Tsarina Alexandra posing in Tsar Nicholas II's uniform, 1896
The young Tsarina posing in her husband's Preobrazhensky uniform, with a cigarette.
The Tsar was coronated in May 1896 wearing the uniform of the Preobrazhensky Life Guards Regiment (slide 6), of which Nicholas II was a colonel, founded in 1690 by Tsar Peter (Pyotr) I. The uniform, alongside the coronation dress worn by Alexandra, have survived and have been beautifully preserved.
The photographs are from Tsar Nicholas’s 1896 diary preserved by GARF, and shared by George Hawkins in ‘Alexandra Feodorovna: Diaries and Correspondence: Volume III The Young Empress 1895 - 1905’
An illustration of Nicholas II wearing the Preobrazhensky uniform, published in the French publication Le monde illustré in 1901
Sources
📍📷 'A series of photos of Alexandra dressed in Nicholas's Preobrazhensky uniform, from Nicholas's 1896 diary. GARF 601-1-236' in Alexandra Feodorovna: Diaries and Correspondence: Volume III The Young Empress 1895 - 1905, translated by George Hawkins, (Independently published, 2024), pp. 37-38 — please credit this if you share on social media
📷 V. von Mengden, 'The Coronation Procession of Nicholas II, Emperor of Russia' (14 May 1896), platinum print, 18.0 x 23.0 cm, © Royal Collection Enterprises Limited 2025 | Royal Collection Trust
📷 Wikipedia / Shakko (Sofia Bagdasarova), 'Nicholas II's coronation uniform', (2013), Wikipedia Commons
📷 Anonymous, 'Illustration of Nicholas II', (1901), from Le monde illustré
