by Coryne Hall
Mathilde’s fears about an omen now proved all too correct. She soon received bad news from home. By October St Petersburg was paralysed by a general strike which even spread to the artists of the Maryinsky Theatre. ‘One of the most active revolutionaries’ among the Maryinsky company36 was Joseph Kschessinsky.
Twelve delegates were chosen to hand a petition to the authorities and frequent political meetings were held, but most of the dancers refused to strike and the revolt was abortive. The attempted strike was classed as a breach of discipline and all who wished to remain loyal had to sign a declaration to that effect. The majority signed and the delegates were left in the lurch. Sergei Legat was so upset at being pressurised to sign and betray his friends that he cut his throat with a razor. This news had a shattering effect on all the dancers.
At this point, on 17 October 1905, Nicholas II was forced to grant the country a constitution. This gave Russians freedom of speech, assembly and association and established an elected parliament, the Duma, although the Tsar retained the right to appoint and dismiss ministers. It included an amnesty for all strikers.
During a meeting of the abstainers it became apparent that a dancer, Alexander Monakhov, had acted as a blackleg. Pavlova denounced him and Joseph slapped his face. Monakhov complained to Teliakovsky and Joseph was suspended. Teliakovsky accused the twelve delegates of deliberately defying authority and Joseph was dismissed for ‘imprudent actions as a rebel’.37
Mathilde later wrote that Kroupensky, Assistant Director of the Maryinsky, dismissed Joseph ‘for whom he had formed a hatred’, but it was for his revolutionary activities that her brother was dismissed.38 Sergei Michaelovich fought for Joseph’s pardon. There was an investigation but when Sergei spoke to Baron Frederiks he had not been informed of the result. ‘Yesterday I was talking to Frederiks and he told me that they received some information that the larger part of the group is on Kroupensky’s side and that Pavlova is to blame for the situation with Iouzia [Joseph]. He cannot even think about returning Iouzia to the post,’ Sergei told Mathilde. ‘None of my arguments were good for him. It looks like Teliakovsky persuaded him.’ Frederiks insisted these were just rumours and they had to wait for the result of the enquiry but ‘after this, in case of failure, Iouzia will have to make an application to a higher authority’.39
Joseph’s marriage had also collapsed. Sima had become a coryphée with the Imperial Ballet in 1903, performing character parts, but she was frequently ill or absent. Around that time she and Joseph were divorced and two years later Sima married Constantine Greaves, a Russian of British descent and a chamberlain at the Tsar’s court. He was a high official in the Russian Red Cross and although she was completely undomesticated Sima left the stage to work near him, helping to organise hospitals. She was decorated after being wounded while working near the front.
Although Bronislava Nijinska said that thanks to his sister’s friends at court Joseph did not lose his pension, for the moment he was out of the Maryinsky.
All this time Mathilde was receiving reports about the revolution and the barricades in the Moscow streets. Perhaps wisely in view of the volatile situation, she decided to remain in Cannes. The French Riviera, with its balmy air, orange and lemon groves, palm trees and mimosa, was on the same latitude as the Crimea. The Russian invasion of the Riviera began in the 1830s. The Grand Dukes gambled at the Cercle Nautique (one day seven of them turned up at once), where six bottles of vodka were always kept on ice for them. They drank the vodka from claret glasses.
It was fashionable to rent a villa, so Mathilde, Andrei and Misha moved to a small lodge in the hotel grounds and Mathilde sent for her valet, Vassili, and French chef Denis from St Petersburg. Until their arrival Mathilde’s party ate in the hotel dining-room, although at least once they decided to cook for themselves. They went to the butcher pretending to know which meat to buy. Returning home, Andrei prepared boeuf Stroganov – only to find that the ‘beef’ he had bought was veal.
Although she was on holiday with Andrei, all this time Sergei was transferring money for Mathilde’s expenses. ‘There is as much as Olga [Borkenhagen] had enough time to transfer in one hour,’ he told her in December. ‘They refused to transfer more. Because of the strike I was worried that I would not have time to send any and you would remain without money. I think you should calculate for how long you can use the rest of the money so I know when to transfer.’40
Mathilde and Andrei went out very little, although they did make an occasional excursion to Monte Carlo. On one of these trips they spotted Father Gapon, leader of the ‘Bloody Sunday’ march to the Winter Palace, playing roulette in the casino disguised as a Roumanian bishop.
Christmas was approaching and still Mathilde did not return home. Poor Sergei was desolate. ‘The holidays are getting closer. It is so difficult to spend them without you and Vova,’ he lamented. ‘There is not going to be a Christmas tree … This is my favourite holiday and I am crying like a baby.’ He instructed his sister Anastasia, who was staying on the Riviera, to send presents from him to Mathilde and Vova.41
Mathilde erected a tree for Vova and invited his playfellow, Rockefeller’s little niece, to join them. Only towards the spring of 1906, when Andrei was recalled to St Petersburg for the opening of the Duma, did Mathilde decide to return to Russia.
She had a new project to attend to in St Petersburg.
Eight
‘DANCED YOUR WAY TO A PALACE’
After the birth of Vova and the marriage of Julie, Mathilde decided to build a larger house. The plan began to take shape when on 6 April 1904 she acquired plots 1, 2 and 3 Kronversky Prospekt from the widow of Court Councillor O.L. Petrov for 88,000 roubles, equivalent to over half a million pounds today.
The plot on the corner of Kronversky Prospekt and Bolshoi Dvorianskaya Ulitsa was in the St Petersburg quarter, the better part of the city, away from the industrial area which had grown up near the English Prospekt. The Alexandrovsky Park was opposite and there was a view of the SS Peter and Paul Fortress. In the eighteenth century this was the city’s commercial and administrative centre. A modest wooden house owned by the wife of retired staff captain Artemevoy stood on the corner in the 1820s, passing in the 1860s to a merchant’s wife. The adjacent land with some two-storey wooden village houses was owned at that time by the wife of a state councillor. Both plots passed through several hands before the dawn of the twentieth century. With the opening of the Troitsky Bridge across the Neva in 1903 extensive redevelopment began in this quiet suburb on the city’s outskirts.1
Mathilde had been told that the expense of repairs to the old house was not justified and it would be cheaper to build a new one. She also wanted more room for Vova to grow up comfortably. The new plot allowed plenty of room for a spacious mansion in its own grounds.
The purchase of this land was kept secret. It was registered in the name of the nobleman A.E. Collins, Mathilde’s agent and trusted confidant. Although a note recorded that the site was bought ‘in reality with money belonging to the hereditary noblewoman Matilda Felixovna, Mme Kschessinska’, for the time being she did not want her acquisition of the land to be made public.2 A draft representation was made to the city office on 26 July 1904 and five days later approval was granted for the building of a two-storey and partly one-storey dwelling with a cellar and summer house.
The official documents were registered on 10 September 1905. The architect was Alexander von Gogen, architect to the Ministry of War, who had previously worked for the family of Grand Duke Vladimir. He was assisted by Alexander Samoilov and Alexander Dimitriev, who was responsible for many of the interiors. Von Gogen discussed the layout of the house and Mathilde indicated her preferences for the interior decoration, insisting on spacious rooms. Rough drawings were made and details were published in the journal Architect. While Mathilde was in Cannes Sergei told her that illustrations of the house had appeared in magazines, ‘not from the draft, but made by hand, because there are some imperfections. … Th
rough the magnifying glass you can see the double-headed eagle on the gates.’ The building was constructed at the end of 1905 and all the decorative works were finished by the following summer.3
When Mathilde returned from Cannes in the spring of 1906 the work was almost complete. In her memoirs, Mathilde said that the first stone was laid when she returned home. The documents prove otherwise. In fact she moved in around the time of the Russian Orthodox Christmas, January 1907. Perhaps she thought people would ask where the money had come from to build this new residence before she had sold her old house. Such questions would have been unwelcome. In the early 1900s Mathilde, Sergei and General Nicholas Kleigels, Prefect of St Petersburg, were alleged to be involved in some shady financial dealings. At the beginning of 1904 Kleigels, about to be impeached for embezzlement, was suddenly appointed Governor of Kiev.4
The house on the English Prospekt was sold to Prince Alexander Romanovsky, Duke of Leuchtenberg, a relative of the Tsar. ‘To sell my old house, presented to me by Nicky, was very painful … the house with which was combined the dearest memories and where I spent many, many happy days. But … all that reminded me of Nicky was still sad.’5
If this was the main reason Mathilde was getting rid of the house, it seems strange that she waited so long to do so. After ten years the memories of Nicholas surely must have faded. Was it only now, after the birth of the Tsarevich, that Mathilde realised that her ‘dear Nicky’ would never return? Or, as Princess Catherine Radziwill maintained, was this in fact when the final break with Nicholas occurred? ‘Nicholas continued to visit Mathilde after he was Tsar, supposedly on a friendly basis, and received good advice,’ wrote Prince David Chavchavadze.6 Mathilde always denied that she exercised any political influence and quite what advice she is supposed to have given the Tsar is unspecified.
At the moment there are no answers.
When Mathilde moved into Kronversky Prospekt No. 1 the work was not quite finished but, anxious to take possession of her new home, she urged von Gogen to hurry. The house, a supreme example of Petersburg modern style, Art Nouveau, was awarded a silver medal by the city office in 1907. Large wrought-iron gates led to a small south-facing front garden and the courtyard. Because the house was rather too close to Baron Brandt’s five-storey mansion, the entrance to Mathilde’s residence was at the side. There was no direct access from the street.
Mathilde liked to entertain in the grand manner and the interior reflected this. Parquet floors, large mirrors, crystal chandeliers and sconces – everything in the house was of the very best. The wall coverings, carpets, bronze light fittings, door and window latches were specially ordered from Paris, while the period furniture came from the famous dealers F & K Meltzer. From the gala entrance on the western side visitors entered a small wooden vestibule giving on to a spacious foyer. Ten white marble steps carpeted in red led up to the rotunda, in elegant grey and white marble with statues in the corner niches. Marble pillars separated this from the southern enfilade.
The large White Hall designed by Dimitriev, where Mathilde held receptions and sometimes concerts or rehearsals, had marble-topped consoles and Empire-style Karelian birch sofas and chairs, inlaid with ormolu. Their silk coverings, with a pattern of baskets and garlands of roses, had been imported from France. Silk damask covered the walls and the curtains were expensive velvet. ‘The fabrics in the room had cost some 3,000 roubles alone’, over £18,000 today.7 The hall led to the Winter Garden with many rare plants and flowers, whose three enormous windows looked out towards Kronversky Prospekt. Honeysuckle, ivy and wisteria grew along wooden trellis-work on the walls and in the centre of the floor a marble basin was surrounded by tall palms.
A small Louis XVI drawing room with yellow silk wall coverings adjoined the Winter Garden. In the northern enfilade was a large modern drawing room and a modern dining-room in fumed oak, which was in reality two wood-panelled rooms joined by a wide aperture. One was used as a breakfast room. There was also an office and, adjoining it, a billiard room. Mathilde always incorporated the latest technical novelties into her homes. Her telephone had the prestigiously low number of 414.8
The upper floor was significantly smaller, with fewer than a dozen rooms. Vova’s bedroom opened on to a small balcony overlooking Kronversky Prospekt. There was also a room for Olga Borkenhagen.
A small classical staircase of seventeen steps led from the foyer to Mathilde’s large bedroom. This and the adjoining dressing room were furnished in English chintz and these two rooms occupied almost a third of the space upstairs. The white furniture from Meltzers included a dressing table with a piece of valuable antique lace set under its glass top.
Mathilde was especially proud of her white marble bathroom, which ‘resembled a Grecian bathing pool’. The walls were inlaid with blue and silver mosaic and a large bath was sunk into the floor, reached by steps cut into the stonework. Around it hung transparent net curtains. The furniture, fittings and deep piled carpet were in blue and silver.9
The dressing room led to two large wardrobe rooms. One held Mathilde’s everyday clothes, the other her stage costumes. Mathilde was one of St Petersburg’s most elegant women, and her style was imitated by many. The young Edith Almedingen recalled her as ‘an elegant woman in deep rose velvet and a picture hat with pale ostrich feathers. The way she came in, stood talking to my aunt for a few minutes, drank a cup of tea, and went, were so many musical phrases. I watched her from my corner and thought she looked like a bird.’10
Mathilde’s full-length snow-white ermine coat and dark Russian sables were worth thousands of pounds. She had a passion for real lace trimming on her clothes. Her dresses were bought in Paris, often dozens at a time, all exquisite in their detail and decoration. Gowns in every conceivable colour, made of the finest silk and hand-embroidered, hung in rows all accompanied by hats in the latest Paris fashion. A morning gown in black satin, cut on the bias and trimmed with a leather belt to accentuate Mathilde’s slim figure, had delicate hand-stitched Puritan ruffs above a turn-down collar. There were gowns and theatre coats of metallic tissue and gowns of jewelled and embroidered gauze trimmed with velvet or fur.11
Mathilde often designed her own stage costumes (unless the subject was historical) and her tutus were frilled with real lace. They were contained in four enormous wardrobes, together with their accessories. Each wardrobe had its own numbered inventory and Mathilde had only to ask for a particular number for the costume to be produced.
In the basement was the magnificently equipped kitchen, under the supervision of Denis, who worked for Mathilde from 1905 to 1917. Mathilde often invited guests to admire the kitchen after a dinner party. Nearby was the wine cellar, an ice-house, the boiler room and a cold pantry where enough provisions were stored to cope with an impromptu supper or party. There was also a laundry.
Behind the western wing, through an archway in the courtyard, lay the service court containing the stables and the carriage house, which by 1917 also held two cars. In the barn nearby lived the animals – the cow, looked after by Katia the cow-hand, which provided fresh milk for Vova, and the little tame goat Djali when she was appearing with Mathilde in Esmeralda. In later years when they were joined by Vova’s pet pig Masha, the goat, the pig and Mathilde’s fox terrier could often be seen romping together in the garden.
Along the corridor to the left of the mansion’s main staircase was a room for the manservant, a cloakroom, a staff dining-room, pantry and rooms for the Dvornik (caretaker) Denisov, his wife and their two children. He joined the household in 1907 to keep the garden, the small summer house and the courtyard neat and clean. Besides Denisov the staff consisted of two personal maids for Mathilde, a valet for Vova, a housekeeper, two footmen, a pantry-man, the chef and two cooks, a scullery maid, dairymaid, boiler-man and a chauffeur. Mathilde ensured that her servants were well looked after. The maids lived in light, warm, comfortably furnished rooms and received a large salary, as well as additional rewards at Christmas and Easter.
&n
bsp; Estimates of the cost of the house range from half a million to a million roubles, at a time when one rouble would purchase a gross of eggs. There is some dispute as to where the money came from. Lydia Kyasht said it came from Grand Duke Sergei; while Kyrill Zinovieff and Prince David Chavchavadze both said the money came from Andrei. Maxim Gorky sniffed that she earned it ‘with leg-shaking and arm-swinging’12 and Mathilde was not pleased when verses circulated about her:
Like a bird you flew over the stage
And without sparing your legs
Danced your way to a palace.13
The best that can be said is that it was undoubtedly Romanov money. A story later circulated that it had been built by the Tsar, who had a secret passage constructed under the River Neva to link it with the Winter Palace opposite, so that he could visit Mathilde unnoticed.
Whichever Grand Duke paid the bill, its construction came at a bad time. After the opening of the Duma in 1906 the Grand Dukes began to worry that their status and wealth would be threatened by the new parliament and that their incomes from the Imperial appanages (millions of acres of Crown lands acquired by Catherine the Great to provide incomes for the Imperial family) would be eroded away. The Grand Dukes were in agreement that the appanages belonged to the whole Imperial house and when the Tsar decided to sell nearly two million acres of these Crown lands to the peasants he had to back down in the face of violent opposition from both his mother and Grand Duke Vladimir. Finally the Grand Dukes were reluctantly forced to agree to sell some of this land to the peasants.
The luxurious mansion was always a comfortable place where Mathilde could restore her physical strength and mental equilibrium. She liked any excuse for a party and soon gained a reputation as a considerate hostess. Until 1917 the house was the Mecca of artistic and cultural life of St Petersburg, a veritable palace from which Mathilde wielded huge social influence. Guests included the balletomane Michael Stakhovitch, the lawyer Basil Maklakov, Alexander Mossolov (head of the Court Chancellery), Léon Bakst, Alexandre Benois, Fokine, Petipa, Pavlova, Karsavina and Nijinsky, Carl Fabergé, Feodor Chaliapin, actors from the English Theatre, and the Italian singer Lina Cavalieri. A frequent visitor was Antonina Nesterovska (‘Nina’), a member of the ballet company. She came from a modest background but, Mathilde observed rather patronisingly, ‘carefully noted my way of living and entertaining … and soon adapted herself to her new milieu’.14 Mathilde also formed a rather unlikely friendship with Isadora Duncan, who became a regular guest whenever she was in Russia. Dressed in her Greek tunic held in place by a clasp which looked like an antique brooch, Isadora became especially amusing after supper when the wine flowed. The two women then argued cheerfully about the merits of their respective arts – one based on the technique of the classical school, the other on the dance steps and movements of ancient Greece. Sometimes Isadora brought the young pupils from her dancing school. Dressed in little pink tunics, the girls danced barefoot on a sheet spread out on Mathilde’s floor.
