An elderly friend recalls being dressed in her best clothes and given a bouquet to hold. She was then told to give the bouquet to "a lady who was dressed in black and sparkled," by which time she had become so attached to the flowers that she refused to hand them over!! The "sparkly" lady was the Empress Alexandra whose reaction goes unrecorded because my friend was only four years old at the time. She records the incident in a small book she wrote-well into her nineties-about the eight years her family lived in Russia, at times very much alongside the IF for whom her father worked. She also recalls toddling in and out of the IFs box at the opera and how the attendants bowed to her each time. Their dacha in Finland shared a beach with another which was the property of the IF who were sometimes there at the same time. Their idyllic lifestyle came to an end when the revolution started. My friend was put on a train with her Mama and her nanny and numerous trunks for the long journey back to England. It turned into a nightmare. They were put off the train and had to remove their own luggage which resulted in my friend's mother suffering a very serious miscarriage. However, after several harrowing weeks they arrived back in England. Her father had to stay at his business in St Petersburg where all semblance of order was fast disappearing and he knew his life to be in danger. To save himself, he signed his business over to his employees whose militance was growing uncontrollably and for a time things went on as before and then he heard then plotting to dispose of him by pushing him through a hole in the ice which covered the river. At that point he and his manager fled, but were captured and spent many years as prisoners. He eventually arrived in England, a broken man. My friend is now 102 , in good health but her memory is not what it was. It was she who stirred my interest in all things Russian and I am so pleased that she "painted" her wonderful little word picture of a time and lifestyle long gone but still so fascinating.
