The Imperial family. Standing from left: Olga and Maria. Seated from left: Anastasia, the Empress with the Tsarevitch sitting in front, Tsar Nicholas II and Tatiana.
He was now whisked off by car to the mess hall at the Hussars HQ where he ‘met everyone’ – he names them all – and of which ‘half were from his time and half were new’. They sat on the balcony used for dining in the summer and, on this particular occasion, for drinking champagne. Chakrabongse drank to the Regiment and the Regiment drank to him; trumpeters played the regimental song; military songs were sung by a band of singers; the commanding officer drank his health; he was toasted by officers of the First Company in which he had served; the trumpeters sounded the First Company song. They all drank together …
Then amidst roars of laughter, an old receipt for horses’ hay, which Chakrabongse had never signed, was produced – perhaps it had been fed to Ramushka – and, having signed it some five years late, he finally said good-bye and returned to St Petersburg.
After dining, just as he and Katya were setting out for the theatre, a Minister of the Imperial Household called with a decoration – the Order of St Andrew – a gift from the Tsar. In addition, before leaving, the dignitary asked to meet Katya, which Chakrabongse commented ‘was very gracious’. Due to this undoubtedly welcome delay, by the time they reached the Palace Theatre for an operetta ‘The Emperor’s Guard’, the curtain had risen on the second act. Chakrabongse was surprised and discomforted to recognise the theatre as the former palace of the Grand Duke Nicholas Nicholaievitch, where, although the auditorium was new, the entrance and rest of the building were as he well remembered them. ‘It felt strange and odd’ he wrote and might well have added ‘ominous’.
On 7th June, pleased to have no engagements, he and Katya had planned to sleep late, but instead were disturbed quite early with the startling news that Chakrabongse was dead! This report had reached the Siamese Embassy from the Danish, and the Siamese Embassy, thrown into utter confusion, had immediately dispatched a messenger to check the story from Chakrabongse himself, who sent back a reassuring note stating ‘I’m not dead yet!’ After this unnerving beginning to the day and having concluded the boring task of leaving cards on members of the Imperial Household Staff, Chakrabongse was driven to the Velagin Palace to visit Stolypin, the Prime Minister. One might have hoped for some fascinating insight into Stolypin’s character but all that was noted is that they discussed China and the Duma (Russian Parliament), and that Stolypin looked thinner than in his photographs.’
A more descriptive account of the ill-fated premier may be gleaned from Sir Harold Nicholson’s book on the life of his father, also Sir Harold Nicholson, later the first Lord Carnock, the British Ambassador, where he describes Stolypin as: ‘A tall still man with a dead white face and dead white beard. He spoke in a cold even voice, as cold as the clasp of his white hand. He left an impression only of cold gentleness, of icy compassion, of saddened self-control.’ And the Ambassador says further that he considered Stolypin ‘A great man - the most notable figure in Europe.’ There is no doubt he was an ardent patriot, responsible for far-reaching agrarian reforms, but implacable against the rising tide of terrorism and statesman-like in his manoeuvrings in the Duma in his resolute struggle against revolution. He was also courageous enough to warn the Tsar of the disastrous influence of Rasputin. At the time that Chakrabongse met him, this remarkable man had only three months to live for in September he was assassinated in the presence of the Emperor during a gala performance in memory of Alexander III at the Kiev Opera House.
On 8th June Chakrabongse was again at Tsarskoe Selo where, outside headquarters, he found the Commanding Officer already on horseback with a mount for him, and together they rode to where the Regiment was assembled, whereupon the band again gave a stirring rendering of the Regimental song. The usual inspection and march past followed and after luncheon a special train took him to Gatchina, where he was met by the Commanding Officer of the Cuirassiers attached to the Tsar’s mother, the Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna, who now lived at Gatchina for fear of terrorists.
Below: Postcards sent to Prince Chula from Prince Chakrabongse.
He was conducted to her presence by General Prince Obolensky, and members of her suite and two of her grand-daughters were present. Chakrabongse recalls that ‘like her daughter-in-law, the Tsarina, she was extremely cordial, much more so than on previous occasions. She asked after the King and my mother, which was most unusual as she had never troubled before.’ They chatted for twenty minutes and whether this extra veneer of ‘cordiality’ had been laid on for a specific reason or was merely due to the chance coincidental good humour of the two imperial ladies, he does not speculate or offer any explanation. Possibly they desired to have better relations with an Asian power since Russia’s humiliating defeat in the Russo-Japanese War, or maybe both were beginning to appreciate the vulnerability of their own positions.
On 10th June, Chakrabongse and Katya paid a visit to the Empress Marie Hospital, where she had trained and where, with the enthralled student nurses, she had watched the almost daily arrival of her ardent lover in a dashing Imperial carriage.
After this nostalgic visit, he records – perhaps rather too casually - ‘I went on to see Tina, an old friend, and chatted about this and that and so I forgot the time and didn’t pick Katya up until 8.30.’ At this point one really feels for Katya, debarred from entry into the imperial and aristocratic society in which her husband moved so freely and then being keep waiting while he dallied with the mysterious Tina who, one suspects, must have been more of an old flame than an ‘old friend’, particularly as unlike everyone else he mentions, he only refers to her by her christian name. It is impossible to know how Katya felt about being back in her native land, or whether she had reunions with old friends and relatives in St Petersburg. Unlike her time in Siam, where extended news bulletins were sent by letter to her brother Ivan, now there was no need and her thoughts and views remain frustratingly hidden.
The Summer Palace, Tsarskoe Selo.
Next day Chakrabongse went to Tsarskoe Selo for the third time but this time with Katya, as General and Madame Wyekoff, old friends of both of them, had asked them to dine. Having rung and waited for the door to be answered, it suddenly sprang open – and there was Petrof – who had taught Chakrabongse and Poum the rudiments of Russian long ago! It turned out that Petrof, who now tutored the Emperor’s children, lived in the same house as the Wyekoffs and had planned this surprise for his old pupil.
The dinner-party which followed with music from a band of spirited balalaika players was lively and amusing. Chakrabongse was also most intrigued by something quite new to him: a very fashionable game – pieces of thin wood, each a fragment of an image which when fitted together formed a complete picture! It was his first sight of – but certainly not his last, for it indeed became all the rage, the jigsaw puzzle!
The next day he went to see the melancholy Resurrection Church built on the site of Alexander II’s assassination in 1881. The exact spot where the Emperor fell, mortally wounded by the second bomb, is marked by the inclusion of part of the actual road and railings inside the building.