Nicholas II was born at Tsarskoe Selo on 6 May, 1868. He received a good education at home and was read a special course of lectures between 1885 and 1890. His tutors included Konstantin Pobedonostsev (procurator of the Holy Synod), Nikolai Bunge (Minister of Finance), Nikolai Girs (Minister of Foreign Affairs), Generals Mikhail Dragomirov and Nikolai Obruchev, historian Vasily Klyuchevsky and composer and military engineer, Cesar Cui. The teachers never actually learnt how well their pupil had understood their lectures, however, for they were not allowed to ask him any questions, while he himself never asked any. Nicholas also served as an officer at army camps near St. Petersburg. Count Sergius Witte wrote that he had the "education of an average guards colonel from a good family."

In 1890, Nicholas alarmed his parents by beginning a love affair with a ballet dancer. The oject of his desire was Mathilde Kschessinska, whom he continued to see right up to his engagement to Princess Victoria Alix Helena Louise Beatrice of Hesse-Darmstadt in 1893. Alexander III decided to combat his infatuation by sending Nicholas on a long voyage round the world. The tsarevich would said through the Mediterranean Sea and Suez Canal to India and Japan, before landing at Vladivostock, where he would disembark and return through Siberia to St. Petersburg.

The trip was carefully planned by Nicholas's parents to give him a lesson in diplomacy. Recommendations were sent to the Russian ambassador or governor of the places he would visit, describing in detail what could be seen and what should not be seen. Alexander III even drafted the welcoming speeches read to his son.

Nicholas was accompanied by his younger brother, Georgy, who suffered from tuberculosis. The two brothers were close in age and their parents hoped that the sun and sea air would restore Georgy's health. They were joined by other young men from good families, including Prince Baryatinsky (Suite General), Prince Ololensky (Horse Guards Regiment), Prince Kochubei (Cavalry Guards) and Prince Ukhtomsky (Department of Foreign Confessions).

On 23 October, 1890, Nicholas and his companions boarded the Memory of Azov and set sail for Athens, where they were joined by Prince George of Greece. The royal party stopped at Egypt to visit the Suez Canal and the pyramids. On board the ship, they spent most of their time indulging in the traditional entertainment of all officers. During one drinking session, Georgy fell ill and hurt his chest, aggravating his illness. His parents advised him to land at the nearest port and return to Russia. He died of consumption in 1899.

Tsarevich Nicholas in Japan, 1891

In April 1891, the Memory of Azov entered the old Japanese capital of Kyoto. From there, the company travelled to the small town of Otsu, where an attempt was made on Nicholas's life. A policeman ran up and struck him on the head with his sword, just above the right ear. The assailant raised his sword to strike again, but Nicholas jumped out of the rickshaw in which they were travelling, while everyone else turned and fled. Prince George of Greece came to the rescue, knocking the policeman down with his stick and holding him until reinforcements arrived.

Nicholas's parents ordered him to immediately return to Russia. Travelling through Siberia to St. Petersburg, he made a stop at the town of Tobolsk, where he would later spend nine months as a prisoner of the revolutionary government.

Back in the Russian capital, Nicholas continued his relationship with Mathilde Kschessinska. Although not blessed with long legs, she had beautiful eyes and was a talented dancer. She came from a family of famous ballet dancers and was the first Russian ballerine to master thirty-two consecutive fouettes. With her technical skill and excellent connections inside the Imperial family, Kschessinska quickly became the prima ballerina of the Mariinsky Theatre.

Mathilde Kschessinska

After Nicholas married Princess Alix of Hesse-Darmstadt, Kschessinska took up with Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich, who was responsible for the Russian artillery and the theatrical society. Russians joked: "Thanks to the grand duke, we have a fine ballet and a terrible artillery."

Kschessinska's next admirer was Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich--despite a seven-year age difference. In 1902, she gave birth to a son called Vladimir, who was given an hereditary title and surname Krasinsky by the tsar. His original patronymic was Sergeyevich ("son of Sergei") as Mathilde was at that time the common-law wife of Grand Duke Sergei. After marrying Grand Duke Andrei in France in 1921 and converting from Catholicism to Orthodoxy in 1925, Vladimir's patronymic was changed to Andreyeich ("son of Andrei"). Kschessinska died in Paris in 1971, a few months short of her one hundredth birthday.

Before ascending the throne, Nicholas commanded a battalion of the Preobrazhensky Life Guards. He also acquired experience in government by attending the sittings of the State Council and Cabinet of Ministers and heading the Trans-Siberian Construction Committee.

Throne of Emperor Nicholas II
Artist: Unknown

Nicholas became Emperor of Russia on 21 October, 1894, and was crowned on 14 May, 1896. During the coronation celebrations, over one thousand people were crushed to death and thousands more injured during a stampede for souvenirs at the Khodynka Field outside Moscow.

The Khodynka tragedy was the first in a long line of bloody events to haunt Nicholas II during his reign. It was followed by the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05), Bloody Sunday (9 January 1905), the crushing of an armed uprising in Moscow (December 1905), revolutionary terror, Jewish pogroms orgranised by the Black Hundreds, the shooting of stricken workers at the Lena Gold Mines (1912) and, finally, the First World War (1914). The tsar became known as "Nicholas the Bloody", although Russian blood continued to pour long after his abdication.

Like most people, Nicholas II was simply a mixture of good and bad. He has been variously described as "kind and extremely well brought-up" (Count Sergei Witte) and "a savage in love with autocracy" (Vasily Klyuchevsky). The poet Alexander Blok perhaps best summed up his dilemma: "Stubborn yet weak-willed, nervy yet lackadaisical, harassed and cautious in speech, Nicholas II ceased to be his own master. Falling into the power of those whom he himself had appointed, he failed to understand the true nature of things or to take any decisive steps."

Wedding of Nicholas and Alexandra, 1894
Artist: Laurits Tuxen

On 14 November, 1894, Nicholas married Princess Victoria Alix Helena Louise Beatrice of Hesse-Darmstadt. The daughter of Grand Duke Louis IV of Hesse and Princess Alice of Great Britain, Nicholas's bride was the favourite granddaughter of Queen Victoria. She converted to Orthodoxy as Alexandra Feodorovna.

Alexander III had initially opposed the marriage, as Hesse had previously brought bad luck to Russia. Hessian princesses had been the wives of Paul I and Alexander II, who had both been murdered. The female line of Hesse carried an hereditary disease--haemophilia. Nicholas, however, insisted on marrying the woman he loved.

Nicholas and Alexandra lived a life of quiet seclusion at Tsarskoe Selo in the Alexander Palace. The tsar enjoyed spending time with his family, sawing and chopping wood, clearing away snow or going on long walks on foot. He also travelled by car, train or yacht and shooting crows in the park near the Imperial palace. The only thing he disliked was governing--unlike his wife, who constantly interferred in affairs of state, with disastrous consequences.

Alexandra had been educated in England by her grandmother and studied philosophy at Heidelberg University. Dabbling in religious mysticism, she was an easy victim for various charlatans. The first was Mitka the Fool and his companion Elpidifor, who "interprepted" his mumblings. Mitka was followed by a demon-possessed woman called Daria Osipovna. Besides home-grown mystics, the empress also attracted a number of foreign occultists, including Papus from Paris, Schenk from Vienna and Phillippe from Lyon.

Why did Alexandra Feodorovna turn to these people? The reason was her desire to give birth to a son. The dynasty needed a male heir and she had given birth to four daughters--Olga, Tatyana, Maria and Anastasia. Alexandra was so obsessed by the need to give birth to a boy that she allowed herself to be convinced that she was pregnant in 1903. She experienced all the symptoms of pregnancy and everyone awaited the birth of a son. When the time came, however, it proved to be the fruit of her imagination.

Russians remembered Alexander Pushkin's Tale of Tsar Saltan, the story of a queen who gives birth in the night to "not a son, not a daughter, not a mouse or frog, but an unknown little creature."

In 1904, Alexandra Feodorovna finally gave birth to a son, whom his parents called Alexei. Their joy was short-lived, however, when they discovered that he had haemophilia.

Alexei's illness increased Alexandra's tendency to cut herself off from the rest of the world. Disgruntled courtiers muttered: "If she had her way, life would be one endless tea party at Tsarskoe Selo." In 1905, however, the tsarina made a new friend. This was Anna Taneyeva, a twenty-year-old lady-in-waiting.

Anna was a chubby girl with ash-coloured hair and enormous blue eyes. She was devoted to Alexandra, who liked her simple manners. The two women spent hours together, sharing secrets, singing duets or playing together on the piano. Alexandra called her "Anya", while Anna called her "Sana".

Anna Vyrubova

Alexandra Feodorovna hoped that her young friend whould be as happy in marriage as she was. She began looking for a husband and found one in the form of a naval officer called Alexander Vyrubov. Anna and Alexander were married in 1907. Unfortunately for Anna, Alexandra Feodorovna was a poor judge of people. Vyrubov turned out to be a drug addict and an impotent pervert. After several wretched months with her husband, Anna ran away from him, with the full support of Nicholas and Alexandra, who knew all the details of her unhappy marriage.

Tsarevich Alexei

Alexei was a handsome little boy with blue eyes and golden curls, which later turned to auburn and became quite straight. His parents called him their "little ray of sunshine." Before he was one year old, his father took him to a parade of the Preobrazhensky Guards. The soldiers greeted him with a resounding "hurrah" and the infant gurgled with delight. When he was one, his mother took him for a carriage ride and was delighted to see people along the road bowing and smiling to the young heir. Alexei grew up into an intelligent, observant, kind and lively individual. He did not enjoy studying and obeyed only his father. Upon learning that he was the heir to the throne, he said: "When I am tsar, there will be no poor or unhappy people. I want everyone to be happy." During the First World War, Nicholas took him to army headquarters, where he slept alongside his father on a camp bed.

On 14 May, 1905, the Russian fleet encountered the Japanese navy in the Strait of Tsushima between Japan and Korea. The Russian squadron was commanded by Admiral Rozhestvensky and consisted of 30 warships with 228 guns. The Japanese fleet was commanded by Admiral Togo and had 121 warships with 910 guns. Besides numerical superiority, the Japanese navy also had more powerful guns, thicker armour and faster ships. The loss of the Russian fleet at the Battle of Tsushima meant defeat in the Russo-Japanese War. In August 1905, Russia and Japan signed a peace treaty at Portsmouth in the United States. Under the peace terms, Japan was awarded South Sakhalin, several islands and the lease on Port Arthur and surrounding waters. When the Soviet Union established diplomatic relations with Japan in 1925, the Communists recognized the Treaty of Portsmouth, while refusing to bear political responsibility for the agreement. After the Japanese capitulation in the Second World War, South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands were returned to Russia.

The Church of the Resurrection of Christ was built in 1907 on he bank of the Catherine Canal in St. Petersburg, where Tsar Alexander II had been fatally wounded in 1881. The building was popularly known as the Church of the Saviour on Spilt Blood. The church was designed by architect Alfred Parland and archimandrite Ignatius in the neo-Russian style, recreating the Muscovite architecture of the 16th and 17th centuries. Construction work was overseen by Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich, uncle of the tsar and president of the Imperial Academy of the Arts. The church had nine cupolas and could hold 1,600 people. It took twenty-three years and ten months to build, costing a grand total of 4,718,786 roubles and 3-1/2 kopecks, which exceeded the original budget by over a million roubles. The official committee of investigation laid blame on the conference secretary of the Imperial Aacademy of the Arts, who was put on trial and sent to prison.

After the loss of the Russian Fleet in the Far East, a nationwide collection was held to reequip the Baltic Fleet with new ships, as only old vessels remained after the main squadron had sailed to the Pacific Ocean. By 1914, the Baltic Fleet had five battleships, ten cruisers, fifty-nine destroyers, twenty-three torpdeo boats and its own air force.

In the last ten years before the First World War, the Russian budget enjoyed a surplus of 2,400,000,000 roubles--despite the lowering of the cost of railway travel and the abolition of the system of redemption payments.

Nicholas and Alexandra at the last Imperial costume ball on 13 February, 1903

A costume ball was held at the Winter Palace on 13 February, 1903. Nicholas, Alexandra, and the other guests were dressed in robes from the reign of Tsar Alexis (1645-76). The ball began with a concert in the Hermitage Theatre, followed by dancing in the Pavilion Room. The dances were choreographed by Josef Kschessinski, a soloist of the Imperial Ballet. The ladies formed reels, while the gentlemen performed a danse russe. There were a total of 390 guests, including sixty guardsmen. This was the last Imperial ball in Russian history.

The celebrations marking the tercentenary of the Romanov dynasty began on the morning of 21 February, 1913 with an artillery salute of thirty-one rounds from the Peter and Paul Fortress. The Patriarch of Antioch performed a special mass at the Kazan Cathedral. Nevsky Prospekt was lined with troops and crowds of people eager to catch a glimpse of the Imperial family. At midday, the Romanovs emerged from Palace Square in open carriages. Nicholas and Alexei were in the first carriage, drawn by a pair of horses. The second conveyed the two empresses--Alexandra Feodorovna and Maria Feodorovna--followed by the tsar's four daughters in a third carriage. The tsarevich was carried by a Cossack, his face contorted with pain. Alexandra Feodorovna had a cold and distracted air. The next day, a gala performance of Mikhail Glinka's A Life for the Tsar was given at the Mariinsky Theatre in the presence of the Imperial family, followed by a ball at the Noblemen's Assembly on 23 February.

Tsar Nicholas II on the balcony of the Winter Palace.
He announced Russia's declaration of war.

On 1 August, 1914, Russia entered the First World War on the side of Britain and France against Germany and Austria-Hungary. The first action on the Eastern Front was the Russian attack on East Prussia and Galicia. The Germans were forced to remove several regiments from France and rush them to the east. Although her two armies in East Prussia were defeated, Russia enjoyed more success against Austria-Hungary.

In spring 1915, Germany decided to concentrate on the Eastern Front. While the Russians lost Poland and parts of the Baltic territories, White Russia and the Ukraine, the Germans did not succeed in their main aim--to knock Russia out of the war. In 1916, Germany launched its main blow against France. Russia came to the assistance of the French by launching an offensive on the Eastern Front. General Alexei Brusilov broke through the Austro-Hungarian lines and Germany was forced to remove troops from the Western Front to save her ally. In 1917, the Russian army was too demoralized to score any success in Galicia or White Russia. After the Bolsheviks seized power, they signed a peace treaty with the Central Powers in March 1918.

Nicholas and Alexandra found another new friend in 1905--Grigory Rasputin. A peasant from the village of Pokrovskoe in Tobolsk Province, Rasputin is the hero of many works of fiction and non-fiction. In books and films, he is variously portrayed as a lecherous drunkard or a mad monk. The thing that can be said with any certainty now is that he was able to ease the sufferings of the heir. Outside the palace, Rasputin's drunken excesses and scandalous love affairs made him an inconvenient friend for the Imperial family. From aristocrats and ministers down to peasants and workers, the whole country spread ridiculous rumours regarding the relationships between Nicholas, Anna, Rasputin and Alexandra. The "holy man" was said to turned the entire court into his private harem.

After Nicholas was overthrown in February 1917, the Provisional Government formed a special committee to investigate the "criminal actions" of the tsarist regime. They were particularly interested in the role and influence of Rasputin. Although the commission never completed its work, much of the evidence was later published. Vladimir Rudnev wrote about Anna Vyrubova: "The medical examination carried out in Mary 1917 by the extraordinary commission of investigation establishes beyond doubt that Anna Vyrubova was a virgin."

Rudenv wrote about Rasputin: "One of the most valuable sources throwing light on Rasputin's personality is the journal of the police agents who kept him under secret surveillance . . . Rasputin's love affairs were confined to nocturnal orgies with girls of immoral character, cabaret singers, and several of his female petitioners . . . No evidence was found to confirm his proximity to members of the upper class." The problem was not just the presence of Anna or Rasputin in the royal chambers--which has seen many colourful people throughout the three-hundred-year history of the Romanov dynasty.

What angered the tsar's relatives and other members of the court was the way in which Rasputin interfered in the running of the government, particularly the appointment and dismissal of ministers. He was not simply disliked; he was loathed. Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, commander-in-chief of the Russian army, promised to hang him if he visited headquarters during the First World War. And it was Nikolai's wife, Anastasia, who had first introduced Nicholas and Alexandra to Rasputin. Rasputin's enemies, including two close relatives of the tsar--Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich and Prince Felix Yussupov--decided to kill the hated "holy man". On the night of 16/17 December 1916, he was lured to the Yussupov Palace on the River Moika where he was murdered. While Rasputin's demise evoked popular rejoicing throughout the country, this joy was short-lived. His death was merely the first in a long line of mass murders.

After the revolution, Anna Vyrubova was arrested and imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress. In December 1920, she managed to escape to Finland, where she published her memoirs in response to a false "diary" written by Alexei Tolstoy and Pavel Schegolev. She died in Helsinki on 23 July, 1964.

In 1913, Russia celebrated the tercentenary of the Romanov dynasty. By then, however, it was clear that the autocracy was no longer relevant. Russia required other forms of government in response to the rapid industrialisation of the country in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The Russian Empire suffered a series of heavy defeats during the First World War. The army began to disintegrate and the whole country was plunged into crisis. On Interntational Women's Day, 23 February/8 March 1917, workers took to the streets of Petrograd, demanding bread and an end to the war and the autocracy. On 27 February, the troops mutinied and went over to the workers, signalling the start of the revolution. The tsarist ministers were arrested and new organs of power were established. On 28 February, Nicholas II left army headquarters for Tsarskoe Selo, but his train was stopped by revolutionary troops.

On 2 March, 1917, under the pressure of public opinion, Emperor Nicholas II abdicated in favour of his brother Mikhail and signed a manifesto of abdication.

The following day, Mikhail refused the throne, bringing the Romanov dynasty to an end. After Nicholas II abdicated, power passed into the hands of the Provisional Government. As he was both an admiral of the British navy (28 May 1908) and a field-marshal of the British army (16 February 1916), Russia suggested that Britain offer political assylum to the former tsar. When Nicholas's cousin, King George V of Great Britain, turned down his request, the Provisional Government decided it would be safer to remove the ex-tasr and his family to Tobolsk in Siberia.

Their positions deteriorated after the Bolsheviks seized power in October 1917. Nicholas, Alexandra and their children were sent to Ekaterinburg, where they and their servants, were shot in the basement of the Ipatiev House on the night of 16/17 July, 1918.

In 1991, human remains were discovered in a forest near Ekaterinburg. A Russian government commission ruled that they belonged to the former tsar, his family and servants.

On 17 July, 1998, the remains of Nicholas and Alexandra, their daughters Olga, Tatyana and Maria, Yevgeny Botkin (doctor), Anna Demidova (maid), Aloisy Trupp (valet) and Ivan Kharitonov (cook) were buried in the Catherine Chapel of the St. Peter and St. Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg. The funeral service was attended by President Boris Yeltsin and read by Father Boris Glebov, senior priest of the Peter and Paul Fortress. The names of Nicholas and his family were not mentioned in the prayers for the souls of the dead, as the church disagreed with the findings of the government commission.

On 14 August, 2000, Nicholas II, Alexandra Feodorovna and all their children were canonised by the Russian Orthodox Church.