Left and came back

Grand Duchess Leonida Georgievna, the last representative of the House of Romanov, born in Tsarist Russia, died in Madrid.

Since 1992, she has been actively traveling around Russia, the last time she was here was in 2002. The Grand Duchess arrived like an orphanage who had never seen her mother. She knew that she did not have much time left to get to know Russia, and therefore on each of her trips she tried to see, learn, do, say - as much as possible.

I knew Leonida Georgievna and one day I couldn’t resist asking: did she and Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovich dream of returning?

“Dreaming is for children,” she answered. “We hoped that the Lord would arrange things for the better for our country.” So we were ready to never see Russia, and to return forever... If she called us. My husband is already there, in the family tomb of the Peter and Paul Cathedral. I am very glad that in due time I will join him. And I will return to Russia, like him, forever.

I remember how in 1994 Leonida Georgievna came to the Arkhangelsk region - with her grandson, Grand Duke Georgiy Mikhailovich, who was then 13 years old, she visited the Novodvinsk boarding school for disabled children. Georgy felt awkward around sick children, he was clearly scared. But Leonida Georgievna somehow very gently guided him towards communication. I heard her say to her grandson in a low voice: “Gogi, these children deserve more attention and more love than healthy ones. Not only are they sick, but their parents also abandoned them. You have everything and even in abundance - share it with them...” This somehow sounded completely honest, truly.

An hour later, the Grand Duchess was invited to a banquet, which was given in her honor by local businessmen. Looking around at the broken table, she didn’t even sit down. Said:

- Gentlemen, you can eat and drink like this when sick children do not have normal
wheelchairs, but I will not participate in this.

And she left. This phrase seemed to be enough. Some of those businessmen still help the Novodvinsk boarding school.

I was able to observe the Grand Duchess during her visits to Russia, and in her Parisian apartment, and in the tiny Norman town of Saint-Briac, where this branch of the Romanovs has something like a family nest - a modest and not at all “Rublev” mansion. Almost everyone there knew this wonderful woman and remembered her husband and his parents. In Saint-Briac, Leonida Georgievna was called “Grand Duchess de Russy” - the great Russian princess. She behaved with regal simplicity with everyone - with the Norman fishermen and the Russian president, with provincial journalists and the King of Spain Juan Carlos, with the French policeman who was on duty at her house, and the Patriarch of All Rus'.

I will probably never see such love for human life and respect for a person, his dignity, his opinion. To do this you need to live a big and complex life. To be a “Grand Duchess de Russy” in a country where your relatives were executed, and in France, where they have long forgotten that there were princesses in Russia at all.

Grand Duchess was not just a title. She truly was great.