Russia's Lost Princesses Documentary 1/2

The Gilded Cage

The sisters were the most photographed princesses of their day, but their public profile masked the reality of their strange and very isolated upbringing. The sisters' lives changed forever after the birth of their little brother Alexei, whose life-threatening condition - haemophilia - meant that he became the main focus of their mother Alexandra's love and attention. Alexandra was obsessed with keeping Alexei's illness an absolute secret, so the family lived in a gilded cage; the girls seldom left the confines of their palace, had few friends and knew almost nothing of the outside world. One of the few outsiders to whom the four sisters became genuinely close was their parents' controversial spiritual advisor Rasputin.

The World Turned Upside Down

In 1914 Olga and Tatiana were 18 and 16 and old enough to be married off to eligible princes, but any prospect of escaping their strange and very isolated life in the Alexander Palace was thwarted by the outbreak of the First World War. They enjoyed a brief taste of the real world beyond the palace gates when they volunteered as Red Cross nurses and became close to the dashing young officers they nursed. March 1917 brought a dramatic end to over three centuries of Romanov rule and following their father's abdication the girls were forced to adjust to a world turned upside down. After five months under house arrest at the Alexander Palace the girls, along with the rest of their family, were sent into exile in Siberia.