Re: Personal Habits and Personal Style - Hair - Body #2

[Lalee]

i\I wonder who of NAOTMAA wore glasses in private?

I think Alexandra wore glasses when she read and embroidered. It may not have been specifically a problem with eyesight, but I've heard she had very sore eyes, due to a lot of crying.

[Janet Ashton]

Wearing glasses as a general rule was considered highly inappropriate, especially for women.  Olga Constantinova, Queen of Greece, had exceptionally poor eyesight, but did not wear specs - occasionally a lorgnette can be glimpsed.  It was also a no-no for men in uniform - and of course, most of the males in the Imperial family spent large parts of their public lives in uniform. 

Olga's father, though, subverted just about every expectation by wearing his eyeglasses or lorgnette when in uniform, thereby giving a glimpse of the man he really was behind the imperial strait-jacket: the intellectual and musician. I think was consciously done, of course. And he managed, unlike many, to somehow weave his more cerebral inclinations into the career that was bred into him: I mean for instance in the way that he used a literary journal as the vehicle for promoting naval reform and underpinned all of what he did with his understanding of legal theory.

[carkuczyn]

I suppose another way of knowing if any of them wore glasses would be to find out if any spectacles or spectacle cases were found amongst the belongings of the imperial family at the ipatiev house after their execution.

[Michael HR]

I think there is a list of items recovered from the Ipatiev House on the main AP site and that should show if there were any glasses found after the murders.

http://www.alexanderpalace.org/palace/yelist.html

[CountessKate]

Nothing on the list as far as I can see. 

[helenazar]

Well, Dr Botkin at least did wear spectacles, this can be seen in pictures of him, but it seems his weren't found at the house. So perhaps the fact that no other glasses were found doesn't mean no one wore them. Maybe they were taken by someone after the execution, I would imagine that glasses were quite expensive in those days, so perhaps someone took them in order to sell them, etc...

[nena]

Botkin's glasses-found by Sokolov ca. 1919.

I agree they were expensive. Nicholas II- did he wore glasses? During reading, for example?

[helenazar]

Botkin's glasses-found by Sokolov ca. 1919.

Seems like only the lenses, I wonder what happened to the frames.

[LenelorMiksi]

There are a couple of pictures of Vera Constantinovna wearing glasses, and of Grand Duchess Alexandra Georgievna.

[LenelorMiksi]

The below is Ella and either Marie or Alexandra Georgievna. Edited to say -This picture was originally posted by Svetabel on the Alexandra Georgievna thread.



And the link below is Vera Constantinovna:

http://worldroots.com/brigitte/gifs30/verarussia1854.jpg

[susana]

I'll squeeze this tidbit in right here related to contraception: in the dresser drawers in N&A's Ipatiev bedroom were found his condoms and her 'wig' for her pubic area. The wig has a funny name (I remembered--merkin) which escapes me now but the earliest condom found was in an egyptian tomb so contraception has been around a good long while.

And yes breastfeeding will delay the return of fertile menstrual cycles--I believe that's why the births of so many children were spaced out about 18 mos to two years; that was the usual length for breastfeeding.

[Kalafrana]

Breast feeding was by no means 100% reliable as a contraceptive. My grandmother was advised that she would be 'safe' if she breast fed - and my two eldest uncles were 363 days apart! This was in 1923-24. I don't know what she and my grandfather did after that, but the next child did not arrive for 3 1/2 years, and the last (my mother) two years after that.

As to glasses, it is very rare to see royal men wearing them in public. The exception is Alexander I of Yugoslavia, whose eyesight must have been pretty bad, as all his pictures show him in pince-nez, even in full-dress uniforms.

The Kaiser did wear pince nez for reading, but only in private.

Ann

[PAVLOV]

Nicholas ll had advanced periodontal disease. He was not big on detal hygiene, and it appears, neglected his teeth. This was determined when his scull was examined. Particularly the lower teeth. This helped identify his scull.
Alexandra and the children regularly visited the dentist. There was a celebrated American dentist in St Petersburg who attended to the Royal family and the upper classes. He must have made a fortune.

The aristocracy and upper classes in Russia had notoriously bad teeth. Apparently really awful rotten teeth. Countess SofjaTolstoy mentions this in her diaries, and also the fact that the peasants had very healthy white teeth.

I cannot imagine the Empress of Russia having to wear a wig "down there" because she had to shave to keep the lice at bay !!  No, no.  How did they stick the thing on ?
I remember reading about these things in Greg Kings's book, but I still think its very strange. Why would anyone want to wear a wig "down there" ?  Was it fashionable, or just kinky ?
Very strange.   

[Kalafrana]

The Kaiser chummed up with his dentist, an American named Arthur N Davis, who subsequently wrote a book entitled 'The Kaiser I Knew'. If I remember correctly, the Kaiser saw Mr Davis about 100 times over 12 years, which means that he was going to the dentist about once every six weeks (a lot more often than is usual in Britain, at any rate).

Ann

[Constantinople]

She probably used the same type of adhesive that people used to affix moustaches.  I wonder if she shaved there because of personal preference or out of a concern for infestation?