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Messages - Sunifred

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Forum Announcements / Re: Forum Members Not Heard From in a Long While
« on: February 08, 2024, 02:12:46 PM »
Unfortunately, new user registrations have been closed for some reason. And before that, registrations weren't being approved.

I recently discovered that there's a surprising amount of Romanov related content on TikTok. Of course, it's not the same, since you can hardly have any discussions there, and on top of that there's plenty of inaccurate information, but it shows that there's an interest.

Outside of the English speaking platforms, I recommend regularly checking https://vk.com/lastromanovs for new materials coming from the Russian archives.

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Olga Nicholaievna / Re: Olga Photographs IV
« on: February 08, 2024, 12:15:55 PM »
This picture of Olga with her father and two guards, taken in 1917 after the revolution, reminds me of a quote by Klavdiya Bitner, who had become a tutor of the younger children in Tobolsk: "There were times when she smiled when you would sense that the smile was all on the surface, and that deep down inside her soul, she was not smiling, but sad."


It's clear that in this picture her smile is very forced

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Forum Announcements / Re: Forum Members Not Heard From in a Long While
« on: December 05, 2023, 02:52:04 PM »
Hello everyone, I'm new to the forum. It's a pity that it's been in decline for so long, and I'm surprised by how active it was back in the 2000s. Nowadays there are multiple sites discussing the Romanovs, such as tumblr blogs, facebook groups, reddit and one discord (none of them are very active, either) but this forum still is by far the place with the best format and the one that contains most information.


I managed to sign up after sending an email to the admin, asking for my registration approval, since it's not automatic. He approved my user, but now I see that new registrations are disabled:
Sorry, registration is currently disabled.

I don't know if this is intended or an error. Either way, it seems that the forum won't recover some activity any time soon

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Tatiana Nicholaievna / Re: Tatiana Nikolaevna & Dmitri Malama
« on: November 29, 2023, 08:42:23 PM »
Here's an anecdote about Alexei (not very subtly) teasing Tatiana, with Malama present:
Quote
At six o'clock in the evening, half of the grand duchesses gathered to have tea. Outsiders were only invited by the Grand Duchesses themselves. After tea, the young people initiated games and enjoyed themselves. Among the invited guests were always the Sovereign and the Empress. Sometimes, the Leib-ulan Malama, who was very pleasing to Tatiana, would attend. Once during one of these teas, there was silence at the table. Alexei took advantage of it and suddenly declared: 'Tatiana loves Malama!' There was general laughter, and both of the mentioned ones were embarrassed and didn't know where to look. Alexei often made such revelations aloud, to the horror of the sisters, and the sisters were very careful not to get caught in his talk.
https://saltkrakan.livejournal.com/9012.html


Her aunt Olga also teased her a bit. And it's also interesting how her sister Olga commented that she was sitting on his bed:
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Tatiana, which uhlan gave you the puppy? (female dog?) You're sitting on his bed, Olga says. Very interesting.
https://www.oldenburgskie.ru/oldenburgskie/letters/article-454.html?ID=454&PAGEN_1=8



In 1917, Tatiana wrote down a register of letters received and sent during the year. She sent a letter to Malama but received no answer, which isn't unexpected given that many letters didn't even reach the destination, and maybe Malama had already moved somewhere else. She also sent a letter to another Dimitri which she refers to as "Mitya", and I wonder if it's Olga's favorite, Dmitri Shakhv-Bagov, because Tatiana was also fond of him and referred to him as Mitya, but it could also be Grand Duke Dmitry Konstantinovich, whom she also called Mitya, although in her diaries she wrote uncle Mitya instead of just Mitya.

Curiously, she also received 2 letters from Volodya, another favorite of hers from the infirmary, but apparently she didn't send a reply. Maybe the letter was sent to someone else who in turn gave it to him? Perhaps she didn't like those letters? Who knows.

It's also worth noting that whoever transcribed her register found a few names names to be unintelligible, as Tatiana had a difficult handwriting, so maybe we're missing some of them
https://vk.com/wall-56510987_31714



In February of 1918, Alexandra, who was fond of Malama, writes about him in a letter to Vyrubova:
Quote
I heard that Malama and Ellis are still in the regiment.
https://azbyka.ru/fiction/stranicy-moej-zhizni/6/



In March of 1918, Olga Grekova (nurse from the infirmary) sent a letter to Tatiana where she talks about Malama:
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Dm. Yakovl. asks to convey my most cordial greetings, I recently received a letter from him from the Yekaterinoslav province, he is in his village and will not return to the regiment.
https://m.vk.com/wall-56510987_41141



I wonder if she eventually received a letter from him. Unfortunately, the girls burned many of their letters in 1918. This is what Nicholas wrote in his diary:
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9 April . Monday. 1918 Found out about the arrival of the extraordinary authorized [commissar] Yakovlev from Moscow; he settled in Kornilov house. The children imagined that he will come today to do a search, and burned all letters, and Maria and Anastasia even [burned] their diaries.
Not all letters were burned though, as the one from Olga Grekova, for example, survived.



The Russian wikipedia has a lot of information about him and his mentions:
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Малама,_Дмитрий_Яковлевич


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Here's part of a letter by Gilliard (in Mogilev) to Olga in May of 1916. The letters received by Gilliard were lost.

Quote
P. S. I advise you to watch Baroness Buxhoeveden: Your cousin* has admitted to me that he has received a letter from her! And it's not the first!
*Dimitri Pavlovich



This fragment casts further doubts about the nature of Buxhoeveden and her motives. What did she want from Dimitri? And how come he admitted receiving letters from her? For Gilliard to imply something negative about a close friend of the family, he must have distrusted her quite a lot. I wonder if Olga told her family about this.


Source of the letter:
https://www.amazon.com/Correspondence-Russian-Grand-Duchesses-Daughters/dp/B08QS545LK

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