Prince Vasili Alexandrovich of Russia
| Prince Vasili Alexandrovich | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
7 July 1907 Gatchina Palace, Gatchina, Russian Empire |
| Died | 23 June 1989 (aged 81) Woodside, California, United States |
| Spouse | Princess Natalia Alexandrovna Golitsyna |
| Issue | Princess Marina Vasilievna |
| House | Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov |
| Father | Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich of Russia |
| Mother | Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna of Russia |
Prince Vasili Alexandrovich of Russia (7 July 1907 – 23 June 1989) was the sixth son and youngest child of Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich of Russia and Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna of Russia. He was a nephew of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia.
Born in Imperial Russia during the reign of his paternal second cousin and maternal uncle Nicholas II, he was on vacation in Crimea at the fall of the Russian monarchy. He was joined there by his immediate family. They escaped the fate of many of his relatives killed by the Bolsheviks. He left Russia in April 1919, at age 11. In the late 1920s, he emigrated to the United States where he met Princess Natalia Golitsyna. They married in 1931. The couple had one daughter and lived for decades in Woodside, California.
Prince Vasili Alexandrovich Romanov was born in the Palace of Gatchina on 7 July 1907, the sixth son and last of the seven children of Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich and Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna of Russia. Although a grandson of Emperor Alexander III through his mother, he was not entitled to the title Grand Duke of Russia because he was only a great-grandson of Emperor Nicholas I in the male line through his father. He was a sickly child and after his birth there was some doubts that he would survive so he was baptized in the nursery. Shortly after his birth his parents started to live separate lives. Prince Vasili spent his early years in Imperial Russia during the reign of his maternal uncle Tsar Nicholas II. At the fall of Russian monarchy in February 1917 Vasili, aged ten, was on vacation in Ai-Todor, his father's estate in Crimea. By the end of March both of his parents, all his siblings and their grandmother Empress Maria Feodorovna were also in Crimea.
After the Russian Revolution, when the Bolsheviks seized power in October 1917, Prince Vasili along with his parents, siblings and grandmother the Dowager Empress were placed under house arrest at Ai-Todor. On 11 March 1918 they were transferred with other Romanovs relatives to Dulber, the estate of Grand Duke Peter Nikolaevich in Crimea. He escaped the fate of a number of his Romanov relatives imprisoned who were murdered by the Bolsheviks when he was freed with the Romanovs in his group by German troops in May 1918. He escaped from Russia on 11 April 1919 with the help of his great aunt Queen Alexandra of the United Kingdom (née Princess Alexandra of Denmark), Dowager Empress Maria’s sister. King George V of the United Kingdom sent the British warship HMS Marlborough which brought Vasili's family and other Romanovs from the Crimea over the Black Sea to Malta and then to England. Prince Vasili, who was eleven years old at the time, spent the rest of his life in exile.
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