Claimant of Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna

[Annie]

I never thought about that, I guess AA supporters could have 'retouched' some photos! Looking at her pictures, the reason the lips are small in some pictures and not others is because AA was trained to suck her lips in and bite down hard on them because they were so much thicker than AN's she had to hide them.

[Olishka~ Pincess]

Exactly Annie thats what I am talking about. Yes I would also think that the AA suporters have been altering and retouching the photos to make her features appear more like that of Anastasia. Yes Annie did do that I read it in a book that AA suck her lips in to make them more thinner so they can resemble more to Anastasia's lips. But in the real photos her lips come out thicker though.

[Mari]

Yes, Oral History is one of the most fascinating to me. It would be nice to know who these Children were! Maybe a great Story just in itself as to who they were and why they were chosen?

[Annie]

The Royal Navy did embark surviving members of the Royal Family from the Crimea in 1919 on HMS Marlborough, but the British were generally very loath to take other Russian refugees

They didn't take them to Britain, but they did help Sophie Buxhoevedon and those with her get out of Russia. When they came to Omsk it was occupied by the British, so they got passage out on a military train.

The British had many irons in the Russian fire at this time, including a well financed plan to purchase Russian Banks and industry in anticipation of a White victory.  If the Whites had won then Britain would have had a huge financial empire in Siberia and the Don Valley that would have equalled or exceeded India - and all legal and obtained at little cost in (British) lives.  Perhaps these people were the children of the Russian financiers and industrialists who sold their shares and capital interests to the British - we'll probably never know, unfortunately.

Hey, that's interesting, it's always good to learn something new like that. I wonder how different Russia would be today if the Whites had won, and I'm sure Siberia wouldn't be a wasteland today if the British had succeeded.


[/quote]

[Robert_Hall]

I do not think Siberia is exactly a "wasteland".  It is very underdevloped  and badly managed by the old Soviet system, but has vast resources that insures Russia's future prosperty.  If I read the recent news dstories correctly,   Moscow is now inviting  European and perhaps Asian firms to do exacty what Phil mentioned.

[Annie]

Okay sorry. I got my impression of from Ewan MacGregor's documentary trip called "Long Way Round." They made it look pretty desolate and unimproved. I know it's not all like that, but with so much land and so little money I assumed most of it was.

[Mari]

Just out of interest the Empress of Asia was an Armed Merchant Cruiser.

She was also launched in 1912 and joined her sister Empress of Russia on the company's Pacific routes. She served as an AMC and troopship in WWI and returned to the Pacific after the war. Like her sister she was not converted to oil fuel. Her reliance on coal proved a serious problem during her WWII troopship service -- unable to keep up with faster ships, she was sunk off Singapore by Japanese aircraft on February 5th, 1942. 1 crew member and 15 troops died from the attack and many of the survivors were taken prisoner by the Japanese and incarcerated in brutal prison camps.

members.tripod.com/~merchantships/cprshipslist1.html

[Amanda_Misha]

Thanks for the interesting legend of survivor,
Greetings to all

[stacey]

This reminds me--allegedly sometime after the murders of the Imperial Family, someone started a pretty lucrative scam regarding "escaped" Grand Duchesses and ships.

They hired a young prostitute who bore a marked resemblance to Grand Duchess Tatiana, dressed her up in "Imperial fashion", and would escort her on board a docked ship with great pomp, claiming that this was in fact Tatiana, that she had escaped, and was boarding the ship on her way to safety out of Russia. Apparently for a fee people had the "honor" of being introduced to the "Grand Duchess", and apparently quite a few people fell for it.

What they didn't know--aside from the fact that she was a prostitute and definitely not a Romanov, much less Tatiana---was that the girl would board the ship, put on her little pretense, and then secretly get off the ship before it set sail.

As I recall this little group of pretenders were eventually nabbed by the cops, thus putting an end to the charade.

I wonder how many honest (if gullible) people went to their graves swearing that they had actually met and spoken to Grand Duchess Tatiana aboard a ship long years before??

[Phil_tomaselli]

I really should go through my files more often.  Here is something from what appears to be a "Times" (London) obituary from November 1988 (alas no closer date) of Commander Wilfred Dunderdale who died in New York on Nov 13th that year, aged 90.  He was born in Russia (Nicholaev??) and recruited by British Naval Intelligence in 1919.  I quote verbatim:

"At a later stage the British were invited to send an observer to accompany the imperial procurator on his investigation of the murder of the Russian imperial family at Ekaterinberg, which had recently been recaptured by the White army.  Given his fluency in Russian Dundedale was chosen for this duty.  Later he was never in any doubt about the falseness of the pretender, Anastasia.  He always said that she was the girlfriend of one of the Tsar's gaolers who was employred by the Tsarina when she required an extra maid.  After Ekaterinberg she returned to Poland where she was employed by the Krupp family."

Dunderdale went on to have a long & successful career in British secret service, probably his greatest feat was in getting the Poles to hand over the Enigma machine & their work on it to the British before the fall of France in 1940.

Dunderdale definitely existed.  I have copies of his service record & various other material.  There is no evidence I can find that he was ever anywhere near Ekaterinberg, no one else mentions him being there, not Preston, not Wilton, not any official paperwork I can find.  So why did he tell the story?  And could it be true anyway?

Phil Tomaselli

[Annie]

I am going to vote no on the story. I am not saying it's a lie, he may have believed it, even been told that, but I don't think it's true. First, Alexandra had no need for an 'extra maid' in Tobolsk because there were a large number of servants there (one list I saw here put it at almost 40) Of course they lost most of their entourage when they were moved to Ekaterinburg, but they still had Demidova and Krupp, and maybe a couple more, and even if they had wanted another one I doubt the Bolsheviks would have been sympathetic to their 'plight' of not being able to do menial tasks for themselves and allowed them to 'employ' anyone else. How would they have paid them anyway? They had no money!

Besides all that, AA was FS, the pics look exactly like her and the DNA matches. FS/AA was never in Ekaterinburg.

There might be a chance this is about a different Anastasia pretender besides AA. That is an interesting possibility if you can find out more.

[Halinka]

And also the age doesn't match to.

[Phil_tomaselli]

The Times in 1988 was a newspaper of record.  Your comments merely reflect the low level of this forum.

Shame.  It used to be good and intelligent.

Phil Tomaselli

[Forum Admin]

This original thread slipped by me.  You had no right to stomp all over Phil for this.  If you read his posting CAREFULLY it said "Later he was never in any doubt about the falseness of the pretender, Anastasia."  The Ipatiev House records indicate that women came in to help clean and it would stand to reason that the guards would give the jobs to their girlfriends to help them get extra money.  It also CAN explain how Anna Anderson did in fact learn things. Now maybe there is some doubt, but Phil has every good reason to bring this to our attention and not belittle his efforts.

Phil, I personally apologise for the treatment you received.

FA

[AGRBear]

I just love these little tidbits you find Phil.

Thanks.

AGRBear