Russianhistoryindenmark.Info

05/02/2024

Wonderful watercolors by Grand Duchess Olga up for auction 12 February 2024!

Lot 2407/25: Olga Alexandrovna (b. Peterhof Palace 1882, d. Toronto 1960, Grand Duchess of Russia): Colourful flowers in the windowsill at her Danish residence Knudsminde in Ballerup. Signed Olga. Oil on canvas. 32×47
Provenance: “The Danish seller's stepmother's parents, Arne Hammer and his Russian-born wife, Tatiana Konstantinova Hammer, née Martinson. Arne Hammer worked for the Great Northern Telegraph Company and travelled often to Russia in the 1920s. In Irkutsk, he met Tatiana, whom he married and moved to Denmark. Tatiana Hammer belonged to the Russian circles in Copenhagen and received the painting directly from Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrova”.

Lot 2407/73: Olga Alexandrovna (b. Peterhof Palace 1882, d. Toronto 1960, Grand Duchess of Russia): A Rhododendron bush in the garden of Hvidøre Castle. Signed and dated Olga Hvidøre 1926. Watercolour on paper. Visible size c 16×23 cm.
On the back of the recent frame, mounted with the previous back on which a postcard with the following text (in Danish) is mounted “ March 30th 1926. Dear General, I hereby send your ”Pearl" a small watercolour from the garden of Hvidøre. It was so moving how she purchased three lottery tickets. I wish you a happy easter, Dear General. Your devoted Olga.”

Go to auction: https://bruun-rasmussen.dk/m/auctions/1007765

27/01/2024

Coming up for auction 5. February is this watercolor with plants and a colourful bouquet in Grand Duchess Olga's very own windowsill, painted at her house either Rygaard or Ballerup in Denmark

go to Auction:
https://bruun-rasmussen.dk/m/lots/D84909ADD23E?auction_day_id=1007930

27/01/2024

Lovely watercolor by Grand Duchess Olga painted in Denmark encaptures the feeling of upcoming springtime with this field of Snowdrops from the greenish lawns at Hvidøre 1920-1928.

07/12/2023

10-year old Grand Duchess Olga at Royal Luncheon

The “Fredensborg-days” were summer family gatherings at the Royal Palace Fredensborg in Denmark, counting members of several related Royal houses in Europe. It is often said that the Russian Emperor Aleksander III felt so at home visiting Denmark that he wished to acquire property. In 1885, his eyes fell on a small house situated on a slope near the Fredensborg Palace, overlooking the village pond down Fredensborg´s main street. Here he could work on his state papers and perform physical fitness exercises in private. The ownership was celebrated with a housewarming in the beginning of October 1889.

Often, the entire family “party” would spend time visiting other small royal properties nearby, for lunch, dinner, gardenstrolls, concerts or just for a game of cards.

On this special photograph, dated sometime in the early 1890’ies, a small family luncheon is taking place at the small Bernstorff House, the private family home of the Danish King, Christian IX, Grand Duchess Olgas’ grandfather.

The King and his Queen Louise is seated at table (left), the Empress Maria Feodorovna at table centre, and her 10 year old daughter Olga is seen seated (right) with her back turned, her long curly hair tied with a bow.

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27/11/2023

Grand Duchess Olgas´ Danish Farm

The house “Knudsminde”, plan and layout dating from 1924, (found at the Municipality of Ballerup, buildings archives), just a few years before Grandduchess Olga and her family moved in.

In Denmark, Grandduchess Olga and her family lived in the small town Ballerup from 1930-1948, where she occupied herself largely by farming. With a household full of hens and chickens, gardening was a great, newfound pleasure. In her sparetime, and as a dedicated painter, she took-up watercoloring and painting, having spent her childhood as pupil with the court painters Stanislav Zhukovsky, Vladimir Makovsky and Sergei Vinogradov. The family made themselves at home in Ballerup and many friendships were formed in the local community. Sometimes, when money was scarce, Olga payed her grocery bills in paintings.
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18/11/2023

Imperial legation and Father Ivan Schtelkunov visiting

The orthodox priest in Copenhagen, Father Ivan Schtelkunov (1870-1966) inaugurated a humanitarian camp at Horserød (Denmark) in 1917 (Photograph). He became a regular guest. Here he saw to the many sick and wounded soldiers from the 1. World War and took care of funerals. When the camp actually got its very own orthodoks church, he said mass there every second sunday.

Here he is, easily recognisable by his long beard and black clothes, visiting the Humanitarian Camp accompanied by members and employees from the Imperial Legation in Copenhagen (notice the parrot, sitting on a walkingstick!).

In 1911, the orthodox priest Schtelkunov had been appointed priest to the Aleksander Nevsky church in Copenhagen. Schtelkunov decided to resign his service in 1919. He then moved to the Danish island Bornholm, where he began teaching Russian and translating books from Russian into Danish, notably classic litterature, and even Tolstoys´Anna Karenina. He was the author of many history books and his dictionary on the Russia language is still being used today. When the island of Bornholm was occupied by Soviet troops in 1945-46, they used Schtelkunov as interpreter.

His memoirs of his childhood and youth in the prerevolutionary days was published in Copenhagen in 1926 under the title “50 Aar under Gyldne Kupler” (Fifty years under Golden Domes).

Included is a chapter describing his journey to Russia in 1918, a chapter on his work at the Horserød Camp and chapters of his childhood as the son of the Russian Priest at the Imperial Legation in Copenhagen and his subsequent many meetings with the Imperial couple, Alexander and Maria Feodorovna and their children on their frequent visits to Copenhagen.
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27/10/2023

The Empress’ Cossack

Timofei Xenofoontowich Yaschik served as private Imperial bodyguard Cossack for the Empress Dowager Maria Feodorovna, December 1915 – October 1928.

At some time after 1926, probably right after the Empress´ death in October 1928, Yaschik states that he, by the grace of some of the Empress´ friends, was given the opportunity to buy or receive a small business, thus earning his living as a merchant in a modest house. In fact he moved in with his Danish wife Agnes and his best friend, the Cossack Poliakov.

Yaschik´s house is situated in the oustkirts of Copenhagen, part of the area called Valby, a corner-property originally intended as an allotment, for harvesting fruits and vegetables in a small city-household. The house was built in 1917, a small building with a basement and ground floor, later adding a roof that in 1926 was arranged as a secondary flat. The house had one owner and a tenant, sharing the property and the large garden. In 1926 they filed a request for removing the fence and replacing it with a thorn hedge towards the road, dividing the garden in two with separate entrances. The owner was a waiter M. Larsen, using the architecht Henry Madsen.

The building was only 124 square meters, but had a surprisingly large number of rooms: The largest room on the ground floor was the grocery shop. The shop had its´ own entrance and two large square windows overlooking the streets, decorated with painted glass panels and enamelled metal signs painted with colorful commercials. The shop had a cupboard and shelfs and drawers on the walls, in the center stood a large counter. From the back of the interior, two doors led to a small kitchen and the ground floor living room. A stairway led to the cellar and second floor. In the cellar the largest room was used as grocery stock, two smaller rooms were used for washing, and here the small household also had a watercloset and a bathroom complete with bathtub, a great luxurious commodity in those days! On the first floor, there were three large rooms; a bedroom, a diningroom and a livingroom, all centered around a small corridor leading to the second kitchen. In 1934, Yaschik filed a request to the city hall magistrate concerning an extension of the house, adding a small wintergarden and a lumber room on the ground floor, thus creating a veranda on the first floor leading to the living room. In the cellar, the extension would be used for firewood, the bathroom being fitted out with a gas heater. In fact, the whole house was heated by ovens and firewood, the central heating being added by a new owner as late as in 1953.

This wonderful photograph shows us the private life of the Imperial Cossack as shop-keeper in Copenhagen. Trading with wonderful products as grapes, wine (lots of wine!) eggs, coffee and tea. Actually, Yaschik would primarily serve his customers wearing one of his cossack uniforms. Yaschik died in 1946, aged 68. Private collection.

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23/10/2023

To dress like an Empress

Detail of the rich embroidery in jet-beads and black sequins on a dress kept by Imperial chambermaid Cecilia Grunwald, and formerly belonging to Empress Maria Feodorovna. The Dress was a personal gift from the Empress Dowager to her faithfull and trusted personal maid.

The bodice was made by the Russian tailors Brisac, mentioned by Grand Duchess Olga in her memoirs. With it goes an embroidered skirt with a long train decorated with sequins, and a second equally rich embroidered bodice with long sleeves including a “false neck” in white and black lace. The two bodices´ are tailored for evening use (with a low cut) and for afternoons (with a neck). Kiki also had a more simple version, a black and white laced bodice with long sleeves, and silk shoes also formerly belonging to the Empress.

The embroidery and tailoring is amazing, the bodice is made from layers of silk and tulle, and have an inside lining constructed with ribbons, bone and wire worthy of a modern engineer. (Private collection)
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21/10/2023

Living with an Empress

Cecilia Gustavovna Grunwald, called Kiki or Kikili, the chambermaid of Maria Feodorovna, in a lovely photograph taken in her private chamber at the attic floor at Hvidøre, sometime between 1907 – 1913. The rooms at Hvidøre Palace were called "cabins" and had numbers as if travelling on the Imperial yacht.

Certainly, the title “chambermaid” in an Imperial household should not be taken lightly. The chambermaid had a great responsibility, and being the one person who had the privilege of combing the Empress´ hair, Cecilia was often referred to as the ‘most powerfull woman in the empire’. She could be “go between” when someone had a request. She also had access to the Empress at all hours.

As chambermaid to the Empress, Cecilia also took care of the wardrobe and the Empress´ amazing jewels. Twice a year, the jewels were overseen by two jewellers, who kept an album with precise and colored drawings of all the jewellery in use and in the safekeeping of Cecilia. On court business and on days with public access, Cecilia would attend the gatherings wearing the sign of her importance and function at court, a small white linnen bonnet on the top of her head, doing her curtseys in front of the Empress.

Cecilia shared in the Empress´ confinement in various places in the Crimea 1917-1919 and fled along with members of the imperial family and other loyal staff onboard the vessel Marlborough. Here Cecilia was given special care, as she had backpains and had to rest in a real bed, not a bunk.

At Hvidøre and at Amalienborg Palace in Denmark, she carried out all her proper functions and shared rooms with the Empress until 1928, where she moved into a small flat of her own in Copenhagen, not far from Zinaida Mengden, the Empress’ Lady-in-waiting. Here she made hats and ornaments and attended mass every week at the orthodox church., and was frequently visited by Grand Duchess Olga.

Cecilia originally came from Riga and was, as pointed out by Zinaida Mengden in her memoirs, a noble-woman of birth. As it was often the fact, members of the Imperial household often had charges at court through family relations. Cecilia Grunwald died in 1951.

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30/09/2023

telegram announcing the departure from Skt. Petersburg in september 1906 of the Empress Dowager Maria Feodorovna and her youngest son Michail Alexandrovitj, traveling by steamship, the Imperial Yacht "Polarstar" to Copenhagen. The telegram is signed "Løvenørn", the Danish Ministre Plénipotentiaire at the Imperial Court.

The Empress would be traveling at this time to Denmark to visit her Danish relatives and her newly acquired villa Hvidoere at Klampenborg. Actually, the Royal accounts from this very September mentions that her cook, the Imperial Chef Witten would be serving her refreshments - raspberries - at Hvidoere

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24/09/2023

Grand Duchess Olgas´ household in Denmark 1940

At Maria Feodorovna, the Dowager Empress´ death in 1928, the Grand Duchess Olga and her family moved to a farm named Rygaard and then to Knudsminde, another farm.

Grand duchess Olga and her family lived at Knudsminde in the small town Ballerup not far from Copenhagen (Denmark) from 1930-1948, and were occupied largely by farming. With a household full of hens and chickens, gardening was a great, newfound pleasure. The family made themselves at home in Ballerup and many friendships were formed in the local community.

The 1940 official census naming all residents at Knudsminde: the five members of the Kulikovsky´s , three Russian maids and one Estonian ( Xenia Moschaeva, Maria Ivanovna, Tatiana Gromova, Emilie Tenso) a Danish gardener and six employees.

The Kulikovsky household were not the only Russians living in Ballerup in 1940, since several farmers working at Knudsminde were staying elsewhere in town. Some Russian and Polish immigrants also stayed in town, listed as unemployed, but probably being part of the Kulikovsky´ retinue.

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17/09/2023

Hvidoere Palace in Denmark

The residence or summer villa Hvidoere at Klampenborg was bought in 1906 by the sisters Dagmar, Alexandra and Thyra. Dowager Empress of Russia, Queen of Great Britain and Duchess of Cumberland, respectively.

The house was the very first mansion in Denmark to be equipped with electric lights and all modern commodities, albeit that it was a summerpalace and therefore not at all suitable for the danish winter.

After the Revolution and Maria Feodorovnas´ return to Denmark, the Dowager Empress moved in with her staff in 1920, and took up her permanent residence here from 1923 as the unofficial matriark of the Russian refugees in Denmark.

Residents in the villa in 1925 amounted to a total of 24 people: The Dowager Empress; Her family Grandduchess Olga, Nikolai, Tihon and Gurij Kulikovsky; The Lady-in waiting Zinaida Mengden; Chambermaid Cecilia “Kiki” Grunwald; Two other Chambermaids Martha Ozer and Emilia Tenzo; One Wardrobe attendant Olga Wassiliewna; one Maid Maria Iwanova; Life Cossacks Yaschik and Poliakov; the waiter Ivan Wiagis; two danish kitschenmaids Alpha Ellen Margrethe Jensen and Maria Johanne Willers Nielsen; One Housemaid Emilie Johanne; One Maid Thora Elvira Munch; A married couple Andersen the husband being gardener Knud Emil and their maid Anne Kirstine. Temporarily present was the Empress´private nurse Caroline Jensen.
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10/09/2023

Lovely painting by Grandduchess Olga on a birchwood box lid, signed "O. Koulikovsky" and undated.

Grandduchess Olga Alexandrovna (1882 – 1960), the daughter of Emperor Alexander III and Empress Maria Feodorovna, was a younger sister to the last Romanov Emperor Nicholas II.

She loved to paint flowers, the celebration of easter, and scenes from "Old imperial Russsia" celebrations of rural life as she knew it, the simplicity and the "happy farmlife" of the native peasants at home. This fabulous birchwood box is part of the Olga collection at the danish Ballerup Museum, the small suburb countryside town where Olga spent 18 years of her life.

02/09/2023

A once-in-a-lifetime-buy - The Imperial "Peterhof" banqueting Service
Up for sale at Auction on September 19th in Copenhagen is a very rare and delicate Imperial banqueting service, “The Banqueting Service for the Grand Peterhof Palace”. A remarkable large Russian porcelain dinner service, including several serving pieces, comprising 57 parts in total. The dinner sercvice was originally ordered by Tsar Nicholas I of Russia (1825–1855), Tsar Alexander III of Russia (1881–1894), and for Tsar Nicholas II of Russia (1894–1917). A remarkable 43 porcelain pieces served the last Romanov Tsar at the Peterhof.
Provenance: The Danish electrician and wholesaler, Ove Viborg-Larsen (1896 - 1963) and his wife, Irina (Irma) Christine Ottilie Viborg-Larsen, née Vladimirovna Furman (1899-1947). Ove Viborg-Larsen was stationed as an electrician for the Great Northern Telegraph Company in the 1920s in Skt. Petersburg, where the couple lived. Ove and Irina Viborg-Larsen visited several of the communist government's auctions, where items from the palaces of the Imperial Russian family were sold. Here, the couple acquired the Imperial Peterhof dinnerware.

https://www.russianhistoryindenmark.info/2023/09/02/a-once-in-a-lifetime-buy-the-imperial-peterhof-banqueting-service/

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24/08/2023

Today, Ukraine celebrates 32 years of independence. The independence day is the main state holiday in modern Ukraine, celebrated on August 24 in commemoration of the Declaration of Independence of 1991.

In 1916 the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna left Petrograd (Sct. Petersburg) to join her daugther, the grandduchess Olga then working as a trained nurse in a hospital in Kyiv. The Empress stayed at the Mariinsky Palace (Present presidential palace and government building) where she engaged herself in charity and Red Cross work. In september 1916, she celebrated the 5oth anniversary of her arrival from Denmark to the Romanov Empire with great festivities and ceremony at the Mariinsky Palace. Following a period of great anxiety, political unrest and internal family-trouble, she felt largely at home in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital.

Happy Independence Day

18/08/2023

Alexei Nikolaevich (12 August [O.S. 30 July] 1904 – 17 July 1918) was the last Tsarevich (Heir apparent to the throne of the Romanov Empire). He was the youngest child and only son of Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna.

The Baroness Sophie Buxhoeveden , whose father was appointed ambassador to the Royal Danish Court in Copenhagen – and had functions as Alexandra's lady-in-waiting, reflected that Alexei "was a pretty child, tall for his age, with regular features, splendid dark blue eyes with a spark of mischief in them, brown hair, and an upright figure".

Alexei had few friends his age and was often lonely. Alexei's companions were his sailor-orderly Derevenko's two young sons and Gleb Botkin, the dentist Eugene Botkin's son. Derevenko watched them as they played, and he chastised his children if they played too roughly with Alexei. Alexei was very close with his four sisters. The french-teacher Pierre Gilliard wrote that they "brought into Alexei´s life an element of youthful merriment that otherwise would have been sorely missed".

Alexei enjoyed playing the balalaika and he had a favorite pet, the spaniel Joy. Actually Nicholas once gave Alexei an old performing donkey named Vanka.

Photograph: Alexei in the garden with a broomstick and watering can. Photograph in a private collection.

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12/08/2023

Grandduchess Olga Alexandrovna (1882 – 1960), the daughter of Emperor Alexander III and Empress Maria Feodorovna, was a younger sister to the last Romanov Emperor Nicholas II.

As a child, she studied in the Imperial Palace at Gatchina under the guidance of the best artists of the empire, namely Kirill Vikentievich Lemokh (Moscow, 1841 - 1910), Vladimir Yegorovich Makovsky (Moscow, 1846 - 1920), and Stanislav Yulianovich Zhukovsky (Grodno, 1873 - 1944). In her youth as married to Prince Peter of Oldenburg (divorced 1916), she patronized Imperial watercolorists and the Society of Artists named after Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi (Mariupol, 1841 - 1910), with her teacher, Academician Konstantin Yakovlevich Kryzhitsky (Kyiw,1858 - 1911), as one of its co-founders.
She loved to paint flowers, the celebration of easter, and scenes from "Old imperial Russsia" celebrations of rural life as she knew it, the simplicity and the "happy farmlife" of the native peasants at home.

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06/08/2023

Fifteen years of research now is unfolding! The Romanov’s always make fascinating headlines! The lost Empire of this Dynasty made its impact on Danish history in many ways. Behind the Romanov’s glittering facade were real people.

They appeal to us and to posterity. They were individuals who became part of history. They came from all parts of the Romanov Empire with different cultural backgrounds, united in the service of the Romanovs.

Go behind the shadows and fascinating headlines to read more on this website. The homepage Russian History in Denmark is a private website with the purpose of storytelling and surveying the common history in Denmark.

The Romanov courtiers and servants - Distinctive lives who became part of the great history. In the shadow of the Romanov Dynasty ...

website: https://www.russianhistoryindenmark.info

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Fifteen years of research now is unfolding! The Romanov’s always make fascinating headlines! The lost Empire of this Dynasty made its impact on Danish history in many ways. Behind the Romanov’s glittering facade were real people. They appeal to us and to posterity. They were individuals who beca...