How a girl from the Russian Empire conquered the heart of the Siamese prince Chakrabon: Katya Desnitskaya

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The story of Yekaterina Desnitskaya, a charming girl from the Volyn region, is, without a doubt, an incredible mixture of adventure, romance and thrill that could easily be turned into a bestseller.

Ekaterina Desnitskaya was born into the family of a prominent judge in the spring of 1886 in the Ukrainian city of Lutsk and was one of twelve children. When her father died, Ekaterina, who was only two years old, moved with some family members to Kiev, where she was later accepted as a student at the famous Fundukleevskaya gymnasium (Secondary school for advanced training).

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Ekaterina moved to St. Petersburg with one of her older brothers, where Katerina's brother studied at the university, and she began attending the Medical School of Nursing. Russia was rapidly entering the war with Japan, and such schools were popular for "patriotic reasons" among girls from the upper classes. Katya was a very pretty girl and a wonderful companion, and it didn't take her long to become the "lioness" of high society.

In 1905, at one of the balls she attended, the girl met an officer, a spectacular young man from the imperial hussars. His somewhat swarthy face and light foreign accent were hardly an obstacle to love at first sight, since Katya was not embarrassed by such trifles as an accent or slightly darker skin. She later learned that her gentleman was His Highness Chakrabon, Prince of Siam.

Today Siam is better known as Thailand, which is one of the most popular holiday destinations for tourists from all over the world thanks to its many wonderful resorts. But at the beginning of the twentieth century, few people in the Russian Empire even knew where Siam was, since it was considered an exotic country full of mysteries, with an ancient culture and peculiar customs.

Back in 1897, the Siamese king Rama V Chulalongkorn made an official visit to Russia. The Russian emperor Nicholas II suggested that the Siamese king send one of his sons to study in St. Petersburg, and the offer was kindly accepted, and in the spring of 1898 the second son of the ruler, who studied in England, arrived in St. Petersburg and was admitted to the Imperial Corps of Pages - an elite a military school for aristocrats, the most prestigious in the entire Russian Empire.

Prince Chakrabon, who had the status of an honorary guest of the Russian imperial family, lived in the Winter Palace, the residence of the Russian monarchs, in luxuriously furnished and decorated apartments. When Katya met neither, he had just graduated from the Imperial Pages Corps, received the appropriate military rank and entered the Academy of the General Staff. Catherine, who believed that her romance had no future, volunteered to go as a nurse to Manchuria, where Russian troops tried to hold their positions against the Japanese in the 1905 Russo-Japanese War.

Prince Chakrabon, who at first was stunned by her decision to go to Manchuria, admired her courageous act, continued to write letters to her, in which he called her his bride. He also continued to send flowers to her through the special imperial postal service. After the end of the war, Katya returned to St. Petersburg.

She was awarded three medals for her bravery, one of which was the Order of St. George, which was awarded to soldiers for exploits of exceptional courage. Prince Chakrabon showered her with flowers, stubbornly ignoring messages from Siam, who told him that “the most beautiful and worthy” were found for him, whom he could marry. But the prince stubbornly refused to succumb to pressure from home and insisted that it was Katya and no one else who would become his wife. Soon he proposed to her, and she accepted him, but with one condition - she was to become his only wife. She knew that Siamese traditions allowed polygamy and that Siamese monarchs and princes always had more than one wife - this was one of the signs of their royal status. The prince swore that she would always be his one and only.

Since the Russian priests refused to marry a Buddhist groom and an Orthodox Christian bride, they went to Constantinople (Istanbul), where they easily found an Orthodox priest who agreed to perform the ceremony for a significant amount of money. The newlyweds spent their honeymoon in Egypt and went to Singapore, and from there the prince went to Siam, leaving his young wife for several weeks - he had to prepare his parents and the court for the surprise that awaited them as a foreign wife. However, in a short time, Katya quickly learned the Siamese language to be fluent in it. In addition, she managed to charm her husband's parents and as a reward from them received the title of Duchess of the city of Pitsanulok, which allowed her to become the legal wife of a prince of royal blood.

In 1908, she gave birth to her son Chula, who, due to the fact that the elder brother of Prince Chakrabon was childless, became the first in line to the throne. In 1910, Prince Chakrabon's father died and his brother inherited the throne. Catherine and her husband, now an heir, went to stay with relatives in Ukraine. But first they went to Petersburg, where they were received by Nicholas II, and later Catherine went to Kiev, where her relatives lived at that time.

In 1912, the world in the Chakrabon family was shaken - Katya learned that her husband was having an affair with a sixteen-year-old girl, a princess named Chuvalit. The prince elevated the girl to the official status of a wife, but continued to swear that his love for Katya remained as strong as before. But the Ukrainian woman did not accept the Siamese polygamous traditions and asked for a divorce, which was granted. She refused a very large amount of money offered as alimony, including for a child, and accepted only one thousand two hundred pounds sterling, which was to be paid annually - a very significant amount at that time, but much lower than the royal generous offer.

Katya wanted to return to Ukraine, but could not because of the World War, and civil wars followed the revolutions in Russia, which made her return impossible. Her ex-husband died in 1920, while on a diplomatic mission in China, and she attended funeral. Chakrabon's relatives insisted that her son Chula, as a potential heir to the throne, remain in Siam, and Katya, who was under strong pressure, gave her consent, but he still did not become king.

Katerina chose to live in China, in the Russian community. In China, she met US citizen Harry Clinton Stone, they got married and moved to Paris and then to the United States. Catherine died in Paris in 1962, at the age of seventy-two.

Her son grew up to become a university-educated historian who traveled extensively and settled in Britain. He made a half-hearted attempt to return to Siam in his official capacity as a Siamese prince, but soon realized that he was not welcome there - after all, he was half Slav and received a Western education.

However, after the death of his stepmother, Princess Chuvalit, the Siamese government increased his allowance, and he bought a house in Paris, although he continued to live in London on a permanent basis. The daughter of Prince Chula - Narisa, lives in Paris. She is interested in art and art history and is also the head of the Thai Environmental Foundation. In 1994, she published a book about her grandparents, Katya and the Prince of Siam, an ultimately tragic love and marriage story of a beautiful Ukrainian girl and an oriental prince, His Highness Prince Siam Chakrabon.

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