Duchesses made to scrub f loors

THE family and the few remaining members of their household staff were crammed into a handful of hot, stuffy and gloomy rooms and allowed just one hour a day in the tiny garden for fresh air.

A local woman sent in to clean the house has provided insights into the family’s life there.

She has been quoted as saying that she was surprised how un-grand the Grand Duchesses were, dressed in plain black skirts and white blouses and getting down on their knees to help her scrub the floor. She was amused by the cheeky and irrepressible Anastasia, youngest of the four, who stuck out her tongue at one of the guards behind his back.

As for the Tsar, he was a far cry from the majestic figure she had been brought up to believe in. She thought him drab, with surprisingly short legs and baldness showing through his thinning hair.

Nicholas, a humbled figure, read Tolstoy’s War And Peace while his pretty and precocious daughters entertained themselves by flirting with the guards.

A priest allowed in to administer mass said he was struck by ‘their humour and dignity in the face of humiliation, stress and fear as the garotte tightened’.