Haven My Haven PRINCESS OLGA ROMANOFF

Exactly 100 years since the murder of her great-uncle, Tsar Nicholas II, we visit the writer, 68, in her drawing room in Kent

1

OUR VERY OWN DOWNTON

Provender House has been my family’s home since my great-grandmother rented it in 1890, then my grandparents bought it in 1912. Parts of it are 700 years old. This drawing room, in the first part that we restored after my mother Nadine’s death in 2000, is 17th century and has a soothing atmosphere. This portrait of me by Gerald Swann was painted when I was eight. My childhood here – with my mother and my father Prince Andrew, eldest nephew of Tsar Nicholas II – was a cross between The Darling Buds Of May and Downton Abbey.

2

MY BESTSELLING GRANNY

This is my Finnish grandmother Sylvia Borgstrom, also painted by Gerald Swann. Sylvia married Herbert McDougall of the famous flour family and they had three daughters – my mother was the eldest. Sylvia and Herbert were eventually divorced, and Sylvia travelled all over the world and wrote books, some of which became bestsellers. She lived with us here until her death in 1962.

3

BEAR FACTS

These toys were my childhood friends – Caroline on the left and Sandy on the right. I didn’t like dolls, I hated them. I was a tomboy and my mother, a glamorous, generous, difficult and fascinating woman, had to force me into dresses. I wasn’t allowed to drink tap water until I was nine – I only drank mineral water – or go to school. I had a succession of governesses and my mother hired and fired a lot of nannies.

4

BULLDOG SPIRIT

My grandfather Herbert brought this bulldog, which barks, back from Paris for me in 1954. My mother took one look at it and said, ‘It’s far too good for the child!’ and it’s lived here in the drawing room ever since. I was never allowed to play with it, and when my grandchildren had a go and I heard the dog’s distinctive bark, I rushed in and said, ‘No, you can’t touch it. I couldn’t, so you can’t either!’

5

DADDY’S SKETCHY PAST

My father Prince Andrew Alexandrovich escaped Russia, where he had been under house arrest, in 1919. He had two hobbies: cooking, which he learned by watching the French chefs in the Russian palaces, and painting. This is one of his caricatures of Hitler – he also did ones of Stalin and other wartime figures. He was very talented. He died in 1981; I miss him still.

6

TSAR GAZING

It’s 100 years ago this week that Tsar Nicholas II and his family were murdered in July 1918, and I’m going over to St Petersburg in Russia to join in the commemorations. This photograph of him, on the left, with

King George V, was taken in more peaceful times at the wedding of the Kaiser’s daughter in

Berlin in 1913.

They were first cousins but they actually look like twins.