Imperial Dancer: Mathilde Kschessinska and the Romanovs (40 page)

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.

Early in April HMS
Montrose
arrived bringing Commander Goldschmidt and an armed escort, sent by the Commander of the Black Sea Squadron. Unsure of whether the port was held by the Bolsheviks or the Whites, Goldschmidt’s orders were to find the Grand Duchess and her son and bring them to Constantinople if they were in danger. Once more Miechen refused to leave, stressing that she would not consider abandoning her country unless it proved to be really necessary. That time had not come. It was arranged that in case of danger someone should telegraph Novorossisk where a British warship was stationed and Commander Goldschmidt would be back within two days. Over tea on the
Montrose
(an invitation which the
Grand Duchess declined because her legs were very weak) Andrei and Commander Goldschmidt discussed whether the Tsar was really dead, or whether the rumours were Bolshevik disinformation. Andrei had no information but the Commander insisted on drinking the Tsar’s health; Andrei later told Mathilde that he had the feeling the British Commander was prohibited from saying what he really knew about Nicholas’s fate.

With the situation still uncertain, Mathilde sent for Ivan and Ludmilla. They had rescued almost everything left behind in the Beliaievsky Villa at Kislovodsk, so they brought some essentials. Mathilde then lent Ivan to the Grand Duchess, who was without a manservant. His wife Elizabeth became Miechen’s cook.

After seven months they left Anapa on 6 June with an escort of General Pokrovsky’s personal guard. At Tonnelnaïa Station two carriages were reserved on the train. At every stop on the two-hour journey to Kislovodsk their Cossack guards leapt out on to the platform to prevent anyone from entering the carriages.

After numerous complications they arrived back in Kislovodsk at 3 o’clock in the morning of 8 June. Mathilde, Vova, Julie and Ali moved back into the Beliaievsky Villa and resumed a fairly normal life. One day at a second-hand dealer’s Mathilde spotted the solid-silver ladle presented for her 25th anniversary on the stage and a crystal sugar basin with a silver rim made by Fabergé, presented for her 1911 jubilee. They were returned to her by the dealer.

For six months Mathilde lived in hope and expectation that the White Army would crush what she called ‘the rebelling rabble’
¹⁴
and they could return to their Petrograd homes. At the end of June General Denikin’s army drove the Bolsheviks out of the Ukraine and freed the Crimea. By August he had captured Odessa and the following month had advanced to within 250 miles of Moscow. Every day Mathilde expected to hear of the capital’s fall.

Then October brought a Bolshevik counter-offensive. The following month Kiev fell to the Bolsheviks and Denikin’s army ceased to be an effective force.

In December the situation became critical. With the Bolsheviks about to invade the Caucasus it was decided that the Grand Ducal party would go to Novorossisk, from where they could flee abroad if the Bolsheviks closed in. The nervous tension was palpable as the next few days were spent in feverish preparations for departure. Kube died
of typhus at the age of only thirty-eight and the day before they were due to leave Julie fell ill with typhoid, but they had to go. In the panic Andrei’s diary was left behind.

They arrived at the station soon after 11 o’clock on 30 December/12 January. A first-class coach had been reserved for Andrei, the Grand Duchess, a few members of her suite and their families. Andrei gallantly gave up his compartment to Julie and moved into the third-class carriage with Mathilde, Vova and the other refugees. Ivan had brought a small stove and Elizabeth cooked their meals. They spent twelve hours sitting on hard wooden benches before the train was able to leave Kislovodsk. As they pulled out the next morning refugees clung desperately to the side of the carriage, begging to be taken on board. At every stop the panic was the same. Everyone was trying to flee from the Bolsheviks.

At 3 o’clock the next afternoon they pulled into Mineralnyi Vody Station. There, for reasons unknown, they remained for several hours. To reach Rostov and then Novorossisk meant passing through four different states, each with different laws, prices and even police. Without huge bribes it was impossible to get very far. By the Old Style Russian Calendar (which Mathilde and her party were still using) it was 31 December.

It was a depressing way to celebrate New Year’s Eve. Someone produced a bottle of champagne. Mathilde and Andrei drank to the coming year, still sitting on their hard benches. But nothing could hide their despondency. Nobody knew what the future held.

As 1920 dawned it became obvious that the White Army had lost the civil war. There was nothing for the remaining Romanovs to do but flee.

After sitting in the train at Mineralnyi Vody for several hours they finally moved on, reaching Novorossisk at 9 o’clock on 4/17 January. Described by Baedeker as ‘a pleasantly situated seaport’, it was a popular bathing resort in summer. In winter it was exposed to storms from winds resembling the Bora, the north-east wind in the upper Adriatic.

Advised by General Wrangel that the situation was hopeless, the Grand Duchess finally agreed to leave Russia. Mathilde did not want to leave and continued to hope for better news. As the weather grew colder, they lived in a corner of the railway yard while awaiting passage on a suitable ship. ‘Although it was about the filthiest place I have ever seen, it was also about the most favourable situation in town,’ recalled an American special agent. ‘Grand Duke Andrei, with his son of oddly
indefinite parentage and said son’s mother, a famous ballerina in her day, likewise lived for months in a tiny railroad carriage on the opposite side of our mud hole.’
¹⁵
Although the servants sawed up old telegraph poles strewn on the ground, getting any form of heating into the carriage proved nearly impossible. Meals often consisted of soup and black bread, they slept how and when they could and sanitary arrangements were non-existent. All the time an icy wind blew around the train.

It proved almost impossible to find a boat sailing direct to Italy or France. Either the boats were too small, were going no further than Turkey (where they would have to stay while obtaining a visa for further passage), asked exorbitant fares or had typhus on board. Typhus was raging through the town and as the crowded ambulance trains arrived there was great risk of infection. Julie, luckily, had recovered. So they waited in the uncomfortable carriage. Soon after they arrived Miechen received a visit from her niece Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, the Tsar’s sister. Olga was staying at the Danish consulate with her husband and two young sons. Later she said she was ‘amazed’ to see her aunt in a first-class railway carriage surrounded by her own staff. ‘There had never been much love between Aunt Miechen and my own family,’ Olga wrote,

but I felt rather proud of her. … When even generals found themselves lucky to find a horse cart and an old nag to bring them to safety, Aunt Miechen made a long journey in her own train. It was battered all right – but it was hers. For the first time in my life I found it was a pleasure to kiss her.
¹⁶

General Tikmenev, Inspector General of the Railways, heard about Mathilde’s plight and arranged for her to have a saloon coach with proper beds, a clean lavatory and electricity. After the previous hardships it was almost luxurious. Food was running short in the town but sometimes Andrei was able to obtain biscuits, cocoa and other luxuries from the British canteen.

After six interminable weeks the
Semiramisa
, an Italian liner from the Lloyd-Trestino line, arrived in port bound for Venice. It was an opportunity not to be lost. The Grand Duchess paid their fares by using a valuable brooch as security.

They embarked on 13/26 February 1920, by the Old Style Calendar the anniversary of Mathilde’s benefit performances. Then she had taken luxury for granted; now the sight of a first-class cabin,
hairdressing salon and a dinner table with clean napkins, glasses and sparkling cutlery seemed like something from ‘another world’.
¹⁷
Although ashamed at sitting down to dinner in their shabby clothes, they had finally returned to civilised life. At last they were safe from the Bolsheviks.

The
Semiramisa
cast anchor on 3 March, moving slowly through the boats in the harbour and out into the open sea. Mathilde, Andrei and Vova stood on deck, watching through their tears as the lights of Novorossisk grew fainter and fainter. It was all the harder for Andrei as he was appearing for the last time in uniform, which he would not be entitled to wear in exile.

The ship sailed down the Black Sea coast past Touapse, Poti and Batum and as it turned along the north Turkish coast Mathilde knew that they had left Russia behind.

‘We were leaving part of ourselves in Russia, part of our lives, our hearts’, she wrote many years later. ‘Of all the trials we had endured … this was without doubt the bitterest and most painful.’
¹⁸

*
Mathilde and her party continued to use the Old Style calendar. Dates will now be given New Style. In certain instances, to avoid confusion, both sets of dates will be given until the end of this chapter.

Fourteen

‘M
ADAME
17’

T
he
Semiramisa
entered the Bosphorus on 12 March and anchored in a designated quarantine area. The passengers were taken ashore with their luggage and led to decontamination rooms where they were asked to undress. The Grand Duchess refused. Apart from money and jewellery, which they were allowed to keep in a parcel, everything was fumigated and they were sent to the showers before being allowed back on board the ship. This process took nearly all day.

After an inspection by officials from the health department they anchored in Constantinople harbour. There were many Russian ships and the narrow Straits were crowded with refugees. Mathilde took advantage of their three-day stay to see the Bazaar and Hagia Sophia. Walking round Constantinople she met Lili Likhatcheva, with whom she had stayed briefly after the February revolution. They celebrated the eve of Mathilde’s name day with champagne. When their French visas arrived she sent a telegram to Villa Alam announcing their imminent arrival.

On Thursday 18 March they left on the
Semiramisa
for Piraeus. In Greece Mathilde remained on board but Vova joined a group who were driving to Athens to see the Acropolis.

They reached Venice at sunset on 23 March. The sight of the city shimmering in the last rays of the sun and the sound of the church bells wafting in the breeze was magical. Nineteen years earlier Mathilde and Andrei had visited Venice as young lovers. Now they decided to have dinner at Il Vapore, the restaurant where they dined in those halcyon days.

It took courage to enter in their shabby clothes and even at the most secluded table seventeen-year-old Vova flatly refused to remove his overcoat because his suit was so frayed and worn. While they studied the menu, wondering anxiously if they had enough money to pay for a meal and wine, Andrei placed his Fabergé cigarette case conspicuously on the table. This raised their confidence and after some careful calculations they enjoyed a good meal with a bottle of Asti spumante.

When they left the
Semiramisa
the following day Mathilde presented the captain with a pair of Fabergé cufflinks. Mathilde was now a stateless refugee. All she had was a Nansen passport, named after the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen, High Commissioner for Refugee Affairs at the League of Nations. Vladimir Nabokov called it ‘a very inferior document of a sickly green hue, its holder little better than a criminal on parole who had to go through the most hideous ordeals every time he wished to travel from one country to another.’
¹

The Russian consul in Venice procured a special train for the Grand Duchess on which they all travelled to the South of France. That evening they dined at the station in Milan and the following day the train crossed the French frontier at Ventimiglia. While Andrei accompanied his mother to Cannes, the others went to Cap d’Ail where the Grand Duke would join them later.

Although Mathilde had sent a second telegram from Brindisi stating the exact day of their arrival, there was no one to meet them at Cap d’Ail. Vova ran on ahead while Mathilde, Julie, Ali, Ludmilla, Ivan and Elizabeth waited anxiously with the luggage. Mathilde had received no news of the villa since before the war and now did not know what to expect.

Vova soon came running back. Antoinette, Mathilde’s kitchen maid, said that the villa had been put in order as soon as the first telegram arrived – but the second had never reached them so they had no idea when she was coming. Margot was working in the neighbouring villa and Arnold had managed to leave Russia.