A special Fabergé exhibition is opening in February at the Hong Kong Heritage Museum. Four Fabergé eggs appear in the expo. They include the Trans-Siberian Train Easter Egg, which was created in 1900 for Tsar Nicholas II, who, in turn, gave it to his wife, the Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna, as a festive present. Also on display is the Moscow Kremlin Easter Egg, the tallest and most ambitious of all of the Imperial Fabergé eggs, made from gold, silver, onyx and enamel. This was given by the Tsar to the Tsarina at Easter in 1906 and represents Uspensky Cathedral, where the tsars of Russia were crowned. There’s also the Memory of Azov Easter Egg from 1891 and the unfinished Constellation Tsarevich Easter Egg.

Among other items on display are works of art and jewellery which have been carefully crafted and lavished with an array of precious metals and jewels, specially created by the House of Fabergé for the Russian court. The Moscow Kremlin Museums and Fersman Mineralogical Museum of Russia have loaned more than 200 pretty pieces to the Heritage Museum until the end of April, making it the first time a Fabergé exhibition has rolled into our city.

Assistant curator at the Heritage Museum, Tang Hing-Sun, explains the painstaking process that would have taken place when making a Fabergé egg. “The creation of an egg took about a year,” he says. “It was a process that had a preliminary period including detailed planning, sketches and models. Fabergé was the mastermind behind it all – and he provided the taste and direction for the creation. Discussions also took place among the goldsmiths, silversmiths, enamellers, jewellers, lapidary workers and stonecutters who would contribute their abilities toward the final Fabergé egg.”

© Russkiy Mir. 01 February, 2013

© Royal Russia. 01 February, 2013

The Russian State Duma has suggested simplifying the granting of Russian citizenship to direct descendants of nationals of the Russian Empire who now live abroad.

The initiative was put forward by the lower house’s Committee for Nationalities.

Descendants of the Russian Empire – which collapsed after the February 1917 Revolution – are part of “the same nation and civilization,” committee head Gadzhimet Safaraliyev told Izvestia daily.

People of Russian heritage currently live all around the globe. Syria, for example, is the home of the Cherkessian diaspora. Their forebears moved to the region from territories that were part of the Russian Empire following the 19th-century Caucasian war. “What should we do with them? Leave them [in war-torn Syria]?” Safaraliyev said.

The biggest wave of emigration from Russia followed the dramatic events of the beginning of the 20th century: Revolutions, the fall of the Tsar, World War I, a civil war and the creation of the Soviet Union.

If the suggested amendments to the Law on Citizenship are passed, emigrants’ children and grandchildren will be able to get Russian passports and come to back to their historic homeland; archived documents would help them prove their Russian heritage.

Earlier, President Vladimir Putin urged Russian lawmakers “to develop a simplified procedure for granting Russian citizenship to our compatriots, the bearers of the Russian language and Russian culture, the direct descendants of those who were born in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, for those who want to take up permanent residence in our country and, therefore, to give up their current citizenship.”

In his annual address to the Federal Assembly, Putin said that Russia needs new blood – educated and hardworking people who want to move to the country and consider it their homeland.

Meanwhile, opponents of the proposal worry that a mass repatriation program could become a financial burden for Russia. Critics also argue that the bill may cause an increase of immigration from the former Soviet republics in the Caucasus and Central Asia, adding to the thousands of migrant workers from those regions that have already come to Russia.

According to Yevgeny Borbrov from the presidential Council for Human Rights, those who need help the most should be taken care of first.

“Descendants of the Russian Empire feel not bad in foreign countries, unlike descendants from the USSR who were left by the state holding an empty bag,” Borbrov told Izvestia.

Currently, those who wish to get Russian citizenship have to go through a long and complicated procedure.

© Russia Today. 30 January, 2013

Tsarskoye Selo now holds Russia’s largest collection of belongings of Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich donated to the Museum by Michael Romanoff Ilyinsky, Dmitri’s grandson.

Michael Romanoff Ilyinsky is a great-grandson of Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich (who was born at Tsarskoye Selo). His grandfather Dmitri Pavlovich (1891–1942) was a grandson to Alexander II and a cousin to Nicholas II. Michael lives in the U.S.A. and keeps a large family archive which includes the library, photographs and personal belongings of his grandfather. He became one of the first members of the Tsarskoye Selo Friends Society when it was founded in 2006. For the past years, Michael has donated to our museum a Fabergé photograph frame, opera glasses, silver shot cups, a cigarette case and other objects that belonged to Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich.

His latest generous donations include books from Dmitri’s library, such as a 1893 edition of Alexander Pushkin's novel in verse Eugene Onegin (Gautier Publishers, Moscow), boasting a great number of engraved illustrations and Dmitri’s bookplate, which is very rare in Russia; the No.2 on it shows how precious the book was to its holder. Another valuable addition is Tsarskoye Selo during the Reign of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, the famous book of 1910 by Alexandre N. Benois. This edition has a typographically printed No.10 on the title page, which proves it was one of the first 10 copies published for the Imperial family members.

Besides those unique books, our collection has received A Book of Notes for 1878 with engravings by the F.A. Brockhaus firm; a ten-volumed Armorial of the Russian Empire (gold-edged); the Paris-published memoirs of Olga Paley and the reminiscences of Dmitri’s sister, Maria; a watercolour portrait of the mounted young Dmitri; an album of Dmitri’s photographs from 1941 and lots of other pictures reflecting various moments of his life in emigration.

According to Dr. Iraida K. Bott, Tsarskoye Selo’s Deputy Director for Science and Education, ‘The photos show Dmitri was still fond of sports and active pastime in his latter years. He liked yachts and golf, as well as hunting and dogs. Some shots have him together with celebrities like Feodor Chaliapin, or surrounded by elegant and interesting people in Paris,London, Monte Carlo and Davos, having la dolce vita, a full-fledged life of a private individual – the life he had dreamt of, as he wrote once in his journal. Of the materials we have got, particularly noteworthy is an album of newspaper clips Dmitri gathered for years, picking the information interesting to him, including that on the Soviet Russia. It’s what we have yet to study and analyze, which will probably help us know and understand Dmitri better, for there’s nothing we know of his life in the 1920s–1940s’.

© Tsarskoye Selo State Museum-Preserve. 30 January, 2013

On January 27th 1944 the Siege of Leningrad was finally lifted. The siege which lasted 872 days is considered one of the longest and most destructive sieges in history and overwhelmingly the most costly in terms of casualties.

It was also during this period that the former Imperial palaces located in the suburban areas of the city suffered near annihilation at the hands of the Nazis.

The Peterhof State Museum-Preserve have compiled this virtual album to mark the 69th anniversary of the lifting of the blockade. Vintage photographs from the palace-museum archives show the devastation inflicted upon "Russia's Versailles" and the heroic efforts of the museum workers and local townspeople who did their utmost to save what treasures they could.

© Paul Gilbert @ Royal Russia. 29 January, 2013

The Memorial Chapel in Memory of the Crowned Martyrs was erected in 1936 at Harbin, China. It was designed by the architect M. Oskolkova on the initiative of Archbishop Nestor (1885-1962) in honour of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and King Alexander I of Yugoslavia.

Tsar Nicholas II was murdered at Ekaterinburg on July 17th, 1918, and King Alexander I was murdered on October 9th, 1934 at Marseilles, France.

Alexander is remembered for offering a safe refuge for tens of thousands of White Russians who fled their homeland after the Bolshevik Revolution. The town of Sremski Karlovci became the seat of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, and served as the spiritual center for Russian emigrants for many years.

Each year up until 1945, Archbishop Nestor would hold a secret liturgy in the chapel in memory of the members of the Imperial family who were murdered at Ekaterinburg, Alapayevsk and Perm.

With the establishment of the Communist Regime in China, many Russians left the country. The chapel was desecrated by local Communists and fell into disrepair. During the 1950s "cultural revolution" it was destroyed and replaced with an apartment block.

© Paul Gilbert @ Royal Russia. 29 January, 2013

 

The implementation of a program for the construction of 200 Orthodox churches in Moscow may take 10 to 20 years, Vladimir Resin, an advisor to the Moscow mayor and a State Duma deputy, told journalists.

"I think the whole program may take 10 to 20 years. It is important not only to build them, but also make them habitable," Resin said.

The program will take such a long time as the construction is being financed only by donations, he said.

"Our goal in implementing the program is to commission at least 10 [churches] a year," Resin said.

Seventeen sites for the construction of Orthodox churches will be allotted on the territories of industrial zones being liquidated in Moscow, Resin said.

The constructions of new churches in Moscow does not include historic churches closed by the Soviets and later returned to the Moscow Patriarchate, and are currently under restoration.

In Tsarist times travelers described Moscow as a "magic city glittering with thousands of golden domes." In the 17th century Moscow had around 900 churches. More than 1,000 churches existed at the outbreak of the Russian Revolution in 1917.

During the Soviet years many churches were closed and/or demolished, while many others were desecrated and used for other purposes such as warehouses and even swimming poorls.

In 1990 there were only 155 working Orthodox churches in Moscow. Today, there are about 320 Russian Orthodox churches in the Russian capital.  

© Interfax and Royal Russia. 28 January, 2013

The palaces and residences at Tsarskoye Selo (the Catherine and Alexander Palaces); and Yalta (Livadia Palace), were among the most important residences of a succession of Russia's sovereigns and their August families.

This series of four documentaries explores the residences most favoured by four of the last five emperors: Alexander I, Nicholas I, Alexander II, and Alexander III. They were produced in 2008 by T.L. Tour and directed by Andrei Semak. 

Each film explores the history of each palace, the further developments made to the Imperial residences that each of the reigning Russian monarch made to it.

Each film runs about 26 minutes with narration in Russian only.

No.1 - Alexander I at Tsarskoye Selo

No. 2 - Alexander II at Livadia

No. 3 - Alexander III in the Crimea

No. 4 - Nicholas I in the Crimea

© Paul Gilbert @ Royal Russia. 28 January, 2013

The Lyons Hall, Catherine Palace. Watercolour by Luigi Premazzi (1859)  

The interior is the creation of two architects: Charles Cameron and later Ippolito Monighetti. Decorated with lapis lazuli and a luxury silk wall lining from Lyons (hence the name), the hall was finished by Cameron in the eighteenth century Classical style in 1781-83. It was reworked in 1848-61 by Monighetti who treated Cameron’s work with great delicacy, intensifying the visual impact of the room by adding new furnishings: mirrors above the fireplaces, flanked by white marble cupids, and lapis-lazuli sconces on the walls. The room was filled with tables, jardinières, cachepots, screens, pedestals and desks.

Monighetti designed the gorgeous chandelier (see below left) for 84 candles made of lapis lazuli and gilded bronze, which beautifully completed the now-lost exquisite ceiling décor.

The architect’s highlight for the Lyons Hall is the gilt-bronze and lapis-lazuli furniture set (see below) with such a unique feature as the monogram of Empress Maria Alexandrovna, spouse of Alexander II. The initials are an indication of the owner for whom these pieces were specially commissioned in 1856 from the Peterhof Lapidary Works to spruce up the empress’s favourite interior of the palace. Its Afghan lapis lazuli of rich deep colour with golden speckles is superbly set off by the gilded bronze surroundings.

Besides the marvellous furniture set, also saved by the evacuation in 1941–44 and featured on the current display are the two paintings: Raphael’s Death by Felice Schiavoni (see below right) and The Sibyl of Libya by Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (Guercino) (below left).

Photographs © Tsarskoye Selo State Museum-Preserve. 

© Tsarskoye Selo State Museum-Preserve. 28 January, 2013

---