Month: October 2026

Pink Drawing Room of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna opens in the Livadia Palace

Posted on by Paul Gilbert

The Livadia Palace Museum has announced the opening of the Pink Drawing Room of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. The room was designed by the famous Russian-Serbian architect Nikolai Petrovich Krasnov (1864-1939). The room was part of a suite of rooms for visiting guests and family members who came to stay at the Imperial Family’s imean residence.

The opening of the Pink Drawing Room is part of a large-scale restoration of the Livadia Palace and Park, announced in April of this year. Recall that on 26th June 2026, Nicholas II’s Italian Corridor was opened to visitors for the first time in 15 years. The museum also has plans to restore other interiors of the Imperial Family, including Nicholas II’s Study.

PHOTO: partial view of he Pink Drawing Room of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna

PHOTO: bust-profile of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna

“Everything in the Empress’s Pink Drawing Room is simple and at the same time exquisite: the interior was originally designed in the style of Louis XV and we have tried to replicate this. We have tried to present the warm and cozy interior of a large Russian, hospitable family. The room was conceived specifically for the comfort of members of the Imperial Family and other guests who were invited to Livadia by special invitation. Today this room reflects one of the most intimate and informal aspects of the life of the Imperial Family in Livadia,” said the Director of the Livadia Palace Museum Larysa Kovalchuk

The Pink Drawing Room is located next to the former guest bedroom. During the early 20th century, guests included Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, sister of Emperor Nicholas II, who stayed here in 1913, and Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, sister of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and later abbess of the Martha and Mary Convent (Moscow), who stayed here in 1912.

PHOTO: framed photographs of the Imperial Family

PHOTO: rare album with photos of Livadia Palace and Park during the 20th century

Other guests included Grand Duke of Hesse Ernst-Ludwig, the brother of the Empress, and the Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich, the son of Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich, who stayed at Livadia in 1912 and 1914. Dmitry was a family favourite, both Nicholas II and Alexandra treated him like an adopted son. His fame in Russian society was so great that after the revolution, these guest rooms were named after him.

The interior of the Pink Drawing Room features framed family photographs and portraits. Among them are truly unique exhibits donated to the museum specifically for this interior: photographs of Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich in Livadia and on the eve of the First World War, an equestrian portrait and amateur photos of the Grand Duke from the collection of Russian historian Dmitry Matlin, who now serves as chairman of the Alexander II Historical Society in St. Petersburg.

In addition, visitors can see a unique autographed portrait of Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, a photograph of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna with her son Tsesarevich Alexei, as well as numerous photographs of Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, in some of which she appears in the vestments of a sister of mercy.

PHOTO: the Private Balcony of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna

The excursion route in the Livadia Palace now combines the Pink Drawing Room and the Private Balcony of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, which was opened to visitors for the first time in July 2026. It is complemented by an audio guide created on the basis of the correspondence of the Imperial Family and the testimonies of Russian historians.

Earlier this year, the Livadia Palace-Museum released a new Russian-language guidebook for visitors. The 88-page book explores the history of the palace, it’s interiors and it’s Auguest residents.

Following the construction of the new White Palace at Livadia in 1911, Nicholas II and his family visited Livadia in the autumn of 1911 and 1913 and in the spring of 1912 and 1914, where they took up residence for several months at a time.

© Paul Gilbert. 4 October 2026

New bust-monument to Nicholas II installed in Syktyvkar

Posted on by Paul Gilbert

On 2nd October 2026, busts of Emperor Nicholas II and St. Luke of Crimea were unveiled and consecrated on the grounds of Saint Stephen of Perm Orthodox cathedral in Syktyvkar, the capital and largest city of the Komi Republic in Russia.

Nicholas II was the last Russian emperor. Together with his family, he accepted a martyr’s death. On 20th August 2000, the Moscow Patrichate glorified them as passion-bearers – those who accepted death with meekness and prayer, imitating Christ.

Luke of Crimea (in the world Valentin Voyno-Yasenetsky) was a Russian surgeon, spiritual writer, a bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church, and archbishop of Simferopol and Crimea from May 1946 until his death in 1961. He was a laureate of the Stalin Prize in medicine in 1946.

In 1958, writing after Stalin’s death, and under Nikita Khrushchev’s new wave of anti-religious persecution, Saint Luke stated “how arduous it has been to swim against the stormy current of antireligious propaganda, and how many sufferings it caused me, and continues to cause me to this day.”

He was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church on 25th May 1996. Three days later, on 20th March 1996, his relics were transferred to the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Simferopol.

With the monument to Nicholas II, a different story, Pavel Astakhov noted. He first encountered this question in 1996, when he met a descendant of the Romanov dynasty, and was imbued with history of Russia’s last Tsar. The initiative to install the monument in Syktyvkar (among other cities) belongs to the general director of the SPAS TV channel Boris Korchevnikov.

Both monuments were installed on the grounds of Saint Stephen of Perm Orthodox cathedral. On the pedestal of St. Luke of Crimea there are inscribed two of his quotes: “I have admitted that I have no right to do what I like, and I am obliged to do what is useful for suffering people” and “I fell in love with suffering, which so amazingly cleanses the soul, because I really felt that the Lord Jesus Christ Himself was walking next to me and supporting my burden and my cross.”

The bust of Nicholas II also has two quotes inscribed on the pedestal: “It is not evil that will defeat evil, but only love” and “I have a firm and complete conviction that the fate of Russia, just like the fate of me and my family, is in the hands of God, Who has placed me in my position. Whatever happens, I bow to His will, believing that I have never had any other thought than to serve the country whose government He has entrusted to me.”

The bust-monuments were consecrated by Metropolitan Philip of Metropolitan of Syktyvkar and Komi-Zyryansk. He called their installation a “historic event.”

“These are two saints who worked and suffered during the revolution. We know the lives of these people. Emperor of the Russian Empire, who ruled the country for 22 years. Who, probably, loved the Orthodox faith more than anyone else,” the metropolitan commented.

After the opening ceremony, the participants in the work to perpetuate the memory of the saints were awarded by the church. Pavel Astakhov was awarded the Medal of the Syktyvkar Diocese of St. Stephen of Perm, III degree.

According to Pavel Astakhov, any city and region can join the work to immortalize the saints. Similar monuments have already been erected in other cities of Russia as part of the “Alley of Russian Glory” project, on the initiative of federal social activists and the SPAS TV channel.

The installation of the monment in Syktyvkar is the 16th monument of Russia’s last Tsar, to be installed in Russia this year. Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, between 125 to 150 monuments, busts and memorial plaques have been installed in nearly 50 regions of the Russian Federation.

© Paul Gilbert. 3 October 2026