TOBOLSK EXHIBITION: THE WORLD OF THE ROMANOV FAMILY CHILDREN

Royal Russia – 22/8/16

A new photo exhibition “The World of the Romanov Family Children” opened on 6 August at the Dunina-Gorkavich Museum of the History of the Development and Study of Siberia in Tobolsk.

The exhibition is timed to the 99th anniversary of the arrival of Emperor Nicholas II and his family in Tobolsk on 6 August 1917, and the 115th anniversary of the birth of Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna on 18 June [O.S. 5 June ] 1901, the youngest daughter of the last Emperor and Empress of Russia.

The exhibition is based on a collection of photographs which belonged to the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna’s lady-in-waiting, friend and confidante Anna Vyrubova-Taneyeva.

The original collection consists of six albums, containing a total of 1,500 photographs. The albums were acquired by a Yale University student in 1937, who in 1951 presented them as a gift to his university, where they are stored to this day.

A total of 500 photographs from the Vyrubova collection were duplicated in 2012, and presented to at the Dunina-Gorkavich Museum of the History of the Development and Study of Siberia in Tobolsk.

The current exhibition features 250 of the photographs from Vyrubova collection, as well as additional photographs from the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF) and the State Historical Museum in Moscow. All of the photos depict the children of Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna in happier times. Visitors to the exhibit will see images of their private world: playing games, family relations, in the classroom, on holidays, and more.

Nicholas II and his family were sent into exile to Tobolsk by the decision of the Provisional government in the summer of 1917. The Imperial family were held under house arrest in the former mansion of the governor of Tobolsk. In the spring of 1918 the Bolsheviks transferred the Imperial family and their retainers to Ekaterinburg, where they were murdered on 17 July 1918.