Anastasia Nikolaevna

Anastasia Standing; Maria sitting

She was the most famous though she didn’t do anything notable in her history. Her name was made famous by her own impersonator, Anna Anderson, who fooled everybody’s thoughts that she was the real Anastasia Nikolaevna. The fourth child of Nicholas II and Alexandra of Hesse, was born on June 5, 1901. Again, her birth dismayed the relatives of the Czar because she was a girl. She was a very charming baby, with the cornflower blue eyes of her Papa, the thin nose of her Mama, and a reddish-blonde hair, the next lightest hair to Olga. She was inclined to be chubby until her death. She even grew heavier on their imprisonment though the irony is that they were given the least amount of food during those times. Her other nicknames were Nastya,Anastasie, Malenkaya, and the most used Shvybzik which is a Russianized word of the German “schwips” meaning ‘tipsy’.. 
She was the smallest in the family being 5’1 or 5’2. Because of that, she envied Maria’s stature. She didn’t care much about her looks. Hence, many suspected she was a tomboy (fact is that she was not). She probably held the most number of misdeeds in the family according to Gleb Botkin, son of Yevgeny Botkin. She would show her scoundrel attitude to their servants and tutors. Her jokes sometimes strike one’s foibles. As a child, she would climb trees and refuse to come down after pleaded. Once in a snowball fight, she rolled a stone on her snowball and threw it to Tatiana, knocking her to the ground. She would also scratch, kick, and cheat her playmates on games according to her distant cousin, Nina Geogievna. A wife of an American diplomat, Hallie Erminie Rives, defined 10 year old Anastasia didn’t mind removing her long ,white gloves while eating chocolates in the St. Petersburg Opera House. Like her sisters, she knew to do crafts an early age. In contrary to her sprightly personality, she suffered stomach and back pains like her mama. She also had hallux valgus or swelling of the toes. In her schoolroom, she was the fastest learner among the OTMA according to Pierre Gilliard. Although she was that, she would not concentrate much on lessons. She was easily bored with schoolwork. She paints well. She was also a gifted actress. 
She was never known to have crushes on soldiers like her sisters did. She was never interested with them. She was more to cracking jokes and miming others movements. During the World War I, she and Maria didn’t become nurses because of their young age. They just visit hospitals and talk to the wounded soldiers or hold small concerts for them. She had two dogs, Shvybzik and Jimmy. The former died of cerebral inflammation in 1915. Since that, Anastasia became so morose. To revive her energy, Anna Vyrobova gave her Jimmy. Jimmy dog died with her at the early morning time of July 17, 1918 in the “House of Special Purpose”. 
At their imprisonment at Tobolsk, she and Mashka burned their diaries and letters for they were scared of handing them to their captors. At Ekaterinburg, Anastasia befriended guards together with her sisters especially Maria. One guard, Alexander Strekotin, remarked she was very friendly and full of fun. One guard also quoted the youngest Grand Duchess was offensive and a terrorist. At July 17, 1918, past one o’clock in the morning, bangs of guns were faintly heard from the cellar room of Ipatiev House. Anastasia was one of the assassinated persons at the time of crime. She and Maria crouched, leaning to a wall and covered their heads in terror, until finished with bullets to the head recalled Yurovsky. One account also said that Anastasia had been finished with bayonets. Whatever the version is, the fact is that Bolsheviks killed her on that Early Morning of Terror at the age of 17. 
Anastasie, though many said you would have become a great beauty like your sisters once you reached adulthood, you were not able to do so. You were bathed in the blood of your own and your family on July 17, 1918, how pitiful. Now you’re up above Heaven with Almighty God and the ones you loved and adulated for their loyalty, may you have peace of mind. I love you, Grand Duchess Anastasia. See you again sooner. 

 

Maria Nikolaevna

Maria, the Angel, was born in June 14, 1899, to her parents, the then ruling Emperor and Empress of Russia. Though her birth caused a little despair to Alix at having an heir, she and Nicholas were happy of having a daughter again. She had the tame, big, blue eyes and wavy hair a little less light than her elder sister, Tatiana. She was the “Typical Russian Beauty” and taller than Olga did on their last years. When being described by Pierre Gilliard, she was said to be tall and rosy-cheeked. Her other nicknames were Mashka, Marie, and Mandrifolie. 
She was the almost-perfect one. Because of that, her elder sisters cruelly called her “stepsister”. Her tastes were simple and she was also so shy. She and Anastasia were called the “Little Pair” and they are said to be so close together. At a young age of four, she fancied many boys and most of them are young soldiers. Then, she made a big dream of becoming a mother and marrying a Russian soldier when she grows up. She also loved to have many children of her own. She loved babies so much that she could snatch one from a mother and then drowns it with kisses. Sadly, she didn’t make these because of her immature death. 
She didn’t put much interest with schooling. Instead, what she did were just daydream and talk about having a family. Mashka was the best painter among the four. She comfortably uses her left hand on painting and drawing. Sometimes in her classes, she would demonstrate to her tutors how she could lift them up. Her tutors said that it was an evidence of an inherited characteristic from her grandfather, the broadly built Czar Alexander III. When she was roughly 10 years old, Maria had a very acute crush with a boy. Alexandra told her to conceal her feelings for people might say something bad about her crush. 
She often had a sweet nature but one account says that she stole a wafer from her mama’s table although it was prohibited (she cannot resist the temptation of the wafers). Alix forced her to go to bed as a punishment but Nicholas dissented with her. “I am always afraid of the wings growing. I am glad to see she is only a human child.”, Nicholas objected from that incident. When her sister Anastasia got so mischievous to other people, she would always be the one to apologize. She was once called “Fat Little Bow Wow” because she was plump. Alexandra complained about her weight but was relieved when she approached adolescence since she lost the baby fat. Maria was also not as elegant as her elder sisters were. She got along well with Anastasia on that matter. Maria’s height was the one that made Anastasia feel bad about her although they were both fat. Maria was about 5’7 tall. 
She developed a huge crush on Demenkov, a Russian soldier. She would sit on the window just to see Mr. Demenkov pass by. On her letters to her papa, she would jokingly sign her name as “Mrs. Demenkov”. Maria felt sad when Demenkov was sent away. She sew a shirt for him as a remembrance. Ivan Kleschev, one of the guards of the Ipatiev House, said that he would rescue Maria alone from that house himself and eventually marry her. Ivan Skorokhodov, another guard at Ekaterinburg, smuggled in a birthday cake for the Grand Duchess’ last birthday at June 26, 1918 (Maria’s birthday was celebrated on this day after 1900). Maria slipped away from her family to celebrate the moment with Ivan. Unfortunately, Ivan’s superiors held a surprise inspection of the house and the two were discovered. From that day, Ivan was removed from his position because of his discovered friendliness to Maria and possibly to the rest of the prisoners.
At their time of death past one o’clock a.m. of July 17, 1918, she survived the initial attack, having ran away from the killers and began banging on a storage room’s door crying for help. She was shot on the thigh by a drunken commissar, Peter Ermakov. Ermakov was not contented that he stabbed her with a bayonet and shot her in the head, but he had not been able to aim properly because he was drunk. She fainted after that and remained alive. As the bodies were checked for pulses, Maria screamed causing Ermakov to stab her again. When he failed to kill her, he struck her on the face until she got silent. Up to this day, her cause of death is still a mystery When the bodies were transported to the special Fiat that would lead their bodies to an improper burial site, one lady screamed as one body was put above her. It could have been Maria but the guard clubbed the lady’s head, making the place quiet again. Maria, the dearly Angel, had set forth to Lord in July 17, 1918, at the early age of 19. I will see you again, my Mashka. Au revoir for now. 

 

Tatiana Nikolaevna

The dark auburn-haired grand duchess was the second to be born to the Tsar and Tsarina on May 29, 1897. She became known at the royal household as Tatya, Tanushka and Tatianochka. She was a dainty good-looking baby, with her thin lips, beautiful nose and dark blue-gray eyes which almost appeared to be black at dim light. Those attributes foreshadowed her astounding and matchless beauty when she turned to a young lady.
She got a striking resemblance of her Mama, and coincidentally, was the closest one to her. The Tsarina told Tsar Nicholas about how Tatiana understood her so well than her other sisters did. The things she and her mama both had in common were the likes for clothes, furs, perfume, and jewelry. One thing they didn’t get along well with was Tatiana’s friendly attitude. Tsarina Alix considered everybody around them, except the ones she knew so well, as probable bad influences to her children. It caused so much consternation on the OTMA for they were not also able to know their cousins well because of that reason.
She was like her sisters Anastasia and Maria, who were both disinclined with studying. She didn’t have inspiration when doing schoolwork. She wasn’t interested with arts and was more to craft-making. One Siberian guard quoted it would have been better if she had been a man. She was more submissive than Olga, who tends to grumble when she was asked to do a house chore. 
Dubbed as “The Governess” on OTMA, she was often pushed to ask favors from their parents whenever someone demanded of something. She was like the eldest among them. Olga, nevertheless, didn’t resent her for she loved Tatiana do it for her (much than Tatiana’s knowledge). She was also the prettiest grand duchess, as said by most Siberian guards during their imprisonment and the ones she took care of on World War I. She had a graceful posture and a lovely lady voice. She had the typical characteristics of an Emperor’s daughter. Many appreciated her remarkable ways of walking, talking, staring, standing, sitting, and even smiling. Her styles were of a “True Grand Duchess”.
She was the tallest and thinnest on the four. Her height was approximately 5’8. If she lived this time, she would probably become a supermodel.
During their family’s capture, she became more fretful with the unattended wounded soldiers in the hospitals where she worked. She also worried about her Papa and Mama’s conditions. Few minutes after one o’clock morning of July 17, 1918, she was assassinated together with her family and the servants who remained loyal to them. Yurovsky shot her next to Alexei. At the end of the firing, it turned out to be that all the women killed were still alive. Why? It was because of the royal jewels they all sewed in their bodices while they were still in Tobolsk. They found it as a solution on how to hide those from their captors. Tatiana was stabbed with a bayonet. That stab took her life away. Oh, poor Tatiana. You ended by the means of the evils in the world. You died innocent. But justice came your way as your bodies were exhumed along the Moscow high road. I’m glad now you’re peaceful in Heaven together with your family. I’ll see you sooner than you know. Auf Wiedersehen….Tatiana Romanova. 

Olga Nikolaevna

Olga is on the left; Tatiana on the right.

Born on November 15, 1989, Olga was the first child blessed to Tsar Nicholas and Tsarina Alexandra of Russia. Nicknamed as Olya and Olenka, she was known for being broad-faced and blonde. She inherited her Papa’s pug nose and that foible made her one of Anastasia’s victims. She was described as ‘ugly’ but as she grew older, her face improved. She became noticeably prettier at her early teens. She has a willowy figure and blue eyes. She was often associated to Tatiana. 
As the first child, she took the toll of responsibility over her younger siblings. Her irresponsibility infuriated her Mama so much that she complained of it to Nicholas. Olga had the habit of answering back when scolded and sulks quickly if she received a lot of sermon from Alexandra. She’s the one who wants to be driven by her own will, not by anybody else. She liked to read so much and considered it as her pastime. Before Alexandra reads a book from her collection, Olga assures that it was good for her as she read it beforehand for her. If she has nothing to do, she does crafts which in turn would be given to charities, sold at bazaars, or handed out as presents. She knew a wide variety of crafts like her sisters as their Mama had taught them. She was also the one most disposed to studying. Her tutors Pierre Gilliard and Sydney Gibbes appreciated the sweet grand duchess’ assiduity and regarded her as their best student.
On 1914’s World War I, she and her Mama and Tatiana, served as nurses. As she had not been interested with looking at the sickening wounds of the soldiers operated on, she yielded her work. The bad side of the war was that after her service, she became moodier, inflicting her a nervous breakdown.
On the spread of October Revolution, she and her family were imprisoned at Tsarskoe Selo. Life there had not been as difficult as what happened to them in Tobolsk, and lastly, at Ekaterinburg. In Tobolsk, they had to do many house chores but of course, they did those willingly. The unpleasant treatment they had there were to have a limited view of what was outside and their food supply was incapable of feeding them all up. These circumstances made Olya thinner and more anguished. Of all the sisters, she was the most aware of Nicholas and Alexandra’s negative images in their country. Followed by Nicholas abdication was the journey of Nicholas, Alexandra, and Maria, her sister, to Ekaterinburg. At May, she, Tatiana, Anastasia and Alexei, the tsarevitch, followed them through the steam liner Russia or “Rus”. At Ekaterinburg, the Romanovs lived at Ipatiev House, a one-and-a half storied house. The whole house was surrounded with a palisade of logs and the windows were also painted to entirely cover their view of the outside. Their captors from the Red Army or Bolsheviks made their life terribly despair in their last staying place here in Earth. 
As the early morning hours of July 17, 1918 went on, the Romanovs were assembled at the cellar room of “The House of Special Purpose” for the final resolution of the Bolsheviks: killing them. Past one o’clock in the morning, the firing began lead by Yakov Yurovsky, a sinister Jewish Bolshevik officer. Loud screams rose up in the early morning air and the bodies of each of them fell one by one. Olya was killed after Tatiana, hit on the head with a bullet by Yurovsky or anyone (as the assassins were assigned for a specific one to kill). Just before they were shot, Alexandra and Olya made the sign of the cross but unfortunately did not finish it. After the infamous assassination of the last Imperial Family of Russia, the bodies were checked for pulses to assure everybody had been killed. It revealed that Alexandra, the grand duchesses and Anna Demidova, Alexandra’s handmaid, were not yet dead. The killers instantly finished them off with bayonets and once again, guns, each aimed at the head and different parts of their bodies. After the attempts, all were pronounced dead except Grand Duchess Maria who had been mysteriously silent after Ermakov struck her on the face. That was the miserable end of the life of an innocent and beautiful woman named, OLGA.