Early Life
Prince Gabriel Constantinovich of Russia was born on 15 July 1887 at Pavlovsk. He was the second son among the nine children of Grand Duke Constantin Constantinovich of Russia and his wife Grand Duchess Elizabeth Mavrikievna, born Princess Elizabeth of Saxe-Altenburg. Gabriel Constantinovich and his brother prince Ivan, born a year earlier, were the first to suffer from the reforms of Emperor Alexander III, his father's cousin, who decreed that in the name of economizing the state budget, only the children and grandchildren of the reigning sovereign would bear the title of grand duke. Thus, Gabriel Constantinovich was three days old when Tsar Alexander III issued a manifesto announcing his title as a Prince of the Imperial Blood with the style of Highness. Grand dukes received 280,000 gold rubles annually from the imperial treasury, which guaranteed a comfortable life, while Prince Gabriel was given a one-time sum of one million gold rubles, and he could count on nothing else.
Gabriel Constantinovich spent his early life living in fabulous splendor on the last period of Imperial Russia. His father, a respected poet, was a second cousin of Tsar Nicholas II and one of the wealthiest members of the Romanov family. As a child, Prince Gabriel had frail health; he was pale and prone to illness. He and his eldest brother Prince Ivan were both often sick and together spent more than a year of their childhood living at Oreanda in the Crimea with a doctor and several servants. Their health improved in the temperate climate, and the boys enjoyed their time spent on the beaches and in short tours around the peninsula. With only each other, for company, they forged a strong sibling relationship that was to last to the ends of their lives.
Prince Gabriel was brought up strictly; he and his siblings were taught to speak pure Russian without a mixture of foreign phrases, and they had to memorize prayers. The best writers and musicians were invited to Pavlovsk and the Marble Palace, and Grand Duke Constantine Constantinovich devised a programme of lectures for his children, providing a good education for them.
From a very early age, Gabriel was passionately devoted to his father and to all things military. Following his father's example, Gabriel Constantinovich chose a military career, traditional for the male members of the Romanov family. In his memoirs, he recalled: Since the age of seven, I dreamed of entering the Nikolaievsky calvary School. In 1900, he was allowed to join the 1st Moscow Cadet corps as preparatory training; in 1903 he finally received permission to join the Nikolaievsky school. "Having worn a cadet's uniform for five years," he wrote, "at last my dream came true, and I became a real military man." At nineteen, he was promoted to officer's rank and awarded several orders. On 19 January 1908 Gabriel Constantinovich took his oath of allegiance to Nicholas II in a ceremony held in the church of the Catherine Palace at Tsarkoye Selo.
His family was close to the Emperor, and he spent many times with the Tsar and his family. Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna and her brother, Grand Duke Dimitri Pavlovich, were often his playmates.
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