Free The Last Tsar by Edvard Radzinsky

believed in herself; she had learned a great deal from Alexander III.Witte’s diaries contain a colorful description of this period: “Ask my mother”—that was Nicholas’s response to Witte on the subject of naming another minister. And elsewhere, again in a difficult moment: “I shall ask my mother.”
    Marie Feodorovna demonstrated perspicacity by setting Nicky up with Sergei Yulievich Witte, her husband’s minister of finance. Witte constituted an entire era in himself: a supporter of reforms, a liberal—or, rather, a conservative liberal, as he would have to be after the frost that raged under Alexander. Witte knew that in Russia one cannot change the temperature too quickly.
    At first the empress-mother tried to appear everywhere at her son’s side.
    Vera Leonidovna:
    “At that time the dowager empress suddenly seemed astonishingly young. All Petersburg was intrigued by this puzzle. People said that this stunning woman had decided to undergo an operation in Paris. She had heard about this operation from the future English Queen Alexandra—that is to say, she saw its fruits. Despite her age, Alexandra literally stunned everyone with her youthfulness.… It is a hideous operation: first the epidermis is removed from the face with a sharp spoon and the face is transformed into one great wound. The wound is moisturized and treated and a clear lacquer is applied to the face. This new, tender, pure face has to be treated very carefully so as not to spoil the lacquer. What comes next is even more painful: widening the hair follicles to insert long eyelashes. The entire operation demands heroism.”
    The poor woman had to reconcile herself to this pain: the young emperor must have a young mother by his side.
“A LL THAT HAS HAPPENED … SEEMS A DREAM”
    Russian sovereigns were crowned in the ancient Assumption Cathedral in Moscow.
    On May 6 the imperial train, with the entire large Romanov family aboard, departed for Moscow.
    “6 May, 1896. For the first time since our wedding we have had to sleep apart. Very tiresome. Arose at 9. After coffee answered telegrams. Even on the railway they do not leave me in peace. Met in Klin by Uncle Sergei [his former superior, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, who had become governor-general of Moscow]. Arrived in Moscow at 5, in dreadful weather: rain, wind, cold.”
    ——
    According to custom, before the ceremonial entry into Moscow for the coronation, the sovereigns had to stay in the old Petrovsky Palace located outside the Tver gate, at that time a verst (less than a mile) from Moscow. Here they spent three days in the castle with Gothic windows and romantic turrets that Catherine the Great had built to commemorate the victory over the Turks.
    “7 May. Awoke to the same grim weather.… Received Henry’s [the brother of Emperor Wilhelm] enormous suite, and the princes—of Baden, Wurtemberg, and Japan.”
    Royal Europe and all the rest of the world were converging for the coronation of the Russian autocrat.
    On the day of the ceremonial entrance into Moscow, for the first time the sun came out, setting Moscow’s countless golden cupolas and churches on fire.
    Early morning. The young empress, golden hair to her waist, was standing by a Gothic window, looking out at the towers of the Petrovsky Palace—the continuation of the same fairy tale!
    The magnificent procession set out for the Kremlin.
    “9 May. The first hard day for us—the day of our entrance into Moscow. By 12 an entire gang of princes had gathered, with whom we sat down to lunch. At 2.30 the procession began to move. I was riding on Norma, Mama was sitting in the first gold carriage and Alix in the second, also alone.”
    There was one strange incident. They paid a visit to the holiest place in all of Russia: the Trinity-St. Sergius monastery. But when they got to the monastery, there was no one to meet them. No one remembered until the tsar had already set foot on the territory of the monastery. The mixup