Duchess Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin - Escape From Russia

Escape From Russia

The Grand Duchess held the distinction to be the last of the Romanovs to escape Revolutionary Russia, as well as the first to die in exile. She remained in the war-torn Caucausus with her two younger sons throughout 1917 and 1918, still hoping to make her eldest son Kirill Vladimirovich the Tsar. As the Bolsheviks approached, the group finally escaped aboard a fishing boat to Anapa in 1918. Maria spent fourteen months in Anapa, refusing to join her son Boris in leaving Russia. When opportunities for escape via Constantinople presented themselves she refused to leave for fear she would be subjected to the indignity of delousing. She finally agreed to leave when the general of the White Army warned her that his side was losing the civil war. Maria, her son Andrei, Andrei's mistress Mathilde Kschessinska, and Andrei and Mathilde's son Vladimir, boarded an Italian ship headed to Venice on 13 February 1920.

Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia encountered Maria at the port of Novorossik in early 1920: "Disregarding peril and hardship, she stubbornly kept to all the trimmings of bygone splendour and glory. And somehow she carried it off... When even generals found themselves lucky to find a horse cart and an old nag to bring them to safety, Aunt Miechen made a long journey in her own train. It was battered all right--but it was hers. For the first time in my life I found it a pleasure to kiss her..."

She made her way from Venice to Switzerland and then to France, where her health failed. Staying at her villa (now the Hotel La Souveraine), where she died on 6 September 1920, aged 66, surrounded by her family at Contrexéville. With the help of a family friend, her renowned jewel collection was smuggled out of Russia in a diplomatic bag. At her death her famous collection of jewels were divided up between her children; Grand Duke Boris gained the emeralds, Grand Duke Cyril gained her pearls, Andrei got her rubies and her only daughter Elena received her diamonds. This was one of most fabulous collections to have ever been assembled. It consisted out of a suite of emeralds which later came in possession of Barbara Hutton and Elizabeth Taylor (set in the Bulgari necklace and auctioned in December 2011) alike.There was a 100 carat emerald she got from her father in law upon her marriage and which was once part of the collection of Catherine the Great and another emerald drop of 23 carats. Her pearl tiara with open framework and free hanging drop pearls is today owned by Queen Elizabeth II. It is worn in the photograph above together with the rest of her pearl parure. The tiara was of Russian origin and particularly important in the development of the garland style. The ruby parure contained the 5 carat Beauharnais ruby, bought from descendants of Josephine de Beauharnais, set in a Cartier tiara. that piece was later sold to Nancy Leeds, the later Anastasia of Greece. Yet another piece de légende for was the sapphire kokoshnik tiara made by Cartier in 1909 together with the rest of her sapphire parure. The head ornament was acquired by queen Mary of Romania who wore it to her coronation in 1922. The grand duchess made many purchases at Cartier (including a diamond briolette aigrette, a pearl choker with imperial eagles,...) and was thus one of its mayor clients. She even persuaded the firm to open a St Petersburg shop during the holiday season every winter from 1909 until just before the first World War. A batch of cufflinks and cigarette cases were found in 2008 in the archives of the Swedish foreign ministry. She had deposited them at the Swedish Embassy in St Petersburg before she fled.