Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich of Russia
Born	(1869-10-07)October 7, 1869 Borjomi, Georgia
Died	07|18 Alapaevsk, Russia
Parent(s)	Grand Duke Michael Nicolaievich of Russia and Princess Cecilie of Baden

Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich of Russia (Russian: Сергей Миха́йлович) (October 7 1869 - July 18 1918) was the fifth son of Grand Duke Michael Nikolaievich of Russia and a first cousin of Alexander III of Russia. He followed a military career and served as General Inspector of the Artillery with the rank of Adjutant General during World War I. He was murdered by the Bolsheviks along with several other Romanovs relatives at Alapayevsk on July 18, 1918, one day after the murder of Tsar Nicholas II and his immediate family at Yekaterinburg.

Early life

Grand Duke Sergei was born on October 7, 1869 at Borjomi, his father’s 200,000 acres estate 90 miles from Tiflis. He was the fifth son and sixth child of the seven children of Grand Duke Michael Nicolaievich of Russia and his wife Grand Duchess Olga Feodorovna, born princess Cecile of Baden. Named Sergei after St. Sergius of Radonezh, Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich spent his early years in the Caucasus, until 1881 when his family moved to St Petersburg. Raised in strict and militaristic environment, he received little affection from his parents. His father, occupied in militaristic and governmental endeavors, remained a distant figure. His demanding mother was a strict disciplinarian and cold towards her children. Like his brothers, Sergei Mikhailovich was destined from birth to follow a military career. He was two weeks old when he was enrolled in a military unit that was named after him: the 153rd Infantry Vakusnkii regiment of his imperial highness Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich.

A Russian Grand Duke

Sergei Mikhailovich loved the military life and served in a number of regiments. Like his father, he was drawn towards ordinance and artillery. After graduating from the Mikhailovsky Artillery School, he started his military service in the Life Guard of the Calvary Artillery Brigade. In 1891, he became aide-de-camp to the Emperor and in 1899 promoted to the rank of colonel. In 1904, he was made major general in the house guards artillery brigade of the suite of the Tsar. He replaced his father in 1905 as Inspector General of Artillery, a post he held until 1915 when he was removed under controversy during World War I. In 1908, he became adjutant General. In 1914, he was promoted to the rank of General of Calvary. From January 1916, he served as field inspector general of the artillery until he resigned to his military post at the fall of the monarchy.

Sergei Mikhailovich was tall, reaching six foot three, and was the only among Grand Duke Michael Nicholaievich’s children to inherited the father’s blue eyes and blond hair. He became prematurely bald and was considered the least handsome of a very good-looking family. He had a keen sense of the ridiculous, but was pessimistic, as influence of his tutor Colonel Helmerson. He had the habit of saying “ tant pis!” (so much the worse!) to any bad news. Widely consider rude and moody, he was at the same time sincere, affectionate, loved simplicity and was easily accessible without class distinction.

Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich was, unlike his brothers, interested in mathematics and physics, which coincide with his fondness for artillery. His only artistic inclination was choral singing, and he formed an amateur chorus of more than sixty voices, including some professional singers. They were directed by Kasatchenko, the master of the Imperial Theater. For a decade, the group met at Sergei’s palace every Monday evening from 8 to 10: 30 before the Russo-Japanese War stopped it. Like all the Grand Dukes, Sergei was immensely wealthy. Beside his grand ducal allowance of 200,000 roubles a year, he received the income from vast personal states, which include a hunting lodge 60 miles from St Petersburg. At the death of his father in 1909, his wealth increased even further.

He remained a bachelor, living in his father’s and later his eldest brother palace on the Neva: the new Michaelovsky Palace in St Petersburg. The halls and corridors were so vast that Sergei used a bicycle to visit his brothers Grand Dukes George and Nicholas Mikhailovich who lived in other wings of the large Palace.

Ménage à trois

In the early 1890’s, Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich was particularly close to his brother Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich. Traveling together to India, they had to sop their trip in Bombay in 1891, with the sudden death of their mother. Both brothers fell in love with Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna, their first cousin’s daughter. She chose his brother over Sergei and married Alexander in 1894. During the last year of Tsar Alexander III’s reign, Sergei and his brothers Alexander and George Mikhailovich were the future Tsar, Nicholas II, constant companions. Their closeness ended with Nicholas II ascension to the throne and marriage.

When Nicholas II, then just heir to the Empire, broke off with his mistress the famous ballerina Mathilde Kschessinskaya, he asked Sergei to take care of her. From 1894, Grand Duke Sergei, who was then 25 years old, became Kschessinskaya’s protector. He provided generously for his mistress. In 1895, the grand duke bought a dacha for her in Strelna. Kschessinskaya, who was ambitious, used her connections to the Romanovs to promote her career. Sergei, as president of the Imperial theatres Society, took an active role in the ballet world to secure a prominent place for Kschessinskaya in the Imperial Ballet. Although Sergei was devoted to Mathilde, she was not in love with him and used him as a tool to full fill her ambitions. He remained her devoted friend through to the end of his life. He never married and found in Mathilde’s company the substitute of a family life.

On February 1900 Kschessinskaya met, Grand Duke Andrei Vladimorovich , who was a son of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich, Sergei’s first cousin. Mathilde fell in love with Andrei and soon they stated a new relationship. Grand Duke Sergei tolerated their affair remaining a close and loyal friend to the famous ballerina, but the relationship between the two grand dukes was tense. They tried to avoid each other while sharing the same woman for almost two decades. The ménage à trois became more complicated when on June 18 1902, Mathilde gave birth to a son. Both Grand Dukes were at first convinced they were the child’s father. After the revolution, both Kschessinskaya and Grand Duke Andrei maintained that Andrei was the father, but it was Grand Duke Sergei who looked after Mathilde and her son while he was alive. The child, who became known within the family by his nickname: Vova, received the name and patronymic of Vladimir Sergeivich, although no surname was made public until 1911. The birth certificate gave Sergei as the father and he was devoted towards the child. The question of Vladimir’s paternity remains unresolved. However, most sources attribute the paternity to Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich, who the child resembled.

In 1908, Countess Barbara Vorontzov-Daskov, the widow of Count Ivan Vorontzov-Daskov, gave birth to a son, Alexander, in Switzerland. The father of Alexander seems to have been Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich. Alexander was adopted by Sophia von Dehn, whose grandmother was a daughter of Tsar Nicholas I. Sophia brought up Alexander in Italy, where her husband was a naval attaché. Alexander married twice and died in the U.S.A in 1979.

War and revolution

During a visit to Austria and Germany in 1913 Sergei Mikhailovich was convinced that the two countries were getting ready for war, but his warning were no hear by the Russian ministers. In the summer of 1914 just before the star of World War I, Grand Duke Sergei was traveling near lake Baikal when he fell ill with rheumatic fever in Chita At his return to Mikhailovskoe, during the first days of autumn, his illness, complicated with pleurisy took a severe form. He spent five months confined to bed before being pronounced fit enough to resume his duties. ^[1]. He was appointed inspector general of Artillery and was attached to the general headquarters, once making a trip to Archangel to check on the munitions sent there by the allies.

As chief of the artillery department Grand Duke Sergei came under fire of the president of the Duma, Michael Rodzianko. Corruption and negligence were rampant at the artillery department and there was a scandal over artillery contracts. Kschessinskaya was accused of getting preferential orders for firms in pursue of economical gains. The Grand Duke was blamed for not uncovering a band of thieves and protecting the dealing of his mistress. A special commission investigated the artillery Department and in January 1916, Grand Duke Sergei had to resign as head of the artillery department. He was then appointed Field Inspector General of Artillery at Stavka. He was in position to deal with Nicholas II every day, living in the same headquarters train with the Tsar. He was increasingly pessimistic about the outcome of the war for Russia but he could not assert any influence over Nicholas II who only trusted his wife Alexandra Feodorovna who disliked Sergei Mikhailovich and had listed him among her enemies. The Tsarina following the rumors of corruption that had clouded Sergei’s reputation had pressed her husband to make Sergei Mikhailovich resign from the artillery department. The scandal over the bribes did not die down in the last period of Imperial Russia and Grand Duke Sergei spent nearly all his time at Stavka. He became more cautious in an attempt to distance himself from Kshessinskaya, who had used him in her quest for financial profit. . ^[2].

At the fall of the monarchy, Grand Duke Sergei was at Mogilev in the company of Nicholas II when he had to abdicate. During the first moths of the provisional government, Grand Duke Sergei remained in Mogilev in voluntary exile on the advise of his brother Grand Duke Nicholas Mikhailovich, because of the cloud of corruption that hung over him as a result of the Ksehesinskaya scandal. However, after twenty-two years of having a substitute of a family life with his mistress, he resisted pressure from his brother to break off all relations with Mathilde and her son.

Sergei Mikhailovich returned to Petrograd at the beginning of June 1917, he remained in the former Imperial capital during the period of the constitutional government, living with his brother Nicholas Mikhailovich in the New Michaelovsky Palace. Grand Duke Sergei proposed to Kschessinskaya, she, although caring for him, did not love him and refused. Instead, she decided to join Grand Duke Andrei in the Caucasus. On July 16, she left with her son.

Captivity

After the successful Bolshevik coup of November 1917, the Petrograd newspapers published a decree summoning all the male Romanovs to report to the dreaded Cheka, the secret police. Initially they were just required not to leave the city. In March 1918 the Romanovs registered were summoned again now to be sent away into internal Russian exile. Sergei Mikhailovich was sent to Viatka, a small town in the foothills of the Ural Mountains. With suitcases in hand, the grand duke arrived at the Nicholas railway station on the afternoon of April 4, 1918. His brother grand duke Nicholas went with him to wish him farewell. Sergei’s personal secretary, Fedor Remez, was going to follow him in his exile. At seven, that evening the train pulled out of Petrograd headed east to Siberia. Grand Duke Sergei departed to his destiny in the company of his secretary, three sons of Grand Duke Konstantine Kosntantinovich (Princes: Ivan, Konstantine and Igor Konstantinovich) and Prince Vladimir Paley, the son of the morganatic marriage of Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich. In Viatka, the Grand Duke was lodge in a different house from his much younger relatives. Although they all were virtually prisoners, they were allow walking feely around town, and could attend services at a local church. Then, after only eleven days their situation changed.

On April 30, Grand Duke Sergei his secretary and the other Romanovs with them were transferred to Yekaterinburg by order of the Ural Regional Soviet. The journey lasted for thee days through the forest of the Urals. On May 3, 1918, the prisoners arrived in Yekaterinburg. They were housed at the Palace Royal Hotel on the city’s Voznesensky Prospekt. A few days later, Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, sister of the Tsarina, joined them and they were all allow certain amount of freedom. Although the Tsar and tsarina with their children were there nearby at, the Ipatiev House they were unable to make contact. After two weeks, the Ural Regional Soviet decided once again to transfer Grand Duke Sergei and the other Romanovs in his group. On May 18, 1918, they were told that they were to be taken to the town of Alapayevsk, in the northern Urals, 120 miles from Yekaterinburg, and ordered to quickly pack. That same afternoon, they boarded a train and, two days later, arrived at their destination.

The Romanovs were placed in the Napolnaya School, on the out skits of the town. The school was small, consisting of only six rooms, the furniture basic but scanty. Each prisoner received an iron bed. Although, the captives were under the strict guard of the Red Army soldiers, they were allowed to walk in town, to talk to people and to go to church on feasts days. Preparing to spend a long time in Alapayevsk, they planted flowers and vegetable gardens near the school and spent many hours working there. On rainy days, the Romanovs read Russian novels to each other. Gradually the regiment toughened. They were deprived of complete freedom and were forbidden to take walks. The school was encircled with a barbed-wire fence and small trenches. Two weeks later, they were murdered.

Murder

There exist an eyewitness account of the murders of the Romanov group in Alapayevsk, related by one of the local Bolshevisk, Vasisili Ryabov. He later recalled:

“It was night of the 17th to 18th July, 1918. When were sure the whole town was asleep, we quietly stole through the window into the school building. Nobody there noticed our presence, they were already all asleep. We entered through the unlocked door into the building where the women were sleeping, and woke them up, telling them quietly to get dressed at once, as they were to be taken to a safe place because of the possibility of an armed attack. They obeyed without murmur. We tied their hands behind their backs there and then, blindfolded them, and let them out to the cart, which was already waiting by the school, sat them in it, and sent them off to their destination. After that, we went into the room occupied by the men. We told them the same thing as we had told the women. The young princes Konstantinovich (KR's sons) and Prince Paley also obeyed meekly. We took them out into the corridor, blindfolded them, bound their hands behind their backs, and put them in another cart. We had earlier decided that the cart should not go together. The only one to try to opposse us was Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich. Physically he was stronger than the rest. We had to grapple with him. He told us categorically that he was not going anywhere, as he knew they all were going to be killed. He barricaded himself behind the cupboard and our efforts to get him out were in vain. We lost precious time. I finally lost my patience and shot at the Grand Duke. However, I only fired with the intention of wounding him slightly and frightening him into submission. I wounded him in the arm. He did not resist further. I bound his bound and covered his eyes. We put him in the last card and set off. We were in a great hurry: already the dawn was heralding morning. Along the way, Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich again repeated that he knew they were all going to be killed. “ tell me why? He asked. “ I have never been involved in politics. I love sports played billiards, and was interested in numismatics. “ I reassured him as best as I could. Although I was myself, very agitated by everything I have through that night. Despite his wounded arm, the Grand Duke did not complain. At last, we arrived at the mine. The shaft was not very deep and as it turned out had a ledge on one side that was not cover by water” ^[3]

At shaft # 7, the deepest and longest unused, the carriages stopped. Blindfolded, the Romanovs were ordered to walk across a log placed over the sixty foot deep mine. Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovcih, the oldest man in the group, was the only one to disobey. He threw himself at the guards and they shot him to death immediately. His body was thrown into the shaft. His relatives were stroked in the head and thrown into the deep shaft still alive. A couple of hand grenades were pitched in after that. The mouth of the mine was filled with dry brushwood and set it alight until there were no signs of life beneath the earth.

Aftermath

On September 28, 1918, the White Army captured Alapayevsk, hoping to rescue the prisoners from the school building. Some local peasants directed the investigators of the Romanovs disappearance to the abandoned mine. On October 8, they began to retrieve the bodies from the shaft. The body of Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich was rescued two days later.

Identification of the Romanovs was made based on the clothing worn and by papers found in their pockets. The White investigators had no medical or dental records, and eleven weeks in the mine had substantially altered their physical appearance. The autopsy revealed that Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich had a bruise on the left side of his head, but his death had been caused by a gunshot wound to the right side of his head.

After the autopsies were performed, the bodies of the Romanovs were washed, dressed in white shrouds, and placed in wooden coffins. There was a funeral service for them and they were interred in the crypt of the cathedral of the Holy trinity in Alapayevsk. Eight months later, when it became clear that the white army was in retreat, the coffins were moved to Irkutsk. There the coffins rested for less than six months, before the advance of the Red army, force they removal eastward. By April of 1920, the coffins were in Beijing, where they were placed in the crypt of the chapel attached to the Russian Mission. The church was later demolished, though it is believed that the coffins are still in place, now buried beneath a parking area.