The history of the Yusupov family.

“The ancestors of the Yusupovs are from Abubekir, the father-in-law of the prophet, who ruled after Muhammad (about 570-632) the entire Muslim clan. Three centuries after him, his brother-name Abubekir ben-Rayok also ruled over all Muslims in the world and bore the title of Emir el-Omr, prince of princes and sultan of sultans, uniting in his person government and spiritual power.
In the era of the fall of the caliphate, the direct ancestors of the Russian princes Yusupovs were rulers in Damascus, Antioch, Iraq, Persia, Egypt. A direct descendant named Edigey was in close and close friendship with Tamerlane himself, or Timur, the "Iron Lame" and the great conqueror. Edigey conquered Crimea and founded the Crimean Horde there.
Edigey's great-grandson was called Musa-Murza (Prince Moses, in Russian) and, as was customary, had five wives. The first, beloved, was called Condaza. From her, Yusuf was born - the ancestor of the Yusupov family. For twenty years Yusuf-Murza was friends with Ivan the Terrible himself, the Russian tsar. A descendant of the emirs considered it necessary to make friends and become related with Muslim neighbors, "fragments" of the Mongol-Tatar invasion of Russia.
Beautiful Suyumbeka, Queen of Kazan, beloved daughter of Yusuf-Murza. She was born in 1520 and at the age of 14 became the wife of the king of Kazan, Enalei.
Suyumbeka, left a widow, brilliantly led the defense of Kazan, that the famous Russian commander, Prince Andrei Kurbsky, could not take the city by storm, and the secret undermining and blowing up the city walls decided the matter. The Tsarina of Kazan was honorably taken to Moscow with her son.
The sons of Yusuf-Murza, the Suyumbeki brothers, came to the court of Ivan the Terrible, and since then they and their descendants began to serve the Russian sovereigns, without betraying the Muslim faith and receiving awards for the service. So, Il-Murza was granted by Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich on the banks of the Volga near Yaroslavl a whole city of Romanov with a posad (now the city of Tutaev). In this beautiful city, which before the revolution bore the name of Romanov-Borisoglebsk, an event took place that abruptly changed the fate and history of the Yusupov family.

It was during the reign of Fyodor Alekseevich. The great-grandson of Yusuf-Murza named Abdul-Murza, who is also the great-grandfather of Nikolai Borisovich Yusupov, received Patriarch Joachim in Romanov and, due to ignorance of Orthodox posts, fed him a goose. The patriarch mistook the goose for a fish, tasted it and praised it, and take the owner and say: it’s not a fish, but a goose, and my cook is so skillful that he can cook a goose for fish. The patriarch got angry and on his return to Moscow told the whole story to Tsar Fyodor Alekseevich. The king deprived Abdul-Murza of all awards, and the rich man suddenly became a beggar. He thought hard for three days and decided to be baptized in the Orthodox faith. Abdul-Murza, the son of Seyush-Murza, was baptized under the name Dmitry and invented a surname for himself in memory of his ancestor Yusuf: Yusupovo-Knyazhevo. This is how Prince Dmitry Seyushevich Yusupovo-Knyazhevo appeared in Russia.

Family coat of arms of the Yusupovs

But that very night he had a vision. An intelligible voice said: "From now on, for betrayal of faith there will not be more than one male heir in each of its tribes, and if there are more of them, then all, except one, will not live more than 26 years."
Dmitry Seyushevich married Princess Tatyana Fedorovna Korkodinova, and according to the prediction, only one son inherited his father. It was Grigory Dmitrievich, who served Peter the Great, Lieutenant General, whom Peter ordered to be called simply Prince Yusupov. Grigory Dmitrievich also had only one son who lived to mature age - Prince Boris Grigorievich Yusupov, the former governor of Moscow.

Why the curse sounded so florid is hard to say, but it came true unswervingly. No matter how many children the Yusupovs were born, only one lived to twenty-six.
At the same time, such a fragility of the clan did not affect the well-being of the family in any way. By 1917, the Yusupovs were the second richest after the Romanovs. They owned 250 thousand acres of land, they were the owners of sugar, brick, sawmills, factories and mines, the annual income from which amounted to more than 15 million gold rubles. And the grand dukes could have envied the luxuries of the Yusupov palaces. For example, Zinaida Nikolaevna's rooms in Arkhangelskoye and in the palace in St. Petersburg were furnished with executed furniture French queen Marie Antoinette. The art gallery rivaled the Hermitage in its selection. And Zinaida Nikolaevna's jewelry included treasures that previously belonged to almost all the royal courts of Europe. So, the magnificent pearl "Pelegrina", with which the princess never parted and is depicted in all portraits, once belonged to Philip II and was considered the main decoration of the Spanish Crown.
However, Zinaida Nikolaevna did not consider wealth to be happiness, and the curse of the Tatar sorceress made the Yusupovs unhappy.

Granny de Chaveau
Of all the Yusupovs, perhaps only Zinaida Nikolaevna's grandmother, Countess de Chaveau, managed to avoid great suffering due to the untimely death of her children.
Born Naryshkina, Zinaida Ivanovna married Boris Nikolaevich Yusupov as a very young girl, bore him a son, then a daughter who died during childbirth, and only after that she learned about the family curse.

Being a reasonable woman, she told her husband that she was not going to “give birth to the dead” in the future, but if he didn’t walk up, “let the courtyard girls grow belly,” and she would not object. This continued until 1849, when the old prince died.
Zinaida Ivanovna was not forty, and, as they would say now, she was in all seriousness. Legends circulated about her dizzying novels, but the greatest noise was caused by her passion for the young People's Will. When he was imprisoned in the Shlisselburg fortress, the princess refused secular amusements, followed him and with bribes and promises made sure that he was released to her at night.
This story was well known, they talked about it, but oddly enough Zinaida Ivanovna was not condemned, recognizing the right of the stately princess to extravagance a la de Balzak.
Then suddenly it all ended, for some time she lived as a recluse on Liteiny, but then, having married a ruined but well-born Frenchman, she left Russia, renounced the title of Princess Yusupova and began to be called Countess de Chaveau, Marquise de Serre.
The story with the young People's Will Yusupov was recalled after the revolution. One of the émigré newspapers published a message that, trying to find the Yusupov treasures, the Bolsheviks knocked on all the walls of the palace on Liteiny Prospect. No jewelry was found, but a secret room adjoining the bedroom was found, in which there was a coffin with an embalmed man. Most likely, this was the one, sentenced to death, Narodnoye, whose body the grandmother bought and transported to St. Petersburg.

Miracles of the Holy Elder
However, for all the drama of the life of Zinaida Naryshkina-Yusupova-de Chaveau-de Serre, the family considered her happy. All husbands died due to old age, her daughter lost during childbirth, when she had not yet had time to get used to her, she loved a lot, did not deny herself anything, and she died surrounded by her relatives. For the rest, despite their immense wealth, life was much more dramatic.

Nikolay Yusupov

The son of Zinaida Ivanovna, Nikolai Borisovich Yusupov, had three children - a son Boris and daughters Zinaida and Tatiana. Boris died in infancy from scarlet fever, but his daughters grew up not only very beautiful, but most importantly, healthy girls. Parents were happy, until in 1878 misfortune happened to Zinaida.
The family spent the autumn of that year in Arkhangelskoye. Prince Nikolai Borisovich, the honorary guardian, the court master of the court, being employed in the service, came rarely and shortly. The princess, on the other hand, introduced her daughters to their Moscow relatives and arranged musical evenings. V free time Tatiana read, and the eldest Zinaida went on horseback riding. During one of them, the girl injured her leg. At first, the wound seemed insignificant, but soon the temperature rose, and Doctor Botkin, summoned to the estate, made a hopeless diagnosis - blood poisoning. Soon the girl fell into unconsciousness, and the family prepared for the worst.
Then Zinaida Nikolaevna said that in her unconsciousness, Father John of Kronstadt, who was familiar with their family, dreamed of her. Recovering, she asked to call him, and after the elder who had arrived prayed for her, she began to recover. At the same time, the princess always added that she had not heard of the family tradition at that time and did not know that with her recovery she was condemning her younger sister to death.
Tanya died of typhus at the age of twenty-two.

Lightning strike
Little is left of the once rich Yusupov archives in Russia. "The drunken sailor" - as Felix Yusupov described her in his memoirs - was looking, first of all, for jewelry, and she burned the incomprehensible papers she came across. This is how the priceless library and archives of Alexander Blok perished, the archives of almost all noble families of Russia burned down in the fires. Now the family chronicles have to be restored according to the acts preserved in the state archives.
The Yusupovs are no exception. It is impossible to completely trust the memoirs of Felix Yusupov published abroad - he embellishes his role in the murder of Rasputin, rather subjectively submits revolutionary events... But due to the proximity to the imperial family, the Yusupov family chronicle is not difficult to restore.
After the eldest daughter's illness, Nikolai Borisovich Yusupov became especially insistent on the issue of her marriage. As Zinaida Nikolaevna later recalled, the prince, who was ill a lot, was afraid that he would not see his grandchildren.
And soon the princess, who did not want to upset her father, agreed to meet another contender for her hand - a relative of the emperor, the Bulgarian prince Battenberg. The contender for the Bulgarian throne was accompanied by a modest officer Felix Elston, whose duties were to introduce the prince to the future bride and take his leave. Zinaida Nikolaevna refused the future monarch and accepted Felix's offer, which he made to her the day after they met. It was love at first sight, but for Zinaida Nikolaevna, as everyone noted, the first and only one.
Nikolai Borisovich, no matter how embarrassed his daughter's decision, did not contradict her, and in the spring of 1882 Felix Elston and Zinaida Yusupova got married. And a year later, the young people had their first child - Nikolai, named so in honor of his grandfather.

Yusupovs in a straight line
The boy grew up silent and withdrawn, and no matter how hard Zinaida Nikolaevna tried to bring him closer, she did not succeed. All her life she remembered the horror that gripped her when, on Christmas Day 1887, when asked what gift he would like to her son, she received a childish and icy answer: “I don’t want you to have other children.”
Then Zinaida Nikolaevna was confused, but it soon became clear that one of the mothers assigned to the young prince told the boy about the Nagai curse. She was fired, but the princess began to wait for the expected child with a feeling of persecuted and acute fear.
And at first the fears were not in vain. Nikolai did not hide his dislike for Felix, and only when he was ten years old did a feeling appear between them that looked more like friendship than love of two relatives.
Nikolai Borisovich Yusupov died in 1891. Shortly before his death, he asked for the highest mercy to preserve the famous surname, and after the mourning had passed, Zinaida Nikolaevna's husband, Count Sumarokov-Elston, was given permission to be called Prince Yusupov.
Family rock reminded of itself in 1908.

Felix Yusupov
Fatal duel In the memoirs of Felix Yusupov, it is easy to see that all his life he was jealous of his mother for his older brother. He, although he looked more like his father than Zinaida Nikolaevna, his inner peace was extraordinarily similar to her. He was fond of theater, played music, painted pictures. His stories were published under the pseudonym Fates, and even Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, who was sparing of praise, once noted the author's undoubted talent.
After graduating from St. Petersburg University, he received a law degree. The family started talking about the upcoming marriage, but Nikolai unexpectedly fell in love with Maria Heiden, who was already engaged to Count Arvid Manteuffel, and soon this wedding took place.
The young people left for a trip to Europe, Nikolai Yusupov followed them, the duel could not be avoided. And it took place
On June 22, 1908, in the estate of Prince Beloselsky on Krestovsky Island in St. Petersburg, Count Manteuffel did not miss. Nikolai Yusupov was supposed to be twenty-six years old in six months.
“Rending screams came from my father’s room,” Felix Yusupov recalled years later. - I entered and saw him, very pale, in front of the stretcher, where the body of Nikolai was stretched out. His mother, kneeling in front of him, seemed to have lost her mind. With great difficulty we tore her away from my son's body and put her to bed. Having calmed down a little, she called me, but when she saw, she mistook me for her brother. It was an unbearable scene. Then my mother fell into prostration, and when she regained consciousness, she did not let me go for a second. "

Vicious cherub
When Nikolai died in a duel, Zinaida Nikolaevna was about fifty. Now all her hopes were connected with her youngest son.
Outwardly, Felix resembled his mother unusually - regular features, large eyes, thin nose, swollen lips, graceful figure. But, if the features of Zinaida Nikolaevna were called angelic by her contemporaries, then her youngest son was none other than with fallen angel did not compare. In all his appearance as a cherub, a certain amount of corruption was felt.
He was not inclined, like his older brother or mother, to the arts. He did not have an interest in military and civil service, like his father or maternal relatives. A burner of life, a golden boy, an enviable groom. But even with marriage, everything was not so simple.

Zinaida Yusupova

Zinaida Nikolaevna tried to influence her son, wrote to him: "Do not play cards, limit your fun pastime, work with your brains!" But Felix Yusupov, although he adored his mother, was unable to overcome himself. Only Zinaida Nikolaevna's crafty statement that she was sick, but did not want to die until she saw her grandchildren, prompted him to agree to marry and promise to settle down. Okaziya introduced herself pretty soon.

Yusupov Palace

In 1913, for December evenings in Arkhangelskoye, he came Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich. He himself started a conversation about the marriage of his daughter Irina and Felix, and the Yusupovs gladly responded. Irina Aleksandrovna was not only one of the most enviable brides in the country, but also stunningly beautiful. By the way, at the beginning of the twentieth century in Russia there were three recognized beauties: Empress Maria Feodorovna, Zinaida Nikolaevna Yusupova and Irina Alexandrovna Romanova.
The wedding took place in February 1914 in the church of the Anichkov Palace. Since now the Yusupovs were related to the reigning dynasty, all of them arrived to congratulate the young. imperial family... A year later, their daughter Irina was born.

Murderer's mother
Almost everything is known about the role of Felix Yusupov in the murder of Rasputin. They lured the voluptuous old man under the pretext of meeting Irina Alexandrovna in the palace on the Moika. First they hounded, then they shot and, in the end, they drowned Rasputin in the river.
In his memoirs, Yusupov assures that in this way he tried to free Russia from "a dark force leading her to the abyss." Several times he refers to the mother, who quarreled because of her dislike for Rasputin with the empress. But is it worthy to lure a victim under the pretext of intimacy with his own wife? And Grigory Rasputin would hardly have believed such behavior of the noble prince.
Even then, in Yusupov's explanations, contemporaries suspected some cunning and assumed that Rasputin agreed to come to extinguish the quarrel between the spouses caused by Felix's homosexual inclinations.
The empress insisted that the conspirators be shot, but since among them was the Grand Duke Dmitry Romanov, the punishment was limited to exile. Felix was exiled to the Rakitnoye estate in Kursk.
Having learned about the events in St. Petersburg, Zinaida Nikolaevna, who was in the Crimea, paid a visit to the Dowager Empress.
“We have always understood each other,” Maria Fedorovna said slowly, drawing out her words a little. “But I'm afraid our prayers were answered too late. The Lord punished my son a long time ago by stripping his head. Get your family together. If we have time, we don't have much. "

Cursed wealth
At the beginning of the war, almost all of the country's wealthy families transferred their foreign savings to Russia. The Yusupovs were no exception. This was caused not only and not so much by patriotism as by the desire to preserve property - no one doubted the victory of Russia.
When the revolution broke out, Felix tried to save the family jewels by transporting them to Moscow. But they could not be taken from there, and the jewelry was accidentally found eight years later.
When on April 13, 1919, the Yusupovs sailed from the Crimea on the Marlboro destroyer, they still had 4 palaces and 6 tenement houses in St. Petersburg, a palace and 8 tenement houses in Moscow, 30 estates and estates throughout the country, the Rakityan sugar factory, Milyatinsky meat factory, Dolzhansky anthracite mines, several brick factories and much more.
But even in emigration, the Yusupovs were not among the poor. Although we have already mentioned that foreign savings were transferred to Russia with the beginning of the war, real estate remained abroad, and the princess's most valuable jewels were constantly taken with them and taken to emigration.
After Felix bought passports and visas for several diamonds, the Yusupovs settled in Paris. They bought a house in the Bois de Boulogne, where they lived for many years.
The old prince died in 1928, Zinaida Nikolaevna in 1939.
They buried her in the Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois cemetery near Paris.
Felix Yusupov did not refuse from an idle life, and, in the end, all the property exported and available abroad was wasted. He himself, his wife and daughter Irina were buried in his mother's grave. There was no money for one more place in the cemetery.

Prince Felix Yusupov will forever go down in history primarily as the murderer of Rasputin. The dramatic events of 1916, which took place in the Yusupov Palace on the Moika, were filmed more than once. The credible image of Felix Yusupov in the cinema was embodied by Vladimir Koshevoy in the film "The Conspiracy" (2007) and in the TV series of the First Channel "Grigory R." (year 2014). This time, the actor took a tour of the renovated Yusupov Palace, told about his significant meeting with Princess Ksenia Nikolaevna, the granddaughter of Felix Yusupov, who recently came to St. Petersburg, and shared with HELLO! some of her memories.

Felix Yusupov, 1916Vladimir Koshevoy at the Yusupov Palace. The actor has played Prince Yusupov more than once, and now he plans to embody this image on the stage of the palace's home theater. Ksenia Nikolaevna was born in 1942 in Rome. By that time, only memories remained of the fabulous state of the family. But grandfather and grandmother were alive, whose stories now and then returned Xenia to the times when the Yusupovs owned palaces in St. Petersburg and Moscow. In 1965, Xenia married a Greek entrepreneur and received the surname Sfiri. Then she gave birth to a daughter, Tatyana, then granddaughters appeared. Nothing disturbed the measured life in Athens, but Xenia wanted to visit St. Petersburg.

The princess first came to Russia not so long ago. It was from her that they took blood to identify the royal remains, because the maiden name of her grandmother Irina Yusupova is Romanova, she is the niece of Nicholas II. Xenia came to St. Petersburg for the burial ceremony of the royal family.

It was an amazing event, - Ksenia Nikolaevna said then. - We, the descendants of the old Russian aristocrats, followed the tsar's coffins through the streets of St. Petersburg, which I consider the most beautiful city on earth, and felt like a part of our homeland.

Ksenia Yusupova with her daughter Tatyana and granddaughters Marilya and Jasmine-Ksenia in the former princely library

The return was arranged very solemnly: the presentation of a Russian passport and even a meeting with Vladimir Putin. Ksenia, of course, dreams of coming home more often. But, paradoxically, Ksenia Yusupova-Sfiri simply has nowhere to stay: the family is not rich enough to afford hotels in the capital.

This time she came at the invitation of the director of the Yusupov Palace, who wanted to demonstrate the updated interiors and discuss the forthcoming production of "Felix. Return" based on Yusupov's memoirs. The play will be staged in the new theatrical season on the stage of the Palace's Home Theater.

The administration of the museum has always maintained warm relations with the descendants of Prince Yusupov. Ksenia Nikolaevna arrived at the invitation of the director of the Yusupov Palace Nina Vasilievna Kukuruzova (pictured) After examining the halls, Ksenia Nikolaevna defended a two-hour service in the house church of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos in the Yusupov Palace. Back in 2005, when work began on the revival of the church, not a single detail of the interior decoration reminded that there was once a temple here. Ksenia Yusupova cried with happiness and gratitude, because her grandfather, Felix Yusupov, was baptized here. Our conversation took place in the restored Moorish living room. The princess kicked off her shoes, climbed up onto an armchair and lit a cigarette. With pleasure I took a drag and plunged into memories ...

Vladimir Koshevoy and granddaughter of Felix Yusupova Ksenia NikolaevnaYouth

I was 16 years old when we began to closely communicate with my grandfather, - said the princess. “And often we only spent time together. He knew how to listen. He did not talk about Russia, we only talked about life, talked about what concerned us. I don't remember the details. I remember him entirely - posture, voice ... He opened the world for me. And he called him "little", and he could always guess which of the family was walking down the corridor. Who is there? Little ... We understood each other well, felt. We walked a lot, went to restaurants, cinema, theater. They were especially fond of comedies. They laughed a lot. He wanted more joy than the thrill of dramatic performances. Grandpa sang not well, but cute. Guitar, ballads. As for the music, Albinoni always sounded in the house. My granddaughters and I have a record by a Venetian composer, when we put it on, we remember grandfather.

Holidays

The most important holidays in the family are birthdays. What can be more important than our family members? We ourselves. One day, when I was little, they decided what to give. We had very little money. Thought: arrange a holiday or buy a gift? And grandfather decided: shoes. Said, "I want to be the first man to give you shoes." I remember they were trendy and white. This is the beauty of the deed. "

Character

He became very angry when his requests were not fulfilled. He did not like to postpone until tomorrow. He demanded to fulfill this minute. If the grandmother, Irina Yusupova from the Romanov family, was a pessimist, then he was always in the mood for the best - an optimist. Yes, even if today is not the way we would like, but tomorrow will be a new day. Everything will change. And grandfather also said: "Look at everything with kindness and love, and then the beautiful world will be open to you."

Rasputin

I didn't know anything about this story, and my grandfather asked me to read his memoirs. He said he wrote everything in the book for me. He was sure that Rasputin was a bad person. I read the book 15 times and every time I hear his voice, he is not a writer - a storyteller.

Cinema

I never watch movies about grandpa. Because everyone is only interested in Rasputin, and the identity of Felix is ​​not revealed in any way. Grandpa was a very theatrical person and he wanted to live brightly. I wanted to make a pleasant impression, but inside I remained a 16-year-old boy. And that was his beauty and spontaneity. He had charisma, "star" attraction, thanks to which he always found himself at the epicenter of events.

Deeds

“Grandpa was impractical, romantic and very kind. last years he set himself the goal of helping the dying. He found time to go to the hospital to the seriously ill, to cheer them up. Not many people know about this. And when seriously ill people were dying, they telephoned from the hospital and asked: "Come, they are waiting for your conversations and they die lightly." If you can help, help. Is always. This is his youthful credo. Grandpa used to say: "The good that we have comes from the good that we give." He always repeated this to me. I will also remember a few of these things and I will cry ... But I don't want to at all. "

Home theater

“Who has not performed on this stage - Franz Liszt, Pauline Viardot, Fyodor Chaliapin, Eduard Napravnik, Anna Pavlova! me this is a house with its own special aura. I would very much like that on this unique stage there was a play about the life of my grandfather. Yusupov can be called the "cultural core" of the Russian emigration. this is the link between generations. "

Ksenia Yusupova was very pleased with the restoration in the palace and the work of the team. In parting, she sincerely thanked for the warm welcome of her family and promised to attend the premiere of the play "Felix. Return"

The history of the Yusupov family

According to the documents, the biography of the princely family goes back to the Baghdad Caliphate of the 10th century, where the ancestors of the Yusupovs were emirs, sultans, supreme dignitaries and military leaders. In the XII century, the descendants of one of the most powerful branches of this family moved to the shores of the Azov and Caspian seas. Two centuries later, their descendant, the brave commander of Timur Edigei, founded the Nogai Horde. In the middle of the 16th century, under his great-great-grandson Khan Yusuf, the Nogai Horde reached its heyday. Yusuf's two sons appeared in Moscow in 1563 at the court of Tsar Ivan the Terrible. In 1681, the great-grandson of Khan Yusuf received Orthodox baptism with the name Dmitry.

During the streltsy revolt of 1682, Prince Dmitry Yusupov led a military detachment of Tatars to the Trinity Lavra to protect the young tsars John and Peter Alekseevich, for which he was granted lands in the Romanovsky district (now Yaroslavl region) into hereditary possession.

His son Gregory became an associate of Peter the Great and a brave warrior who took part in all Peter's battles. For military valor and special merits, Prince Grigory Dmitrievich Yusupov received huge land holdings in the fertile provinces of Russia. The service to the imperial throne was continued by his son Boris Grigorievich and grandson Nikolai Borisovich Sr.

() was sent by Peter I to France to study. During the reign of Anna Ioannovna, he was appointed Moscow Governor-General, then Chief Director of the Ladoga Canal. Under Elizaveta Petrovna, he was promoted to the rank of actual privy councilor and the post of president of the commercial college, for 9 years he headed the first Land Noble Cadet Corps in Russia.

His son - Prince Nikolai Borisovich Yusupov () - became one of the most notable characters in the history of the Russian Empire in the period from Catherine the Great to Nicholas I.

He spent fifteen years in Europe, traveling with educational goals... At Leiden University, Prince Yusupov is taking a course in law, philosophy and history. In The Hague he meets Diderot, in London he meets Beaumarchais. In Paris, a 25-year-old Russian aristocrat is introduced to the Court of Louis XVI and visits Voltaire himself.

In the Russian civil service, he is the director of the Imperial Hermitage, director of the Imperial theaters, glass and porcelain factories, tapestry manufactory, since 1823 Prince Yusupov has been a member of the State Council. An unprecedented fact in the history of the Russian Empire is associated with his name: as the supreme marshal of the coronation, Yusupov three times over the course of 29 years led the coronation ceremony of three monarchs - Paul I, Alexander I and Nicholas I. In 1830 he was awarded by Emperor Nicholas I with the rarest insignia - an epaulette studded with pearls and diamonds.

The prince's wife was Tatyana Vasilievna, nee Engelhardt. She remained in the memory of contemporaries as an intelligent and hospitable hostess of an exquisite salon. The selected circle of her friends included Derzhavin, Zhukovsky, Krylov, Pushkin.

The representative of the next generation - Prince Boris Nikolaevich Yusupov () acquired a house on the Moika embankment in 1830. For seven years of reconstruction, the mansion has turned into a vast luxurious palace. transports to the new St. Petersburg house a priceless art collection of paintings, marble, porcelain, collected by his elder father.

The wife of Boris Nikolayevich, Princess Zinaida Ivanovna (), nee Naryshkina, who was called “the star of the first magnitude” by her contemporaries, became an excellent mistress of the palace on the Moika. Among her enthusiastic admirers there were also crowned persons - Russian emperor Nicholas I and French Emperor Napoleon III.

The son of Zinaida Ivanovna - Prince Nikolai Borisovich Yusupov (), referred to in the genealogy as the "younger" (unlike the legendary grandfather), became the full owner of the palace in the mid-1850s.

Educated at the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg University, Yusupov Jr. began his career in the office of Emperor Nicholas I, to whom he was a godson. This was followed by a long stay in Europe, where he carried out diplomatic assignments of the Emperor. On his return to Yusupov, the younger married Countess Tatyana Ribopier. The Yusupovs gave birth to their beautiful daughters Zinaida and Tatiana.

Nikolai Borisovich made a brilliant court and state career. He devoted his free time to playing music and composition, possessing an outstanding talent in this field of art. was an honorary member of the Paris Conservatory, the Rome Academy of Music, the Munich Art Society, he channeled a lot of funds to charity and philanthropy, especially after the death of his wife and youngest daughter Tatiana.

The daughter of Prince Nikolai Borisovich Jr. Zinaida () with her rare beauty and high spiritual qualities stood out from the galaxy of famous beauties of the noble class.

Zinaida Nikolaevna was gifted with both nature and fate extremely generously. Representatives of the noble families of Europe wooed the heiress of the fantastic wealth of their ancestors. Count Felix Felixovich Sumarokov-Elston became the chosen one, in whose veins, according to family legends, flowed the blood of Field Marshal Kutuzov and the Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm IV. Having married in 1882 to Princess Zinaida Yusupova, who after the death of his father became the only representative of the family, he received permission from the Emperor for himself and his wife to be called the princes Yusupov counts Sumarokov-Elston.

By the beginning of the 20th century, while remaining the largest landowners in Russia, the Yusupovs were becoming successful industrialists. They own brick, sawmills, textile and cardboard factories, mines. Among the family's riches, there were art collections of unheard-of value and palaces of unprecedented beauty - the Moscow one in Kharitonevsky lane, the Moscow suburb in Arkhangelsk, the Korean one in the Crimea, and the St. Petersburg palace on the Moika. Realizing the historical and artistic value of the treasures belonging to them, the prince and princess Yusupovs in 1900 drew up a will, in which they wrote: “in the event of a sudden termination of our family, all our movable and immovable property, consisting of collections of fine arts, rarities and jewelry .. . bequeath to the property of the state ... ". Fortunately oldest family did not fade away, although the family suffered a grievous loss. At the age of 25, the eldest son of the Yusupovs, Nikolai, died in a duel.

The fate of the youngest son Felix (), his actions, shocking the generally accepted secular rules, his reputation as a frivolous rake worried Zinaida Nikolaevna very much. The desire of their son to settle down and marry was received by his parents with great joy. The princess of imperial blood, Irina Alexandrovna, was a brilliant party for the descendant of the ancient and noble family of the Yusupovs. Parents of the newlywed - grandson of Nicholas I, Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich and daughter Alexander III Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna contributed to the conclusion of this marriage. On March 21, 1915, Irina Feliksovna Yusupova was born in an old St. Petersburg house on the Moika. The girl's godparents were Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Dowager Maria Feodorovna. The newborn princess became the last offspring of the Yusupov family, born on Russian soil.

After the assassination of the tsarist favorite Gregory, he was sent into exile to his estate Rakitnoe, Kursk province (now Belgorod province). At the end of March 1917, the family returned to Petrograd and, soon, both the Yusupovs, the eldest and the young, left the troubled capital to find refuge in their Crimean estates.

In the spring of 1919, the Red troops approached the Crimea. On April 13, 1919, the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna and her relatives, among whom were the Yusupovs - Irina, Felix, their four-year-old daughter, Zinaida Nikolaevna, Felix Feliksovich - senior, left their homeland. Long years of exile began, as Felix Yusupov would later write "the vicissitudes and torments of our life in a foreign land."

Zinaida Nikolaevna and Felix Feliksovich Sr. settled in Rome. Irina and Felix Yusupov first settled in London, two years later they moved to Paris, buying a small house in the Boulogne-sur-Seine area. The acquisition turned out to be part of the once vast possession of the magnificent Zinaida Ivanovna, Princess Yusupova, Felix's great-grandmother.

In 1928, Felix Feliksovich, Prince Yusupov, Count Sumarokov-Elston, senior, died. He was buried in Rome. Zinaida Nikolaevna moved to Paris with her son. In 1938, the daughter of Felix and Irina married Count Nikolai Sheremetev. The young people settled in Rome, where Nikolai's parents lived. Their daughter Ksenia was born there in 1942.

In 1941, the Yusupovs bought a modest house on the rue Pierre Guerin in the center of Paris. Here they arranged for themselves a small cozy dwelling, which their granddaughter Ksenia still owns.

In the early 1950s. Felix Yusupov took up writing his memoirs. His first book "The End of Rasputin" was published back in 1927. Now he has written two volumes "Before the Exile." and "In Exile". Neither Zinaida Nikolaevna, nor Felix Feliksovich with Irina Alexandrovna, nor their daughter Irina waited until the end of the exile. They all found rest in the Russian cemetery of Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois.

Granddaughter Ksenia first visited the homeland of her ancestors in 1991. In 2000, by presidential decree Russian Federation Ksenia Nikolaevna Yusupova-Sheremeteva, married Sfiri, in response to her request, was granted Russian citizenship. In 2005, Felix's great-granddaughter Tatiana also visited the palace.

At the very end of the 19th century, Princess Zinaida Nikolaevna Yusupova ordered a painting from the increasingly popular artist Serov. More precisely, paintings, since she needed portraits of all members of her family. the history of the Yusupov family Valentin Alexandrovich was famous for the fact that he did not like to write "the rich, famous and arrogant", but he liked the princess and her family. The artist gallantly remarked that if all rich people were the same, then there would be no injustice and misfortune in the world. The princess sadly replied that not everything in life is measured by money. Alas, the history of the Yusupov family was so complex and tragic that it had every reason to be sad. - Read more on FB.ru: genus The origin of the family was very ancient. Even at the end of the 19th century, when among the highest nobility Russian Empire there were more and more people from among the rich merchants and manufacturers, the Yusupovs remained not only rich, but also honored their family, knew a lot about their ancient roots. In those years, not everyone could boast of this. So, the history of the Yusupov family begins with the Khan Nogai Horde- Yusuf-Murza. He, knowing full well about the glory of Ivan IV the Terrible, did not at all want to quarrel with the Russians. Desiring reconciliation with the formidable sovereign, he sent his sons to his court. Ivan appreciated this behavior: Yusuf's heirs were not only showered with villages and rich gifts, but also became "forever the rulers of all Tatars in the Russian land." So they found a new homeland. This is how the Yusupovs (princes) appeared. The history of Russian families has been replenished with one more glorious page. The very progenitor of the family ended badly. The khan knew perfectly well that in distant and alien Muscovy his sons would be much better. As soon as they managed to cross the borders of their former state, their father was treacherously stabbed to death by his own brother. The history of the Yusupov family says that the tribesmen were so furious at the news that the sons of the murdered khan had converted to Orthodoxy that they asked one of the most powerful steppe sorceresses to impose a curse on their entire family. It was terrible. The curse of the Yusupov family history of the family The Yusupovs passed on the words of the curse from generation to generation: “And let only one of the family live up to 26 years old. And so it will be, until the whole family is rooted out. " Superstitions are superstitions, but the words of such an ornate spell have come true unswervingly. No matter how many women from this family gave birth to children, only one of them lived to the ill-fated 26 years and more. However, modern historians say that the family probably had some kind of genetic disease. The fact is that the "ancestral curse of the Yusupov princes" did not begin to manifest itself immediately, no matter what the legend says. One child at a time began to survive only after Boris Grigorievich (1696-1759). Until then, there is no information about the small number of surviving heirs, which suggests a hereditary disease. This suspicion is confirmed by the fact that with the girls in the family everything was much better - they lived much more often to adulthood. Since then, each head of the family had only one son. Because of this, throughout the 18th-19th centuries, the family was actually on the verge of complete disappearance. However, this sad circumstance also had its positive side: unlike all others princely families , who by the end of the 19th century for the most part completely squandered their fortunes, the Yusupovs were more than fine with money. What should be a traveller's first aid kit? After the money and documents have already been laid out in their places, the question of a medical first-aid kit inevitably arises, which should not only help with the maximum number of possible ailments, but also weigh as little as possible, be not expensive and ... Read more on the website ... Powered by SlickJump ® Family well-being However, problems with the gene pool did not affect material well-being in any way. By the time of the revolution, the Yusupov family was only slightly "poorer" than the Romanovs themselves. Although the history of the Yusupov family transparently hints that in fact the family was much richer than the imperial family. Yusupov princes history of Russian families According to official information, the distant descendants of Yusuf owned more than 250 thousand acres of land, they also owned hundreds of factories, mines, roads and other profitable places. Every year, the profit from all this exceeded 15 million (!) Gold rubles, which, in modern terms, exceeds 13 billion rubles annually. The luxury of the palaces that belonged to them aroused the envy of even families whose ancestors came from the time of Rurik. Thus, in the St. Petersburg estate, many rooms were furnished with furniture that had previously belonged to the executed Marie Antoinette. Among their property were such paintings that even the Hermitage collection would have been honored to have them in their collection. In the caskets of women from the Yusupov family, jewelry, which had previously been collected all over the world, was carelessly lying. Their value was incredible. For example, the "modest" pearl "Pelegrina", with which Zinaida Nikolaevna can be seen in all the paintings, was once part of the famous Spanish crown and was a favorite adornment of Philip II himself. However, everyone considered their family happy, but the Yusupovs themselves were not happy about this. The history of the family has never been distinguished by an abundance of happy days. Countess de Chauveau Zinaida Nikolaevna's grandmother, Countess de Chauveau, probably lived the happiest life (in comparison with the rest of the women in the family). She came from the ancient and noble family of the Naryshkins. Zinaida Ivanovna was married to Boris Nikolaevich Yusupov at a very young age. She gave birth to her mature husband, first a son, and then a daughter, who died in childbirth. Only later did she find out that all the Yusupovs faced this. The story of the family impressed the young girl so much that she flatly refused to give birth: “I don’t want to bear dead people.” An incredible story about the hardships of the Yusupovs' family life She immediately told her husband that he was free to run after all the courtyard girls, she would not bond him. So they lived until 1849, when the old prince died. The princess at that time was not even forty years old, and therefore, as it is now customary to express herself, she "went into all the trouble." In those years, gossip about her adventures was transmitted throughout the empire, let alone St. Petersburg! But the most scandalous episode of her biography was a passionate infatuation with one young People's Will. When he was imprisoned in the Shlisselburg fortress, she abandoned all the balls and masquerades, by hook or by crook seeking for her beloved to soften the prison regime. New husband In those years and for lesser sins it was possible to fly out of high society, but Zinaida Ivanovna was sorry: after all, the Yusupovs! The incredible story had its continuation, but for a long time it was believed that the quirks of the princess were over. Her revelry suddenly stopped, the woman for a long time lived as a complete recluse. Then she meets a handsome, well-born, but completely ruined Frenchman, falls in love and leaves Russia forever. She gave up her "accursed surname" and became Countess de Chauveau, Marquise de Serres. Strange find Everyone forgot about this strange and stupid story, but then a revolution broke out. The Bolsheviks knew very well about the wealth of the family, since the curse of the Yusupov family was heard by everyone even in Moscow. They assumed that the "crazy potbelly stove" could well have hidden her jewelry somewhere in her former house on Liteiny Prospect, and therefore knocked all its premises literally by a millimeter. An absolutely incredible find awaited them: they discovered a secret room, the door to which was walled up. There was a coffin in the room, in which the embalmed body rested. young man ... We can safely assume that the solution to the missing People's Will has been found. Most likely, the countess was unable to obtain a revision of the sentence, and therefore embarked on a spree. Only after ransoming the body of her executed lover, she managed to calm down. the history of the princely family of the Yusupovs Zinaida Ivanovna, as we have already said, had an only son. Nikolai Borisovich Yusupov himself had three children at once. The eldest son was Boris. They had two daughters - Zinaida and Tatiana. No one was surprised that Boris died of scarlet fever at an early age. Parents were consoled only by the fact that their daughters grew up beautiful and were completely healthy. It was only in 1878 that misfortune happened to Zinaida. A new misfortune The family lived in their Arkhangelsk estate in the fall of that year. Nikolai Borisovich, being constantly busy at the service, came home rarely and for a short time. Tatiana preferred to read, and Zinaida loved to make long horseback riding trips. One day she hurt her leg. The wound was tiny and did not seem to pose any danger, but by evening the girl had a fever. Dr. Botkin, hastily summoned to the estate, made a disappointing diagnosis. Blood infection in those days ended only in death. By morning, Zinaida's fever did not drop, she fell into unconsciousness. It seemed that the clan of the Yusupov princes would soon suffer another loss. John of Kronstadt: Appearance Subsequently, Zinaida recalled that in that strange and unsteady state that separated reality from dreams, she dreamed of Saint John of Kronstadt, with whom her family had long been friends. When she suddenly regained consciousness, the elder was urgently summoned to the estate. He prayed for her, and the girl quickly recovered. But the sad story of the princely family of the Yusupovs did not end there. At 22, Tatiana died of measles. Continuation of the clan of the Yusupov princes It is not surprising that the old prince passionately desired the marriage of his daughter. Zinaida Nikolaevna then recalled that her father, who by that time had begun to be ill a lot, was very afraid not to live up to the time of the appearance of his grandchildren. Soon the applicant was found. The young Yusupov was married by the Bulgarian prince Battenberg, who was a direct relative of the imperial couple. The prince's retinue included a modest young man, Felix Elston, whose duties included introducing the future bride to the groom. And then thunder struck. Felix and Zinaida literally fell in love at first sight, and the feelings were mutual. Soon the young people got married. At first, Nikolai Borisovich almost fainted from such an extravagant decision of his daughter, but did not dare to contradict his only heiress. Just a year later, the young couple had their first child, who was named Nikolai in honor of his grandfather. New upheavals The boy was very withdrawn and unsociable, the princess tried all her life to bring him closer to herself, but did not achieve much success. On Christmas Day 1887, a little boy with icy calm told his mother, "I don't want you to have other children." It soon turned out that one of the nannies told him that the Yusupovs were a cursed family. The stupid woman was immediately fired. Zinaida, who by that time was expecting the birth of her second child, with fear wondered how his older brother would meet him. At first, everything indicated that the boy hated his younger brother Felix. Only when he was ten years old did they begin to communicate normally. But all contemporaries noted that the relationship between the two young princes resembled just a strong friendship, but by no means brotherly love... This is how the history of the Yusupov family continued. The discussion of the terrible curse that hung over their family gradually faded away. But then came 1908. The death of Nicholas Nikolai fell madly in love with Maria Heyden, who was soon to marry Arvid Manteuffel, and the wedding took place, since the young people loved each other. Yusupov's damned family Despite the desperate admonitions of all friends, the offended Nikolai went after them on a honeymoon trip. The duel was only a matter of time. It took place on June 22, 1908. Nikolai died six months before his twenty-sixth birthday. Parents almost went crazy with grief, and from now on all their thoughts were directed at young Felix. Unfortunately, the obvious happened: the spoiled boy became a "spoiled cherub", greedy and capricious. However, the trouble was not that, but in his exceptional extravagance. When the family set sail from blazing Russia in 1919, they had more than enough money. For just a couple of "small and faded" diamonds, Felix bought French passports for all his household members, they bought a house in the Bois de Boulogne. Alas, the prince did not give up the free life that he led at home. As a result, his wife and daughter Irina were buried right in the grave of Zinaida Nikolaevna. There was no money for the funeral. The line was cut off completely. Yandex.Direct - Read more on FB.ru: Education History Av. Volkhin Ivan Anatolyevich - Read more on FB.ru:
Another author adds ******************

The Yusupov family
Yusupovy

Citizenship: Russia

Related: Yusupovy, Rod of the Yusupovs

Ancestral curse of the Yusupov princes

On the eve of the twentieth century, Princess Zinaida Nikolaevna Yusupova ordered portraits of all family members from the fashionable artist Serov. Usually Valentin Aleksandrovich didn’t write “arrogant and rich”, but he didn’t refuse Yusupova: “If all rich people, princess, were like you, then there would be no place for injustice”.

The artist's answer surprised me: "Injustice cannot be eradicated, and even more so with money, Valentin Alexandrovich."

It is unlikely that Zinaida Nikolaevna had social justice in mind. For her, brought up in luxury, any lack of money was a consequence of thoughtlessness and idleness, and therefore quite fair. Yusupova g

She spoke about the highest justice, which, in her opinion, her family was deprived of.
A curse

The legend about the ancestral curse of the Yusupovs exists in several versions. Even the family retells it in different ways. Zinaida Nikolaevna herself adhered to the grandmother's version - Zinaida Ivanovna Naryshkina-Yusupo

Voy de Chaveau de Serre.

The founder of the clan is considered to be the Khan of the Nogai Horde, Yusuf-Murza. Wishing, against the will of the majority of his fellow tribesmen, to make peace with Moscow and fearing for the lives of his sons, he sent them to the court of Ivan the Terrible. The Russian chronicle says: “The sons of Yusuf, having arrived in Moscow, were granted many

Their villages and villages in the Romanov district, and the service Tatars and Cossacks settled there are subordinate to them. Since that time, Russia has become a fatherland for the descendants of Yusuf. "

The old khan was not mistaken: his sons had not yet managed to reach Moscow, when his brother treacherously stabbed him. When did it reach the Horde in

There is that the sons of Murza abandoned Mohammedanism and adopted Orthodoxy, one of the sorceresses put a curse on them. According to which, of all the Yusupovs born in one generation, only one will survive until the age of twenty-six, and this will continue until the complete destruction of the clan.

Why good

The clause sounded so florid, it's hard to say, but it came true unswervingly. No matter how many children the Yusupovs were born, only one lived to twenty-six.

At the same time, such a fragility of the clan did not affect the well-being of the family in any way. By 1917, the Yusupovs were the second richest after the Romanov

Yh. They owned 250 thousand acres of land, they were the owners of sugar, brick, sawmills, factories and mines, the annual income from which amounted to more than 15 million gold rubles. And the grand dukes could have envied the luxuries of the Yusupov palaces. For example, Zinaida Nikolaevna's rooms in

Arkhangelsk and in the palace in St. Petersburg were furnished with furniture of the executed French queen Marie Antoinette. The art gallery rivaled the Hermitage in its selection. And Zinaida Nikolaevna's jewelry included treasures that previously belonged to almost all the royal courts of Europe. T

Ak, the magnificent pearl "Pelegrina", with which the princess never parted and is depicted in all portraits, once belonged to Philip II and was considered the main decoration of the Spanish Crown.

However, Zinaida Nikolaevna did not consider wealth to be happiness, and the curse that made the Yusupovs unhappy

Tarskaya sorceress.
Granny de Chaveau

Of all the Yusupovs, perhaps only Zinaida Nikolaevna's grandmother, Countess de Chaveau, managed to avoid great suffering due to the untimely death of her children.

Born Naryshkina, Zinaida Ivanovna married Boris Nikolaevich Yusupov, a still very young girl

Oh, she bore him a son, then a daughter who died during childbirth, and only after that she learned about the family curse.

Being a reasonable woman, she told her husband that she was not going to “give birth to the dead” in the future, but if he didn’t walk up, “let the courtyard girls grow belly,” and she would not object. This went on

Until 1849, when the old prince died.

Zinaida Ivanovna was not forty, and, as they would say now, she was in all seriousness. Legends circulated about her dizzying novels, but the greatest noise was caused by her passion for the young People's Will. When he was imprisoned in the Shlisselburg fortress, the princess from

Seemed from secular amusements, followed him and with bribes and promises achieved that they let him go to her at night.

This story was well known, they talked about it, but oddly enough Zinaida Ivanovna was not condemned, recognizing the right of the stately princess to extravagance a la de Balzak.

Then ext

Everything was over, for some time she lived as a recluse on Liteiny, but then, after marrying a ruined but well-born Frenchman, she left Russia, renounced the title of Princess Yusupova and began to be called Countess de Chaveau, Marquise de Serre.

The story with the young Narodnaya Volya Yusupov was recalled

After the revolution. One of the émigré newspapers published a message that, trying to find the Yusupov treasures, the Bolsheviks knocked on all the walls of the palace on Liteiny Prospect. No jewelry was found, but a secret room adjoining the bedroom was found, in which there was a coffin with an embalmed man.

Most likely, this was the one, sentenced to death, Narodnoye, whose body the grandmother bought and transported to St. Petersburg.
Miracles of the Holy Elder

However, for all the drama of the life of Zinaida Naryshkina-Yusupova-de Chaveau-de Serre, the family considered her happy. All husbands died of old age, daughter

She lost during childbirth, when she had not yet had time to get used to her, she loved a lot, did not deny herself anything, and even died surrounded by her relatives. For the rest, despite their immense wealth, life was much more dramatic.

The son of Zinaida Ivanovna, Nikolai Borisovich Yusupov, had three children - a son

Boris and daughters Zinaida and Tatiana. Boris died in infancy from scarlet fever, but his daughters grew up not only very beautiful, but most importantly, healthy girls. Parents were happy, until in 1878 misfortune happened to Zinaida.

The family spent the autumn of that year in Arkhangelskoye. Prince Nikolay

Borisovich, the honorary guardian, the chamberlain of the court, being employed in the service, came rarely and shortly. The princess, on the other hand, introduced her daughters to their Moscow relatives and arranged musical evenings. In her free time, Tatyana read, and the eldest Zinaida went on horseback riding. During one of them, the girl was hurt

And the leg. At first, the wound seemed insignificant, but soon the temperature rose, and Doctor Botkin, summoned to the estate, made a hopeless diagnosis - blood poisoning. Soon the girl fell into unconsciousness, and the family prepared for the worst.

Then Zinaida Nikolaevna told that unconscious

Father John of Kronstadt, who was familiar with their family, dreamed of her. Recovering, she asked to call him, and after the elder who had arrived prayed for her, she began to recover. At the same time, the princess always added that she did not hear about the family tradition then and did not know that she was dooming with her recovery

To the death of a younger sister.

Tanya died of typhus at the age of twenty-two.
Lightning strike

Little is left of the once rich Yusupov archives in Russia. "The drunken sailor" - as Felix Yusupov described her in his memoirs - was looking, first of all, for jewelry, and the incomprehensible

She burned the papers. This is how the priceless library and archives of Alexander Blok perished, the archives of almost all noble families of Russia burned down in the fires. Now the family chronicles have to be restored according to the acts preserved in the state archives.

The Yusupovs are no exception. Trust completely overseas

Om the memoirs of Felix Yusupov is impossible - he embellishes his role in the murder of Rasputin, rather subjectively presents the revolutionary events. But due to the proximity to the imperial family, the Yusupov family chronicle is not difficult to restore.

After the illness of the eldest daughter, Nikolai Borisovich Yusupov became a special

Enno is persistent in the matter of her marriage. As Zinaida Nikolaevna later recalled, the prince, who was ill a lot, was afraid that he would not see his grandchildren.

And soon the princess, who did not want to upset her father, agreed to meet another contender for her hand - a relative of the emperor, the Bulgarian prince Battenberg

The contender for the Bulgarian throne was accompanied by a modest officer Felix Elston, whose duties were to introduce the prince to the future bride and take his leave. Zinaida Nikolaevna refused the future monarch and accepted Felix's offer, which he made to her the day after they met. It was liu

Bov at first sight, but for Zinaida Nikolaevna, which was noted by everyone, the first and only one.

Nikolai Borisovich, no matter how embarrassed his daughter's decision, did not contradict her, and in the spring of 1882 Felix Elston and Zinaida Yusupova got married. And a year later, the firstborn was born to the young - Nikolai, named so

In honor of my grandfather.
Yusupovs in a straight line

The boy grew up silent and withdrawn, and no matter how hard Zinaida Nikolaevna tried to bring him closer, she did not succeed. All her life she remembered the horror that gripped her when, on Christmas Day 1887, when asked to her son what gift he wanted, he received

And the childish and icy answer: "I don't want you to have other children."

Then Zinaida Nikolaevna was confused, but it soon became clear that one of the mothers assigned to the young prince told the boy about the Nagai curse. She was fired, but the princess began to wait for the expected child with a feeling of rut

Immogo and acute fear.

And at first the fears were not in vain. Nikolai did not hide his dislike for Felix, and only when he was ten years old did a feeling appear between them that looked more like friendship than love of two relatives.

Nikolai Borisovich Yusupov died in 1891.

Shortly before his death, he asked for the highest mercy to preserve the famous surname, and after the mourning had passed, Zinaida Nikolaevna's husband, Count Sumarokov-Elston, was given permission to be called Prince Yusupov.

Family rock reminded of itself in 1908.
Fatal duel

In Feli's memories

Ksa Yusupov it is easy to see that all his life he was jealous of his mother for his older brother. That, although outwardly he looked more like his father than Zinaida Nikolaevna, his inner world was unusually similar to her. He was fond of theater, played music, painted pictures. His stories were published under the pseudonym Rock

Ov, and even stingy with praise, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy once noted the author's undoubted talent.

After graduating from St. Petersburg University, he received a law degree. The family started talking about the upcoming marriage, but Nikolai unexpectedly fell in love with Maria Heyden, who was already engaged to Count Arvid M.

Anteifel, and soon this wedding took place.

The young people left for a trip to Europe, Nikolai Yusupov followed them, the duel could not be avoided. And it took place

On June 22, 1908, in the estate of Prince Beloselsky on Krestovsky Island in St. Petersburg, Count Manteuffel did not miss. Nikolay Yusupov

In six months, she was supposed to be twenty-six years old.

“Rending screams came from my father’s room,” Felix Yusupov recalled years later. - I entered and saw him, very pale, in front of the stretcher, where the body of Nikolai was stretched out. His mother, kneeling before him, seemed to have lost

Reason. With great difficulty we tore her away from my son's body and put her to bed. Having calmed down a little, she called me, but when she saw, she mistook me for her brother. It was an unbearable scene. Then my mother fell into prostration, and when she regained consciousness, she did not let me go for a second. "
Vicious cherub

When on d

Ueli died Nikolai, Zinaida Nikolaevna was about fifty. Now all her hopes were connected with her youngest son.

Outwardly, Felix resembled his mother unusually - regular features, large eyes, thin nose, swollen lips, graceful figure. But, if the features of Zinaida Nikolaevna were called by contemporaries

Angelic, then no one compared her youngest son except with a fallen angel. In all his appearance as a cherub, a certain amount of corruption was felt.

He was not inclined, like his older brother or mother, to the arts. Didn't have an interest in military and civil service, like his father or maternal relatives

Coy line. A burner of life, a golden boy, an enviable groom. But even with marriage, everything was not so simple.

Zinaida Nikolaevna tried to influence her son, wrote to him: "Do not play cards, limit your fun pastime, work with your brains!" But Felix Yusupov, although he adored his mother, overcome himself

I was not able to. Only Zinaida Nikolaevna's crafty statement that she was sick, but did not want to die until she saw her grandchildren, prompted him to agree to marry and promise to settle down. Okaziya introduced herself pretty soon.

In 1913, the great

Prince Alexander Mikhailovich. He himself started a conversation about the marriage of his daughter Irina and Felix, and the Yusupovs gladly responded. Irina Aleksandrovna was not only one of the most enviable brides in the country, but also stunningly beautiful. By the way, at the beginning of the twentieth century in Russia there were three recognized beauties: the imperial

Ritsa Maria Fedorovna, Zinaida Nikolaevna Yusupova and Irina Alexandrovna Romanova.

The wedding took place in February 1914 in the church of the Anichkov Palace. Since the Yusupovs were now related to the reigning dynasty, the entire imperial family arrived to congratulate the young. A year later, they were born before

Whose Irina.
Murderer's mother

Almost everything is known about the role of Felix Yusupov in the murder of Rasputin. They lured the voluptuous old man under the pretext of meeting Irina Alexandrovna in the palace on the Moika. First they hounded, then they shot and, in the end, they drowned Rasputin in the river.

In his memoirs, Yusupov at

Believes that in this way he tried to free Russia from the "dark force leading her to the abyss." Several times he refers to the mother, who quarreled because of her dislike for Rasputin with the empress. But is it worthy to lure a victim under the pretext of intimacy with his own wife? Yes, and Grigory Rasputin is unlikely

I would have believed such a behavior of a noble prince.

Even then, in Yusupov's explanations, contemporaries suspected some cunning and assumed that Rasputin agreed to come to extinguish the quarrel between the spouses caused by Felix's homosexual inclinations.

The Empress insisted that

The conspirators were shot, but since among them was the Grand Duke Dmitry Romanov, the punishment was limited to exile. Felix was exiled to the Rakitnoye estate in Kursk.

Having learned about the events in St. Petersburg, Zinaida Nikolaevna, who was in the Crimea, paid a visit to the Dowager Empress.

“We always understand

Ali each other, ”Maria Fedorovna said slowly, drawing out her words a little. “But I'm afraid our prayers were answered too late. The Lord punished my son a long time ago by stripping his head. Get your family together. If we have time, we don't have much. "
Cursed wealth

At the beginning of the war, almost everyone

The country's wealthy families transferred their foreign savings to Russia. The Yusupovs were no exception. This was caused not only and not so much by patriotism as by the desire to preserve property - no one doubted the victory of Russia.

When the revolution broke out, Felix tried to save the family

Jewelry, having transported them to Moscow. But they could not be taken from there, and the jewelry was accidentally found eight years later.

When on April 13, 1919, the Yusupovs sailed from the Crimea on the destroyer "Marlboro", in Russia they remained: 4 palaces and 6 tenement houses in St. Petersburg, a palace and 8 tenement houses

In Moscow, there are 30 estates and estates throughout the country, the Rakityansky sugar factory, the Milatinsky meat factory, Dolzhansky anthracite mines, several brick factories and much more.

But even in emigration, the Yusupovs were not among the poor. Although we have already mentioned that foreign savings with the beginning in

The Oins were transferred to Russia, real estate remained abroad, and the princess's most valuable jewels were constantly taken with them and taken to emigration.

After Felix bought passports and visas for several diamonds, the Yusupovs settled in Paris. They bought a house in the Bois de Boulogne where

And they lived for many years.

The old prince died in 1928, Zinaida Nikolaevna in 1939.

They buried her in the Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois cemetery near Paris.

Felix Yusupov did not refuse from an idle life, and, in the end, all the property exported and available abroad was wasted.

Modern encyclopedia

Russian princes (from the 16th century) from the clan of the Nogai Murzas, large landowners. The most famous: .. 1) Grigory Dmitrievich (1676 1730), participant Azov campaigns and the Northern War, General in Chief (1730), headed the Military Collegium (1727 30); .. 2) ... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

In the OGDR (III, p. 2) it is written that the Russian counts descend from the Nogai Murza Yusuf, the son of Musa Nogai, who entered the Russian service no later than the 70s of the 16th century, for in 1580 Yusupov Il Murza was already in command together with Boris Godunov ... ... Russian surnames

YUSUPOV, princes (from the 16th century) from the clan of the Nogai Murzas, large landowners. The most famous are: Grigory Dmitrievich (1676 1730), a participant in the Azov campaigns in 1695 96 and the Northern War in 1700 21, General in Chief (1730), headed the Military Collegium (1727 30); ... Russian history

Or Yusupovo Princes the suppressed Russian princely family. The former commander, who was in the service of Tamerlane, and the sovereign Nogai prince (died in the beginning of the 15th century) Edigei Mangita, Musa Murza was born in the third tribe, whose son Yusuf Murza (died 1556) was ... ... Encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Efron

Yusupov- YUSUPOV, Russian princes (from the 16th century) from a clan of large Nogai landowners. The most famous are: Grigory Dmitrievich (1676-1730), a participant in the Azov campaigns and the Northern War, General in Chief (1730), headed the Military Collegium (1727-30); Nikolay ... ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary

Russian princes (from the 16th century) from the clan of the Nogai Murzas, large landowners. The most famous are: Grigory Dmitrievich (1676-1730), a participant in the Azov campaigns and the Northern War, General in Chief (1730), headed the Military Collegium (1727-30); Nikolay ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

The clan of the Yusupov princes originates from the Nogai ruler Musa Murza. One of the latter's sons, Yusuf, was the father of the Kazan queen Syuyunbeki (Sumbeki) and at first was on friendly terms with Russia, but fell out for the captivity of his daughter ... Big biographical encyclopedia

The princely family in Russia in the 16th early 20th centuries. The founder of the Nogai prince Yusuf (died 1555). His sons lived in Russia from 1563; most famous statesmen: Grigory Dmitrievich Y. (1676 1730), senator from 1726, general in chief (1730) ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

Or Yusupovo Knyazhevs, the suppressed Russian princely family. From the military leader, who was in the service of Tamerlane, and the sovereign Nogai prince (died at the beginning of the 15th century) Edigei Mangit, Musa Murza was born in the third tribe, whose son Yusuf Murza (died in 1556 ... Encyclopedic Dictionary of F.A. Brockhaus and I.A. Efron

Books

• Yusupovs. An incredible story, Sarah Blake. The ancient dynasty of the Yusupovs, their great deeds and achievements have left an indelible mark on world history. The Yusupov princes were richer than the Russian tsar in the 20th century, and they were not inferior in nobility ...
• Yusupovs. An incredible story, Sarah Blake. This married couple in the history of Russia was remembered as one of the most beautiful, richest and most scandalous. There was a lot of talk about them, almost every act of theirs was subject to ...