Tsarina

Rasputin died in 1916.

Well, before the Nazis, he was a Russian mystic who was very close to the Tsar and Tsarina, the last Tsar Nicholas of Russia, and essentially he was killed by the.

advisors of the czar because he was leading them deeper and deeper into world war one so he was not involved in nazis in any way died before the nazis definitely dead there's all the rumors about you know he survived he was shot 30 times drowned poisoned blah blah blah and still didn't die So I think that's the most fully fictionalized thing.

But surprisingly, a lot of it is closer to what we think of as historical Nazi mysticism than you might expect, because there is a contingent of the original National Socialist Party that arose from an occultist belief and was informed by an occultist belief that did not extend deeply.

Let us try to keep our spirits up.

Tomorrow, with luck, the Tsarina shall arrive.

Log of Jonathan Harker, 28th October 2004.

No sign of the Tsarina Catherine.

Under hypnosis, Mina continues to report waves, seagulls, the usual.

So the ship's clearly still at sea.

We'll update when I have more news.

Log of Jonathan Harker, 29th of October, 2004.

They would crush all Soviet forces west and south of that point.

Then they would drive towards Stalingrad along the Tsaritsa River.

The forty-eighth corps was to begin its push towards Pitomnik by September the second, while the forty-first and fourteenth corps would attack from Konni towards Gumrak station by the same date.

Hoth's forty-eighth corps crossed the Kotel'nika River at Gyullovka on August the thirtieth, positioning it just forty-eight kilometers southwest of Stalingrad.

The junction was achieved on the morning of the third at Gunghiri.

But by then, every Soviet unit that might have been trapped had already escaped.

The Tsaritsa River was designated the new boundary between the two German armies.

Word was duly relayed to Hitler.

[clears throat] But the conditions under which the late Tsar and his family were murdered at Ekaterinburg constitute the episode which is bound to transcend any other such episode in striking disgust to the heart of any person not either dead to human sentiment or drunken with political fanaticism.

The episode of the night when a Tsar, a Tsarina, and their children were taken into a cellar and killed before each other's eyes.

Subsequently, a Red Guard named Medvedev, a witness of the executions, stated to the Commission of Inquiry that was held during February of nineteen nineteen that the victims made their preparations slowly, as though they guessed what was in store for them.

All history contains no parallel to the murders wrought at Ekaterinburg during the night of July 16th and 17th, nineteen eighteen.

Gosh.

Which was, you know, she performed wearing it in front of the Russian Tsar and Tsarina in St. Petersburg.

And apparently the...

She says in her memoir that the Sirena came up to her afterwards in the interval and just felt her cloak and felt this sort of beautiful golden fabric

Foreword.

In the year 1907, the Women's Home Companion commissioned me to go to Russia to write the story of the early days, courtship, and marriage of her whom the world knows today as the Tsaritsa.

The following year, the same periodical sent me to Italy to write a similar account of the life of Queen Elena.

And in 1910, I was once more sent abroad, this time to Spain, to learn all about Queen Victoria Eugenie.

Sunny lost her heart to the royal wooer, and he, putting aside the less noble loves of his reckless youthful days, pledged himself to her, persistently courted her against wide opposition, turned a deaf ear to the counsels of emperors and queens who tried to discourage the match, and after years of battling with diplomatic intrigue and personal restraint, he carried his purpose.

married the German princess who was truly the bride of his heart and in marrying her raised her from the obscurity and poverty of her own simple home to the exalted rank of empress.

This is the true story of Princess Alix of Hesse whom Nicholas II made Tsaritsa of Russia.

There is something tremendously dramatic about this little German princess stepping out of the quiet of her Darmstadt home in the arena of world affairs and taking her position as empress over one hundred and forty millions of people.

"'She tried to rob you,' he repeated.

"'Tried to rob me of this,' continued the gentleman in the black tie, "'and of the Tsarina's diamonds.' His tone was one of mingled admiration and injury.

"'The Tsarina's diamonds!' exclaimed the baronet.

He glanced quickly and suspiciously at the speaker, and then at the others about the table, but their faces gave evidence of no other emotion than that of ordinary interest." yes the czarina's diamonds repeated the man with the black tie it was a necklace of diamonds i was told to take them to the russian ambassador in paris who was to deliver them at moscow i am a queen's messenger he added oh i see exclaimed sir andrew in a tone of relief and you say that this same princess zishi one of the victims of this double murder endeavoured to rob you of-of that cigar-case and the czarina's diamonds answered the queen's messenger imperturbably it's not much of a story but it gives you an idea of the woman's character the robbery took place between paris and marseilles the baronet interrupted him with an abrupt movement no no he cried shaking his head in protest do not tempt me i really cannot listen i must be at the house in ten minutes i am sorry said the queen's messenger he turned to those seated about him i wonder if the other gentlemen he inquired tentatively there was a chorus of polite murmurs and the queen's messenger bowing his head in acknowledgment took a preparatory sip from his glass at the same moment the servant to whom the man with the black pearl had spoken slipped a piece of paper into his hand he glanced at it frowned and threw it under the table the servant bowed to the baronet your hansom is waiting sir andrew he said the necklace was worth twenty thousand pounds began the queen's messenger it was a present from the queen of england to celebrate the baronet gave an exclamation of angry annoyance upon my word this is most provoking he interrupted i really ought not to stay but i certainly mean to hear this he turned irritably to the servant tell the hansom to wait he commanded and with an air of a boy who is playing truant slipped guiltily into his chair the gentleman with the black pearl smiled blandly and rapped upon the table order gentlemen he said order for the story of the queen's messenger and the czarina's diamonds chapter two the necklace was a present from the queen of england to the czarina of russia began the queen's messenger it was to celebrate the occasion of the czar's coronation our foreign office knew that the russian ambassador in paris was to proceed to moscow for that ceremony and i was directed to go to paris and turn over the necklace to him but when i reached paris i found that he had not expected me for a week later and was taking a few days vacation at nice his people asked me to leave the necklace with them at the embassy but i had been charged to get a receipt for it from the ambassador himself so i started at once for nice the fact that monte carlo is not two thousand miles from nice may have had something to do with making me carry out my instructions so carefully now how the princess zishi came to find out about the necklace i don't know but i can guess as you have just heard she was at one time a spy in the service of the russian government and after they dismissed her she kept up her acquaintance with many of the russian agents in london it is probable that through one of them she learned that the necklace was to be sent to moscow and which one of the queen's messengers had been detailed to take it there still i doubt if even that knowledge would have helped her if she had not also known something which i supposed no one else in the world knew but myself and one other man and curiously enough the other man was a queen's messenger too and a friend of mine you must know that up to the time of this robbery i had always concealed my despatches in a manner peculiarly my own i got the idea from that play called a scrap of paper in it a man wants to hide a certain compromising document he knows that all his rooms will be secretly searched for it so he puts it in a torn envelope and sticks it up where any one can see it on his mantel-shelf the result is that the woman who is ransacking the house to find it looks in all the unlikely places but passes over the scrap of paper that is just under her nose sometimes the papers and packages they give us to carry about europe are of very great value and sometimes they are special makes of cigarettes and orders to court dressmakers sometimes we know what we are carrying and sometimes we do not if it is a large sum of money or a treaty they generally tell us but as a rule we have no knowledge of what the package contains so to be on the safe side we naturally take just as great care of it as though we knew it held the terms of an ultimatum or the crown jewels as a rule my confrres carry the official packages in a despatch-box which is just as obvious as a lady's jewel-bag in the hands of her maid every one knows they are carrying something of value they put a premium on dishonesty well after i saw the scrap of paper play i determined to put the government valuables in the most unlikely place that any one would look for them so i used to hide the documents they gave me inside my riding-boots and small articles such as money or jewels i carried in an old cigar-case after i took to using my case for that purpose i bought a new one exactly like it for my cigars but to avoid mistakes i had my initials placed on both sides of the new one and the moment i touched the case even in the dark i could tell which it was by the raised initials no one knew of this except the queen's messenger of whom i spoke we once left paris together on the orient express i was going to constantinople and he was to stop off at vienna on the journey i told him of my peculiar way of hiding things and showed him my cigar case if i recollect rightly on that trip it held the grand cross of st michael and st george which the queen was sending to our ambassador the messenger was very much entertained at my scheme and some months later when he met the princess he told her about it as an amusing story of course he had no idea she was a russian spy he didn't know anything at all about her except that she was a very attractive woman it was indiscreet but he could not possibly have guessed that she could ever make any use of what he told her later after the robbery i remembered that i had informed this young chap of my secret hiding-place and when i saw him again i questioned him about it he was greatly distressed and said he had never seen the importance of the secret he remembered he had told several people of it and among others the princess In that way I found out that it was she who had robbed me, and I know that from the moment I left London she was following me, and that she knew then that the diamonds were concealed in my cigar-case.' My train for Nice left Paris at ten in the morning.

When I travel at night, I generally tell the chef de guerre that I am a queen's messenger, and he gives me a compartment to myself, but in the daytime I take whatever offers.

I told my story, and the arse in charge asked me to calm myself and wanted to take notes.

i told him this was no time for taking notes but for doing something he got wrothy at that and i demanded to be taken at once to his chief the chief he said was very busy and could not see me so i showed him my silver greyhound in eleven years i had never used it but once before i stated in pretty vigorous language that i was a queen's messenger and that if the chief of police did not see me instantly he would lose his official head At that the fellow jumped off his high horse and ran with me to his chief, a smart young chap, a colonel in the army, and a very intelligent man.

I explained that I had been robbed in a French railway carriage of a diamond necklace belonging to the Queen of England, which Her Majesty was sending as a present to the Tsarina of Russia.

Performing was considered labor, and the aristocracy, by definition, did not labor.

And her closest confidant in this golden cage is Grand Duchess Marie Moschka, who is the daughter of Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra, who Zoya calls Aunt Alex.

They're the same age, right? Yeah.

Born two weeks apart.

Oh, wow.

The empire is diseased with poverty, war, and unrest, and that sickness is inevitably making its way inside the walls.

And the Tsarina, Alexandra, is right in the middle of it.

Olga, Tatiana, Anastasia, the young Tsarevich, Alexis, who they call baby, and even the Tsarina's dearest friend, Anna Virobova, are all down with the measles.

He appeared before the Tsar, wedded the Tsarevna, received a large wedding gift and became quite clever and witty.

The Tsar and Tsaritsa grew very fond of him, and the Tsarevna lived with him all her life and loved him as the apple of her eye.

End of The Flying Ship Recording by Expatria in Bangor, Maine The Muzhichek as Big as Your Thumb with Mustaches Seven Verse Long In Russian Fairy Tales by Peter Holovoy Translated by R. Nisbet Bain 1854-1909 This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.

Recording by Expatria in Bangor, Maine The Muzhichek as Big as Your Thumb with Mustaches Seven Verse Long In a certain kingdom, in a certain empire, there once lived a Tsar.

And Zorka still lives with his wife and cannot love her enough, and he rejoices in his good fortune without overmuch boasting.

End of The Muzhychek as Big as Your Thumb with Moustaches Seven Verse Long Recording by Expatriate in Bangor, Maine The Story of the Tsarevich Ivan and of the Harp that Harped without a Harper From Russian Fairy Tales by Peter Polovoy Translated by Robert Nisbet Bain, 1854-1909 This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Recording by Expatriate in Bangor, Maine The story of the Tsarevitch Ivan and of the harp that harped without a harper.

Far, far behind the blue sea, behind the fiery abyss in the void places, in the midst of the pleasant meadows stood a lofty city, and in this city ruled Tsar Umnaya Golova with his Tsaritsa.

There they lived a long time, and to their great delight a daughter was born to them, a most lovely Tsarevna whom they called Neotsyanaya.

Oh, yes.

You see, he had cast a spell upon the Tsarina.

Ah, poor Alexandra.

What happened?