19 May 2026: Deputising for His Majesty, Crown Prince Hussein attended the graduation of the 34th class of the Mutah University military wing.

Upon arrival, the Crown Prince was received by Prince Feisal bin Al Hussein, Prince Hashim bin Al Hussein, and Prince Rashid bin El Hassan, as well as Prime Minister and Defence Minister Jafar Hassan, Royal Hashemite Court Chief Yousef Issawi, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Maj. Gen. Yousef Huneiti, Public Security Directorate Director Maj. Gen. Obeidallah Maaytah, and Mutah University President Salameh Naimat.

During the ceremony, His Royal Highness presented prizes to the top achievers.

OTMA Shoes Alert (sort of)

I recently came across a listing from a Russian seller offering a pair of pre-revolutionary women’s ballroom shoes from Henry Weiss, identified as Supplier to the Imperial Court.

In fact, Henri (Heinrich) Karlovich Weiss (Генрих Карлович Вейсс) was one of the leading luxury shoemakers of late Imperial Russia and indeed an official Supplier to the Imperial Court. Based in St. Petersburg, his flagship shop operated at 66 Nevsky Prospect, one of the city's most prestigious commercial addresses.

By the turn of the twentieth century, Weiss had built a reputation for high-quality bespoke footwear, maintaining workshops and a factory that served elite clientele.  The firm operated until 1917, when the revolution ended it along with everything else on the Nevsky.

His firm supplied shoes to members of the Romanov family, including Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and her children, and appears in surviving Imperial Court expense records. 

The bills for Grand Duchess Maria in 1909 show forty pairs delivered in a single year fabric pumps and kid leather flats for indoor use at 14 to 18 roubles a pair, white canvas shoes with a leather sole at 16 roubles, rubber galoshes at 2 roubles 25 kopecks, and white felt fur-lined overshoes at 60 roubles. Hardware — buckles, lasts, insoles — was billed separately. In 1910, Weiss charged Maria's account twice: 742 roubles in January and 815 roubles later in the year, for 33 pairs.

The same supplier served all four sisters. Each paid her own account; each received her own deliveries. The total annual throughput from Weiss's workshop across Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia was likely in the region of 6,000 roubles - the equivalent, at the wage rates of the time, of several years' earnings for a skilled St. Petersburg tradesman.

Early photographs show the sisters (and Alexei) in simple white leather slippers with silk pompoms, worn with ankle socks.

By their teens the range had expanded. Weiss supplied flats and pumps - fabric malieras in white, black, yellow, bronze, and pink kid - priced at 14 to 18 roubles a pair. White canvas shoes with a leather sole came to 16 roubles. Based on the gold-standard exchange rate of the period adjusted for inflation, that puts a single pair at roughly $225–$290 / €205–€265 in today's money. 

Here's an example of a pair of flats worn by Anastasia when she was around 8 years old:

And a pair worn by Olga - and Olga in 1909:

The girls also wore small pumps, predominately starting from the age of 12:

The girls appear to have had Weiss shoes across five colors, the palette across pumps and flats being specifically: white, black, yellow, bronze, and pink - with white by far the most frequently photographed and presumably most frequently worn.

Yellow kid appears frequently in late imperial Russian women's footwear as a warm cream-gold tone rather than a bright yellow, closer to what we'd call champagne or ecru today.

 Pink suggests occasion wear while Black covered formal and everyday indoor / outdoor occasions.

Not surprisingly, Alexandra was seen often wearing the same style. Photographs show her in pale, flat, pointed-toe shoes in exactly the same family as those Weiss supplied to the girls — light kid or fabric, low to the ground, the same silhouette from mother to daughters. 

"The King [Edward IV] was wedded to Elisabeth Gray [Elizabeth Woodville], widow, the which Sir John Gray that was her husband was slain at York field in king Harry's party, and the same Elisabeth was daughter to the Lord Rivers, and the wedding was privately in a secret place, the first day of May the year above said [May 1, 1464]"