An innocent child,
A lovely young girl.
Captured in time,
Founded in history.

       At Alexandria Dacha, Peterhof, on June 5 by the old Russian calendar (June 18 by the new), 1901, according to Nicholas's diary, "Alexandra started having strong pains and went upstairs."  There, the fourth child and daughter of Nicholas II and Alexandra was born.  They named her Anastasia, meaning "one who will rise again," after Alexandra's close friend Princess Anastasia of Montenegro.  An astrologer commented that the stars foretold this child would have an exceptional life.

         HIH Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova was an intelligent, lively child, with thick brown-auburn hair and charming blue eyes.  These eyes were her focal point, sweet and expressive, just like her father Nicholas's.  They were a unique, captivating Russian blue.  Anastasia was also slightly plump, but not in excessive proportion to her height.   The youngest grand duchess was slightly smaller than her sisters, being about 5" 2' at seventeen.  An observer recalled that her face was "charmingly shaped."  She was extremely mischievous, always thinking of jokes and pranks to play.  She could be mannerly and serious when she wanted, but usually she was "the perfect monkey for jokes," affirmed family friend Anna Viroubova.  The more serious and intent her look, the more a plan was brewing in her mind.  Her Aunt Olga christened her "malenkaya," or Little One, in Russian, while her family called her "shvizbik," or imp.  Anastasia had a sharp wit, and sarcasm to use at her disposal.  She was also an excellent mimic, aping anyone and everyone, sometimes cruelly.  Anastasia had a knack for finding the slightest flaw in a person, and then acted it out, making everyone double up with laughter.  She was a relentless teaser.  Her Aunt Olga recalled that one time, when Anastasia was a little girl, she had been teasing so ruthlessly that she slapped the child.  Anastasia's face grew scarlet, but she rushed out silently.  The only time she ever cried was when she rolled a rock into a snowball and threw it at Tatiana.  Dizzy, Tatiana fell to the ground.  At last, Anastasia cried.  The girl took revenge when she wanted, and Maria was frequently a partner in crime.   Still, Anastasia's favorite sister, Olga, often played the role as well.  Olga wrote to her father one day, "I am sitting in Mr. Gilliard's rooms near the door of his water-closet where Trina's little nasty girl Katia is sitting locked in by Anastasia and myself.  We've just drawn her along the dark passage and pushed her in...Katia is still locked in the W.C.  She is knocking and wailing behind the door but we are implacable."

          Anastasia loved animals, and was especially close to a little dog named Shvibzig.  In April of 1915, Shvibzig died of a brain inflammation.  Anastasia was inconsolable.  She lost her spirit for days, and, weeping, buried Shvibzik on the children's island at Tsarksoe Selo, where all family pets were laid to rest.  Soon after, Anna Viroubova gave Tatiana a King Charles spaniel, named Jemmy.  Anastasia considered him her own dog, but disagreed when someone suggested that the dog was hers: "No, no.  I liked only to hold him."  Jemmy, aside from Shvibzik, was her favorite childhood pet.

          In early 1917, Anastasia was the only one aside from Maria who was not ill with measles.  She stayed up with Lili Dehn, a friend of Tsaritsa Alexandra's, waiting impatiently for her father to return: "But the train is never late.  Oh, I'm beginning to feel ill...If only Papa would come."  By the time Nicholas would return home, Anastasia too was sick with measles.  Her and her sisters' heades were shaved, and she liked the idea--partially.  She usually kept her hat on for photographs.   Always the humorist, Anastasia found funny things in their imprisonment.   Anastasia wrote this letter smuggled from Tobolsk in 1917.  The English is hers:     

"My Dear Friend,

          I will describe to you who [how] we traveled.  We started in the morning and when we got into the train I went to sleap, so did all of us.  We were very tired because we did not sleap the whole night.  The first day was hot and very dusty.  At the stations we had to shut our window curtains that nobody should see us.  Once in the evening I was looking out we stoped near a little house, but there was no station so we could look out.  A little boy came to my window and asked:  'Uncle, please give me, if you have got, a newspaper.'  I said:  'I am not an uncle but an aunty and have no newspaper.'  At the first moment I could not understand why did he call me 'Uncle' but then I remembered that my hear is cut and I and the soldiers (which were standing next to me) laught very much.  On the way many funny things had hapend, and if I shall have time I shall write to you our travell farther on.   Good by.  Don't forget me.  Many kisses from us all to you my darling.

Your Anastasia."

       In the Ipatiev House, however, Anastasia's ability to charm and laugh was quickly lost.  Near the beginning of July, Alexandra and her four daughters were brutally raped by their rough Bolshevik guards.   Soon after, wrenched from Nicholas and Alexei, the Romanov women were ordered to gather some clothing for a journey.  At night on July 16, 1918, they were hurried away from the Ipatiev House and into a waiting train.  With the blinds closed, the train rushed away with the tsaritsa and grand duchesses to Perm, 200 miles away and the next Bolshevik stronghold.

       In Perm, Anastasia--wearing her jeweled corset and the clothing into which many of the fabulous Imperial jewels were sewn--and her sisters and mother were sent to a building of the Bolshevik Cheka.   Only members of the Communist Party were allowed to guard them.  Under strict supervision, Anastasia attempted to escape.  Caught, beaten, and assaulted, Anastasia was returned to another building in Perm, the Excise Administration House, to stay with her family.  A second escape attempt was made, and this time she made it as far as the outskirts, and, slowing her pace, began to walk beside the train tracks, heading west.   As fate would have it, she was spotted: some Red guards, away from the sentry siding box 37, were engaged in "picking mushrooms" or "doing a little shooting"; they were slippery when talking.  Anastasia might have passed by unnoticed, if an alarm had not been sounded to find and catch Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanova.  One of the soldiers fired, grazing her ear.  She fell to the ground, and was instantly dragged off to Siding Box 37, where the Bolsheviks jeered and laughed at her for over an hour.  Finally, they "put a soldier's greatcoat on her" according to one witness, and was led away in the direction of Perm.

       In Perm, she was taken to a Bolshevik Cheka building, while Alexandra, Olga, Tatiana, and Maria were sent to a convent for further safekeeping. Dr. Pavel Utkin, who later testified, treated her.  As soon as she could, she ran away.  Immediately, the Perm Bolsheviks sent out a group of their best soldiers--Letts and Hungrarians--to search the woods for Anastasia.  A peasant by the name of Alexander Tschaikovsky helped her get to his house.  From there, Tschaikovsky, his brother Sergei, sister Veronica, and mother Maria loaded the wounded and beaten Anastasia into a cart.  With bottles of water for her head in the wagon, they started off.

       Anastasia tossed and turned throughout most of the journey: "Do you know what a Russian farm cart is? No, you do not know...you only know when you lie in one with a smashed head and body."   Distraught and unconscious, the girl suffered from pain and vivid memories incessantly.  Barely seventeen and yet having experienced nearly the worst, poor Anastasia discovered to her horror that she was pregnant.  After approximately four months, the Tschaikovskys and their imperial passenger made it to Bucharest, Romania.   At the time, the Revolution in Russia had turned all of war-stricken Europe into chaos.  Into Bucharest came a deluge of emigres, running from their homes.  The Tschaikovskys were lucky: they had a relative who worked as a gardener.  This gardener friend lived on a street with an alley passage to the German Embassy.  In Romania, Anastasia turned eighteen and gave birth to "a Bolshevik devil's child."  Her young son, whom she later classified as "Alexander," was sent to an orphanange at three months.  Anastasia shunned him, but finally relented as a mother: she sent her ikon of St. Nicholas along with him.  But he was not to be a Romanov: "Do you think I would let any little bastard become tsar of Russia?"  Having sold most of the jewels secreted in her clothing, Anastasia, terrified that the Bolsheviks were after her, begged Tschaikovsky to take her to the German Embassy.  After all, her mother had been a German.  Things would go smoothly, right?

         Wrong.  The Germans refused to acknowledge her as Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna.  Anastasia adamantly showed them the underclothes she had brought with her, monogrammed with the Romanov emblem.  They grudgingly admitted that she was who she said she was...but they would not help her.

          Anastasia's memories haunted her day and night.  She could hardly sleep.  Years later, as an old woman after revealing her secret, she said, "Last night was the first night I slept well, because now someone knows."  Soon after her son was sent to the orphanange, Alexander Tschaikovsky disappeared, possibly killed during one of the many riots that erupted in Bucharest.  The tormented girl realized that the Soviets were moving towards Romania, quite possibly.  With visions of her family and the horrors of 1918 in her mind, Anastasia left the clothes she had worn in Perm behind, as well as the monogrammed underwear, in Bucharest with Maria and Veronica Tschaikovsky.  The jewels were gone.  With Alexander's brother Sergei, she made her way by train and foot to Berlin, where her Aunt Irene lived.  Anastasia was suspicious of everyone.   The Bolsheviks--the Bolsheviks were after her.  Finally, they made it to Berlin and checked into a small hotel.  Sergei left one day to get bread.  When he did not return, Anastasia, fearful that he had been assasinated by her enemies, rushed outside, forgetting that she had never been to Berlin before in her life.  She got lost, and wandered around endlessly.

          It was February 1920, and the snow was melting.  Anastasia wandered onto the bridge at Landwher Canal, and gazed down into the murky waters.  Suddenly, she said later, she was pushed, and the next thing she knew, she was in the water, struggling against the icy cold.  A policeman driving by saw her hit the water, and rescued her.   Terrified, Anastasia was dragged along to the police station, where they duly recorded that she would not speak, and had no identification, jewelry, or purse.   They sent her to Dalldorf Insane Asylum.

        There, growing thin because of her poor health and the ordeals, as well as the constant terror that the Bolsheviks would find her, Anastasia passed hundreds of gloomy, dull days.  She remained there for two years, until 1922, when a sane woman named Clara Peuthert in the asylum asked her if she was Grand Duchess Tatiana.  Anastasia said that she was Grand Duchess Anastasia, after a deal of hesitation, and Clara Peuthert spread the word--not just to her Aunt Irene, like Anastasia wanted, but to everyone.

       From then on, newspapers, reporters, and the world hounded the poor young woman.  She lived in constant fear, constant terror and that horrible burden of memories.  She began to believe in reincarnation, and when she died years after revealing her terrible secret to friend James Blair Lovell, had her body cremated and the ashes scattered around Castle Seeon, a castle in Germany where she lived with some kind benefactors.

       Was this woman, known as Anna Anderson, really the happy little princess of days gone by?  Or was she just some demented fraud?  Did Anastasia die with her family?  Was it a fairy tale gone wrong...or a nonexistent legend?  We may never understand, and we may never know.

A birthday memorial to Anastasia Nikolaievna, online June 1-30.
Dedications/poems/quotes must be in by May 31, 2001.

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