Eighteen months after Olga was born, on May
29 (June 10 New Style), 1897, Grand Duchess Tatiana entered the world. This girl, her name
meaning "fairy princess," was also rejoiced about in Russia.
Tatiana was slender, with grey-blue eyes and
dark auburn-brunette hair. Her regal bearing, royal demeanor, and feminine attitude
attracted many young men to her as she grew older. Tatiana liked this attention, and did
not complain when gifts of furs, perfumes (her favorite was Coty's Jasmin de Corse),
and jewelry were showered on her. In Siberia, she was the most liked of the four sisters,
with the possible exception of Anastasia. One officer from the tsar's regiments said of
her, "You felt she was the daughter of an emperor."
Tatiana, called "Tatia" in the
family, was probably the most poised and self-assured. She was also nicknamed "The
Governor" by the younger set. She usually directed anything of importance, such as
sewing the jewels into the girls' clothing in Tobolsk, and in public, Olga gave her role
as eldest to Tatiana. Tatiana also adored clothing and fashions, reading the early
versions of chic magazines and choosing to coordinate her clothing with Olga.
Pierre Gilliard, Imperial tutor, on Tatiana:
"Tatiana was rather
reserved, essentially well balanced, and had a will of her own, though she was less frank
and spontaneous that her elder sister. She was not so gifted, either, but this inferiority
was compensated by more perseverance and balance. She was pretty, though she had not quite
Olga Nikolaievna's charm. If the Tsaritsa made any difference between her children,
Tatiana Nikolaievna was her favourite. It was not that her sisters loved their mother any
less, but Tatiana knew how to surround her with unwearing attentions and she never gave
way to her own capricious impulses. Through her good looks and her art of self-assertion
she put her sister Olga in the shade in public, as the latter, thoughtless about herself,
seemed to take a back seat. Yet the two sisters were passionately devoted to each other.
There was only eighteen months between them, and that in itself was a bond of union."
The second grand duchess was your average
intelligent school student. Tatiana was very religious, and at an early age began reading
books on theology, pondering the deeper questions of life. In Ekaterinburg, most of the
books found were prayers, sermons, or theological.
Nevertheless, the composed "fairy
princess" did allow herself some escapades. On the day war was declared in 1914,
shortly before the tsar was to deliver a speech on the Winter Palace balcony, passerby
felt themselves being pelted with paper balls and looked up to see a laughing Anastasia
and Tatiana on the balcony. Another time, when Tatiana was much littler, her nurse M.
Eager recalled,
"One day Princess Ella
(her cousin) and Tatiana were wonderfully busy and mysterious, running in and out of the
rooms, and exploding into laughter every now and then. In the evening after they were in
bed Tatiana took from under her pillow a little box which dear cousin Ella had prepared
for her. This contained some little colored stones which they had picked out of the gravel
the day before, some bits of matches, luminous ends, of course, the sand-paper off a match
box, and some tissue paper. This was a toy which they had prepared. After Tatiana was in
bed, if she felt lonely she was to sit up in bed, light a match upon the sand paper, set
fire to the tissue paper, and by its light to play with the stones. Well, of course, that
could not be allowed, and the poor little Princess was overwhelmed when I explained to her
that they might all have been burned in their beds."
In 1913, Tatiana turned sixteen, and
received her jewelry. That year was the year of the tricentennials, and so she did not
have extensive time spent on her own coming out, but Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna did give
the two older sisters a small ball. A larger party was held by Dowager Empress Marie at
the Anitchkov Palace for Olga and Tatiana. The two sisters stayed until four in the
morning, then collapsed at home.
When the World War broke out a year later,
Tatiana became a Red Cross nurse with her sister and mother. Her cheerful, uncomplaining
disposition, and quiet patience, won over all of the soldiers she tended. She was devoted
to her work, as her mother was, and only complained that she was spared harder work
because she was young.
Tatiana supervized her sisters and maid
sewing the Romanov jewels into their clothing in Tobolsk. She was left behind because she
was "second mother" to Alexei.
Tatiana was twenty-one at her death.