Free Imperial Dancer: Mathilde Kschessinska and the Romanovs by Coryne Hall Page B

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 oddlyindefinite 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