Unknown artist. Grand Duke Nikolay Konstantinovich Romanov

Inappropriate women

Nicholas, the eldest son of the commander-in-chief of the fleet, was the nephew of Emperor Alexander II. He was the first of the Romanov family to graduate from a higher educational institution, and was fond of collecting. At the age of 21, he was given command of the squadron of the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment.

In the same 1871, he became interested in the American dancer Fanny Lear, who came to Russia in search of easy money and adultery. Fanny, the same age as Nicholas, a divorced woman with a child, was not the best company for the Grand Duke.

New passion - Central Asia

Nikolai's parents tried to interfere with the love affair and sent him on a military campaign to Khiva. The expedition was difficult, with losses, but ended successfully. Nikolai showed rare restraint (calming the soldiers who were going crazy with thirst), miraculously survived, fell in love with Central Asia. The Russian geographic was flattered by the interest of a member of the imperial family, Nicholas was appointed head of the expedition to the Amu Darya region.

Ignoring the mother's attempts to find a suitable bride, Nikolai, along with Fanny, went to Europe. He spent his fortune on his beloved and a collection of paintings, openly littered with money. At the Villa Borghese, he liked the statue of the reclining Venus with an apple, and he ordered the same sculptural portrait of his beloved Fanny.

Brought parents

In 1874, it turned out that Nikolai was stealing from his family. His mother discovered that large diamonds had disappeared from the icon that blessed her marriage. The jewelry was found in the pawnshop, the trail led to the aide-de-camp of Nikolai Konstantinovich. The Grand Duke did not admit his guilt, what he swore in the Bible, did not repent and slandered the adjutant.

He lied openly and to his eyes: his mother remembered very well how after breakfast Nikolai complained of a migraine, and she suggested that he should not go home, but take a nap in her bedroom, where the icon stood.

Nicholas found a lot of debts, receipts and bills - and not the slightest remorse. The family had to punish the son for theft and low behavior.

Worst of sins

It was possible to demote 24-year-old Nicholas to a soldier, to exile to hard labor, but his father treasured the honor of the Romanov family. The Grand Duke was sentenced two times. Officially, after a medical examination, he was declared insane. And the family decided to delete him from all documents, give the property to the younger brothers, henceforth it was forbidden to mention his name.

Nicholas was forever expelled from St. Petersburg, ordered to live under supervision until the end of his life, and Fanny was expelled from the country. For seven years he changed ten cities, but wherever he appeared, he brought only trouble. In 1874 and 1876, two women, who did not suit Nikolai at all, announced their pregnancy from him.

No decency

In 1878, he secretly married Nadezhda Dreyer, who bore him two children. All this time, Nikolai preached revolutionary ideas. Officially, he ceased to exist for the family, and in the summer of 1881 Alexander III sent him into exile in Tashkent.

(In 1899, Nicholas' cousin, Emperor Alexander III, recognized his marriage as legal, Nadezhda was given the princely title, and the children were given the surname Iskander.) In 1895, while continuing to live with his wife, Nicholas made friends with a 16-year-old Cossack woman who bore him three children.

In 1900, he married again, which was soon dissolved. Valeria Khmelnitskaya was a noblewoman, Petersburg was alarmed, a commission was sent, recognizing Nicholas as incapacitated, and the Khmelnitskys were expelled from Tashkent.

Sister Olga visited him in 1904, after the visit she wrote: "He completely lost all ethical principles that determine what can be done and what can be demanded."

Aryk in the Hungry Steppe

Nikolai had other interests as well. He organized scientific expeditions, published his discoveries. In Tashkent, he introduced irrigation systems, dug irrigation ditches in the Hungry Steppe (according to the law, the land belonged to the one who irrigated it), and was engaged in other useful undertakings. The imperial family allocated 10 thousand rubles a month for its maintenance.

He greeted the revolution with joy. In 1918, he died of a lung disease, and the Bolsheviks organized a funeral for him in the Cathedral of Tashkent.

Venus and Sophia

For a long time, his mother drank tea in a garden decorated with copies of antique sculptures. Finally, someone pointed out to her a portrait resemblance: Venus with an apple turned out to be a sculpture of the mistress of Prince Fanny Lear. The statue was hidden on the lawn, and then completely taken out of St. Petersburg.

Already in Tashkent, Nikolai promised to order an icon for the cathedral under construction. When the icon of Hagia Sophia arrived in a precious setting, a prayer service was held. All the generals venerated the image of Wisdom. And later it turned out. that the face on the icon was painted from the portrait of Sophia Perovskaya.

Portraits of your cousin Alexander III Nikolai wrote out in batches and used them as targets. You can tell a lot about his adventures, but Nikolai was not an ordinary bully. The reason for his behavior, depraved and offensive to others, was most likely rooted in mental illness. After his death, the collection of paintings and art objects he collected became the basis of the exposition of several museums.

Nikolai Konstantinovich is a graduate of the General Staff Academy, to which he entered on his own initiative in 1868. Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich became the first of the Romanovs to graduate from a higher educational institution, and among the best graduates - with a silver medal. After completing his studies, he traveled abroad, where he began to collect his collection of Western European painting. After traveling to Europe, the Grand Duke entered the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment, and after a while at the age of 21 he became a squadron commander. At this time, at one of the masquerade balls, he met an American dancer and adventurous by nature - Fanny Lear, who by that time had already traveled across Europe, was married and had a young daughter. They began an affair.

The Grand Duke's tumultuous romance worried his father and mother. The discussion of this problem even led to a meeting of his parents, who by that time did not live together. His father found a perfectly suitable excuse to remove him from St. Petersburg - in 1873, Nikolai Konstantinovich set off as part of the Russian expeditionary corps under the command of General Skobelev on a campaign against Khiva.

Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich, who by that time already had the rank of colonel, received his baptism of fire on this campaign. He, at the head of the vanguard of the Kazaly detachment, which suffered the greatest losses, followed one of the most difficult routes through the Kyzylkum desert. The very first reconnaissance group, led by him, fell into such dense artillery fire that the detachment did not expect them to return alive. In this campaign, Nikolai Konstantinovich showed personal courage and was an example for others. For participation in the Khiva campaign, he was awarded the Order of St. Vladimir.

After returning from Central Asia, with which he was fascinated, he was seriously interested in Orientalism.

He began to take part in the work of the Russian Geographical Society: there, among the learned men, the idea of ​​the Amu Darya expedition was ripening. Its goal was to study as much as possible the region just conquered by Russia and subject its potential to a detailed scientific analysis. Such plans stirred up, captured the brilliant aide-de-camp of the sovereign. The Geographical Society was, of course, glad of the august attention. Nikolai Konstantinovich was elected an honorary member of this society and appointed head of the expedition.

After returning from the Khiva campaign, he again went to Europe in the company of his beloved Fanny Lear. There he continued to expand his art collection.

But in the spring of 1874, when he turned 24, an event happened that completely changed the life of the Grand Duke.

Family scandal (theft)
In April 1874, the mother of Nikolai Konstantinovich, Alexandra Iosifovna, discovered in the Marble Palace the loss of three expensive diamonds from the frame of one of the icons, which at one time Emperor Nicholas I blessed the marriage of his son Constantine with the German princess, who became Alexandra Iosifovna in marriage. Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich called the police, and soon the diamonds were found in one of the pawnshops in St. Petersburg.

First, they found the man who took the diamonds to the pawnshop - the adjutant of the Grand Duke E.P. Varnakhovsky, whose guilt has survived to this day. During interrogation on April 15, he categorically denied any involvement in the theft and said that he only took the stones given to him by the Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich to the pawnshop.

Nicholas, who was present at the interrogation, swore on the Bible that he was not guilty - which, as they said, aggravated his sin. He told his father that he was ready, helping Varnakhovsky, not just an adjutant, but his comrade, to take the blame. Emperor Alexander II, who took the matter under his personal control, involved the chief of the gendarme corps, Count Shuvalov, in the investigation.

For three hours Shuvalov interrogated the arrested Nikolai Konstantinovich in the Marble Palace in the presence of his father, who later wrote in his diary: “No remorse, no consciousness, except when denial is already impossible, and then we had to pull out vein after home. Fierce and not a single tear. They implored all that remained saints to alleviate the fate that lay ahead of him with sincere repentance and consciousness! Nothing helped!"

Ultimately, they came to the conclusion that the diamonds were stolen by Nikolai Konstantinovich, and the proceeds were to go to gifts to the prince's mistress, the American dancer Fanny Lear. At the "family council" - a general meeting of members of the royal family, after long debates (as options were proposed - to give up as a soldier, bring to a public trial and exile to hard labor), a decision was made that caused minimal harm to the prestige of the royal family. It was decided to recognize Grand Duke Nicholas as mentally ill, and then, by decree of the emperor, he was forever expelled from the capital of the empire. Fanny Lear was expelled from Russia and forbidden to return here ever. She never met the Grand Duke again.

In fact, two sentences were announced to Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich. The first, for the public, was to declare him insane. From which it followed that from now on and forever he would be in custody, under compulsory treatment, in complete isolation. The essence of the second verdict - a family one - was that it was forbidden to mention his name in the papers concerning the imperial house, and the inheritance that belonged to him was passed on to his younger brothers. He was also stripped of all ranks and awards and struck off the regiment's lists. He was expelled from Petersburg forever and was obliged to live under arrest in the place where he was told.

In 1917, a translation of Fanny Lear's memoirs appeared in the magazine "Argus", where she talked about her august novel, the bitter fate of Nikola (as her close people called him), in whose guilt she did not believe for a minute, as well as how it ended her trip to Russia.

Fanny wrote in her memoirs that in the capital the Grand Duke was kept in a straitjacket, drugged and even beaten. The soldiers who were guarding Nikola were swaggering over him, although yesterday he was out of their reach for them, and offered the arrested child children's toys. Nicholas Roerich himself, judging by the notes he left, regretted that he had not ended up in hard labor.

In the memoirs of Fanny Lear there is an entry that very eloquently characterizes this woman herself, who was born and raised in the family of a Protestant priest: “If such a loss happened in the family of ordinary people,” wrote Miss Lear, “she would have been hidden there; here, on the contrary, they raised the police to their feet ... ”.

There is another oddity in this matter. Despite the fact that the parents of Nikolai Konstantinovich and his august relatives did not leave the confidence that Nikolai Konstantinovich was ruined by his love for the courtesan and the lack of funds to satisfy her whims, it remains unapplicable that during a search in the desk of Nikolai Konstantinovich, the sum was found , much larger than the one that was received for the stolen diamonds pledged in the pawnshop.

He was taken away from Petersburg in the fall of 1874. Before his last "stop", in Tashkent in the summer of 1881, that is, in less than 7 years, he changed at least 10 places of residence. Nowhere was he allowed to find at least some kind of home, to acquire connections, to put down roots. It shook across Russia: the Vladimir province, Uman - 250 miles from Kiev, the town of Tivrovo, near Vinnitsa, and so on.

When he was sent to Orenburg, Nikolai Konstantinovich assumed that there would not be very strict supervision over him, since there, on the border of the endless desert in extremely difficult climatic conditions, there were constant hostilities. Indeed, here in Orenburg, the local authorities turned a blind eye to many things that were “impermissible”. It was in Orenburg in 1877 that 27-year-old Nikolai published his work "The Waterway to Central Asia, indicated by Peter the Great", which was published without specifying the author's name. Here he managed to make trips deep into the Kazakh steppes - on horseback, together with the same enthusiasts, he made the journey from Orenburg to Perovsk. He was captured by the idea of ​​building railroad from Russia to Turkestan. The project sent to St. Petersburg was recognized as unprofitable due to the sparsely populated land.

In Orenburg, the Grand Duke performed extraordinary deeds. So, in the winter of 1878, he married the daughter of the city police chief, Nadezhda Alexandrovna Dreyer. The wedding was secret, but rumors spread - and the corresponding report flew to St. Petersburg. As a result, the marriage was dissolved by a special decree of the Synod, and the Dreyer family was ordered to leave the city. The young wife flatly refused to leave her husband. Nadezhda Aleksandrovna, being a Cossack family, had a strong character - the arduous horseback riding trips across the steppes, which she walked alongside Nikolai Konstantinovich, emphasized this in the best possible way. Nadezhda Alexandrovna Nikolai Konstantinovich in honor of Alexander the Great (Iskander Zulkarn? In) called "Princess Iskander".

While in exile, the Grand Duke also showed a kind of willfulness - sometimes he threatened to put on all his orders and go out to the people, which, in his opinion, should have freed the exiled. At the same time, at imperial court rumors began to spread about past meetings of the disgraced prince with the People's Will Zhelyabov. They were even rumored to be friends.

The younger brother of the Orenburg prisoner, Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, did not approve of the tough line of the imperial house: “How soon will the painful situation end, from which poor Nicholas is not given any way out? The most meek person could thus be taken out of patience, Nikola still has enough strength to endure his imprisonment and moral prison. "

In the end, taking into account the arguments of common sense, the cousin of the disgraced Grand Duke, Emperor Alexander III, allowed the Morganist marriage to be legalized, however, the young were ordered to go to the Turkestan Territory, to Tashkent.

In Tashkent
In Turkestan, the Grand Duke first lived under the name of Colonel Volynsky. Later he began to call himself Iskander. This surname is borne by all his descendants - the princes of Iskander. Subsequently, he married another lady - Daria Chasovitinova, the 15-year-old daughter of a Tashkent resident belonging to the Cossack estate. From this union he had several children. Moreover, he could appear in society at the same time with his two "wives".

From Nadezhda Alexandrovna, the Grand Duke had two sons - Artemy and Alexander. Nadezhda Alexandrovna herself, under the name of "Princess Iskander", repeatedly visited St. Petersburg, trying to establish ties with the Romanov family. Perhaps she was not quite successful in this, but both of their children were taken to study in St. Petersburg by the privileged Page Corps.

Being a contradictory nature, Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich was able to
and for quite noble deeds. Having received from the emperor 300 thousand rubles for the construction of the palace, he used this money to build a theater in Tashkent. And the luxurious palace for its residence, built in the center of Tashkent, is still one of the most notable sights of Tashkent - now it is the home of international receptions of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan.

A number of sometimes curious, and sometimes quite serious secular and near secular scandals in Tashkent were also associated with the name of the Grand Duke. This was facilitated by the ambiguous position of Nicholas Roerich - on the one hand, he formally continued to be under house arrest, the decision on which was not canceled, on the other hand, he continued to remain the Grand Duke, and thus remain under the auspices of the imperial house, and besides, he was very popular person among the local European population of the city.

Entrepreneurship of the Grand Duke
The Grand Duke was engaged in entrepreneurship, was the owner of a number of enterprises in Tashkent - he started a soap factory, photographic workshops, billiard rooms, the sale of kvass, rice processing, soap and cotton factories, registering, in order to avoid family anger, all the enterprises organized against his wife. With the money received from his entrepreneurial activities, he built the first cinema in Tashkent (also as a business project) - "Khiva", with his own money he was engaged in laying irrigation canals in the Hungry Steppe.

The income from his entrepreneurial activity amounted to an impressive amount - up to one and a half million rubles a year. For comparison: from St. Petersburg the prince was sent 200 thousand rubles a year for maintenance.

Nikolai Konstantinovich turned out to be an excellent entrepreneur. He was one of the first to turn to the then most profitable area of ​​industry in the Turkestan region - the construction and operation of cotton ginning factories. At the same time, he used the most advanced technical ideas of his time - a waste-free technological cycle was used at his factories - cotton seeds left after processing raw into fiber were used as raw materials in oil mills, and cake was used both for fertilization and for livestock feed.

Already with his first irrigation works, he gained great popularity among the population. The first of them is the removal of a channel from Chirchik along the right bank of the river, which he named Iskander-aryk.

Then on these lands there were only a few houses of poor dehkans who had moved from Gazalkent. After the Iskander-aryk was carried out, the “grand-ducal” settlement of Iskander was founded here. Away from the village, the Grand Duke laid out a large garden. During the works related to the construction on the Iskander-aryk, Nikolai Konstantinovich made an archaeological opening of a burial mound located near the channel of the canal, from which weapons and other objects were removed.

In 1886, the Grand Duke began to "drain" the Syrdarya water, wishing that it would not irrigate at least part of the Hungry Steppe between Tashkent and Jizzakh, spending a lot of energy and personal funds. The work associated with the channel cost the prince over a million rubles (for comparison: a cow then cost 3 rubles). On the coastal rock near the river, at the head structure near Bekabad, a large letter "H" was carved with a crown.

Twelve large Russian settlements arose on irrigated lands. Nikolai Konstantinovich wrote: "My desire is to revive the deserts of Central Asia and make it easier for the government to settle them with Russian people of all classes." By 1913, 119 Russian villages had already grown there.

But the favorite idea of ​​the Grand Duke was the project of restoring the "old current" of the Amu Darya to the Caspian Sea. Back in 1879, in Samara, he organized a society for the study of Central Asian routes, which aimed at choosing the direction of the Turkestan railway and researching the turn of the Amu Darya into Uzboy. In March 1879, Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich published a brochure entitled "Amu and Uzboy" (the book was published without indicating the author's name). In it, the author, relying on the evidence of sources - the works of ancient and medieval writers, - argued that the river has repeatedly changed its direction "solely by the will of man." But the government did not support the prince's initiative - it itself took up the development of a project to turn the river.

In the brochure Amu and Uzboy, the Grand Duke wrote: “During the last 25 years Russia has conquered most of Central Asia, but the once flourishing Turkestan fell to the Russians in a state of decline. He is endowed by nature with all favorable conditions for the rapid development of his rich productive forces. By expanding the irrigation network, expanding the limits of the oases, Turkestan can be made one of the best Russian regions. " The plan to "turn the Amu Darya", probably quite rightly, was also considered inappropriate. But the expedition itself, which traveled more than a thousand kilometers through completely unexplored places, brought material of exceptional value. This was noted by the scientific community, and even by the authorities in St. Petersburg, who awarded all its participants, with the exception of the Grand Duke.

In Central Asia, work associated with irrigation has always been highly valued, especially new lands that were not previously used for agricultural crops. Therefore, the aforementioned irrigation measures of Nikolai Konstantinovich, the largest for their time and, moreover, carried out not compulsorily, but with the remuneration of all participants, contributed to the rapid spread of the popularity of the Grand Duke among the local population. He built a 100-kilometer irrigation canal at his own expense, which revitalized 40 thousand acres of land.

Collection of the Grand Duke
The collection of paintings of European and Russian painting, collected by the Grand Duke and brought by him from St. Petersburg, was the basis for the creation in 1919 of the Museum of Art in Tashkent, which has one of the richest collections of paintings of European painting among the art museums of Central Asia.

The fate of one sculpture
During their second trip to Europe, Nicholas Roerich and Fanny Lear visited the Villa Borghese in Rome. Here he admired the famous sculpture by Antonio Canova, depicting Pauline Borghese, Napoleon's younger sister, in the form of a naked beauty lying on a marble bed in the form of the victorious Venus with an apple in her left hand. Nikolai Konstantinovich immediately ordered a sculpture by Tomaso Solari to make an exact copy of the sculpture, but instead of Polina Borgose, his beloved, Fanny Lear, was supposed to lie on the marble bed.

In her memoirs, Miss Lear recalled the unpleasant impression that a plaster mask applied to her face caused her, with the help of which the sculptor subsequently reproduced her facial features in marble. The sculptor assured them that at the end of the work the sculpture would be sent to St. Petersburg. He kept his promise.

Many years later, when the Grand Duke was already in exile in Tashkent, his mother, Alexandra Iosifovna, gave him a gift. While walking in the park, she came across a marble sculpture of a half-naked woman with an apple in her hand. She recognized this woman as Fanny Lear, the beloved of her eldest son. And soon the sculpture, packed in a wooden box, was sent to Tashkent to Nikolai Konstantinovich. Later, this marble sculpture became one of the adornments of the Tashkent Museum of Fine Arts.

Today, only a small photograph of a copy of Tommaso Solari's sculpture is the only opportunity to see a woman, meeting with whom predetermined a very special, unlike anyone else, fate of one of the Grand Dukes of the Romanovs.

The Grand Duke and the Revolution
Last Russian emperor Nicholas II, was brought to the notorious relative by his cousin, but he never allowed him to return to the capital. Therefore, the abdication of the emperor in February 1917 was greeted by the Grand Duke Nicholas Roerich. In the spring of 1917, the office of Prime Minister Kerensky, among many greetings, received a telegram from Turkestan from the Grand Duke.

It is worth noting that Alexander Fedorovich Kerensky knew the Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich very well in Tashkent, since they lived in the neighborhood for almost 10 years.

Death of the Grand Duke
However, after the coalition of Bolsheviks and Left SRs came to power in Tashkent in November 1917, and the establishment of Soviet power in Turkestan, relations with new government the Grand Duke did not work out. On January 14, 1918, Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich Romanov was arrested and, according to some sources, shot on the same day, according to others "he died under unexplained circumstances", according to the third "he died of pneumonia."

Thus ended the life of the Grand Duke, full of dramatic collisions, most which he spent in the Turkestan region and left a bright mark here.

He was buried near the Church of St. George - Joseph-George Cathedral, located opposite the entrance to the prince's palace. Later in Soviet time this church was "re-profiled" into a puppet theater and a dumplings cafe, also an ice cream parlor. Some time after Uzbekistan gained independence, these buildings - the old puppet theater and dumplings cafe - were demolished. At present, a small public garden has been set up on this place.

A family
Wife (15.2.1878-7.3.1900) Nadezhda Alexandrovna Dreyer (1861-1929?) (Daughter of the Orenburg police chief) She and the children received the nobility and the title of count (February 1917) under the name Iskander. The title was not formalized by an official decree.

She was a curator of the museum, then she was fired. According to eyewitnesses, in the last years of her life she looked like a real beggar, she wore torn clothes and ate what was left at the door of her hut by residents who remembered the kindness of the Grand Duke. Nadezhda Alexandrovna died in 1929 from the bite of a rabid dog.

Children
* The eldest son Artemy (b. 1883), according to one version, died during the Civil War, fighting on the side of the whites, according to the other, he died of typhus in Tashkent in 1919.
* The youngest son, Alexander (b. 1887), a military officer, fought in the Wrangel army, then was evacuated to Gallipoli, and then to France, where he died in 1957.

The second time in 1901 he married Varvara Khmelnitskaya (1885-). The marriage is not recognized.

Extramarital affairs
* Mistress Alexandra Alexandrovna Demidova (nee Abaza)

Children
* Nikolay (1875-)
* Olga (1877-)

In 1888 they received from Emperor Alexander III the nobility with the surname "Volynskie" and the patronymic name "Pavlovichi", tk. at that time, the husband of their mother (from 1879) was Count Pavel Feliksovich Sumarokov-Elston (1853-1938), the uncle of Prince Yusupov, the future assassin of Rasputin.

* Mistress Daria Eliseevna Chasovitina (1880-1953 / 1956)

Children
* Svyatoslav (-1919) - shot
* Nikolay (-1919/1920)
* Daria (1896-1966)

The Central Russian Archive contains the case (documents) of the Grand Duke.

Sunrise landscapes of the Central Asia desert.

The inscription on the stones: "Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich".

Photographs of the Grand Duke.

Biographer Romanov N.K. B. Golender gives interviews (synchronously).

Photos of N.K. Romanov in childhood, with his mother and father, the Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich.

Portraits portraits of the parents of Romanov N.K.

Portrait of Emperor Alexander II.

Photos of the Grand Duke's brothers and sisters.

Photos of the Marble Palace in St. Petersburg, Pavlovsk Palace, Strelna estate.

Photo of the Grand Duke with his family, during his studies at the Academy of the General Staff.

Romanov N.K. after graduation from the academy.

Historian V. Germanov gives interviews (synchronously).

Photo of N.K. Romanov after graduation from the academy.

A train goes between the hills.

View of Notre Dame Cathedral.

Railway.

Photos of the views of Athens, Rome.

Illustrations from the life of the guards officers.

Photo by Fanny Lear.

B. Golender gives interviews (synchronously).

Photo of Lear against the backdrop of views of Paris.

Cancan at the Moulin Rouge.

A horse-drawn carriage arrives at the palace.

Photos of N.K. Romanov and Lear against the background of dancing at the ball.

A picturesque portrait of Catherine II.

Statues and paintings from the collection of N.K. Romanov in the exposition of the Museum of Arts of Uzbekistan.

Portraits of Lear and Romanov N.K. in the newspaper, portraits of the Grand Duke's parents.

Map of Turkestan.

Newsreel of the early 20th century: landscape of one of the Central Asian cities.

The Khiva Khan gets into the carriage.

Newsreel of the early 20th century: desert landscapes.

Men dance in front of the audience sitting around.

The faces of spectators and dancers.

General view of the circle with dancing.

Germanov gives interviews (synchronously).

Game footage from the x / film: Emperor Alexander II escorts the troops at the station.

Game footage of the combat operations of the Russian troops in the Khiva campaign, a portrait of the commander, General Kaufman.

Pictures depicting the fighting.

The text of the letter of N.K. Romanov to Lear.

Fighting Russian troops, cavalry attacks.

Photo of the Grand Duke at the end of the Khiva campaign.

Game footage of combat operations.

Photo of N.K. Romanov

Landscapes of Turkestan.

Photo of the Grand Duke in the ceremonial uniform of the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment.

The text of the letter from Romanov N.K. to Lear.

Interior view of an Orthodox church, candles are burning.

Types of winter St. Petersburg.

Newsreel of the early 20th century: a camel caravan enters the gates of the fortress in Khorezm.

Types of quarters of Khiva.

General view of the old city (top).

View of St. Petersburg.

Portrait of Grand Duke Constantine.

Portraits of Alexander II and Nicholas I.

Engravings and photographs of the exterior and interior of the Marble Palace.

Portraits of N.K. Romanov and Lear.

Germanov gives interviews (synchronously).

Text of Lear's memoirs.

Game footage of the imperial exit in the Winter Palace.

Texts of Lear's memoirs in various editions in Russian and English.

The text of the entry in the diary of N.K. Romanov.

View of the Palace Square in St. Petersburg.

Newsreel of 1913: carriages are passing through the Palace Square.

The horse-drawn carriage rides along the steppe road.

Postcard with a view of Orenburg.

Portrait of N.K. Romanov during his stay in Orenburg.

Golender gives interviews (synchronously).

Desert panorama.

Mazar in the desert.

Desert landscape.

Golender gives interviews (synchronously).

Scientific works written by Romanov N.K. in Orenburg.

Types of the Central Asian desert.

A camel caravan is passing by.

View of a part of the Amu Darya (top).

Desert landscape.

Photos of the Grand Duke and Emir of Bukhara.

The text of the letter of the Grand Duke to the Emir.

Interior view of the premises of the Emir's palace in Bukhara.

View of a part of Bukhara.

View of a part of the Amu Darya (top).

Sailboats on the river.

Views of the banks of the Amu Darya.

The book by professor, member of the expedition, professor Sorokin, about the journey to Central Asia.

A caravan is going through the desert.

Photos of the streets of Orenburg.

Photos of N.K. Romanov and his wife Von Dreyer N.A.

The text of the resolution of the Synod declaring the marriage of the Grand Duke illegal.

Game footage: Emperor Alexander II takes a report in the Winter Palace.

Photo of N.K. Romanov and his wife.

Photo of Alexander II with his sons.

Photos of Alexander III.

There is a train.

Photographs of views of Tashkent in the 1880s.

Newsreel of the early 20th century: views of the quarters of Tashkent.

A cart is driving along the street.

People on the street.

People ride donkeys.

Types of the city bazaar.

Potter at work.

People pray in the square in front of the mosque.

Weavers on the street at work.

People load goods onto camels.

The caravan leaves the gate.

Photos of buildings and streets of the "European" part of Tashkent.

Newsreel of the 1920s: the streets of Tashkent.

People are riding on donkeys down the street.

A woman cleans the carpet in the courtyard of the house.

People on the bank of the canal, the girl is collecting water.

Peaches on the branches.

People are digging an irrigation canal in one of the villages.

Landscapes of the environs of Tashkent.

View of part of the Iskander Canal in the Chirchik Valley, built with the participation of the Grand Duke in 1883-1885.

Views settlement Iskander in Uzbekistan.

The text of the entry in the diary of the Grand Duke.

Views of the Amu Darya.

Irrigation canals.

Dehkans plow the land.

Types of the village of Iskander, founded by the Grand Duke.

Streams of mountain streams.

Mountain stream on the slope.

Newspaper reports and photographs of charitable events with the participation of N.K. Romanov.

Photo of the residence of the Grand Duke in the center of Tashkent.

The text of the entry in the diary of the Grand Duke.

Photos and drawings of the Grand Duke's house.

The modern look of the building.

Internal interiors of premises in the house of Romanov N.K.

Decorating the walls of the halls in the house.

"Eastern" rooms in the house.

Outbuildings and outbuildings.

Fragments of decorations of the House of the Grand Duke (House of Receptions of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan).

Fragments of the decoration of the premises.

Paintings on the walls.

Carvings on walls and doors.

An art critic gives interviews (synchronously).

Fragments of decorations of the rooms of the palace.

An art critic gives interviews.

Newsreel of the 1910s: the construction of irrigation canals in Central Asia.

Canal named after Nicholas I, flowing from the Syrdarya.

Photos of the channel.

Photos of houses in villages that emerged along the canal at the end of the 19th century.

General views of the channel.

Photos of Russian settlers.

Types of buildings and buildings of the estate " Golden Horde Hungry Steppe ", founded by the Grand Duke.

Golender gives interviews (synchronously).

Photo of D.E. Chusovitina, the second wife of the Grand Duke.

Golender gives interviews (synchronously).

The text of the entry from the diary of the Grand Duke.

Photo of Khmelnitskaya V.

The building of the church in the Trinity village near Tashkent.

Icons and candles in the chapel of the palace of the Grand Duke in Tashkent.

Game shots from the x / film: there is a general with his retinue.

The text of the entry from the diary of the Grand Duke.

Game shots from the x / film: policemen and gendarmes are passing by.

There is a passenger train.

Landscapes outside the carriage window.

Golender gives interviews (synchronously).

Newsreel of the early 20th century: horse-drawn carriages are leaving the gates of the palace in Tashkent.

The imperial family during their stay in Tsarskoe Selo.

Photo of the Grand Duke in a turban.

Newsreel of the early 20th century: the departure of horse-drawn carriages from the gates of the palace in Tsarskoe Selo.

View of a part of the exposition of the Museum of Arts of Uzbekistan, paintings and statues from the collection of the Grand Duke.

Samples of wood carving.

Collection items and paintings collected by the Grand Duke.

Fragments of the building of the palace of the Grand Duke in Tashkent.

Daughter Hajar, pupil of the Grand Duke, gives interviews (synchronously).

The watch presented by the Grand Duke to his pupil.

Game shots from the x / film: a merchant closes a shop, a policeman walks by.

Portrait of Hajar in old age.

Hajar's granddaughter gives interviews (synchronously).

Water flows along the channel bed.

The wheels of the water mill rotate.

Newsreel of the beginning of the 20th century: people are clearing the bed of the irrigation ditch, weighing cotton.

A workshop of a cotton processing plant in Tashkent.

Workers in the shop of the plant.

Germanov gives interviews (synchronously).

Photographs of buildings and interiors of libraries founded by the Grand Duke.

Germanov gives interviews (synchronously).

Buildings near the palace of the Grand Duke in Tashkent.

Germanov gives interviews (synchronously).

Photo of the palace building.

Photos of the visit of the younger brother of the Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich to Tashkent.

Photos of the Grand Duke's parents and his sister Olga, the Greek queen.

Newsreel 1912-1913: Nicholas II is taking bread and salt.

Arrival of the Emir of Bukhara Seyid Alim Khan to St. Petersburg.

Celebrating the 300th anniversary of the House of Romanov.

General view of the Palace Square.

Nicholas II and the Empress on the balcony of the Winter Palace.

People are building an irrigation canal.

Photos of a part of the Romanov irrigation canal and a memorial stele in honor of the commissioning of the canal.

Photos of the opening of the channel.

Photo of the Grand Duke and his wife in 1916.

Palace of the Grand Duke in Tashkent.

Paintings collected by the Grand Duke.

Golender gives interviews (synchronously).

Portrait of D.E. Chusovitinova

Golender gives interviews (synchronously).

Photos of buildings in Khiva, built by the Grand Duke.

Portrait of Dreyer-Iskander N.A.

Golender gives interviews (synchronously).

Newsreel of 1932: views of the bazaar in Tashkent.

Photo of Dreyer-Iskander at the bazaar in Tashkent.

Golender gives interviews (synchronously).

Portraits of Natalya Alexandrovna Iskander, granddaughter of the Grand Duke.

Golender gives interviews (synchronously).

Newsreel 1917: revolutionary events in Petrograd in March 1917.

A revolutionary demonstration in Tashkent.

units of the Red Army operating in Central Asia.

A cavalry squadron is galloping.

Photos of cinema buildings built by the Grand Duke.

Newsreel of 1917: people on the streets of Tashkent.

People's faces.

Photos of the Transfiguration Cathedral in Tashkent, near the fence of which Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich was buried.

Portrait of the Grand Duke.

The inscription on the stones in the desert: "Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich".

Prince A. N. Iskander about his father November 3rd, 2011

Repost from the magazine jnike_07
Prince A. N. Iskander

I found interesting evidence in the memoirs of Prince Alexander Nikolaevich Iskander, born on November 15, Art. Art. 1889 in Tashkent, died in Grasse on January 26, 1957, was buried in the Russian cemetery in Nice. This is the youngest son led. book Nikolai Konstantinovich Iskander-Romanov (1850-1918), whose death I spoke about. The father was the grandson of Nicholas I and the great-uncle of Nicholas II, the son, respectively, - the great-grandson of Nicholas I and the second cousin of the last tsar. Godmother of the book. A. N. Iskander, by the way, was his father's sister - led. book Olga Konstantinovna (1851-1926), the first queen of the Hellenes.

In 1911, he was listed among the 67th year graduates of the Alexander Lyceum, the former Pushkin Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum. Enlisted in the Life Guards Cuirassier Regiment of Her Majesty Empress Maria Feodorovna. That is, despite the fact that his father was an eternal exile of the Romanov family, his mother, Nadezhda Aleksandrovna Dreyer, the daughter of an Orenburg police officer, managed to establish ties with the Romanov family through her mother-in-law. book Alexandra Iosifovna, led the widow. book Konstantin Nikolaevich, brother of Alexander II, according to Romanov family terminology - "Aunt Sunny". N. A. Dreyer became Princess Iskander, and placed her two sons in prestigious educational institutions. After serving for a short time in the regiment of the Tsaritsyn cuirassiers, Prince. A. N. Iskander injured his leg while driving in Italy and after treatment was sent to the town of Verny (now Alma-Ata) as an officer for assignments under General Folbaum, the military governor of the Semirechensk region.

After the outbreak of the First World War, he returned to his regiment of Tsaritsyn's cuirassiers and fought in its composition throughout the war, as he writes about himself: "having covered himself with the glory of an undaunted warrior." The October Revolution found him in the Crimea, where he was in a hospital in Evpatoria after being wounded in the leg. On February 1, 1918, he left Crimea for Tashkent to stay with his parents. However, having arrived in Tashkent, he no longer finds his father alive. His wife Olga Rogovskaya with two young children lived in Tashkent at that time. Until January 18, 1919, he lived quietly in the city and worked in the prosecutor's office. Then he joined the rebellion of the Turkestan military commissar Kostyk Osipov, a Socialist-Revolutionary, a former warrant officer. All that the officer's partisan detachment of Colonel Rudnev, as it was called, managed to do, was to rob a bank and release Madaminbek from the Fergana Basmachi prison. Then the rebellion was instantly suppressed by the workers of the railway workshops and the Red Army.

The officers went to the "Heavenly Campaign", so the book. A. N. Iskander named his story-memory. In winter, through the impassable mountain passes of the Chatkal ridge, pursued by detachments of the Red Army, they stubbornly sought salvation in the Fergana Valley. Gold ducks from the Tashkent bank helped them a lot, with which they paid with local guides. In the Fergana Valley, they were met by the people of Madaminbek, who did not forget his release from the Tashkent prison. Biography of the book. A. N. Iskander looks like an adventure novel. From Fergana, the remnants of the officer partisan detachment make their way to Bukhara to the emir and residents British intelligence... Then they leave for Iran, migrate to Menshevik Georgia, from the port of Poti they are forwarded to the Crimea to Baron Wrangel. In 1920, Prince. A. N. Iskander still managed to fight as part of his regiment of Tsaritsyn's cuirassiers already in the Wrangel army, with which he was evacuated to Constantinople.

In part, of course, Aunt Olya, godmother and Greek queen, helped him in emigration, but Nicholas II's second cousin had a hard time working. He moved to France, married the daughter of General Khanykov, chauffeured like all Russian emigrants, tried to start his own pickling business in Belgium, but went bankrupt. At the end of his life he began writing memoir stories (the first publication in the Parisian newspaper "Russian Thought" in 1951), which did not lose their historical interest.

At least this fact is about how his father behaved. book N.K. Iskander-Romanov, helped Russian settlers in Turkestan.

I have already written about the policy of ethnic substitution, which was carried out by representatives of the Romanov family and which reached its apogee during the reign of Catherine II. And what does the "outcast of the Romanov family" do? Also, by the way, a man without a drop of Russian blood and married to a German woman. He does the opposite! This is how the son writes about it in his memoir "Palace". The case takes place in 1896 in Tashkent, because the author indicates that he was then seven years old:

"Father (in the manuscript of Prince A. N. Iskander writes the word" father "with a capital letter, probably, it can be I remember how one day a Cossack and a Cossack woman came for gifts. I don’t know how it happened, but only one pig escaped and ran around the garden, followed by a Cossack with a Cossack woman and several gardeners. took an ardent part in catching a pig, rushing after him with laughter and shouts. And I was very impressed when the pig was caught, and the interesting fun ended. I was then seven years old, and maybe even less. They took the piglets to the newly formed Father village - Nikolsky.

More than a year has passed. I come with my parents to the former "Hungry Steppe" and, of course, dropped by the village of Nikolsky. I ask my Cossack friends:

- Where are the pigs?

- Piglets? The whole family exclaims with a laugh. - Well, let's go, we'll show you.

They bring and show huge fat pigs! One of them is already walking with small, pretty pigs.

- And here is the pig you were chasing! - says, smiling affectionately, a Cossack woman, pointing at a pig with piglets.

I was shocked. A herd of ducks was already wandering in the yard and, poking around in the ground, led by a black and red rooster, a substantial number of chickens. You wonder how quickly the feathered kingdom spreads out on a good feed! "

So it turns out that he was leading. book NK Iskander-Romanov was the first of his former royal family to help Russian settlers. 10 years before the wretched Stolypin reform. They also helped the peasants along the stolypin, they gave loans on the security of a land plot, paid for a viewing trip. Only now 20% of the peasants who took out loans went bankrupt, and 16% of the settlers could not bear the hardships on the new lands and returned.

Nikolai Konstantinovich is a graduate of the General Staff Academy, to which he entered on his own initiative in 1868. Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich became the first of the Romanovs to graduate from a higher educational institution, and among the best graduates - with a silver medal. After completing his studies, he traveled abroad, where he began to collect his collection of Western European painting. After traveling to Europe, the Grand Duke entered the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment, and after a while at the age of 21 he became a squadron commander. At this time, at one of the masquerade balls, he met an American dancer and adventurer by nature - Fanny Lear, who by that time had already traveled around Europe, was married and had a young daughter. They began an affair.

The Grand Duke's tumultuous romance worried his father and mother. The discussion of this problem even led to a meeting of his parents, who by that time did not live together. His father found a perfectly suitable excuse to remove him from Petersburg: in 1873, Nikolai Konstantinovich went on a campaign to Khiva with the Russian expeditionary troops.

Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich, who by that time already had the rank of colonel, received his baptism of fire on this campaign. He, at the head of the vanguard of the Kazaly detachment, which suffered the greatest losses, followed one of the most difficult routes through the Kyzyl Kum desert. The very first reconnaissance group, led by him, fell into such dense artillery fire that the detachment did not expect them to return alive. In this campaign, Nikolai Konstantinovich showed personal courage and was an example for others. For participation in the Khiva campaign, he was awarded the Order of St. Vladimir, 3rd degree.

After returning from Central Asia, which he was fascinated by, he was seriously interested in Oriental studies. He began to take part in the work of the Russian Geographical Society: there, among the scientists, the idea of ​​the Amu Darya expedition was ripening. Its goal was to study as much as possible the region just conquered by Russia and subject its potential to a detailed scientific analysis. Such plans stirred up, captured the brilliant aide-de-camp of the sovereign. The Geographical Society was, of course, glad of the august attention. Nikolai Konstantinovich was elected an honorary member of this society and appointed head of the expedition.

After returning from the Khiva campaign, he again went to Europe in the company of his beloved Fanny Lear. There he continued to expand his art collection.

But in the spring of 1874, when he was 24 years old, an event happened that completely changed the life of the Grand Duke.

Family scandal

In April 1874, the mother of Nikolai Konstantinovich, Alexandra Iosifovna, discovered in the Marble Palace the loss of three expensive diamonds from the setting of one of the icons, which at one time Emperor Nicholas I blessed the marriage of his son Constantine with the German princess, who became Alexandra Iosifovna in marriage. Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich called the police, and soon the diamonds were found in one of the pawnshops in St. Petersburg.

First, they went to the man who took the diamonds to the pawnshop - the adjutant of the Grand Duke E.P. Varnakhovsky, the opinion of whose guilt was preserved even later. During interrogation on April 15, he categorically denied involvement in the theft and said that he only took the stones given to him by the Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich to the pawnshop.

Nicholas, who was present at the interrogation, swore on the Bible that he was not guilty - which, as they said, aggravated his sin. He told his father that he was ready, helping Varnakhovsky, not just an adjutant, but his comrade, to take the blame. Emperor Alexander II, who took the matter under his personal control, involved the chief of the gendarme corps, Count Shuvalov, in the investigation.

For three hours Shuvalov interrogated the arrested Nikolai Konstantinovich in the Marble Palace in the presence of his father, who later wrote in his diary: “No remorse, no consciousness, except when denial is already impossible, and then we had to pull out a vein after a dwelling. Fierce and not a single tear. They implored all that remained saints to alleviate the fate that lay ahead of him with sincere repentance and consciousness! Nothing helped!"

Ultimately, they came to the conclusion that the diamonds were stolen by Nikolai Konstantinovich, and the proceeds were to go to gifts to the prince's mistress, the American dancer Fanny Lear. At the family council - a general meeting of members of the royal family, after long debates (how the options were proposed: to serve as a soldier, to bring to a public trial and to be sent to hard labor), a decision was made that caused minimal harm to the prestige of the royal family. It was decided to recognize Grand Duke Nicholas as mentally ill, and then, by decree of the emperor, he was forever expelled from the capital of the empire. Fanny Lear was expelled from Russia and forbidden to return here ever. She never met the Grand Duke again.

In fact, two sentences were announced to Nikolai Konstantinovich. The first, for the public, was to declare him insane. From which it followed that from now on and forever he would be in custody, under compulsory treatment, in complete isolation. The meaning of the second verdict - a family one - was that it was forbidden to mention his name in the papers concerning the Imperial House, and the inheritance that belonged to him was passed on to his younger brothers. He was also stripped of all ranks and awards and struck off the regiment's lists. He was expelled from Petersburg forever and was obliged to live under arrest in the place where he was told.

In 1917, a translation of Fanny Lear's memoirs appeared in the magazine "Argus", where she talked about her august novel, the bitter fate of Nikola (as her close people called him), in whose guilt she did not believe for a minute, as well as how it ended her trip to Russia.

Fanny wrote in her memoirs that in the capital the Grand Duke was kept in a straitjacket, drugged and even beaten. The soldiers who were guarding Nikola were swaggering over him, although yesterday he was out of their reach for them, and offered the arrested child toys. Nicholas Roerich himself, judging by the notes he left, regretted that he had not ended up in hard labor.

In the memoirs of Fanny Lear there is a record that very eloquently characterizes this woman herself, who was born and raised in the family of a Protestant priest: “If such a loss had happened in the family of ordinary people,” wrote Miss Lear, “she would have been hidden there; here, on the contrary, they raised the police to their feet ... ”.

There is another oddity in this matter. Despite the fact that the parents of Nikolai Konstantinovich and his august relatives did not leave the belief that Nikolai Konstantinovich was ruined by his love for the courtesan and the lack of funds to satisfy her whims, it remains indisputable that during a search in Nikolai Konstantinovich's desk, an amount was found, much larger than the one that was received for the stolen diamonds pledged in the pawnshop.

Link

Nikolai Konstantinovich was taken away from St. Petersburg in the fall of 1874. Before his last "stop", in Tashkent in the summer of 1881, that is, in less than 7 years, he changed at least 10 places of residence. Nowhere was he allowed to find at least some kind of home, to acquire connections, to put down roots. Places of exile were: Vladimir province, Uman - 250 miles from Kiev, the town of Tivrovo, near Vinnitsa, and so on.

When he was sent to Orenburg, Nikolai Konstantinovich assumed that there would not be very strict supervision over him, since there, on the border of the endless desert in extremely difficult climatic conditions, there were constant hostilities. Indeed, here in Orenburg, the local authorities turned a blind eye to many things that were “impermissible”. It was in Orenburg in 1877 that 27-year-old Nikolai published his work "The Waterway to Central Asia, indicated by Peter the Great", which was published without specifying the author's name. Here he managed to make trips deep into the Kazakh steppes - on horseback, together with the same enthusiasts, he traveled from Orenburg to Perovsk. He was captured by the idea of ​​building a railway from Russia to Turkestan. The project sent to St. Petersburg was recognized as unprofitable due to the sparsely populated land.

In Orenburg, the Grand Duke performed extraordinary deeds. So, in the winter of 1878, he married the daughter of the city police chief, Nadezhda Alexandrovna Dreyer. The wedding was secret, but rumors spread - and the corresponding report flew to St. Petersburg. As a result, the marriage was dissolved by a special decree of the Synod, and the Dreyer family was ordered to leave the city. The young wife flatly refused to leave her husband. Nadezhda Aleksandrovna, being a Cossack family, had a strong character - the arduous horseback riding trips across the steppes, passed alongside Nikolai Konstantinovich, emphasized this as best as possible. Nadezhda Alexandrovna Nikolai Konstantinovich in honor of Alexander the Great (Iskander Zulkarn? In) called "Princess Iskander".

While in exile, the Grand Duke also showed a kind of willfulness - sometimes he threatened to put on all his orders and go out to the people, which, in his opinion, should have freed the exiled. At the same time, rumors began to spread at the imperial court about past meetings of the disgraced prince with the People's Will Zhelyabov. They were even rumored to be friends.

The younger brother of the Orenburg prisoner, Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, did not approve of the tough line of the imperial house: “How soon will the painful situation end, from which poor Nicholas is not given any way out? The most meek person could thus be taken out of patience, Nikola still has enough strength to endure his imprisonment and moral prison. "

In the end, taking into account the arguments of common sense, the cousin of the disgraced Grand Duke - Emperor Alexander III - allowed the morganatic marriage to be legalized, however, the young were ordered to go to the Turkestan Territory, to Tashkent.

In Turkestan

In Turkestan, the Grand Duke first lived under the name of Colonel Volynsky. Later he began to call himself Iskander. This surname is borne by all his descendants - the princes of Iskander. Subsequently, he married another lady - Daria Chasovitinova, the 15-year-old daughter of a Tashkent resident belonging to the Cossack estate. From this union he had several children. Moreover, he could appear in society at the same time with his two wives.

The Grand Duke had two sons from Nadezhda Alexandrovna: Artemy and Alexander. Nadezhda Alexandrovna herself, under the name "Princess Iskander", repeatedly visited St. Petersburg, trying to establish ties with the Romanov family. Perhaps she was not quite successful in this, but both of their children were taken to study in St. Petersburg by the privileged Page Corps.

Being a contradictory nature, the Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich was capable of quite noble deeds. Having received from the emperor 300 thousand rubles for the construction of the palace, he used this money to build a theater in Tashkent. And the luxurious palace for its residence, built in the center of Tashkent, is still one of the most notable sights of Tashkent - now it is the home of international receptions of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan.

It is known that Nikolai Konstantinovich established 10 scholarships for immigrants from Turkestan who were unable to pay for their studies in the main educational institutions Russia.

With the name of the Grand Duke, rumor and memories of eyewitnesses were associated with a number of sometimes curious, and sometimes quite serious secular and near-secular scandals in Tashkent. This was also facilitated by the ambiguous position of Nicholas Roerich - on the one hand, formally, he continued to be under house arrest, the decision on which was not canceled, on the other, he remained the Grand Duke and thus stayed under the auspices of the imperial house, and in addition, he was very popular a person among the local European population of the city.

Entrepreneurship of the Grand Duke

The Grand Duke was engaged in entrepreneurship, was the owner of a number of enterprises in Tashkent - he started a soap factory, photographic workshops, billiard rooms, the sale of kvass, rice processing, soap and cotton factories, registering, in order to avoid family anger, all the enterprises organized were registered with his wife. With the money received from his entrepreneurial activities, he built the first cinema in Tashkent (also as a business project) - "Khiva", with his own money he was engaged in laying irrigation canals in the Hungry Steppe.

The income from his entrepreneurial activities amounted to an impressive amount - up to one and a half million rubles a year. For comparison: from St. Petersburg the prince was sent 200 thousand rubles a year for maintenance.

Nikolai Konstantinovich turned out to be an excellent entrepreneur. He was one of the first to turn to the then most profitable industry in the Turkestan Territory - the construction and operation of cotton ginning factories. At the same time, he used the most advanced technical ideas of his time - a waste-free technological cycle was used at his factories - the cotton seeds remaining after the processing of raw material into fiber were used as raw materials in oil mills, and the cake was used both for fertilization and for livestock feed.

Already with his first irrigation works, he gained great popularity among the population. The first of them is the removal of a channel from Chirchik along the right bank of the river, which he named Iskander-aryk.

Then on these lands there were only a few houses of poor dehkans who had moved from Gazalkent. After the Iskander-aryk was carried out, the “grand-ducal” settlement of Iskander was founded here. Away from the village, the Grand Duke laid out a large garden. During the works related to the construction on the Iskander-aryk, Nikolai Konstantinovich made an archaeological opening of a burial mound located near the channel of the canal, from which weapons and other items were removed.

In 1886, the Grand Duke began to "drain" the Syrdarya water, wishing to irrigate at least part of the Hungry Steppe between Tashkent and Jizzakh at all costs, spending a lot of energy and personal funds. The work associated with the channel cost the prince over a million rubles. On the coastal rock near the river, at the head structure near Bekabad, a large letter "H" was carved with a crown.

Twelve large Russian settlements arose on irrigated lands. Nikolai Konstantinovich wrote: "My desire is to revive the deserts of Central Asia and make it easier for the government to settle them with Russian people of all classes." By 1913, 119 Russian villages had already grown there.

But the favorite idea of ​​the Grand Duke was the project of restoring the "old current" of the Amu Darya to the Caspian Sea. Back in 1879, in Samara, he organized a society for the study of Central Asian routes, which aimed at choosing the direction of the Turkestan railway and researching the turn of the Amu Darya into Uzboy. In March 1879, Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich published a brochure entitled "Amu and Uzboy" (the book was published without indicating the author's name). In it, the author, relying on the evidence of sources - the works of ancient and medieval writers - argued that the river has repeatedly changed its direction "solely by the will of man." But the government did not support the prince's initiative - it itself took up the development of a project to turn the river.

In the brochure Amu and Uzboy, the Grand Duke wrote: “During the last 25 years Russia has conquered most of Central Asia, but the once flourishing Turkestan fell to the Russians in a state of decline. He is endowed by nature with all favorable conditions for the rapid development of his rich productive forces. By expanding the irrigation network, expanding the limits of the oases, Turkestan can be made one of the best Russian regions. " The plan to "turn the Amu Darya", probably quite rightly, was also considered inappropriate. But the expedition itself, which traveled more than a thousand kilometers through completely unexplored places, brought material of exceptional value. This was noted by the scientific community, and even by the authorities in St. Petersburg, who awarded all its participants, with the exception of the Grand Duke.

In Central Asia, work associated with irrigation has always been highly valued, especially new lands that were not previously used for agricultural crops. Therefore, the aforementioned irrigation measures of Nikolai Konstantinovich, the largest for their time and, moreover, carried out not compulsorily, but with the remuneration of all participants, contributed to the rapid spread of the popularity of the Grand Duke among the local population. He built a 100-kilometer irrigation canal at his own expense, which revitalized 40 thousand acres of land.

Grand Duke collection

The collection of paintings of European and Russian painting, collected by the Grand Duke and brought by him from St. Petersburg, was the basis for the creation in 1919 of the Museum of Art in Tashkent, which has one of the richest collections of paintings of European painting among the art museums of Central Asia.

The fate of one sculpture

During their second trip to Europe, Nicholas Roerich and Fanny Lear visited the Villa Borghese in Rome. Here he admired the famous sculpture by Antonio Canova, depicting Pauline Borghese (en), Napoleon's younger sister, in the form of a naked beauty, lying on a marble bed in the form of the victorious Venus with an apple in her left hand. Nikolai Konstantinovich immediately ordered the sculpture of Tomaso Solari to make an exact copy of the sculpture, but instead of Pauline Borghese, his beloved, Fanny Lear, was supposed to lie on the marble bed.

In her memoirs, Miss Lear recalled the unpleasant impression that a plaster mask applied to her face caused her, with the help of which the sculptor subsequently reproduced her facial features in marble. The sculptor assured them that upon completion of the work, the sculpture would be sent to St. Petersburg. He kept his promise.

Many years later, when the Grand Duke was already in exile in Tashkent, his mother, Alexandra Iosifovna, gave him a gift. While walking in the park, she came across a marble sculpture of a half-naked woman with an apple in her hand. She recognized this woman as Fanny Lear, the beloved of her eldest son. And soon the sculpture, packed in a wooden box, was sent to Tashkent to Nikolai Konstantinovich. Later, this marble sculpture became one of the adornments of the Tashkent Museum of Fine Arts.

The Grand Duke and the Revolution

The last Russian emperor, Nicholas II, was a cousin's cousin to the notorious relative, but he never allowed him to return to the capital. Therefore, the abdication of the emperor in February 1917 was greeted by the Grand Duke Nicholas Roerich. He raised a red flag over his house and sent a greeting telegram to the Provisional Government.

Alexander Fedorovich Kerensky personally knew Nikolai Konstantinovich in Tashkent, since they lived in the neighborhood for almost 10 years.

Death of the Grand Duke

Soon after October revolution and the establishment of Soviet power in Turkestan on January 14, 1918, the former Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich Romanov died at a dacha near Tashkent from pneumonia; buried at the fence of the military cathedral in Tashkent. A number of later publications indicated that he was shot by the Bolsheviks, but the data of newspaper publications in 1918 and archives do not confirm this.

In the decision of July 17, 1998 on the termination of criminal case No. 18 / 123666-93 "On clarification of the circumstances of the death of members of the Russian Imperial House and persons from their environment in the period 1918-1919" Russian Federation, senior counselor of justice V.N. Solovyov, who carried out the relevant investigation of the case, in paragraph 10.4 of the resolution stated (quoted from the website of the Internet project “ Royal family: The last days, shooting, finding the remains "):

10.4. Death of Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich Romanov.
Various sources have suggested the execution or other violent cause of death of Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich Romanov (1850-1918), who was exiled to Tashkent by Emperor Alexander II in 1874 for unworthy behavior and who died there in 1918 [ so in the text]
So, in the periodical "Nasha Gazeta" No. 13 dated January 17, 1918 (organ of the executive committee of the Tashkent Council of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies), a note was published with the following content: “The funeral of citizen Romanov. The funeral took place in Tashkent yesterday b. Grand Duke, citizen Nikolai Romanov, who died on Sunday, January 14, at 6 o'clock in the morning. Romanov's body was buried at the fence of the military cathedral. " Also in the newspaper "Novy Put" dated January 18, 1918, an obituary was given as follows: "On the death of Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich Romanov (born 1850), died on the night of January 13-14, 1918 from pneumonia at a dacha near Tashkent and was buried on January 16, 1918 in Tashkent, in the park next to the Military St. George Cathedral. "
There is also the protocol of the meeting of the Executive Committee of the Tashkent Council of Soldiers and Workers' Deputies dated January 15, 1918, at which the request of Romanov's wife NK about the place of his burial was considered - “We listened to the request of the wife of Nikolai Konstantinovich Romanov for permission to bury the deceased former Grand Duke at the military cathedral. Decided to allow, to bury, but with a proposal not to carry out any kind of processions. "
The investigation considers the established fact of the death of Nikolai Konstantinovich Romanov not connected with any repression by the authorities.
…

This is how the life of the Grand Duke, full of dramatic collisions, ended, most of which he spent in the Turkestan Territory and left a bright mark here.

He was buried near the Church of St. George - Joseph-George Cathedral, located opposite the entrance to the prince's palace. Later, in Soviet times, this church was "re-profiled" into a puppet theater and a dumplings cafe, also an ice cream parlor. Some time after Uzbekistan gained independence, these buildings - the old puppet theater and dumplings cafe - were demolished. At present, a small public garden has been set up on this place.

A family

Wife (December 15, 1878 - March 7, 1900) Nadezhda Alexandrovna Dreyer (1861-1929?), Daughter of the Orenburg police chief Alexander Gustavovich Dreyer and Sofia Ivanovna Opanovskaya. On April 22 (May 4), 1899, the noblewoman Nadezhda Dreyer was ordered to be called Iskander from now on.

She was a museum curator, then she was fired. She found shelter in a gatehouse at the former palace of Nikolai Konstantinovich, lived there surrounded by dogs. According to eyewitnesses, in the last years of her life she looked like a real beggar, she wore torn clothes and ate what was left at the door of her hut by residents who remembered the kindness of the Grand Duke. Nadezhda Alexandrovna died in 1929 from the bite of a rabid dog.

• The eldest son, Artemy (born on December 19 (31), 1878 in Samara), was granted the highest surname "Iskander" and the rights assigned to a personal nobleman on August 12 (24), 1889. According to one version, he died during the Civil War, fighting on the side of the whites; according to another, he died of typhus in Tashkent in 1919.

The youngest son of Nikolai Konstantinovich - Prince Alexander Iskander

The youngest son - Alexander (born on November 15 (27), 1887 in Tashkent), was granted the highest surname "Iskander" and the rights assigned to a personal nobleman on March 10 (22), 1894. A military officer, he participated in the anti-Bolshevik uprising in Tashkent in January 1919, fought in the Russian army of Wrangel, then was evacuated to Gallipoli, and then to France, where he died in the city of Grasse in 1957. Wrote a memoir about civil war- "Heavenly Campaign".

• Kirill Nikolaevich Androsov (Prince K. A. Iskander; 1915-1992)
• Natalya Nikolaevna Androsova (Princess N. A. Iskander; 1917-1999), lived all her life in the USSR and Russia; engaged in motorcycle races, performed in the circus (vertical races), the USSR master of sports in motorcycle races; to the Great Patriotic War was a driver in a "lorry".

In 1901 he married Varvara Khmelnitskaya (1885—?). The marriage was not recognized.

Extramarital affairs and children

• Mistress Alexandra Alexandrovna Demidova (native of Abaza) (1853-1894)

• Olga (1877-1910) - lost her mind.
• Nikolay (1875-1913) - participant Russo-Japanese War, a retired colonel of the guard, wrote a number of works on the history of the Russian cavalry.

In 1888, they received from Emperor Alexander III the nobility with the surname "Volynskie" and the patronymic "Pavlovichi", since at that time the husband of their mother (from 1879) was Count Pavel Feliksovich Sumarokov-Elston (1853-1938), the uncle of Prince Yusupov , the future assassin of Rasputin.

• Mistress Daria Eliseevna Chasovitina (1880-1953 / 1956)

• Nikolay (-1919/1920)
• Svyatoslav (-1919) - shot
• Daria (1896-1966) - lived in Moscow and for some time worked as the secretary of the Soviet writer Marietta Shaginyan.

The Central Russian Archives contains the case (documents) of the Grand Duke.

Sources of information. Related links

• Lyudmila Tretyakova "The Exile from the Romanov Family", the magazine "Around the World" No. 4 (2751) from April 2003.
• Old Tashkent Forum - Dec 16 2006, 11:41 PM Post # 2190
• AIF - Destiny. How the grandson of Nicholas I ended up in Tashkent

• Svetlana Makarenko. A ROYAL Forsaken ...
• Palace of Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich on the map of Tashkent
• Grand Duke's business

• Yu. A. Kuzmin Russian imperial family name 1797-1917. Biobibliographic reference book. St. Petersburg, Dmitry Bulanin, 2005, p. 155-156, 267-269 (ISBN 5-86007-435-2)

• Prince Michael of Greece Every family has its black sheep. Biography of Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich. - M .: "Zakharov", 2002. - 272 p. - ISBN 5-8159-0263-2

• See also Grand Dukes of the House of Romanov

• : Documents of the archives of the Republic of Uzbekistan about recent years life of the Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich Romanov // Article in the journal "Otechestvennye archives" No. 6 (2009)