Free The Diary of Olga Romanov by Helen Azar Page A

. Princess Sonia Orbeliani, Georgian friend of the imperial family.
    36 . The imperial children's Russian tutor.
    37 . Konstantin Konstantinovich.
    38 . Dmitri Shakh-Bagov.
    39 . The Sisters of Mercy nurses.
    40 . Rasputin.
    41 . Arsenic injections were used to treat various disorders by contemporary doctors.
    42 . Catherine Adolfovna Schneider, lady-in-waiting to Alexandra.
    43 . Countess Anastasia Henrikova (1887–1918), lady-in-waiting to Alexandra and friend of the imperial family who followed them into exile and was murdered by the revolutionaries.
    44 . Dr. Evgeni Botkin (1865–1918), court physician who went into exile with the imperial family and was murdered along with them.
    45 . Child of one's wet nurse.
    46 . Ioann Konstanovich, Andrei Vladimirovich [?].
    47 . St. Varvara the Martyr, an Orthodox saint.
    48 . Female elder or holy woman.
    49 . An infantry Cossack regiment.

1916

    R ussia continued to be a part of the war effort, but 1916 was no more successful than the previous year. Things were starting to look dire for the empire, and many of Nicholas's relatives believed that Rasputin's closeness to Alexandra and the children was casting a dark shadow over the Romanov dynasty. Much to her horror, Olga found out that her first cousin Dmitri, as well as her cousin-in-law, Felix Yusupov, were involved in the conspiracy and murder of Grigori Rasputin, in an effort to make the Romanovs appear once again stable in the eyes of many skeptical Russians. Olga documented her sadness over Rasputin's death, but seemed unaware of the poor shape that Russia's military was in, despite still being involved with local hospitals that treated the wounded.
    —
    From the memoirs of V. I. Chebotareva:
    January 1916.
    Tatiana Nikolaevna is so touchingly affectionate, was helping with preparations, sat in the corner [and] cleaned the instruments, and on the 4th came in the evening to boil the silk…. asked me about my childhood, if I had any brothers and sisters, where is my brother, what is his name. Finally [I] convinced her to go have [her] palm read. Rita arranged it in the prep room. [She] ran with curiosity. Olga assures [us] that she dreams of remaining a spinster, while Shakh-Bagov is reading on her palm that she will have twelve children. Tatiana Nikolaevna has an interesting palm: her life line suddenly stops and makes a sharp turn to the side. They assured us that this means she will pull off something unusual.

    On the 6th, the heir came and was running in the hall in a wheelchair. Then he did not want to show the medals to Rita, 1 and started playing dominoes, got fascinated by glass fractions, spilled ink on himself, laid out the dominoes into indents and was very happy—[it looks like] “a sandwich with caviar.”
    16 January.
    Today Tatiana Nikolaevna walked with me upstairs after [doing the] dressings, to do Popov's dressings. The poor child is terribly embarrassed; grabs my hand: “So awfully embarrassing and frightening…one never knows whom to acknowledge and whom not to.” From Olga it sadly slipped out: “One cannot say anything on the telephone, [someone is always] listening in, they will report it, but not the truth, will lie like they did recently.” What exactly she was referring to [I] did not have the chance to ask, but Voikov mentioned something—I never learned the details, evidently the “special censorship” is in its bloom.
    …[I] was looking through some older memos. Seems [earlier] I missed Olga Nikolaevna's characteristic note “Dreams of happiness”: “To get married, [to] always live in the countryside, winter and summer, [to] see only good people, no one official.”
    —
    From a letter of a wounded officer, February 21, 1916:
    I was a patient at the infirmary the entire April of 1916. The white nurses [nurses wearing white?] and kind doctors I thank very very much….

     
    “When the Tsar's children came to visit,
    It became easier to breathe for all,
    The suffering suddenly