russia royalty

romanov
- Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia (Russian: Павел Александрович; 3 October 1860 – 28 January 1919) was the sixth son and youngest child of Emperor Alexander II of Russia by his first wife, Empress Maria Alexandrovna. He was a brother of Emperor Alexander IIIand uncle of Nicholas II, Russia's last monarch. He entered the Russian Army, was a general in the Cavalry and adjutant general to his brother Emperor Alexander III, and a Knight of the Order of St. Andrew. In 1889, he married Princess Alexandra of Greece, his paternal first cousin once removed. The couple had a daughter and a son, but Alexandra died during the birth of their second child. In his widowhood, Grand Duke Paul began a relationship with Olga Valerianovna Karnovich, a married woman with three children. After obtaining a divorce for Olga and in defiance of a strong family opposition, Grand Duke Paul married her in October 1902. As he contracted a morganatic marriage with a divorcée in defiance of the Tsar's prohibition, Grand Duke Paul was banished from living in Russia and deprived of his titles and privileges. Between 1902 and 1914, he lived in exile in Paris with his second wife, who gave him three children. In the spring of 1914, he settled back in Russia with his second family. With the outbreak of World War I, Grand Duke Paul was appointed in command of the first corps of the Imperial Guard. Afflicted with ill health, he served only intermittently. During the last days of the Tsarist period, he was one of the few members of the Romanov family who remained close to Tsar Nicholas II and his wife, Alexandra Feodorovna. It fell upon Grand Duke Paul to inform Alexandra of Nicholas II's abdication. After the fall of the Russian monarchy, Grand Duke Paul initially remained at his palace in Tsarskoe Selo during the period of the provisional government. With the Bolsheviks ascending to power, his palace was expropriated, and eventually he was arrested and sent to prison. In declining health, he was shot by the Bolsheviks with other Romanov relatives in the courtyard of the Peter and Paul Fortress in January 1919, and his remains were thrown into a common grave.

aristocrats
- sheremetev family / Scheremetew (deutsch) / Cheremetiev, Cheremetieff ou Cheremetev (french)

• The Sheremetev family (Russian: Шереме́тевы) was one of the wealthiest and most influential noble families in Russia. The family held many high commanding ranks in the Russian military, governorships and eventually the rank of Count of the Russian Empire. Russian surnames are gender sensitive, the masculine form of the name being Sheremetev (Шереметев) and the feminine being rendered as Sheremeteva(Шереметева). Two theories as to the origin of the surname obtain, both of which indicate a Tatar and eastern origin for the family. One theory proposes that the name originated with the Turkic Chuvash language word sheremet (шеремет), meaning "poor man," while the other theory suggests that the name originates with the Tatar/Turkic-Persian shir Akhmat, which literally translates to "Tiger Ahmet" and can be read as both "brave Ahmet" and "Pious Ahmet."
• Peter Sheremetev founded a serf theatre on his estates that became famous for its quality. The serf theatres of the highest aristocracy, along with their serf orchestras and serf actresses, dancers and singers, were a peculiarity of Russia in the 'Golden Age of Nobility'. Between 1770 and 1820, more than 2,000 of these slave-artists performed in more than 170 noble theatres and were bought and sold wholesale while at the same time becoming stars. For example, Prince Potemkin bought the whole serf orchestra of Count Kyril Razumovsky for 40,000 roubles.The Sheremetev theatre was one of the wonders of the era: when the Holy Roman Emperor, Joseph II, visited Russia in 1781, Potemkin brought him to see the show. But Peter Sheremetev's love for theatre was nothing compared with the obsession it became for his son, Nicholas.https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/non_fictionreviews/3554946/The-serf-who-married-her-owner.html
• Kuskovo was the summer country house and estate of the Sheremetev family. Built in the mid-18th century, it was originally situated several miles to the east of Moscow but now is part of the East District of the city.  In the 17th century Kuskovo became the property of Boris Petrovich Sheremetev (1652–1719), a Russian Field Marshal under Czar Peter the Great, who led the Russian Army in the victory over the Swedes at the Battle of Poltava (1707) in the Great Northern War. There was already a wooden church on the site, a house and several ponds. The palace was constructed by his son Petr Borisovich Sheremetev (1713–1787). Count Sheremetev was one of the richest men in Russia, close to the court and a patron of the arts. He built Kuskovo at approximately the same time that he built a city palace on the banks of the Fontanka River in St. Petersburg. When he decided to build a palace at Kuskovo, he ordered that it be larger and more beautiful than the estates of other nobles, and equal to any residence of the Czars.^[2] Since it was less than a day's journey from the center of Moscow, it was not designed to accommodate overnight guests, nor for agriculture or any other practical purpose, but purely as a place for entertainment, ceremony and festivities. Construction was carried out between the 1730s and the 1790s on a site of over 300 hectares (740 acres). The earliest surviving structure is the Saviour church, on the site of the old wooden church, built in 1737-39 in a Petrine baroque style and decorated with marble statues. The neoclassical bell-tower was added later, in 1792. The Dutch House was constructed between 1749 and 1751 by architect Y.I. Kologrivov, who then enlarged the pond into a lake and laid out the park and canals.By the end of the 18th century, the estate went into a decline. It was badly damaged during the French invasion in 1812. In the 1830s, the serf theater was torn down. After the abolition of serfdom in 1861, parcels of land were divided up and rented out. In the 19th century much of the furniture was moved to the city residences of the Shermetevs in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
  After the 1917 Revolution, the estate was nationalized. In 1919 the palace was turned into a small museum of natural history. Ten years later it became the home of the state museum of porcelain, which had been founded in 1918-20 on Podossensky Street in Moscow. It housed the nationalized collections of Russian art collectors A. Morozov, L. Zoubalov, and Botkine. In 1932 it was renamed the State Museum of Ceramics.

- golitsyn clan

• https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2017/05/27/the-noble-survivors-a58099