
Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna was happy to remember her childhood.
She developed a particularly trusting relationship with her father, Emperor Alexander III, for whom family and marriage were sacred and inviolable, and children were God’s blessing. The children’s rooms of the Grand Duchess were located near her father’s study, and for her, still a baby, the most important event of the day was a visit to him after breakfast. Crawling under the desk, she sat there quietly with a large shepherd named Kamchatka while her parents finished breakfast. Despite being incredibly busy, the Emperor devoted half an hour to his favorite child every morning. In the evening, he always came to the children’s rooms to wish the children good night and cross them, tired and half asleep, and then – so as not to frighten their sleep – tiptoed out of the door.
Warm memories of childhood were forever preserved in the soul of the Grand Duchess.
As a mother, she, together with her beloved husband Nikolai Alexandrovich Kulikovsky, surrounded her sons Tikhon and Guriy with the warmth and comfort of family life. Observing the children’s games and participating in them, Olga Aleksandrovna got fired up with the idea of reflecting the charm of childhood in her watercolors. This is how the “Tale of the Three White Bears” illustrated by her, was born, in which you can recognize the members of her own friendly family.
Original text: Otto Schrei
Translated from Danish: Olga Zorina
Year: 2008
Pages: 46
Publisher: Sretensky Monastery Publishing House
Language: Russian, Danish
ISBN 978-5-7533-0253-3