Hi!
Sorry to say that these photos were not taken at Peterhof but very far away, in the Crimea, on the shores of the Black Sea. When I first saw them, I was excited as I thought it was indeed Peterhof, but I found it odd the Palace would have such close neighbours as the photos would suggest. Then, in the book by Marvin Lyons, I noticed that the same photo of the Emperor sitting in front of a brick wall and metal fence was said to have been taken at Eupatoria in the Crimea, on May 16, 1916. I checked his diary and found that, while in the Crimea, the Imperial Family had paid a visit to “Anya” . His entry for the same day fits the photos. I then checked Anna Viroubova’s Memoirs and, sure enough, she writes that she spent two months in Eupatoria in a flower-hung villa overlooking the Black Sea, recuperating after her accident. She describes the day the Imperial Family came to visit and adds that after lunch they walked and sat on the beach. According to her, “Alexis enjoyed the day (…), playing on the beach and building a big sand fortress, which the schoolboys of the town next day surrounded by a high wall of stones to protect it from the ravages of the tide.” So the author and editor of “Anastasia’s Album” were obviously mistaken.
