балеринка Вика

Asthall Manor, Oxfordshire

Russia! My astonished child's eyes see huge palaces, beautiful parks, fountains, gardens, amazing gatherings of relatives, military parades, religious services in churches glittering with gold, jewels so breathtaking you can hardly believe they are real [... ] My eyes also see long corridors, vestibules, and halls, of a size beyond compare, opening one into another, and our feet trotting timidly over wide stretches of floors, so unbounded and polished, that we seemed to walk on ice. And everywhere, a very characteristic smell: a mixture of turpentine, Russian leather and cigarette smoke, with a fragrance, unique in its own way, that distinguished the imperial palaces. Imperial is the right word, fantastic, like in fairy tales [...] every superlative is at its place in that Russia of the Tsars, that Russia full of splendour, which today is no more...

Liz Martinez | Bridal Fall 2025

Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna and Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna in the Finnish skerries, 7th June - 25th July 1911.

Moodboard: Aesthetic - Pink & Gold Angelic.  

Requested by: @ephemeral–ingenue. 

Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna with her necklace of diamonds and pearls on her birthday at the Livadia Palace, 3rd November 1911.

“That autumn was marked by a season of unusual gaiety in honor of the coming of age, at sixteen, of the Grand Duchess Olga, who received for the occasion a beautiful diamond ring and a necklace of diamonds and pearls. This gift of a necklace to the daughter of a Tsar when she became of age was traditional, but the expense of it to Alexandra Feodorovna, the mother of four daughters, was a matter of apprehension. Powerless to change the custom, even had she wished to do so, she tried to ease the burden on the treasury by a gradual accumulation of the jewls. By her request the necklaces, instead of being purchased outright when the young Grand Duchesses reached the age of sixteen, were collected stone by stone on their birthdays and name days. Thus at the coming-out ball of the Grand Duchess Olga she wore a necklace of thirty-two superb jewls which had been accumulating for her from her babyhood. It was a very charming ball that marked the introduction to society of the oldest daughter of the Tsar. Flushed and fair in her first long gown, something pink and filmy and of course very smart, Olga was as excited over her début as any other young girl. Her hair, blonde and abundant, was worn for the first time coiled up young-lady fashion, and she bore herself as the central figure of festivities with a modesty and a dignity which greatly pleased her parents. We danced in the great state dining room on the first floor, the glass doors to the courtyard thrown open, the music of unseen orchestra floating in from the rose garden like a breath of its own wonderous fragrance. It was a perfect night, clear and warm, and the gowns and the jewls of the women and the brilliant uniforms of the men made a striking spectacle under the blaze of electric lights. The ball ended in a cotillion and a sumptuous supper served on small tables in the ballroom.”

Vyrubova, A. (1923) Memories of the Russian court. London : Macmillan and Co., pp.43-44.