Grand Duchess Olga, the first child of Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra, was born at the Alexander Palace of Tsarskoe Selo on 15th [Old Style 3rd] November 1895.

In the photographs and watercolours in our Musuem's collection (above), we can see a girl “with a fragile and crystal soul”, with her mother’s elegance, grace and posture, and her father’s looks, blue eyes and smile.

Her contemporaries describe Olga as “very modest and not fond of luxury”, “nice to everyone”, “very spontaneous, sometimes too frank, always sincere", "very charming and most cheerful", "generous and immediately responsive to any request.”

An avid reader and “born thinker”, solid and solitary, she went through the hardships of the Tsarskoe Selo Palace Auxiliary Hospital No.3 as a nurse in 1914 and had no illusions about the hopelessness of her family’s situation in 1918. She was executed together with them and died at 22.