Duchess Alexandra Petrovna of Oldenburg - Last Years

Last Years

In 1880, Alexandra left St Petersburg for good to start a new life in Kiev. Initially, she lived at the Mariyinsky Palace, the Emperor's residence in Kiev, but retired later to a convent. However, she refused to grant her husband the divorce he would have wanted. Grand Duke Nicholas Nicolaievich hoped to survive his wife, as had been the case of his brother Alexander II who once a widower married his mistress. Alexandra, although not in good health, outlived both her husband and her husband’s mistress. Catherine Chislova died in 1889, and Grand Duke Nicholas survived his lover for only two years. When he died in the Crimea in 1891, Alexandra Petrovna refused to attend the funeral. Even then, she did not forgive him. She also refused to pay homage to her death husband when the funeral catafalque, taking his body for burial in the St Peter and St Paul Cathedral in St Petersburg, came by train via Kiev on its route from the south.

Alexandra became a nun as 'Sister Anastasia' taking Holy Orders on 3 November 1889 in Kiev, while her husband was still alive. She founded a convent of nursing nuns with its own hospitals, asylums and dispensary to provide free treatment for the poor. She dedicated her life to the work, which had always been her priority. She remained close to her sons, who had taken her side in the family break up. She was in the Crimea in 1898 when her daughter-in-law, Grand Duchess Militsa, gave birth to twin daughters, one of which died shortly after birth. Alexandra took her granddaughter’s remains with her and buried the coffin in the convent cemetery in Kiev. Afflicted with stomach cancer, Alexandra Petrovna died at Kievo Pechersky Monastery in Kiev on 25 April 1900, when she was 61. Today her grave in the convent garden is again tended by nuns and her works continues.