Nicholas and The Potato Club?

[bulletproofjewels]

Hey all, I'm new to the forum (at least with a membership, I've been scouring the site for a couple of years now!).
Recently I came across a little anecdote regarding Nicholas and the Mikhailovichi brothers (I think it was Sandro, George and Serge).
Admittedly, it was from The True Memoirs of Little K a fictional novel regarding Mathilde Ksschenskiya, but I thought it sounded familiar..
The story goes something like Nicholas and the brothers were out riding one day and got lost in a potato field, and when another brother asked a nearby peasant of where his companions had disappeared to he got the reply "They turned into potatoes!" And as such the men fashioned a chain with a gold potato at its end, which according to Serge Mikhailovich's wikipedia page, was found with him at Alapayevsk.
Can anyone help me out here? This story seems extremely obscure, I've been unable to find anything of it in diaries, letters or whatnot.
Thank you!! 

- BPJ.

[Clemence]

Dear bulletproofjewels, welcome to the forum! As a matter of fact I remember reading about the chain with the golden potato that was a gift from Matilde K. to one of her royal lovers, but I thought ''potato'' was somehow another word for ''lover'' and I'm not even sure were the chain with the potato came from, maybe it was given to her by one of her lovers and she passed it on ... if I manage to remember where I read on it I'll be glad to help.

[bulletproofjewels]

Thank you! Everyone here is lovely
Yes, It does seem to be a bit of an obscure story, I'm devouring every book I know of to try and find a source.
I'll refer back here if I hear anything more!!

[Kalafrana]

Getting lost in a potato field sounds a bit unlikely, as potato plants don't grow very tall. More likely they got lost and finished up in a potato field.

I would hazard a guess that the chain with a potato was Sergei M's watch chain - it was quite common then for men to put charms and the like on them. The story goes that Franz Ferdinand's romance with Sophie Chotek was revealed when he was playing tennis at a cousin's house. The cousin's wife, who had numerous attractive daughters, took the opportunity to open the locket on FF's watch chain to find out which of the daughters he was interested in, and discovered a miniature of Sophie!

Ann