The Romanovs

Romances and marital prospects

Olga was a chestnut-blonde with bright blue eyes, a broad face and a turned up nose. She was considered less pretty than her sisters Maria and Tatiana, though her appearance improved as she grew older. "As a child she was plain, at fifteen she was beautiful", wrote her mother's friend Lili Dehn. "She was slightly above the medium height, with a fresh complexion, deep blue eyes, quantities of light chestnut hair, and pretty hands and feet."

Olga and her younger sisters were surrounded by young men assigned to guard them at the palace and on the imperial yacht Standard and were used to mingling with them and sharing holiday fun during their annual summer cruises. When Olga was fifteen, a group of officers aboard the imperial yacht gave her a portrait of Michelangelo's nude David, cut out from a newspaper, as a present for her name day on July 11, 1911. "Olga laughed at it long and hard", her indignant fourteen-year-old sister Tatiana wrote to her aunt Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia. "And not one of the officers wishes to confess that he has done it. Such swine, aren't they?"

At the same time the teenage Olga was enjoying her innocent flirtations, society was buzzing about her future marriage. In November 1911 a full dress ball was held at Livadia to celebrate her sixteenth birthday and her entry into society. Her hair was put up for the first time and her first ballgown was pink. Her parents gave her a diamond ring and a diamond and pearl necklace as a birthday present and symbol that she had become a young woman. A. Bogdanova, the wife of a general and hostess of a monarchist salon, wrote in her diary the following summer, on June 7, 1912, that Olga had been betrothed the previous night to Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia, her first cousin once removed. In his book The Rasputin File, Edvard Radzinsky speculates that the betrothal was broken off due to Dmitri's dislike for Grigori Rasputin, his association with Felix Yussupov and rumors that Dmitri was bisexual. However, no other sources mention an official betrothal to Dmitri Pavlovich. Before World War I, there was also some discussion of a marriage between Olga and Prince Carol of Romania, but Olga did not like Carol. During a visit to Romania in the spring of 1914, she struggled to make small talk with the Romanian crown prince. Carol's mother, Queen Marie of Romania, was unimpressed with Olga as well, finding her manners too brusque and her broad, high cheek-boned face "not pretty." The plans were, in any event, put on hold upon the outbreak of war in 1914. Edward, Prince of Wales, eldest son of England's George V, and Crown Prince Alexander of Serbia were also discussed as potential suitors, though none were considered seriously. Olga told Gilliard that she wanted to marry a Russian and remain in her own country. She said her parents would not force her to marry anyone she could not like.

While society was discussing matches with princes, Olga fell in love with a succession of officers. In late 1913, Olga fell in love with Pavel Voronov, a junior officer on the imperial yacht Standart, but such a relationship would have been impossible due to their differing ranks. Voronov was engaged a few months later to one of the ladies in waiting. "God grant him good fortune, my beloved", a saddened Olga wrote on his wedding day, "It's sad, distressing." Later, in her diaries of 1915 and 1916, Olga frequently mentioned a man named Mitya with great affection.

According to the diary of Valentina Chebotareva, a woman who nursed with Olga during World War I, Olga's "golden Mitya" was Dmitri Chakh-Bagov, a wounded soldier she cared for when she was a Red Cross nurse. Chebotareva wrote that Olga's love for him was "pure, naive, without hope" and that she tried to avoid revealing her feelings to the other nurses. She talked to him regularly on the telephone, was depressed when he left the hospital, and jumped about exuberantly when she received a message from him. Dmitri Chakh-Bagov adored Olga and talked of killing Rasputin for her if she only gave the word, because it was the duty of an officer to protect the imperial family even against their will. However, he also reportedly showed other officers the letters Olga had written to him when he was drunk. Another young man, Volodia Volkomski, appeared to have affection for her as well. "(He) always has a smile or two for her", wrote Alexandra to Nicholas on December 16, 1916. Chebotareva also noted in her diary Olga's stated "dreams of happiness: "To get married, [to] always live in the countryside [in] winter and summer, [to] see only good people [and] no one official." Other suitors within the family were suggested, among them Olga's first cousin once removed Grand Duke Boris Vladimirovich of Russia. Alexandra refused to entertain the idea of her innocent daughter marrying the jaded, much older Boris Vladimirovich. "An inexperienced girl would suffer terribly, to have her husband 4, or 5th hand or more", Alexandra wrote. She was also aware that Olga's heart lay elsewhere.