OTMA - smoking, make up and clothes

[Janet_W.]

Absolutely, Sunny.

Smoking, drinking, drugs, eating, gambling, sex, exercise, housework, religious exaltation . . .  all these activities and others can be used to "stuff" feelings.

I have no doubt that smoking--and exercise--helped Nicholas to sublimate his emotions, so that he might appear calm and affable. In fact, I would wager that "the traditional male" often has fallen back on these activities for the same purpose. After all, men are supposed to be rational beings, especially in contrast to emotional, dithery women. So it stands to reason that many men would need some sort of outlet to sublimate all those very human emotions such as anxiety and occasional despair. Smoking conveniently met that need.

[Alicky1872]

      The daughters smoked due to the the health standards of the age-- it was considered a healthy expectorant

rskkiya

My great grandmother (born in 1900) who suffered from chronic asthma, was prescribed menthol cigarettes to "help her breathing!" What a difference from today!

[clockworkgirl21]

Do you think they would still have been allowed to smoke if it had been known in those days how harmful it was? Probably not, since Aleksandra was always worried about their health. Did Aleksey smoke, too?

[Georgiy]

Probably not. But it was normal to smoke then. Even Alexandra did.

[Ortino]

I doubt that they would have allowed him given his fragile health and he was still quite young when they started. They most likely started during the war, so Alexei was only 10/11.

[lostfan]

In one of the girls' letters, she writes to Nicholas at Stavka to thank him for sending them cigarettes.

[Tsaritsa]

This was discussed in another thread.  I can't locate it at this moment.  

There is also a picture of Anastasia with a cigarette in her hand.  Don't recall which book it was from though.  

[Georgiy]

Yes, I recall a caption to that photo saying it must be a fake cigarette as the Empress would not have allowed her daughters to smoke! And yet of course she did allow them, and was herself a smoker (irregular i think, not chronic). I remember reading in her letters how she sent Tatiana to get the cigarettes, but they discovered they had run out. I wondered if maybe the reason why they had run out was 4 certain young ladies had maybe been sneaking cigarettes!

[lexi4]

I really doubt that Alexandra would have allowed somking if she knew what we know about it today.

[moonlight_tsarina]

Here are two pictures showing the girls smoking. People think in the OTMA picture Anastasia is faking, but I don't believe she is.

This one's a classic! :

[Ortino]

Interesting how in those shots, Anastasia is the only one with a cigarette in her mouth......Being the comical one, the more I look at them, the more I think they were posed as a joke.

[Lanie]

There aresome of Olga smoking, and I've seen one of Tatiana smoking one cigarette and holding another in her hand.  They all smoked; the girls commented on it in letters, thanking Nicholas for cigarettes.

[ferngully]

never saw marie with a cigerette, but there is another pic of anastasia in a chair with a cigarette
selina              xxxxxxxxxxxx

[Katia]

Anna Vyrubova also tells in her memoirs that all the girls smoked, but Alexei didn't.

[GD Alexandra]

I can't beleive it!!! I mean, they weren't allowed to use make up (I read it in another thread) and they were allowed to smoke??? Is that something that was usual in young ladies by that time? ??