The Romanov Sisters

Looking at us through time the daughters of Nicholas II - Olga (the eldest), Tatyana, Marie and Anastasia.  The children were usually dressed alike, a random fact I read recently in one of Sam Eastland's Russian set novels about the investigator Pekkala.

This is one of a series of photographs taken of the sisters in 1906 which for the onlooker gives it an inner melancholy but happily, despite their expressions, they were oblivious to the fate that awaited them.  To quote from another novel, that of Kate Atkinson's 'Started Early Took My Dog' -

"Jackson found photographs unsettling at the best of times. There was a lie at the heart of the camera , it implied the past was tangible when the opposite was true"  

This card was sent from the city of Nizhny Novgorod and to up the count of authors mentioned in this post was from 1932-1990 known as Gorky.  The writer Maxim Gorky's views on the social order meant that he felt safer moving to the island of Capri from 1906 (the same date as the photo) until 1913.  Returning eventually to Russia under an amnesty which was given to celebrate the 300th Anniversary of the Romanov Dynasty .

My sender, Elena, attached one of the 2009 Headdresses stamp from the miniature sheet. Even better it is a wedding headdress from her region of Nizhegorodskiy.  These type of headdresses are called kokoshnik which refers to the shape and are embroidered with beads and gemstones and go way back in time.  This one is from the 19th Century which was the time of a great revival of Russian Culture.  How wonderful to walk down the aisle in this twinkly object.   

The card came with six stamps in total, from the Kremlin definitives and one from the forest dwellers definitives

 and some newly inked postmarks. I'll only show the stamps I haven't shown before the 1.00 of the fox and the other of the Rostov Kremlin which faces Lake Nero and  is now a museum.