Early Life
Prince Andrei Alexandrovich was born at the Winter Palace, Saint Petersburg the second child but first son of Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich and Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna of Russia. Although an Imperial Romanov Family Dynast and a grandson of Emperor Alexander III through his mother, he did not receive the title Grand Duke of Russia because he was only a great-grandson of Emperor Nicholas I in the male line through his father. Despite being only a Prince of Russia, he received a 21 gun salute at birth (which was usually reserved for Grand Dukes, with a 15 gun salute for Princes of Russia) at the insistence of his grandmother the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna.
In his youth, before World War I, Prince Andrei toured Europe with his parents. At Biarritz, he joined his great uncle King Edward VII of the United Kingdom at the palace Hotel. Prince Andrei joined the Russian navy and served under his father Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich of Russia. Later he became lieutenant in the Chevalier guards, whose colonel-in-chief was his uncle, Emperor Nicholas II. Just before the Russian revolution, he was the only member of his family to accompany the Empress Alexandra and her four daughters on their last visit to the churches of Novgorod. It was the last time he saw them.
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