I was raised in St. Petersburg, Russia, in the Gatchina Palace by both parents. When I was growing up, my best friend always and forever was my brother Tsarevitch Nicholas (now the tsar; I just call him Nicky!). We shared secrets, played pranks together and studied our classes together diligently, and I could never have asked for a kinder brother. I have two other brothers, Georgy (who died in 1899 of tuberculosis) and Mikhail (known as Misha or Flopsy). In July of 1894 I was married to childhood friend, love and second cousin once removed Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovitch; months later our dear Nicky and his fiancee Alix of Hesse (Alicky or, in our private letters, "Old Hen"--she calls me her "Chicken!") got married, but not before our beloved Papa died and Nicky became the tsar.

Sandro (my husband) and I had a very happy married life in our first years. We loved eachother deeply and truly and I gave birth to seven children who are my pride and joy: one girl, Irina, and six little boys Andrew, Theodore, Dmitri, Vassily, Rostislav and Nikita. Our marriage was strained when Rina went off to marry Prince Felix Yusupov; Sandro did not take our daughter down the aisle. Nicky did.

I always was quite close to my brother and sister-in-law; Mama did not approve of it for she said Alicky looked like she "swallowed a yard-stick" but it wasn't true. Alix was just disturbed over the disease of my dear little nephew Aleksey. I spent many days with my nieces Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia; my sister Olga Alexandrovna and I took them out on Saturdays to the city to congregate with people and shop. I especially was close to my dear Tanya, Nicky's second daughter, my god-daughter.

When World War I appeared in the midst of Russia, we all were stunned and shocked. It tore the family apart. I served as a Red Cross nurse like Alicky, Olga and Tatiana and my sister Olga. I owned a hospital as I had used one of our palaces as a hospital and I took care of many wounded men as I could, and there were many. We were loosing the war. The Revolution wasn't far from us then and it was frightening and awful when it did come.

Irina's husband, Felix, was in on the plot to kill Rasputin, the holy man who helped my nephew Aleksey with his hemophilia. He thought he would save Russia--but it only caused more pain. Alix was in so much misery, it broke my heart when I heard about it.

Nicky, distraught, decided to abdicate the throne. A man named Kerensky came into power and made our constitutional assembly, the Duma, the government, as he wanted Russia to be a democracy. It was not to be. Kerensky was overthrown by the horrid man Lenin and his Bolsheviks.

We were in our palaces in the Crimea when it all happened, when hell broke loose.

My relationship with my husband was strained and I started seeing another man. Sandro, incidentally, was seeing this man's wife! But anyway, we all lived in the Crimea together with my sons and Irina, who had a little girl Irina in 1915. I spent time with my children and my sister, who married and had a son Tikhon.

Nicky, Alicky, the girls and Aleksey were sent to Siberia. The big blow came when news reached us, and I cried for hours upon end when the words were out. They had been shot, murdered--all of them. Even my dear nieces and nephews, young women and children, were murdered in the name of Lenin's communism.

We escaped the Revolution with help from our cousin, King George V of England, in 1919. We never saw Russia again. I parted from my husband and stayed with my mother, who died in 1928 in Denmark. I lived the rest of my days alone in England, with letters from my daughter, her husband and the remaining family members. I died in 1960.