Grand Duchess Anastasia Mikhailovna of Russia - Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Schwerin

Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Schwerin

On 8 February 1879, Anastasia and Friedrich arrived in Schwerin. Her father-in-law Friedrich Franz II, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin was the reigning monarch of the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and presided over a large family. The young couple settled in the Marienpalais, but Anastasia was not allowed to arrange her apartments according to her own taste. She was homesick and found a strict and old-fashioned court and an oppressive atmosphere. Although her own mother was German, Anastasia Mikhailovna never overcame her dislike for her adopted country.

She was soon pregnant and her first child, Alexandrine, was born in the first year of her marriage. Her husband's ill health allowed her the perfect excuse to spend as little time as possible in Schwerin. She traveled frequently visiting her family in Russia and spending long sojourns abroad, looking for a warm climate for her husband's ailments, in southern Italy and France.

They were living in Palermo, when in 1882 a second child, Friederich Franz, was born. The death of her father-in-law on 15 April 1883, and the ascension of her husband as Grand Duke Friedrich Franz III of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, forced them to return to Schwerin, where she was resented for her frequent absences. At first, she enjoyed her new position as the wife of the reigning Grand Duke and took residence in sumptuous apartments in Schwerin Castle. However, soon after she wanted to return to Italy or France. The population of Mecklenburg-Schwerin did not want their sovereign living somewhere else, and Anastasia was heavily criticized. A compromise was reached, and the Grand Duke and his wife would live in Schwerin for five months and could stay wherever they wanted for the rest of the year, on the condition that their children were to be born in Schwerin.

After her youngest daughter, Cecile, was born in 1886, Anastasia moved to Cannes where they used to spend most of the year. Between 1887 and 1889, her husband had constructed for her the Villa Weden, a large Italian-style palace situated on the side of a mountain that dominated the bay of Cannes. They lived there every year from November until May, stopping in Paris on their way back to Germany.

Grand Duchess Anastasia Mikhailovna spent as little time as possible in Schwerin Castle in the summer, preferring her residence in Gelbensande, a hunting lodge built in 1886 in the style of an English cottage near the Baltic Sea. She brought up her children with simplicity and more freedom than she received from her parents, and would keep a close relationship with them. She spoke French to her husband and English with her children. She was a keen tennis player, with her own tennis court at the Villa Wenden. She loved Italian music, particularly the operas of Puccini and the theater. Her extant letters reveal a warm, caring person, who always seems to have been happy about life. She frequented many other European royals who stayed at the Riviera; her parents and brothers were also frequent visitors. Her mother died of a heart attack in 1891, and Anastasia remained very close to her widower father and her brothers, particularly the two eldest Nicholas and Michael. Anastasia spent lavishly from the Grand Duke's income and her own dowry, for which she was widely criticized, but she loved to shock people who condemned her. She liked society and became a frequent visitor to the gambling tables of Monte Carlo, losing a large sum of money at the casino; but in spite of her extravagances, she never lost her husband's affection.