Author Topic: Beds at Stavka  (Read 9607 times)

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Baby_Tsarevich

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Beds at Stavka
« on: March 22, 2005, 11:09:50 PM »
I was reading about this one picture of the Tsars and Alexei's room at Stavka, and it said that Alexei's bed was brought from the Alexander Palace to Stavka! So Alexei slept on a bed like this all his life in the Alexander Palace? :


(His is the closest to the fireplace)

Offline Lanie

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Re: Beds at Stavka
« Reply #1 on: March 22, 2005, 11:22:10 PM »
Yes. All the children slept in camp cots.

DanielB

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Re: Beds at Stavka
« Reply #2 on: March 22, 2005, 11:36:55 PM »
Ever since Alexander I – or was it Nicholas I …not sure! – young grand dukes and grand-duchesses slept on hard camp beds. But, due to his illness , for a long while, Alexis had a bed with padding so he wouldn’t bruise himself. One of these is shown here (photo taken after the Revolution when his room was still part of the AP museum) :
http://www.alexanderpalace.org/palace/alekseysbedroom.html

Apparently his military style cot never made it back from Siberia.

I should say that the photo from Stavka was published in Russian newspapers and magazines during the War. It meant to show how frugally the Commander-in-Chief and his son were living, sleeping in cots, as ordinary soldiers would. Although it was used as propaganda, they did live in crammed quarters - there was no available room for Alexis to sleep in so he slept in his father's. And they really did sleep on those beds.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by DanielB »

Baby_Tsarevich

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Re: Beds at Stavka
« Reply #3 on: March 23, 2005, 02:18:15 AM »
Daniel, in that picture that you linked your post to, where doese it show his bed?

And when were those pictures taken? (what year?)

So what happend to all of those things that were in his room?

Sarai_Porretta

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Re: Beds at Stavka
« Reply #4 on: March 23, 2005, 06:32:54 AM »
Quote
Daniel, in that picture that you linked your post to, where doese it show his bed?


There is a bed shown in the first picture. It looks more like a crib though. This isn't the same bed he used when he was older, however, because the text says "Before the exile of the Romanovs to Siberia Alekey's bed had been a campbed. That bed followed him to Tolbolsk and the museum curators brought this one Aleksey used as a small child up from the storerooms to replace it." So this was one he used as a small child, thus the crib-like appearance.

RissiaSunbeam1918

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Re: Beds at Stavka
« Reply #5 on: March 23, 2005, 09:06:24 AM »
You saw that too? I thought ha had the crib thng most of his life. ??? But at the house of special purpose he has a cot, and on the train he had a real bed........

Offline Ortino

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Re: Beds at Stavka
« Reply #6 on: March 23, 2005, 05:54:15 PM »
Alexei only had a crib as a small child. He had a regular camp cot like the girls, except his noticably has sides to prevent him apparently from falling out. All the children had regular beds on the Imperial train and Standart.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by Ortino »

RissiaSunbeam1918

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Re: Beds at Stavka
« Reply #7 on: March 23, 2005, 06:03:38 PM »
Ooo. That's cool. I knew about the normal bed on standart and the train, but for some reason I thought he had the crib longer than most kids, but you are probably right, I was just going by one picture.

Baby_Tsarevich

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Re: Beds at Stavka
« Reply #8 on: March 23, 2005, 06:19:54 PM »
Omg poor kid, those beds don't look to comfortable :-[ :-/

olga

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Re: Beds at Stavka
« Reply #9 on: March 24, 2005, 09:38:12 PM »
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Omg poor kid, those beds don't look to comfortable :-[ :-/


I'm sure he survived, having a clean and proper bed to sleep on.

RissiaSunbeam1918

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Re: Beds at Stavka
« Reply #10 on: March 24, 2005, 10:41:07 PM »
I guess it probably was not the most comfortable thing in the world, but he must have been more used to that than a normal bed...

DanielB

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Re: Beds at Stavka
« Reply #11 on: March 25, 2005, 02:59:04 PM »
Quote
Daniel, in that picture that you linked your post to, where doese it show his bed?

And when were those pictures taken? (what year?)

So what happend to all of those things that were in his room?


Going off topic here, but to answer your question about the things in the Tsarevich's bedroom at the Alexander Palace here is what I know:

As Bob Atchison wrote some years ago, the photos of the children’s appartments were taken «when the palace was a museum; during the brief years when the children's rooms were open to the public. »

He added :
« Immediately after the departure of the Romanovs for Siberia in August 1917 the palace was closed for a short (time) for inventory and then a series of rooms, mostly Parade Halls, were opened to the public. At first the upstairs rooms of the Imperial children were turned into an ill-fated children's home, but the lack of heating and the inappropriateness of having kids in a museum resulted in them moving elsewhere. This short-term use of the children's rooms caused a great deal of damage. It took a considerable amount of work by museum curators and restorers to recreate the rooms. Furniture that had been either stolen by communist party officials or transferred to other uses had to be located and hopefully returned. Most of the personal effects, pictures and such, had, fortunately, been placed in storage and were preserved. These items could easily be placed back in their original places through the recollections of servants and checking photographs. The rooms were then open to the public into the 1930's when they were ordered handed over to KGB officials as a kind of private weekend retreat for senior officals and the furnishings finally sold off. »

According to Suzanne Massey and  Polovtsov (the Pavlovsk Palace curator she quotes in her book) Lunacharsky appropriated the Alexander Palace for himself and some friends (he apparently settled himself in rooms of the suite adjoining the former appartments of the children). He did want to turn  the Palace into a boarding school for children, and proposed to distribute all the toys and books that were in the children’s appartments to schools and hospitals.

As Lukhomsky the Tsarskoe Selo Palaces Curator later recalled, on October 28, 1918 he received a letter from Lunacharsky, the new Bolshevik Commissar for Education (and Arts): «…it is unlikely that the objects that belonged to the last Romanovs will ever be of historical significance; therefore, you can hand over the furniture from the former heir’s appartments to the Children Homes’ Administration. »  :o :'(

Suzanne Massey adds that Lukhomsky managed to save the books of the Tsarevich marked with his personal ex libris but that the toys were all dispersed. She writes that « The appartments remained unoccupied – due to difficulty of heating and the fact that families did not willingly wish to give up their children ». So it is unclear to me if they ever were occupied or not. Judging by the photos and sketches done later, not all the toys were dispersed at the time and it seems to me the curators managed to save quite a lot of furniture, toys and other objects from the children rooms. Some things were also returned from Siberia after their death.

Alas, in the 1930s the upper floor was closed to the public and most of its content sold off. Fortunately, as explained in the « Nicholas and Alexandra At Home » exhibition catalogue, in 1932 the State Toy Museum – in Zagorsk  - now Sergeev Posad again – received a number of toys, along with a few pieces of furniture, that used to be in the Alexander Palace collection. Some of these can be seen at the current exhibition. Hopefully, in the future, the Children’s rooms will be open as a museum again and what was saved will be transfered back to the Palace.