Read Online The Kitchen Boy by Robert Alexander - Free Book Online

dynasty. In retrospect, I often wonder how Nikolai could not have foreseen so dark a storm as 1918 – almost everyone else did – but again I’m sure he was blinded by religion.
    For as rich and all-powerful as they were, the Emperor and Empress decided not to make their home in the Great Palace of Tsarskoye, an enormous palace built by Catherine the Great herself. That one had hundreds upon hundreds of grandiose rooms all decorated with gold and marble and crystal chandeliers. Instead, Nikolai and Aleksandra wanted a family home, so they chose the nearby and substantially more modest Aleksander Palace, which Catherine had built for her favorite grandson, the future Aleksander I, the one who trounced Napoleon. Nikolai II himself was born there, and the last Tsar and Tsaritsa chose not the entire palace, but only one wing for their apartments. Sure, they still had many rooms, and spectacular they were, for they gutted the left wing and redecorated a number of rooms in the
stijl moderne
, otherwise known in the West as Art Nouveau. It was there too, in a vitrine in her mauve boudoir that Aleksandra kept her Fabergé eggs, which along with all her pearl necklaces and diamond tiaras and her bejeweled this and that totaled so many millions upon millions of dollars. In today’s dollars a billion, I think. Perhaps a bit more, perhaps a bit less. I should add that when they were exiled to Siberia, the Provisional Government, which ruled for eight months before being toppled by the Reds, allowed Nikolai and Aleksandra to take everything but the Fabergé
objets
with them. They took two suitcases full of gems, to be exact. And it all disappeared, all of the jewels except the nineteen pounds of diamonds and things found hidden on their bodies when they were killed. While the Romanovs were under arrest in Tobolsk – months before they were brought to Yekaterinburg – many nuns visited them, and these sisters of God smuggled everything else away. Stalin initiated a big search in the 1930s, and after torturing a few nuns and such the Reds found one of these suitcases buried beneath a hut. It contained one hundred and fifty gems, including a 100-carat diamond brooch and a 70-carat diamond crescent. Alas, the second suitcase has never been located. It’s supposed to contain one pood – about thirty-six pounds – of diamonds and rubies and emeralds. As far as anyone knows, it’s still buried somewhere in the taiga of Siberia.
    It was during my short time at the Aleksander Palace that I came to understand several fundamental things about Tsaritsa Aleksandra Fyodorovna.
    My work was in the kitchens, and I was never allowed close to the Imperial Family until the night before we departed the Aleksander Palace, when so much was being packed up for the long train ride – to where, no one at that time knew. Because their English cousins proved to be nothing but ninnies by withdrawing their offer of asylum – which would have saved the Romanovs – we knew we weren’t being sent abroad. In truth, actually, that was a relief to the family, all of whom hoped and prayed that we were being exiled to their favorite palace, Livadia, in the Crimea. But that was not to happen, of course, because between Peterburg and the Black Sea stood the raging mobs of Moscow. As it was, we didn’t realize we were being sent to Siberia until the train was hours underway.
    In any case, I was enlisted to help carry the luggage and trunks and crates, a parade of things that went on through the night. It was only then that I entered the Emperor and Empress’s private bedchamber. It was a large room with soaring ceilings, white wallpaper covered with pink garlands of the Empress’s favorite flower, hydrangea, the design of which was carried onto the curtains and the chintz fabric covering all the painted furniture. Very bright. Very
elegantno
. I didn’t know it then, for I was so young and unworldly – a mere lad from the provinces – but this was pure