To Serve the Russian Empire

This is the self-portrait of one man’s journey through life, schooled at two prestigious boarding schools in St Petersburg. He was chosen as one of two chamber pages to Princess Alix at her weding to Tsar Nicholas II. Commissioned into the elite Egersky Life Guards Regiment, he paints a vivid picture of regimental life: the officers’ mess on Ruzovskaya Street, giard duty at the Winter Palace and Anichkov Palace, the Peter and Paul Fortress and at the Tsar’s coronation in Moscow, Military manoeuv