Thomas Preston, the British Consul in Ekaterinburg in 1918, did his best to help the imprisoned Romanov family an in alerting the Allies to their perilous situation
but till now little has been written about his life and diplomatic career.
‘It was Mister Heath who frequently reminded his imperial pupils of the English saying that aristocrats are born but gentlemen are made.’
It may be fiction but there is no doubt that it exploits the same tired old myth-making about the Romanovs that many Romanov historians and aficionados such as I are sick to death of seeing and reading about. It is time all these false claims and their attendant mythology were finally closed down…
Most people know the now legendary tale of how Lenin returned to Russia after many years in exile on a sealed train across wartime Germany, arriving at Petrograd’s Finland Station on 16 April 1917. But few are aware of the life he led in Europe between 1900 and his dramatic return. During those years he came to London on five separate occasions…
It was something of a tradition in the Imperial Family to have non-Russian tutors and nannies for their children. Perhaps the best known of them all was the English tutor Sydney Gibbes who taught first Anastasia and Maria and later Alexey the Tsarevich.
John Reed was the archetypal rebellious romantic. He was made for revolution and hungry for a cause and the Russian Revolution found its most passionate American advocate in him
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