The Cellar - Jan 23rd, 2017: Winter Ball

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When the Russian Imperial family threw a party, they didn’t do “low key”. Even with a looming global economic crisis that would mark the beginning of the end for the Russian Empire, no expense was spared. If tsarist Russia was going down, they were going out with a bang. And so, in February of 1903, on the eve of revolution, they threw the most obscenely opulent event the world had ever seen.

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Nicholas’ brother-in-law, Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich recalled the occasion as “the last spectacular ball in the history of the empire…[but] a new and hostile Russia glared through the large windows of the palace…while we danced, the workers were striking and the clouds in the Far East were hanging dangerously low”.

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All of us appeared in seventeenth-century court dress. Nicky wore the dress of Alexis, the second Romanov Tsar, all raspberry, gold and silver, and some of the things were brought specially from the Kremlin. Alicky was just stunning. She was Maria Miloslavskaya, Alexis’s first wife. She wore a sarafan of gold brocade trimmed with emeralds and silver thread, and her earrings were so heavy that she could not bend her head.

Grand Duke Michael had asked his mother to lend him a big diamond clip to wear as an aigrette in his fur cap. The clip was of fabulous value; it had belonged to Emperor Paul I, and the Dowager Empress wore it very seldom. She lent it to her son most reluctantly.

And Michael lost it! It must have fallen off his cap while he was dancing. My mother and he were in despair – the clip being one of the crown jewels. All the halls at the palace were searched that very night. At dawn the detectives searched from basement to attic. The diamond clip was never found. “

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If they hadn't thrown this ball, the Russian royalty might have been exiled rather than murdered.

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