Historical Anecdotes

[hikaru]

I would like to start a new topic - Historical Anecdotes.
( fun stories which really took place)
We read them  often and forget quickly.
But if we could accumulate such stories in one place,
it could be amazing reading.
I would like to propose to post anecdotes about IF of Romanovs of various times.

I could not remember the story about Nikolay's time but I would like to post the story about Catherine II and coffee.
Catherine liked very strong coffee. Nobody could drink coffee from her pot - in one usual pot she put 400 g of coffee!!! One summer day she worked at the Tea Pavillion  near pond of the Tsarskoe Selo . She  read the papers drinking coffee. Urgent messanger have come from the battlefield ( there was the war with Turkey) with the Letter of Potyomkin. She concentrated on reading the letter  and , as usual polite woman, absent -minded, gave to the young strong officer coffe from her pot to drink. And this brave young men fall down immediately  and looked like deadman. He recovered in 15 minutes.

[bluetoria]

That's a great idea for a thread, hikaru! (And an interesting anecdote!)  

[moonlight_tsarina]

Ooh, i have alot of funny otma ones I have found. I'll post them when i get home!!

[AGRBear]

What a marvelous idea for a thread.  I look forward to more anecdotes to read over my honey pots in the mornings.

AGRBear

[helenazar]

Once when Peter I was inspecting St Petersburg's Vasiliyevksy Island, he noticed two pines next to each other. A branch from one the pines somehow fused with the other one's trunk, to a point where you couldn't tell which tree the branch belonged to!  
 
Peter proclaimed these trees "freaks of nature" and then and there decided to establish a museum on the very spot where the trees stood, a museum that would display all kinds of medical curiosities to the public. Including human ones.  

They called this museum  "Kuntzkammer" and it still stands on Vasilievsky Island. I have been to this museum and let me tell you, it is not for the squimish! Some of the diplays date back to Peter's era. It must have truly been one of its kind back then, if still not today. It is as fascinating as it is disturbing...

[Robert_Hall]

These "kuntzkammers"  became popular with many royals- they were the only ones to afford the  "hobby". Most have long been destroyed. I think a couple are still extant in Britain. I saw one in Portugal in very sad repair. This all lead to the eventual "freak show" at carnivals.
However, "kuntzkabinets" are still around.  Lovely antique curio cabinets. usually  many small drawers. For collecting "oddiments" and souvenirs. If one is very fortunate, sometimes a bit of the original collection may even be found. [usually coins, tiny artifacts and such- not human remains]

[hikaru]

When Potyomkin became a favorite of the Catherine the Great, in White Palace occured a kind of curious and delicate accident: first one year of the favorship of Potyomkin - both favorites of Catherine lived in one palace (their apartments was different) .
One day they came acroos each other on the Main staircase ( Ambassador's staircase) Orlov said in sadness:" Ooh, while one of us is going down , another one is going upstairs. "
(Orlov that time really was going down stairs , and Potyomkin was going upstairs, but timing of this speech was so good, that it meant the favorship status of each other)
P.S. Catherine the Great liked to meet her favorites in the Banya ( sauna ) , she used the name "mylynya" (soap's place) . Her "Mylynya " located just down of ... the Big Palace Chirch , which sounds quite anecdotic too...

[moonlight_tsarina]

Here's some i found:

"Tanya had a great interest in stories and acting. She once told Olga a story, the end of which was as follows:
So my little girl and my niece went into the wood and a big wolf ate my little girl, so she went to heaven.
 The elder sister was horrified. "Oh no!" Olga cried, and insisted that version was not correct. The eldest explained:
God does not allow wolves to go to Heaven.
She is walking about the wood inside the wolf.
Tatiana, of course, accepted this reasoning calmly."

I thought that was cute.  

[moonlight_tsarina]

And there was one where Olga n. was younger and she was being really rowdy while in a carriage with her governess (ms. Eager I think) and Olga instantly stopped when they passed a policeman. Eager asked Olga what was wrong, and Olga said
"I'm afraid the policeman saw me a wrote down "I saw Olga today and she was being very naughty". Eager assured Olga that only drunkards and people who do something wrong will go to jail. So when they got back "home", Olga told her father the day's events, and how Miss Eager had told her that it was "quite possible to live without going to prison." Olga looked up and asked her Papa if he had ever been to prison. Nicky replied that he had never been quite that naughty. Olga got very happy and said,
Oh! How very good you must have been, too."

[moonlight_tsarina]

I also remember a funny one...it's not really a story but...

Anastasia and her family were at a fancy function or something to that effect, and they girls all wore really nice whitesilk gloves. One of the ladies of the court came up to Anastasia, who was sitting eatting chocolates, with it smeared all over her face and on her now ruined gloves!

[otmafan]

During a carriage ride on a windy day, the four little grand duchesses were holding on their hats so they didn't blow away. They were attempting to wave to the crowd at the same time. Finally, little Tatiana, stood up and stuck out her tongue at the crowd. Hah! What a naughty little thing!!  

[sunnyluv]

When Olga was born, Nicky wrote to his brother George: "First of all we are going to Austria, then Kiev, Germany, Denmark, England, France and finally Darmstadt; there at least we can hope for a complete rest . . . On top of it, we shall have to drag our poor little daughter with us, as all the relatives want to see her. I can imagine what the French will get up to in Paris-maybe they will rename [her] Napoleondra, or something like it!"

Napoleandra--I like that!  

[sunnyluv]

Comparing babies...)
Nicky joked about an upcoming visit from Olga's slightly older cousin Irina-"I can just see them pulling each other's hair and quarrelling over the toys" - then added that

"I still can't believe that Xenia is the mother of two children! Her Andrusha is a big, healthy boy, but still very ugly; please don't you tell her that. All parents always think that their children are the most beautiful in the world."  

Interestingly enough, soon Mary made this record:

Later Marie would write, with her own brand of frankness, that she found Olga's sturdy appearance "remarkably ugly"-all the more so, perhaps, when contrasted to the delicate looks of Baby Tatiana.

 Seems to prove Nicky's words...

[sunnyluv]

Laready been told, but re-counting the same episode:

One day, Miss Eagar relates, while she and the Grand Duchess were out driving along the Nevsky Prospect, Olga "was not good. I was speaking to her, trying to induce her to sit down quietly, when suddenly she did so, folding her hands in front of her. In a few seconds she said to me, 'Did you see that policeman?'" Miss Eagar told her the policeman would not bother her. Olga replied, "But this one was writing something; I was afraid he might have been writing 'I saw Olga, and she was very naughty.'" Miss Eager said this would be highly unlikely, but Olga reminded her-"rather reproachfully"-that some time before she had seen a drunken woman arrested in the street, and had asked Miss Eagar to tell the police not to hurt her. Miss Eagar, however, had refused to interfere, saying that "the woman was naughty and the police quite right in taking her." Miss Eagar responded to this irrefutable fact by stating that a person had to be quite big and very naughty before the police would take that person to prison. Nevertheless, upon returning home Olga asked everyone if a policeman had come by while she was out, then recounted the entire story to her father. Had her father ever been a prisoner? she asked. The Emperor answered that he had never been quite naughty enough to go to prison, where upon Olga replied with much admiration, "Oh! How very good you must have been!"

[sunnyluv]

Ohhh...That's precious:  (more about Olga):



During a visit to Darmstadt in the fall of 1899, Olga, her slightly older cousin Elizabeth (Ella) and two-year-old Tatiana were escorted by Miss Eagar to a local toyshop. The children had been told they might select toys for both themselves and as gifts. After looking at everything, however, Olga chose the smallest toy, then refused to consider any other acquisitions. Finally Miss Eagar took her aside and asked why she wasn't buying more. Olga responded, "But the beautiful toys belong to some other little girls, I am sure; and think how sad they would be if they came home and found we had taken them while they were out."