members of the Romanov family gathered in the Marble Palace to decide Nikola’s fate. There was, of course, no talk of putting him on trial: the prestige of the royal family had to be protected. But Nikolai, who disgraced all the Romanovs, must be punished - everyone agreed with this.

Outcast

Nikolai was told that he was being expelled from the family as a thief. From now on, his name will never be mentioned in papers relating to the imperial house. Nikolai loses his property - it is transferred to his younger brothers. He is deprived of all ranks, awards, military and court ranks, his name is deleted from the lists of the regiment, and wearing a military uniform is prohibited. He is expelled from St. Petersburg forever and from now on will live where he is shown.

For society, he will be declared mentally ill, undergoing compulsory treatment. Fanny Lear is expelled from Russia without the right to ever return. But Nicholas retained the title of Grand Duke and until his last days he was addressed as “Your Imperial Highness.” In the fall of 1874, Nikolai Konstantinovich left St. Petersburg forever.

Wandering

The life of an exile began. Uman, Orenburg, Samara, Crimea, Vladimir province, the town of Tyvrov near Vinnitsa - in 7 years, his place of exile was changed more than 10 times, not allowing him to take root anywhere.

In 1877, while in Orenburg, Nikolai married the daughter of the local police chief, Nadezhda Alexandrovna Dreyer. Through the efforts of the Romanovs, the Holy Synod, by a special decree, declared the marriage invalid. Nadezhda remained with the prince in the unclear status of his wife-concubine.

In 1881, the rogue prince asked permission to come to the capital for the funeral of the murdered Alexander II. Alexander III replied: “You have dishonored us all. As long as I’m alive, you won’t set foot in St. Petersburg!”, but he allowed the marriage with Dreyer to be legalized and sent the spouses for eternal settlement in Tashkent.

What is Tashkent at the end of the 19th century? A garrison on the edge of the empire with continuous drunkenness, melancholy and the eternal dream of leaving these mud huts for Russia. It was here that the Grand Duke was supposed to remain until the end of his days.

Resourceful businessman

In distant Turkestan, the disgraced prince became an entrepreneur. One after another, reports came to St. Petersburg: the Grand Duke is the owner of a soap factory, billiard rooms, organizes the sale of kvass and rice, grows cotton, builds cotton gin factories and produces textiles, opened the first cinematograph in Tashkent, “Khiva”. Income from the prince's business activities exceeded 1.5 million rubles a year.

We must pay tribute to Nikolai Konstantinovich, with his appearance in Tashkent, the once semi-wild region began to actively develop and gain potential. The disgraced Grand Duke also played a significant role in this difficult matter. He began building cinemas, opened a soap factory, photographic workshops, billiard rooms, established the sale of kvass, rice processing, soap and cotton factories, registering, in order to avoid the wrath of the Tsar, all organized enterprises as belonging to his wife.

One of the central streets of Tashkent at the end of the 19th century

Nikolai Konstantinovich turned out to be a first-class entrepreneur. He was one of the first to turn to the then most profitable area of ​​industry in this semi-wild region - the construction and operation of cotton gin plants. At the same time, he used the most advanced technologies of his century. Thanks to active work on the development of Turkestan, Nikolai Konstantinovich gained great popularity among the local population, both among indigenous and Russian settlers. A significant project in the life of the Grand Duke was the construction of a man-made canal from the Chirchik River, called the Iskander Aryk. Before the start of work, on these lands there were several houses of poor Central Asian peasants evicted from the town of Gazalkent for active resistance to the Russian government. After the Iskander Aryk, the “grand-ducal” village of Iskander was founded, and a few kilometers from the village Nikolai Konstantinovich laid out a large flowering garden.

One of the canals in the Hungry Steppe, built at the expense of Nikolai Konstantinovich

During the construction work on laying the canal, Nikolai Konstantinovich carried out an archaeological study of an ancient Turkic mound located near the canal bed, from which weapons and household items were removed, which became priceless exhibits in his personal collection. In 1886, he began his most ambitious project in Central Asia - laying a canal from the Syr Darya River to irrigate part of the Hungry Steppe between Tashkent and Jizzakh, at the same time spending a lot of energy and personal funds. The work related to the implementation and construction of the canal cost Nikolai Konstantinovich over a million rubles, but was crowned with great success. After completion of construction, on a coastal rock near the river, near one of the new Russian villages, workers carved a large letter “N” topped with a crown. Twelve large villages were founded on irrigated lands for Russian settlers from the central regions of Russia. Nikolai Konstantinovich wrote: “My desire is to revive the deserts of Central Asia and make it easier for the government to populate them with Russian people of all classes.” By 1913, thanks to the active efforts of Nikolai Konstantinovich, more than 119 Russian villages appeared in this territory.

Another grandiose idea of ​​the disgraced Romanov was the project to restore the old bed of the Amu Darya River, which flows into the Caspian Sea. In 1879, while in Samara, he organized a society for the study of Central Asian routes, whose goal was to build a Turkestan railway, which was supposed to connect central Russia with Turkestan and explore the possibility of turning the Amu Darya River into the Uzboy valley. In March 1879, Nikolai Konstantinovich published a brochure entitled “Amu and Uzboy”. For obvious reasons, the book was published without indicating the author's name and contained extraordinary ideas for the development of Central Asia. In the brochure, the Grand Duke, relying on the works of ancient and medieval writers, tried to prove that the river repeatedly changed its direction “solely by the will of man.” But the Russian government did not support the grandiose idea of ​​the “iron mask”, considering the project too expensive. In the brochure “Amu and Uzboy” he wrote with great optimism: “Russia has captured most of Central Asia over the past 25 years, but the once flourishing Turkestan fell to the Russians in a state of decline. It is endowed by nature with all favorable conditions for the rapid development of its rich productive forces. By expanding the irrigation network and expanding the boundaries of the oases, Turkestan can be made one of the best Russian regions.” However, the plan to create “one of the best areas” was considered impractical and was postponed until better times, which never came.

And the expedition organized by Nikolai Konstantinovich, which traveled more than a thousand kilometers through completely unexplored and wild places, brought material of exceptional importance for archaeology, geography and ethnography. The participants of the expedition were generously gifted by the Russian government, only the name of the Grand Duke was not mentioned, it was crossed out from all documents, and was not even mentioned in the main report presented to the Emperor, although the role of the royal exile in the development of Central Asia is priceless.

Nikolai Konstantinovich combined active creative work for the benefit of Turkestan with eccentric behavior and rather shocking actions, which quickly became public knowledge. With his wife alive, the Grand Duke decided to marry again. He fell madly in love with the young high school student Varvara Khmelnitskaya, bought a luxurious house for her in Tashkent, and when in 1901 his legal wife left to visit her son in St. Petersburg, Nikolai Konstantinovich secretly took his beloved out of the city and married her in a rural church. Of course, this marriage was annulled by the Emperor, and the girl and her family were sent to Odessa. Even earlier, in 1895, the Grand Duke bought his 16-year-old daughter from the Semirechensk Cossack Elisey Chasovitin for 100 rubles, who bore him three children.

Young Cossack girl Daria Chasovitina, who became the common-law wife of the Grand Duke

True, scandals continued to accompany his person. In 1894, Nikolai Konstantinovich again wanted to get married. This time the chosen one of the 44-year-old hero was the 15-year-old daughter of a Tashkent resident. Prince Iskander sometimes shocked the public by appearing at events accompanied by two spouses.

1.

I am often accused of excessive authorial bias in depicting the Romanov family in my essays and short stories, and that I always cover their literary portraits with the gilding of words, which stubbornly smoothes out the roughness and unevenness of their characters, passions, turns of their destinies, lives, roads... I can’t object to these reproaches. Well, every reader is free to have his own opinion, his own view of history and the people who created it, one way or another - participated in it, lived and died

The history of the Romanov family is complex and ambiguous, like the history of any large family, clan, or clan. In the vast “Romanov Saga”, during the three hundred years of Russia’s rule by this family, there was a place for everything: drama, comedy, farce, adventure novel, knightly epic, vaudeville, and high tragedy in the ancient style..

The fate of the person about whom I want to tell you, readers, now is so complex and unusual that it is stunning. First of all, by the fact that it combines the seemingly completely incompatible!

2.

Judge for yourself: one of the richest people in the Empire, Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich Romanov constantly borrowed money, issued bills and receipts in order to pay for the whims and caprices of his many lovers.

A brilliantly educated man, a graduate of the Russian Academy of the General Staff, he was “famous” everywhere not for his brilliance of mind and cold passion for military service, as one would expect from a real Romanov, but for his depraved antics and wild life, which amazed not only the “royals” to the point of shock. his relatives, but also mere mortals.

A high-born hereditary nobleman, he, just for the sake of satisfying his passions, without hesitation, easily humiliated himself to the “rank” of a thief and criminal, and, it seemed, he was openly proud of this for the rest of his life!

An art connoisseur who had amassed a huge collection of paintings and antiquities in his Tashkent palace, which after requisition was enough for three city museums, he desperately suffered from kleptomania and accumulated in his chambers not only masterpieces, but also small trinkets and all sorts of rubbish stolen from city garbage dumps and from junk shops...

A brilliant and original scientist, who left behind several rigorous scientific articles on land reclamation and agricultural development of lands in the vicinity of Tashkent, all his life he indulged in the most unbridled debauchery, not excluding the seduction of underage girls, cursed like a cab driver, and mercilessly blasphemed not only those who exiled him to the outskirts of the empire, his uncle - Tsar Alexander the Second, but also his nephew, Alexander the Third, who followed his example, and all his royal relatives... The family paid him for it with a kind of gratitude, preferred not to mention his name at family gatherings and stubbornly considered him crazy!

An egoist, accustomed all his life to think only about himself and his desires, whimsical and often quite dark, he died in cold blood and was buried like a true warrior, shot by the Bolsheviks in 1918, under unclear circumstances: in the crypt of St. Nicholas Cathedral - the largest in Tashkent.

A careless and absent-minded parent, he did not bequeath to his common-law wife Nadezhda Alexandrovna von Dreyer and his two blood sons - Artemy and Alexander - nothing except the granted, personal, nobility, coat of arms, a ringing, mysterious surname - “Iskander”, and an arrogant, truly “ Romanov’s” pride, which gifted the eldest son with an early death on the fields of the civil war (or in the delirium of typhus, according to another version) and the younger one with a bitter participation in the exodus of the White Army from Russia in the ranks of Baron Wrangel’s army, and then with a dreary life in foreign land - in France - until the cold hour of death, not warmed by farewell to their children - by the will of Fate and the fiery whirlwind of Time, they remained in Russia...

3.

A cold cynic and a playmaker, of which there were quite a few among the representatives of the “upper classes” of the untimely extinct Atlantis - the Empire, he, in essence, could boast of only one thing: he knew what love was, or, more precisely, Passion. For him, she was like a scorching fire that made him forget in a single moment both Honor and Duty, and all these boring - insipid commandments of Christ, stunning to his rude temperament.

It was only for the sake of this Passion - destructive, which threw him to the very bottom of vice, that he agreed to become what he became - a “royal” thief, a man who entangled the First Family of the Empire, previously inaccessible to open contempt, in the networks of an illicit scandal. And if you look even deeper - a man who for the first time dared to equate himself with the mob - in the true, that is, figurative, meaning of the word - and with the philistine morality of vice.

A person who easily allowed himself to be entangled in the sticky web of the basest earthly life, which does not allow the Spirit to rise to the heights of Heavenly existence, alas, when this Time comes!

The culprit of the fall of the Grand Duke in the eyes of the entire secular, and not only society, turned out to be a certain “cabaret diva,” the American dancer and singer Fanny Lier. (in another reading - Lear - S.M.) The prince met her in 1871, on one of his European tours. As soon as he saw her on the stage of the famous Parisian variety show "Foli Bergere", the Grand Duke lost his head, but did not regret it for a minute. The acquaintance developed rapidly: either the experienced temptress “Miss Fanny” did not want to miss the chance that a girl of this kind of activity rarely gets, or Nikolai Konstantinovich himself was in a dizzying hurry, gradually feeling the bitter sweetness of the impermissibility of happiness.. However, this is not so important.

...The joint journey of the precocious lovers through Italy and France turned into a sheer “sweet pleasure.”

Prince Romanov fulfilled every whim of the “dancing sorceress” (who constantly teased him with all her charms and bestowed unbridled free tenderness and compliments) be it picnics, yacht trips, jewelry, outfits, mansions on the most fashionable streets, dinners in expensive restaurants, baskets of roses and violets in winter. In a word, the prince used all the means and techniques of ardent seduction of the woman he liked to the point of dizziness.

However, Miss Fanny Lear hardly needed them: the poor cheat, the daughter of a Lutheran pastor from Philadelphia (USA), who ran away from home at the age of sixteen with a drunkard, who was either her husband or a pimp, had long ago developed all cases of life have their own methods and means, much more tough and resourceful... The prince did not figure them out right away, or rather, he simply did not have time to figure them out - he ended up in exile. But more on this below.

4.

Since Prince Nikolai Konstantinovich courted his lady love in a truly “royal” way, and the whims of his beloved were always “exorbitantly royal,” soon there was not enough money for such a life. At first, the prince simply borrowed money wherever he could.

They gave it to him willingly. It would have been awkward not to lend it to the grandson of Emperor Nicholas I, a representative of the royal family. And besides, he swore to pay it back with interest! But gradually the credit dried up - the high-ranking borrower was in no hurry to repay his debts. Meanwhile, more and more money was required: a daring plan arose in the prince’s head to flee with his beloved to Europe and secretly marry her there, disregarding all obligations, family duty, family honor and other “nonsense.”

To implement this plan, no less daring means were used: earrings with diamond pendants, a wedding gift from her husband, disappeared from the boudoir of Nikolai Konstantinovich’s mother, Grand Duchess Alexandra Iosifovna, and disappeared from the table in the crimson office of Empress Maria Alexandrovna after one of the family tea parties. a number of expensive trinkets made of ivory and Sevres porcelain. The valuables were missed immediately. We conducted a quiet “home investigation.” They grabbed their heads. They gave the royal nephew and son several inaudible “boudoir concerts”, threatening to immediately report everything to the formidable father and the uncle, the emperor, who would soon be punished. The nephew very eloquently and violently repented, strewing his head with ashes, and the hands of his loving relatives with stormy kisses. The scandal has subsided. To soon flare up with new strength.

In April 1874, the lawless relationship between Prince Romanov and the “cabaret sylph” Fanny Lear entered its third year. Behind Nikolai Konstantinovich was the difficult Khiva campaign, in which he behaved with unparalleled, tough courage, for which he received the rank of general. At court, they began to look favorably on the disgraced relative again, albeit with slight mockery.

Nobody expected the storm. And he didn't want her. But she burst out. In the very center of the capital, in the Marble Palace - the ancestral family nest of the “Konstantinovichs” - a family shrine was destroyed and plundered - the icon of the Mother of God, presented in 1848 by Emperor Nicholas the First to his son Konstantin, on the eve of his wedding.

An unknown attacker stole precious stones from the icon's frame, barbarously breaking it. Grand Duchess Alexandra Iosifovna, shocked by such vandalism and believing that everything that had happened promised great misfortune to her family, became lost and fell ill in the evening, and her husband, the brother of Emperor Alexander II, Konstantin Nikolaevich, having learned about everything, literally became furious and demanded in the house police presence, inquiry, investigation, immediate punishment for the criminal!

His anger knew no bounds. A substantial sum in bank notes was awarded for the capture of the daring thief.

The police, arriving at the palace, immediately established that a very limited circle of people had access to the icon in the boudoir: the princess, her husband, children, a doctor, a chambermaid, a court lady and two footmen. Since the members of the royal family themselves had no right to be suspected of anything according to the regulations, they began to incriminate the servants, but the trouble was - there was no evidence at all!

However, the complicated case began to quickly clear up as soon as the circle of suspects was expanded. The adjutant of the eldest son of Grand Duke Constantine, Captain Vorkhopovsky, made a stunning confession. It turned out that His Highness Nikolai Konstantinovich, with whom the adjutant had the honor of serving, gave him several large diamonds, ordering him to immediately go to Paris and sell them there.

The captain was late with the assignment, and after the scandal began, the trip, of course, was no longer discussed!

Pinned to the wall by the chief of police, Count Pyotr Shuvalov, the adjutant without hesitation laid out all the details of the affair between Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich and Fanny Lear, and told such details that it was no longer possible to doubt!

The police chief immediately took charge of the case. All the materials were hidden in a safe, and the count himself went to the Marble Palace for a personal meeting with Grand Duke Konstantin Romanov, his father. In very careful terms, he told the prince about everything he had learned. Grand Duke Constantine did not say a word in response. But as soon as Count Shuvalov invited the Grand Duke - his son Nikolai Konstantinovich, in his presence, to make a secret written confession and repent of his deeds - with the condition that all the guilt of the “royal thief”, officially, of course, could be assumed by another, specially trained by the police man, - Grand Duke Constantine seemed to burst. He passionately accused Count Shuvalov of slander, of trying to dishonor the family and demanded that the police chief repeat his accusations in the presence of Nikolai Konstantinovich himself!

Count Shuvalov did not dare to arrange an “interrogation with bias” in the presence of the irritated Grand Duke - father and disturb the peace of the sick Grand Duchess - mother. He coldly and ceremoniously took his leave and went straight from the Marble Palace to the Winter Palace, to see Emperor Alexander II. Having listened to Shuvalov’s report, he simply went speechless.

Having found the gift of speech, he began to ask questions, find out, clarify, and soon there were almost no doubts left. The brother's son, his godson, is a thief and blasphemer.

This has never happened before in the history of the reigning dynasty! Their Highnesses the Grand Dukes, son and father, were immediately summoned to the palace for a secret conversation, and looking his nephew straight in the eyes, the emperor asked a quiet question: “Did you do it?” And I heard in response, also quiet, but quite audible: “Yes.”

The Emperor almost suffered a stroke from indignation. He turned red as a lobster, slammed his fist on the table and croaked, “Crazy!”

The emperor’s brother, the father, who had just fiercely defended his son’s “offended honor” before the sovereign, stood as if he had swallowed his tongue, clenched his fists, and turned pale as a wall. The blow that hit him at that moment was equal in strength only to an earthquake, a hurricane, a storm... What could he say to justify his son - a thief?!

5.

The culprit of the scandal was immediately put under house arrest, and the highest secret commission created had to decide what to do with the guilty royal apostate, who had lost his head from impermissible passion. The “object” of this passion, the “cabaret sylph” Miss Fanny, barely sensing the smell of an inevitable scandal, safely retreated to the European distances, and from there to her long-forgotten native penates - to America, where she immediately began to create a reputation for herself as a victim of insane passion, a “hunted hare “for the hunt of an entire monarchical dynasty of a harsh, northern country with icy morals and its “frozen decency” elite! Fanny Lear wrote a book about her “tragic love”, gave melodramatic interviews, earned millions of dollars with tears and sighs, but it is unlikely that in the frenzy of fame she remembered the man who, for her sake, lost his good name and human dignity. Let me note in passing, reader, that Miss Fanny hardly knew what dignity was. When leaving for Europe, she did not forget to take with her all the jewelry and gifts that Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich showered on her over the years of the scandalous affair. The exile no longer needed them, but she could still find them useful! The prudent dancer did not at all intend to go to the Crimean lands for her beloved and “spoil his exile,” finding it unnecessary.

And how could it be otherwise, reader? Passion in general is like a flame that goes out under any pressure, and if the coldness of calculation is also mixed in with it...

The secret highest commission, headed by the court's life physician, an experienced psychiatrist I. S. Gaurowitz, for a long time did not dare to make a final verdict. Events accelerated only when a certain text was delivered to the king - either a petition or a confession - where, turning to his uncle, the monarch, the jewel thief pathetically asked:

“Am I mad or a criminal? If I am a criminal, then judge and condemn me, if I am mad, then treat me, but just give me a ray of hope that I will someday see life and freedom again. What you are doing is cruel and inhumane!”

And not words of sincere, human repentance, regret for what was done, or even an attempt at justification, albeit in a masculinely restrained manner!!

The Emperor was amazed. He himself was not sinless and he himself experienced all the weaknesses of passion: his own affair with Princess Ekaterina Dolgoruka was not a secret for the Court, so it is quite possible, deep down, the emperor might not consider himself entitled to be a strict judge in matters of “secrets.” hearts,” and could understand everything, soften it, consign it to oblivion, finally!

But the arrogance and cynicism of the nephew infuriated the monarch and he decided his fate without delay: on December 11, 1874, Alexander the Second issued a decree on guardianship of the property of Nikolai Konstantinovich.

The medical commission recognized the Grand Duke as “mentally unbalanced, prone to extravagance, rash, unpredictable actions, hallucinations,” (*Indeed, they occurred, and probably inherited by the Grand Duke on his mother’s side - S.M.) and under special protection Nikolai Konstantinovich was sent first to Crimea, then to Orenburg, for permanent residence..

However, he lived everywhere in comfort, had sufficient funds for carousing, for a wild life and for replenishing his antique collection of art objects. In Orenburg, His Highness almost immediately “became famous” for buying women of dubious behavior for hours-long feasts in a mansion on the main street of the city, guided by the principle: “Any woman can be bought, the only difference is the price - five rubles or five thousand!”

In Orenburg exile, the restless, ardent “Casanova”, in the midst of constant entertainment, “accidentally” married the girl we mentioned above, Nadezhda von Dreyer, the daughter of the chief of police, but did not stop his revelry, and in 1881, at the request of the Orenburg authorities, by a special decree of the new The sovereign, Alexander the Third, cousin of the “illustrious thief” was exiled to the outskirts of the empire, to Tashkent. There he was under the special supervision of the governor general, but he lived widely, not intending to deny himself anything or change, even in a small way, his unbridled disposition!

From the Semirechensk Cossack Elisey Chasovitin, for example, he bought a sixteen-year-old daughter for one hundred rubles and brought with her several children who bore the Chasovitin surname. In Tashkent, another, absolutely amazing, adventurous story happened to Nikolai Konstantinovich...

6.

While his wife was alive, he decided to marry again. This time the object of his passion was a young beauty - high school student Varvara Khmelnitskaya. He bought a large house for her and her family in Tashkent, and when, one day in 1901, Nadezhda von Dreyer left Tashkent, he kidnapped his favorite and secretly married her in a rural church twelve miles from the city. When the incident became known for certain, the scandal was incredible! The marriage was immediately annulled, and the girl and her family, through the efforts of the governor, were sent to Odessa. The Emperor-cousin, stunned by the antics of the restless Nikola, (* That was the name of N.K. Romanov in the family circle - S.M.) sharply refused his request to come to the funeral of the uncle of the monarch Alexander II in March 1881: “You are unworthy of that, to bow before the ashes of my poor father, who was so cruelly deceived. Don't forget that you have dishonored us all. While I’m alive, you won’t see St. Petersburg!”

I had to come to terms with the categorical attitude of my cousin, the ruler. In Tashkent, the Grand Duke from the “Konstantinovich” family was known as a colorful figure, a rebel against the foundations of the family and dynasty, and almost a socialist by conviction. His ebullient energy found application not only in carousing and extravagance. He financed the construction of irrigation canals and schools, geographical expeditions and new settlements, grew cotton, studied the basics of land reclamation in the region, wrote articles on this topic, publishing them anonymously in scientific journals. He was well known in the region. Of course, they couldn’t respect them, but they didn’t ignore them either; they wished them health when they met and bowed.

Occasionally, the Grand Duke met with his relatives, the famous Count S. Yu. Witte also came to him in Tashkent, talked with him for a long time, walking through the park, about the needs of the region, and was very impressed by his sound mind, sensible remarks and elegant simplicity of manner.

But the “prodigal son” never wrote to his mother, Grand Duchess Alexandra Iosifovna. Not a single letter. Perhaps, bitterly ashamed of what he did in his youth, and, perhaps, in a sophisticated, subtle, filial way, taking revenge on his mother for the fact that she could not, did not want to hide his guilt from everyone, did not save him from condemnation, from oblivion, from contempt!!.

He knew - from the stories of his relatives - that his mother suffered unspeakably, cried and prayed for him, waited every minute for news from distant lands, but he curled his lips in a smile, did not believe: if she suffered, then why didn’t she save him, didn’t she keep silent?

However, there was almost no point in rummaging through the distant and faded past over a series of years. The only thing that reminded the Grand Duke of his past passion, of St. Petersburg life, of the sweetness of pleasures was the lovely statue of a dancing girl standing in the lobby of the Tashkent Palace, once sent by his mother from St. Petersburg along with the caustic and cold advice to “admire to your heart’s content the shameless features of the charming girl, who has driven her calculatingly crazy and pushed to dishonor!” How did mother know that the statue, ordered in Italy, depicted the features of the “unforgettable, beloved sylph” - Fanny Lear, Nikolai Konstantinovich was never able to find out!

7.

One must assume that he was not too sad about himself and his life ruined by the long-standing St. Petersburg scandal. Madness, whether imaginary or real, to some extent, freed his hands and freed him from responsibility for actions shocking society. Nikolai Konstantinovich liked to portray himself as “a victim of circumstances and outdated moral dogmas, a misunderstood genius and a connoisseur of female beauty.” The townsfolk were still unable to understand whether he was putting on a performance in front of them, or whether he sincerely believed in what he professed?

During the days of the February Revolution of 1917, Grand Duke Romanov drove around the city in a red shirt and sent a welcoming telegram to the Provisional Government, where he called himself “a victim of the cruel tyranny of the old regime.” He perhaps expected to return to the capital.

But it was not destined to happen. In 1918, on June 26, (* according to other sources: January 14), the life of Nikolai Konstantinovich ended abruptly. Residents of Tashkent, who buried him with military honors in the crypt of the city's largest cathedral of St. George, (despite the fierce opposition of the new authorities!) said in a half-whisper that Prince Romanov was cynically shot by presumptuous Red commissars only because he dared to tactfully point out the wrong and the injustice of the requisition of artistic treasures from his Tashkent residence. Officially, there was a version that “Citizen Romanov” died of fulminant pneumonia. It still exists in some sources and encyclopedias. I don’t dare to dispute it.

The widow of Nikolai Konstantinovich, Nadezhda Aleksandrovna, having become a widower, still worked for some time in the Art Museum, founded in the former house of the Grand Duke, but during the next “cleaning” and filling out forms, she lost her job, wandered around among friends for a long time, went hungry and finally found shelter in gatehouse, all next to the same museum. She lived quietly and alone, surrounded by a flock of dogs - mongrels, homeless and hungry, just like her. According to one version, Nadezhda von Dreyer was Romanova and died from the bite of a rabid dog that accidentally wandered into her lodge...

Two words about descendants at the end of our sad, incredible, stunning story about the “royal renegade”...

Children of the youngest, who survived the whirlwind of wars and revolutions, the son of Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich and Nadezhda Alexandrovna, life guard officer Alexander Iskander, who emigrated from Constantinople (* And, more precisely, Galiopoli. - S.M.) to France, remaining in Russia with her mother, Olga Iosifovna Rogovskaya, were adopted by her second husband, Nikolai Nikolaevich Androsov, and received his last name.

Kirill Nikolaevich Androsov, in fact, - Kirill Aleksandrovich Iskander - had no offspring. Died on February 6, 1992 in Moscow.

His sister Natalia Alexandrovna (*Natalia Nikolaevna Androsova, circus performer, motorcycle racer) was married to director Nikolai Dostal (1909 - 1959) and also had no offspring. With her death in 1999, the Iskander family ended, since her father, His Serene Highness Prince Alexander Nikolaevich Romanovsky - Iskander from his second marriage in France with Natalia Konstantinovna Khanykova - no longer had children.

Semipalatinsk Kazakhstan

*I notify particularly picky readers that all the main dates of the life of Nikolai Konstantinovich Romanov have been clarified according to the book - the encyclopedia of Evgeniy Pchelov. Living in Tashkent on Shelkovichnaya Street, renamed German Lopatin, we went as boys to the former territory of the Turkshelk Institute and saw turrets at the gate and a beautiful house in the depths of the park. They say it was the estate of his only lady of his heart, but we didn’t find out which one. Where is the truth? Best regards, Vladislav.

Don't stain the sun with DIRT!
1917 07.02.2015 07:32:49

Svetlana!

You have the right to your own vision of history and writing!

But due to the fact that I know the life and PERSONALITY of this GREAT man more than you, I cannot agree with your essay!

There are two parallel branches in the Konstantinovich Family:
- a branch of MORAL FREAKS, INTRIGANS, Dwarfs, not worthy of POWER,
- a branch of HIGHLY SPIRITUAL PERSONALITIES who UNDERSTAND what it MEANS TO BE RESPONSIBLE for the RUSSIAN PEOPLE, for the FATHERLAND, for ALL THE PEOPLES OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE!
The most worthy CONSTANTINOVITCHES to RULE THE EMPIRE were DISCREDITED and removed from the capital, away from the THRONE, by an equal FREAK, the vile Nikolashka!

As a result, this FREAK disgraced the ROMANOV family and became the culprit of the CIVIL WAR and the death of 5 million Russians in the FIRST WORLD WAR!
It was he who DRAGGED Russia into an UNNEEDED WAR!

The most WORTHY to the THRONE of all was Nikolai Konstantinovich!

It was HE who could think GLOBALLY, according to the STATE, and DEVELOP the state, giving the STATE the opportunity to DEVELOP and improve the WELFARE OF THE PEOPLE!

In the Islamic Central Asian REGION hostile to RUSSIA, he was able to do so many GREAT things with his REFORM policy that were NOT AVAILABLE for the wretched mind of the bloody Nikalashki!

Nikolai Romanov was a man who believed in GOD and was a deeply SPIRITUAL man!
Look at HIS EYES!
His FACE and EYES are so HIGHLY SPIRITUAL that your slander against Him is completely groundless!
For example, the story about the THEFT OF DIAMONDS is a real LIBEL of NIKOLASHKA the Bloody with the aim of ELIMINATING A worthy COMPETITOR!
Look at Nikolashka's face!
There's nothing in his eyes! He is very dangerous and nothing more! There is no HOLY SPIRIT in these EMPTY eyes!
Nikolashka not only expelled Nikolai, he did the same thing with Nikolai Nikolaevich Jr., when the entire Russian PEOPLE saw in HIM their TRUE KING, capable of VICTORYING enemies on the battlefield and in diplomatic war!

And Nikolashka did not like Mikhail for His TALENTS and high RESPECT among the PEOPLE!

And in general, this dwarf, like all those who are short, HATE those who are BETTER than them and constantly, without sleeping at night, plan INTRIGUES with the aim of DESTROYING them or spoiling them!
The same monster was the Tsarist secret police agent Nikolashka, who graduated from the POPOVSKY seminary with honors at the age of 21, on FULL BOARD, that bastard Stalin!
Nikolai was a man who could create a BUSINESS from ZERO and he didn’t have to STEAL!

No amount of LOVE can force SUCH a person to STEAL diamonds for a WOMAN!

Such a person, if he LOVES, can EARN money himself and give his BELOVED WOMAN something that will make her happy!
Such a person could not love a STUPID!
For only FOOLS need not LOVE, but BOILLIANTS!

And Nikolai had a pathological DISGUST for such FOOLS!

Do you know that his wife Nadezhda Aleksandrovna was next to her husband until the end of her life!
What kind of novels are you talking about if he lived with her in the HUNGRY STEPPE when he IMPLEMENTED his plan to SUPPLY COTTON TO THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE!
AND COTTON is GUNDOWPOWDER and the DEFENSE CAPABILITY of the state and the RUSSIAN CITY!
He laid down his LIFE for this!
He built irrigation canals and resettled people from Russia who knew how to grow COTTON into the desert! He built a whole infrastructure for the settlers so they could have a normal life!
Stolypin, compared to Nikolai, was a CHATTER and DEMOGUE!
Stolypin was a FREAK and a worthless DUMBER like Nikolashka!
All the troubles that befell the RUSSIAN EMPIRE lie on the shoulders of these two SCAGAINS!
Therefore, the RUSSIAN PEOPLE and Nikolai KONSTANTINOVICH despised both BLOODY Nikolagka and BLOODY Stolypin!

Nikolai Konstantinovich in ISLAMIC CENTRAL ASIA made sure that MUSLIMS took the side of the RUSSIANS and ADMIRED the great DEEDS of Nikolai Konstantinovich!
For all the CRIMES committed by Nikolashka against the RUSSIAN EMPIRE, against the RUSSIAN NOBILITY, against the RUSSIAN PEOPLE, for DESTROYING THE MONARCHY, for abdicating the THRONE and LEAVING THE PEOPLE TO DEATH, he and his children WERE ARRESTED BY THE RUSSIAN HIGH OFFICERS ARMIES and exiled to SIBERIA for DESTRUCTION !
Even Lenin could not save them!
This is the last thing the RUSSIAN NOBILITY could do, recognizing their great SIN before the PEOPLE, which they could not DEFEND!
For NOBLERY HONOR demands that we punish traitors ourselves!

You know GOD'S COMMANDMENT:
YOU SHOULD NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS against YOUR NEIGHBOR!
And then the COURT!

Not born for fame
Aydin Gudrzi-Najafov 25.04.2016 05:01:48

I feel sorry for the history of Russia, deprived of the truth about its best representatives. Slandered by Stalinist historians and other ists. I feel sorry for the readers who are forced to read nonsense like what S.M. wrote. The Grand Duke was completely different from how he was presented after his death. Believe me, his biographer with many years of experience.

Prince A. N. Iskander about his father November 3rd, 2011

Repost from the magazine jnike_07
Prince A. N. Iskander

I discovered interesting evidence in the memoirs of Prince Alexander Nikolaevich Iskander, born on November 15th Art. Art. 1889 in Tashkent, died in Grasse on January 26, 1957, buried in the Russian cemetery in Nice. It was the youngest son who led. book Nikolai Konstantinovich Iskander-Romanov (1850-1918), about whose death I spoke. The father was the grandson of Nicholas I and the cousin of Nicholas II, the son, respectively, was the great-grandson of Nicholas I and the second cousin of the last tsar. Godmother of the prince. A.N. Iskander, by the way, was his father’s sister - led. book Olga Konstantinovna (1851-1926), first queen of the Hellenes.

In 1911, he was listed among the graduates of the 67th year of the Alexander Lyceum, the former Pushkin Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum. Enlisted in the Life Guards Cuirassier Regiment of Her Majesty Empress Maria Feodorovna. That is, despite the fact that his father was an eternal exile of the Romanov family, his mother, Nadezhda Aleksandrovna Dreyer, the daughter of the Orenburg police chief, managed to establish connections with the Romanov family through her mother-in-law - led. book Alexandra Iosifovna, led a widow. book Konstantin Nikolaevich, brother of Alexander II, in Romanov family terminology - “Aunt Sunny.” N.A. Dreyer became Princess Iskander, and placed her two sons in prestigious educational institutions. Having served briefly in the Tsaritsyn cuirassier regiment, Prince. A. N. Iskander injured his leg while riding in Italy and after treatment was sent to the city of Verny (now Alma-Ata) as an officer for assignments under General Folbaum, the military governor of the Semirechensk region.

After the outbreak of the First World War, the Tsaritsyn cuirassier returned to his regiment and fought the entire war with it, as he writes about himself: “covering himself with the glory of a fearless warrior.” The October Revolution found him in Crimea, where he was in a hospital in Yevpatoria after being wounded in the leg. On February 1, 1918, he left Crimea for Tashkent to visit his parents. However, having arrived in Tashkent, he no longer finds his father alive. At that time, his wife Olga Rogovskaya lived in Tashkent with two young children. Until January 18, 1919, he lived quietly in the city and worked in the prosecutor's office. Then he joins the rebellion of the Turkestan military commissar Kostik Osipov, a Socialist Revolutionary, a former warrant officer. All that the officer partisan detachment of Colonel Rudnev, as it was called, managed to do was rob a bank and free the Fergana basmach Madaminbek from prison. Then the rebellion was instantly suppressed by railway workshop workers and Red Army soldiers.

The officers went on the “Heavenly March”, so the book. A. N. Iskander called his story a memoir. In winter, through the impassable mountain passes of the Chatkal range, pursued by detachments of Red Army soldiers, they persistently sought salvation in the Fergana Valley. The gold chervonets from the Tashkent Bank, with which they paid the local guides, helped them a lot. In the Fergana Valley they were met by the people of Madaminbek, who had not forgotten his release from Tashkent prison. Biography of the book. A. N. Iskander is like an adventure novel. From Fergana, the remnants of the officer's partisan detachment make their way to Bukhara to the emir and residents of British intelligence. Then they go to Iran, migrate to Menshevik Georgia, and from the port of Poti they are transported to the Crimea to Baron Wrangel. In 1920, Prince. A. N. Iskander still managed to fight as part of his Tsaritsyn cuirassier regiment in Wrangel’s army, with which he was evacuated to Constantinople.

Partially, of course, Aunt Olya, godmother and Greek queen, helped him in emigration, but Nicholas II’s second cousin had a hard time working. He moved to France, married the daughter of General Khanykov, worked as a driver like all Russian emigrants, tried to start his own cucumber pickling business in Belgium, but went broke. At the end of his life, he began writing memoirs (first publication in the Parisian newspaper "Russian Thought" in 1951) which have not lost their historical interest.

At least this fact is about how his father led. book N.K. Iskander-Romanov, helped Russian settlers in Turkestan.

I have already written about the policy of ethnic replacement, which was carried out by representatives of the Romanov family and which reached its apogee during the reign of Catherine II. What does an “outcast from the Romanov family” do? Also, by the way, a man without a drop of Russian blood and married to a German woman. He does the opposite! This is how the son writes about it in his memoir "The Palace". The case takes place in 1896 in Tashkent, because the author indicates that he was seven years old then:

“The Father (in the manuscript of Prince A.N. Iskander writes the word “father” with a capital letter, probably, you can leave it like that, according to the meaning) gave to every immigrant: a couple of piglets, two chickens, two ducks and a drake and, of course, some amount of money to start a household. I remember how one day a Cossack and a Cossack woman came to buy gifts. How this happened, I don’t know, but only one pig escaped and ran around the garden, followed by a Cossack with a Cossack woman and several gardeners. I, of course, took an ardent part in catching the pig, rushing after it with laughter and screams. And I was very sad when the little pig was caught and the interesting fun was over. I was then seven years old, and maybe even younger. They took the piglets to the newly formed Father village - Nikolsky.

More than a year passes. I came with my parents to the former “Hungry Steppe” and, of course, looked into the village of Nikolsky. I ask my Cossack friends:

-Where are the piglets?

- Piglets? - the whole family exclaims with laughter. - Oh, come on, we’ll show you.

They bring and show huge, fat pigs! One of them is already walking with small, cute piglets.

- And here is the pig you were chasing! - says the Cossack woman, smiling affectionately, pointing to the pig with the piglets.

I was shocked. A herd of ducks was already wandering in the yard and, led by a black and red rooster, a large number of chickens were poking around in the ground. It’s amazing how quickly the feathered kingdom expands on good food!”

So it turns out that he led. book N.K. Iskander-Romanov was the first of his former royal family to help Russian settlers. Another 10 years before the wretched Stolypin reform. In Stolypinka, peasants were also helped, given loans secured by land plots, and paid for inspection passes. Only 20% of the peasants who took out loans went bankrupt, and 16% of the settlers could not stand the hardships on the new lands and returned.

Unknown artist. Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich Romanov

Unsuitable women

Nicholas, the eldest son of the commander-in-chief of the fleet, was the nephew of Emperor Alexander II. He was the first of the Romanov family to graduate from higher education and was fond of collecting. At the age of 21, he received command of a squadron of the Cavalry Regiment of the Life Guards.

In the same 1871, he became interested in the American dancer Fanny Lear, who came to Russia in search of easy money and adultery. Fanny, the same age as Nicholas, a divorced woman with a child, was not the best company for the Grand Duke.

Nikolai Konstantinovich (standing behind) with his mother, sister, her fiance and younger brothers

New passion - Central Asia

Nikolai's parents tried to prevent a love affair and sent him on a military campaign to Khiva. The expedition was difficult, with losses, but ended successfully. Nikolai showed rare restraint (he calmed the soldiers who were going crazy from thirst), miraculously survived, and fell in love with Central Asia. The Russian geographical was flattered by the interest of a member of the imperial family; Nicholas was appointed head of the expedition to the Amu Darya region.

Ignoring his mother's attempts to find a suitable bride, Nikolai and Fanny went to Europe. He spent a fortune on his beloved and a collection of paintings, and openly squandered his money. At the Villa Borghese, he liked the sculpture of a reclining Venus with an apple, and he ordered the same sculptural portrait of his beloved Fanny.

I brought my parents

In 1874, it turned out that Nikolai was stealing from his family. His mother discovered that large diamonds had disappeared from the frame of the icon that blessed her marriage. The jewelry was found in a pawnshop, the trail led to Nikolai Konstantinovich’s adjutant. The Grand Duke did not admit guilt, which he swore on the Bible, did not repent and slandered the adjutant.

He lied openly and to his face: his mother perfectly remembered how after breakfast Nikolai complained of a migraine, and she suggested that he not go home, but take a nap in her bedroom, where the icon stood.

Nikolai was found to have a lot of debts, receipts and bills - and not the slightest remorse. The family had to punish their son for theft and low behavior.

Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich Romanov

The worst of sins

It was possible to demote 24-year-old Nikolai as a soldier and send him to hard labor, but his father valued the honor of the Romanov family. The Grand Duke was given two sentences. Officially, after a medical examination, he was declared insane. And the family decided to delete him from all documents, give the property to his younger brothers, and henceforth it was forbidden to mention his name.

Nicholas was permanently expelled from St. Petersburg, ordered to live under supervision for the rest of his life, and Fanny was expelled from the country. In seven years he changed ten cities, but wherever he appeared, he brought nothing but trouble. In 1874 and 1876, two women who were not at all suitable for Nicholas announced their pregnancy from him.

No decorum

In 1878, he secretly married Nadezhda Dreyer, who bore him two children. All this time, Nikolai preached revolutionary ideas. Officially, he ceased to exist for the family, and in the summer of 1881, Alexander III sent him into exile in Tashkent.

(In 1899, Nicholas’ cousin Emperor Alexander III recognized his marriage as legal, Nadezhda was given the princely title, and the children were given the surname Iskander.) In 1895, while continuing to live with his wife, Nicholas became involved with a 16-year-old Cossack girl, who bore him three children.

In 1900 he entered into a marriage again, which was soon dissolved. Valeria Khmelnitskaya was a noblewoman, St. Petersburg was alarmed, they sent a commission that declared Nicholas incompetent, and the Khmelnitskys were expelled from Tashkent.

Sister Olga visited him in 1904, after the visit she wrote: “He has completely lost all the ethical principles that determine what can be done and what can be demanded.”

Grand Duchess Alexandra Iosifovna with her son Nicholas and daughter Olga

Aryk in the Hungry Steppe

Nikolai also had other interests. He organized scientific expeditions and published his discoveries. In Tashkent, he introduced irrigation systems, dug ditches in the Hungry Steppe (by law, the land belonged to the one who irrigated it), and was engaged in other useful endeavors. The imperial family allocated 10 thousand rubles monthly for its maintenance.

Canal in the Hungry Steppe, built by Nikolai Konstantinovich

He greeted the revolution with joy. In 1918, he died of a pulmonary disease, and the Bolsheviks organized a funeral for him in the Tashkent Cathedral.

Venus and Sophia

For a long time, his mother drank tea in the garden, decorated with copies of ancient sculptures. Finally, someone pointed out the portrait resemblance to her: Venus with an Apple turned out to be a sculpture of the prince’s mistress Fanny Lear. The statue was hidden on the lawn, and then completely taken out of St. Petersburg.

Already in Tashkent, Nikolai promised to order an icon for the cathedral under construction. When the icon of Hagia Sophia arrived in a precious frame, a prayer service was held. All the generals venerated the image of Wisdom. And later it turned out. that the face on the icon was painted from a portrait of Sophia Perovskaya.

Nikolai Konstantinovich with his wife Nadezhda Alexandrovna in Tashkent

Nicholas painted out portraits of his cousin Alexander III in batches and used them as targets. You can tell a lot about his adventures, but Nikolai was not an ordinary hooligan. The reason for his behavior, depraved and offensive to others, was most likely rooted in mental illness. After his death, the collection of paintings and art objects he collected became the basis of the exhibition of several museums.