Alexandrovna

"Peterhof"

I was born in a very cold winter evening. So cold that it made my mom tremble as she was giving birth to me. My dad always told me that being his oldest child also made me his favorite. I was so lucky to not be born as the daughter of the heir. I am quite sure my uncle would have been a great dad for me, but all he wanted was a son. Till Alexei was born he always seemed depressed and stressed. Yes, as the royal family we always needed princesses so we could continue producing healthy children and remain as one of the most powerful families in Europe.

I never had normal friends who would play hide and seek with me. I only had my cousins all my life. Though my russian wasn't that good when I was 10, they could speak intermediate french.
My mom always called me her baby Rina. She would usually speak french with me because at the time, french was highly anticipated and it made us feel noble as everybody thought we were.

I spent most of my childhood in the south of France. As my parents were producing gorgeous children and being magnificently successful at looking as if they had a happy marriage, me and all of my siblings knew that mom and dad wanted to get a divorce. My mom, as a member of the aristocracy, would not want to end the marriage as she promised uncle Nicholas, she wouldn't get a divorce. I remember me being only 9 and reading letters sent to my dad, which were highly sexual and needy. A woman who lived very close to us always needed my dad's attention. Being the daughter of the Grand Duke made me be very responsible and cautious. The respect my father had was also the guarantee of my future as a known high society woman. Dignity was very important for us Romanovs, yet we weren't always that careful keeping it. As I said, it was a very depressing marriage yet my parents still managed to produce seven beautiful children.
We lived our life rather laid-back and leisurely. My childhood memories were all from Biarritz and  Côte d'Azur. After 10 years spent in France, we came back to 'Zimniy Dvorets' which was also known as the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. My beloved grandmother, who had passed away just before I was born was a princess from Karlsruhe. My father always told me how strong the winters in Tiflis was. I once heard that my grandmother had a heart attack while she was on a train to Crimea just so she could see her son, but she was so unlucky that she couldn't survive.
I always wondered how my fathers childhood was spent so I couldn't wait for bedtime just to hear his stories of my grandparents. I always thought that my family was on top of the world. Which we somehow were, and that was maybe what tore us apart. Life was but a dream, and we were dancing our lives away. 
My father would never talk about love because he was just not successful at it. However, he always quiet enjoyed talking about his parents and how royal his blood was. His mother was the youngest grandchild of King Gustav of Sweden. Though she was married at the age of 17 and the marriage was arranged, it was a love match. My father often told me that I looked a lot like a Swedish princess and I was far more prettier than any girl in St. Petersburg. 

As I grew to be a teenager, I was the most intelligent girl in the court. Nobody could speak french, english, german and russian as graceful as I did. The search for a good husband started when I was only 17. I never wanted my mom to be involved in anything. I was even more of a wild child than Olga and Tatyana, who were like my sisters. We always spent time together because we were not allowed to communicate with normal children. Sometimes on special occasions we had families of high society come over to the court and most of the time they had children, so we were lucky if we could meet new people every once in a while. 

We enjoyed riding horses because it made us feel free as if we could go anywhere else we dreamed of. One day I met a kid called Felix, who was very handsome and well educated. He at first spoke to me in french but I remember me being very shy and not answering whatever he asked me. He was actually a lot older than me, so I was never an ideal friend for him.

My mother was one of the most gorgeous women of Russia and I was lucky enough to inherit her diamond blue eyes. I was a lively girl, yet I remained shy whenever I met somebody new which made me feel like an outcast.

As a princess, I never knew how our people lived.

And when I did, it was too late.