Video: Soviet motorcycle racer Natalya Androsova - the last of the royal family of the Romanovs
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
“A motorcycle overhead with an electric saw. Tired of living upright. Oh, savage girl, daughter of Icarus,”poet Andrei Voznesensky wrote about Natalya Androsova. Natalia went down in history as an extraordinary personality, the last legitimate princess from the Romanov family, the great-granddaughter of Emperor Nicholas I. Born in the revolutionary year 1917, she lived her entire life in the Soviet Union and shone on the circus stage until 50 years old, performing a desperate act - racing on a vertical wall on a motorcycle.
Natalia's grandfather was the disgraced prince Nikolai Konstantinovich, who accepted the revolution (which, in fact, saved the whole family from persecution by the Soviet regime), but ruined his reputation due to the fact that he fell in love with the American Fanny Lear, and never wanted step back from your feelings. Soon he was accused of stealing family jewelry for his beloved, but Nikolai Konstantinovich vowed that he did not do this. Be that as it may, after such a scandal, he could no longer remain in St. Petersburg, and was exiled to Orenburg, and then to Tashkent. In Asia, he worked a lot for the benefit of local residents - he built irrigation canals and houses for veteran soldiers. In the same place, in Tashkent, he was nicknamed Iskander, and this surname has already been inherited by descendants.
Natalia Iskander was born in Uzbekistan, lived there with her mother and brother until she was seven, and then moved with her family to Moscow. The move became possible due to the fact that Natalya's mother got married a second time, and her chosen one Nikolai Androsov agreed to give the children his patronymic and surname.
Natalia managed to finish only seven classes of school, she had no chance to continue her studies. To earn a living, she was engaged in any small services - she sewed, made drawings and mastered the profession of a chauffeur. Speed and road became her real passion, and then she signed up for classes at a motorcycle club. Gradually, Natalya drew up a performance program, and began performing in the circus, performing dizzying stunts. The circus debut took place in 1939.
With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, I realized that I had to use my skills. For a short time she was the personal chauffeur of one of the officials, and as soon as he left for the evacuation, she began to help the front - to deliver bread to the front line. In winter, at night, she often transported snow from the Alexander Garden for the construction of defensive fortifications.
Natalia did not give up circus activities, she again and again rushed headlong along the wall of the arena. Dozens of times she was injured, fell, crashed, got injured, but again returned to her favorite work. The Vertical Wall Race was on the program until 1967.
The personal life of Natalya Androsova was tragic: in the 1950s, she married director Nikolai Dostal, who became a widow and raised two sons on his own. However, family life lasted only a few years - Dostal died on the set, and Natalia had only to raise her stepsons. Both, having matured, followed in the footsteps of their father.
Since childhood, Natalya guessed about belonging to a great family, but many details of the life of the Romanov family were hidden from her. Only in the years of the Khrushchev "thaw" did they start writing about Natalia in newspapers, after a while the fearless motorcyclist received a letter from Paris (it was passed on through friends). In a letter to her, she was approached by a woman who became the second wife of his father, who was forced to emigrate due to political convictions immediately after the Revolution. This woman reported that her father, Prince Alexander Iskander, died in Nice in 1957. Natalia dreamed of the opportunity to visit his grave.
This opportunity presented itself many years later. Already at the age of 80, Natalya received an offer from a philanthropist who was ready to pay for a trip for her and accompanying Prince Alexander Iskander to the grave. This trip became for Natalia Androsov one of the most significant events in her life, as a keepsake she took with her a handful of earth from the grave.
Natalia Androsova died in Moscow in 1999. The last years of her life passed in complete oblivion, she lived alone in a tiny apartment, climbing the stairs to the top floor on crutches so as not to lose vigor and physical shape. Natalya was disappointed in people, but she adored mongrels, and always fed them at the entrance. With the death of Natalia Androsova, a whole era ended, because she was the last legitimate granddaughter of the Grand Duke Romanov.
After the execution of the Romanov family, impostors appeared several times, posing as the surviving heirs of the royal family. The tragic fate of Anastasia Romanova became evidence that nothing is sacred for impostors, and nothing stops them from wanting to touch someone else's glory and wealth …
Recommended:
As a descendant of the royal family of the Romanovs, he became the "king of abstraction" and painted pictures in which only form and color
Alexander Richelieu-Beridze is a Russian abstract painter living in France. His style can be defined as abstract expressionism, in which there is no plot, but there are forms and colors. It is interesting that the ancestors of Beridze belonged to the family of the royal Romanov family. Is it true that he is called the "king of abstraction" in France, and how did he become a trendsetter in the French capital?
Family Album: How the Romanov Family Lived in the Last Years Before the Tragic Execution
The author of many of these photographs of the imperial family is the last emperor of Russia, Nicholas II himself. The king was a keen photographer. He took pictures himself and with great pleasure put the images into numerous albums. His love of photography was shared by his daughter Maria, who colored most of the photographs. This review contains the last of the photographs of the Romanov family, which was shot in Yekaterinburg on July 17, 1918 by order of the Bolsheviks
Literary preferences of members of the royal family: Who was the idol of the Tsarevich, what they read in the evenings, and which book was the last
"I read after tea", "I read all evening", "I read Alix aloud", "I read a lot", "I managed to read for myself" - such entries in the personal diary of Nicholas II made every day. Reading was an integral and very important part of the life of the royal family. The circle of their interests covered both serious historical literature and entertaining novels
The last costume ball of the empire: unique photographs of the royal family and nobility
For one of the anniversaries of the reign of the Romanov dynasty, an unusual ball was organized in the Winter Palace. All those invited had to observe the dress code - to come to the holiday in the clothes of the pre-Petrine era. In our review, there are unique photos that capture the participants of this bright event
The art of body painting. Trina Merry's motorcycle people for the International Motorcycle Roadshow
Body painting, or painting on the human body, is not only the skill of the artist, but also of his models, because sometimes they have to work on the brink of their capabilities. For example, we recently described how the artist Emma Hack "made" 17 painted models to depict a car wrecked in an accident, which was necessary for a social advertising campaign for safe traffic. And her colleague, artist Trina Merry from San Francisco, made out of people