by Coryne Hall
Mathilde obtained a permit to go out at night, but this was becoming increasingly dangerous. Once a sentry threatened to shoot Mathilde and her escort in the back if they did not hurry. Another time she and a prosperous-looking companion were followed. After seeing Mathilde safely home her escort was mugged and beaten up. She then stopped going out at night.
Regular house searches took place. One soldier asked to see Mathilde’s passport, then proceeded to examine it upside down. She snatched it back indignantly. Early one June morning, after one such search, Mathilde learnt that they were looking for Grand Duke Michael, who was rumoured to have escaped from Perm and reached the Caucasus.
As these searches generally led to the confiscation of valuables, Mathilde and the other ladies were forced to be more and more ingenious in hiding jewellery and silver. Once a particular hiding place was discovered in one house it was then checked everywhere. The underside of trunks or chests, pots of face cream, all gave up their secrets and nowhere was safe. Mathilde hid banknotes under the upper window frames of the ground floor and jewels in the hollow leg of her bed, attached to a string so that they could be easily removed. Her emerald necklace, with stones the size of pigeons’ eggs, was concealed in a potted plant which she took everywhere. When each plant died another took its place.
More and more armoured trains arrived from Piatigorsk packed with soldiers. The searches and arrests continued and Mathilde and her set lived in perpetual fear.
Early on 27 June volleys of shots echoed around Kislovodsk as a squadron of mounted Kuban Cossacks, known as ‘the Wolves’, rode through the town. They were led by Colonel Andrei Shkuro, a brigand in a wolf-skin cap with the red, white and blue ribbon of the Volunteer Army on his coat. He and his band of partisans supported themselves by looting and their notorious reputation for atrocities and debauchery had led whole towns to surrender without fighting. Rumours that they had routed the Bolsheviks proved to be false. It was merely a raid. Bolsheviks soon roamed the streets once more and anyone suspected of harbouring Cossack sympathies was arrested. Among them was Boris, who after some hours was luckily released.
Letters arrived intermittently from Sergei, from which they learnt that on 30 April he, his secretary and the other members of the family had been moved to Ekaterinburg and housed in a suite in the Palais Royale Hotel on Vosnesensky Prospekt. The Tsarina’s sister Grand Duchess Elisabeth had joined them and they were allowed a certain amount of freedom. Although the Tsar and Tsarina were in the nearby Ipatiev House they were unable to make contact.
Mathilde received several postcards and a letter from Sergei in Ekaterinburg. In July a telegram dated 14 June arrived for Vova’s birthday. Sergei and the others were now at Alapayevsk, where they were put on a prison regime in the Napolnaya School. Then in mid-July the Bolshevik radio announced that the members of the Imperial family at Alapayevsk had been carried off by the Whites. Mathilde was overjoyed.
At the end of July children ran through Kislovodsk selling printed sheets and shouting ‘murder of the Imperial family!’8 The story quickly spread that the Tsar and his family had been shot at Ekaterinburg. Mathilde was stunned into disbelief, hoping it was just another Bolshevik rumour. In fact it was the beginning of a nightmare.
On 20 August Mathilde was informed by Lydia Davydova that Boris and Andrei had been arrested during the night after a systematic search of their villa. Accompanied by Kube, who insisted on going with Andrei, they had been taken to Piatigorsk with other prisoners. Mathilde was warned to stay at home because she was also in danger of arrest. Lydia stressed that everything was being done to secure the Grand Dukes’ freedom. Lydia was able to visit Boris and Andrei at the State Hotel in Piatigorsk where they were detained, to assure them that she had appealed to Commissar Lestchinsky, a personal friend. He had refused her bribe of jewellery but promised to do all he could. After a lot of haggling with the local Soviet, who wanted to shoot them, Lestchinsky obtained their freedom.
They owed their lives to a lucky chance. Boris had once bought some pictures from a struggling artist in Paris – this man was now the Bolshevik commander. Lestchinsky returned them to their villa the next day with an escort of his own men because he did not trust the local soldiers. Even at the last minute the Piatigorsk soldiers were still unwilling to let them go without an order from the local Soviet.
Back at the villa Lestchinsky set up a guard of his own men and advised the Grand Dukes not to go out as their safety could not be guaranteed. The next day Kube was freed from the local prison. Lestchinsky strongly advised them to flee into the mountains before the Piatigorsk Soviet had them re-arrested. It would be more difficult for him to intervene a second time.
Armed with false papers provided by Lestchinsky, which stated they were on the business of the Soviet, Boris, Andrei and Kube left on 26 August. In a two-horse brake they headed for the Kabarda where the chief Circassian tribe, the Kabards, lived on the north slope of the mountain. They wandered at first from village to village but finally Andrei found a trustworthy man who promised to let Mathilde know where they were. Although she could not communicate with Andrei, Mathilde was relieved to know he was safe, yet it has never been explained why she was not arrested.
In late September Shkuro captured Kislovodsk and the Bolsheviks fled. The townspeople were able to live in peace again – but not for long. On 5 October rumours circulated that the Cossacks had left. Mathilde and her party were advised to go at once to the Grand Hotel, from where they were sent on a wagon to join other fugitives at Piatnitzky Market. It was a false alarm. The Bolsheviks had been repelled. Shkuro told everyone to return home but they kept their bags packed. To Mathilde’s delight Andrei returned with Boris and Kube the following night, escorted by a party of nobles from the Kabarda.
Two days later they all had to flee. Civil war was raging between the ‘Reds’ (Bolsheviks) and the ‘White’ Volunteer Army formed early in 1918, which comprised monarchists, former members of the Tsar’s army, even republicans – anyone, in fact, whose goal was to overthrow the Bolshevik regime.9 In this atmosphere Mathilde, Vova, Julie, Ali, Zina and her companion Marie were taken to Piatnitzky Market in a wagon. Andrei and Boris arrived in their own car. Andrei joined Mathilde and Vova on the crowded wagon, Boris and Zina used another wagon, while Julie and Ali (who may have been unwell) were given the use of the Grand Ducal car. Presumably the Grand Duchess travelled in a separate vehicle. Most of their possessions were left in Kislovodsk with Ludmilla and Ivan. All around refugees were fleeing, some on foot, carrying everything they could salvage. When the Bolsheviks arrived a week later they took 101 people into the mountains and shot them in front of an open grave.
Shkuro instructed the group to take the road to Tambiev. In a mountainous area, where travelling was always difficult unless travellers stuck to the railways or the carriage route, Mathilde and her companions faced an arduous journey. The 1914 Baedeker guide advised that the best method of travel was on horseback as the only vehicle procurable was the primitive Telega, a four-wheeled cart without springs. Those who intended to leave the beaten track should bring with them everything from rugs and a lantern, to bread, tea, soap, insect repellent and writing materials. Baedeker, of course, gave no advice about how to cope when fleeing from the Bolsheviks in a civil war. Luckily Andrei had brought some blankets.
In autumn the days were short, the nights cold. Among the refugees was an old friend from Strelna days, Boris Gartmann, whose wife Princess Marie Bielosselsky had been paralysed while still young. She lay helpless in a wagon, never losing hope, her courage never faltering, neither under Bolshevik fire nor torrential rain. Nor did Mathilde’s courage fail through all the hardships of the journey, and when she wrote her memoirs of this period they were neither bitter nor gloomy.
On the way the convoy came under heavy shelling from a Bolshevik battery. The refugees scattered in panic and when they reached Tambiev that evening people began frantically searching for their friends and relatives. Mathilde and Vova sp
ent the night in the wagon, huddled in blankets.
Shkuro’s arrival boosted morale and late in the afternoon they set off towards Bekchevska, a Cossack village of 17,800 inhabitants in 1914. They reached the village without incident but the Bolsheviks were nearby. After a stay of two days they headed for Baltapachinska, travelling through the night across the steppe, with no roads, trying to find the track as best they could, in constant fear for their lives. Shkuro’s forces were few, although luckily the Bolsheviks did not know this. When the refugees heard singing in the distance they had no idea whether it was from Reds or Whites. Arriving at Baltapachinska on 15 October, Mathilde’s first thought was to clean up in the local banya. Kube downed several glasses of cognac.
At Baltapachinska there was good news. Shkuro had secured a country radio-telegraph station through which he learnt that General Michael Pokrovsky’s White Army was coming to their aid. The sight of a sotnia – a squadron of Kuban Cossacks from the Tsar’s escort – with the double-headed eagle on its golden banner glinting in the sun, lifted everyone’s spirits. The local people gave a dinner in the general’s honour to which Andrei and Boris were invited, so delighted were they that the Bolsheviks had been driven from their village.
Winter was approaching and they now had to decide where to stay until the whole of the southern Caucasus became quiet again. General Pokrovsky advised them to go to the coastal town of Anapa where things were reasonably calm. Shkuro assigned Vladimir Lazarev, who Mathilde had met at a masked ball in St Petersburg many years earlier, to be the Grand Duchess’s bodyguard.
On 1 November, with a Cossack escort provided by the general, commanded by an officer called Miatch, the Grand Ducal party and a band of refugees set off in wagons for Popountnaia – only to discover that the Bolsheviks had attacked this village the previous day. After a restless night they quickly moved on. At Labinska, which boasted quite modern-looking stone houses, Mathilde, Vova, Julie, Ali and Zina were given tea and a decent meal by a local family while they waited for their train. One of the daughters produced an illustrated magazine with a photograph of Prince Troubetzkoy’s statuette of Kschessinska and began to tell them all about this famous ballerina. When Mathilde revealed her identity the girl was overjoyed. The family was less happy when Andrei and Boris walked in, fearing reprisals if the Bolsheviks returned.
Apart from one small incident when Andrei lost his sword (which was later found and returned), the train reached the Black Sea port of Touapse at dawn on 3 November without trouble. At the station was a policeman wearing his old Tsarist uniform. The sight was so unexpected that many of the refugees kissed him. Mathilde and Zina had a good wash and then went off to the local market, remembering happier times when they went shopping together in Paris.
The boat, the Taifoun, was small and many of the refugees stood hesitantly on the pier certain that the Grand Duchess would never embark on such a vessel. Marie Pavlovna looked at the boat and the crowd of reluctant refugees. ‘What a wonderfully picturesque setting!’ she declared,10 acknowledging the captain’s welcome as if she was at a Winter Palace reception. While the indomitable Miechen sat in a deckchair on the bridge, everyone else hurried to climb aboard.
The Grand Duchess was naturally given use of the three cabins. Mathilde was not so lucky. She was crammed in among the ninety-six refugees who tried to snatch some sleep on the bridge. Although the sea was calm, the night was pitch black and with none of the lighthouses working it was difficult to steer a course. There was also danger from the mines that littered the Black Sea. Nevertheless, Mathilde slept soundly, awoken only by a man tripping over everyone as he tried to go to the lavatory. After the tension of the past few days the whole boat broke into laughter.
It was impossible to land in the dark, so the captain continued 30 miles north-west along the Black Sea coast past Novorossisk to Anapa, near the Kerch Straits which separated the Caucasus from the neighbouring Crimea. Here the Grand Duchess and her party landed at dawn on 4 November.
Anapa was originally a fortress built by the French in 1781 for Sultan Abdul Hamid and finally dismantled when the area came under Russian occupation in 1860. The town was now a bathing resort with a sanatorium. Anapa had only recently been liberated from the Bolsheviks and there was frequent danger of attacks from partisans, who struck in areas unprotected by the few White soldiers who could be spared.
While Miatch went to find the local commander, establish how the land lay and find them somewhere to stay, Mathilde and her companions (including the Grand Duchess) sat on their trunks on the deserted jetty. When Miatch returned over an hour later he reported that the situation was calm and there was no danger. A house loaned by a retired general was available for the Grand Duchess and her sons, while the others were advised to stay at the town’s only hotel.
Mathilde’s party, with Boris’s ADC Captain Hanykov, set off for the Metropole Hotel. The rooms were passable, reasonably clean, with adequate but not particularly comfortable furnishings. Although the building had been ransacked by the Bolsheviks and the lavatories were frozen, Mathilde and Vova were glad to have a roof over their heads.
For breakfast they bought Caucasian rolls (tchourek), which were washed down with Greek coffee at a nearby house with pictures of the Greek royal family decorating the walls. Only on Sundays did they allow themselves the luxury of two glasses of coffee each. During the morning Mathilde’s first stop was the jetty to see if a boat was in and to learn the latest news. Then she went to the market, where pretty silverware was sold at knock-down prices. At first they lunched at Chez Simon but money was short and they abandoned the restaurant for a small pension. Every day they ate bitki (meatballs), the cheapest and most filling item on the menu. Only Vova was allowed something better. Kind-hearted as always, Mathilde tried to find scraps of food for the town’s stray dogs.
Andrei and Boris visited Mathilde every day to drink tea and eat zakuskee. Vladimir Lazarev entertained them by drawing sketches. Mathilde had fled from Kislovodsk with just two dresses – a black velvet bodice with the skirt Katia had unpicked and later returned (now red and worn at the knees), and a more elaborate dress for special occasions.
The town’s electricity was cut off at 10 o’clock every night. Mathilde bought candles from the church (the only place they could be obtained) and fixed one into the washbasin. Her fear of the dark was not helped when the father of the hotel’s owner died in the adjoining room and frequent Panikhidas (masses for the dead) were held.
In the autumn of 1918 a virulent strain of influenza swept across Europe. Striking with amazing speed, victims were often dead within hours. When sixteen-year-old Vova caught it Mathilde was frantic. Luckily one of the doctors from Petrograd, Dr Kouptchik, was in town and cured Vova.
Determined to keep in shape Mathilde did her ballet exercises, dressed her hair and even managed to find a masseuse for a modest fee. The masseuse, Blum, was Jewish and had only returned to Russia after the Revolution. The two women enjoyed heated political discussions. Despite the fact that they had very different political opinions, Mathilde finally won Blum round and they became such firm friends that the masseuse stopped accepting payment and even agreed to meet Andrei. Blum gave Mathilde a plant, which she succeeded in bringing out of Russia and kept for many years as a memento of the strange friendship between the women – one the mistress of a Grand Duke, the other a personal friend of Lenin.
In November 1918 the British cruiser Liverpool and the French Ernest Renan anchored off Novorossisk. Almost simultaneously came news of the fall of the German and Austro-Hungarian empires, the armistice and the end of the war. Just before Christmas General Poole arrived in Anapa, with an offer from the British government to convey Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna abroad. The indomitable Grand Duchess refused to leave, believing she was quite safe. He then suggested that Andrei join General Denikin’s Volunteer White Army but Miechen turned down this proposal as well, saying that they had not remained in Russia to take part in a civil war. Andrei had approac
hed Denikin but was turned down. The presence of Romanovs in the White Army was ‘undesirable’.11
Queen Marie of Roumania wanted to bring them to Roumania but departure was postponed indefinitely because of the difficulties of travelling. Besides, the Grand Duchess was adamant that she would not bring ‘the harem’ to Roumania, and Mathilde ‘absolutely refused’ to leave Russia without Andrei.12
On New Year’s Eve rumours reached Anapa that Grand Duke Sergei and the Romanovs imprisoned with him had been killed at Alapayevsk. Although Mathilde continued to receive messages which led her to believe Sergei was still alive, there was now ‘cruel uncertainty’ as to his fate.13
It was not a good omen for the New Year.
By March 1919 the Bolsheviks were closing in on the Crimea and the Romanovs there (who included the Dowager Empress and her daughter Xenia) were preparing to evacuate. In the Caucasus, to Miechen’s distress, Boris and Zina also decided to leave but no amount of persuasion would induce the Grand Duchess to go. With the fate of Nicholas II, his son and his brother Michael still uncertain, Miechen was ready to sacrifice everything while there was a chance that Cyril could become Tsar. Cyril and his family were in Finland and although communication was difficult, it was certainly not impossible, and it seems that his mother was able to keep in contact. Andrei remained with his mother and beside him was Mathilde.
Mathilde found two rooms in a priest’s house, one for herself and Vova, the other for Julie and Ali. Father Temnomerov’s son was the same age as Vova. One evening he entertained them with a conjuring show and at Easter he modelled a bust of the Tsar from butter. Less welcome entertainment was provided by killing the many cockroaches and other bugs which appeared every night in the bedroom.
