RUSSIA, CIRCA 1907

Located close to the Emperor’s palace at Livadia and Ai Todor, the palace of Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich and Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovich, members of the imperial family were frequent visitors to Kharaks. “The Tsar came two or three times a week, when living at Livadia, to dine with us. The Empress sometimes came too,” Grand Duchess Marie recalled in her memoirs. “The Emperor would bring his two oldest daughters, Olga and Tatiana [and he] always told me he loved coming to us because he could be himself and it was such a change to the usual routine of this daily life. He really enjoyed himself like a boy on those occasions and never would leave before one o’clock in the morning.” (Grand Duchess George, A Romanov Diary: The Autobiography of H.I. & R.H. Grand Duchess George, G.N. Tantzos and M.A. Eilers, ed., New York, 1988, p. 133). Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna lived at Kharaks from 1918 to 1919 when she left for England. In April 1919, the HMS Marlborough arrived in the Crimea under orders of the British Royal Navy to evacuate the Dowager Empress, sister of Queen Alexandra, and members of the Russian Imperial Family. One of the last pages of the Kharaks guest book records the signatures of Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna, Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna and her children, Prince Felix Yusupov, and the captain of the HMS Marlborough, C.D. Johnson, and the captain of the HMS Calypso, B.S. Thesiger. The guest book presumably was taken from Kharaks by the Dowager Empress, brought on board the ship and then delivered to Grand Duchess Marie in England.