Anastasia: A Century's Mystery

reach, she had to content herself with the audience of her parents’ relatives and friends, all of whom were amazed by her theatrical gift.

Another passion of Anastasia’s were animals. The entire Romanov family adored them, in fact, filling the palace with dogs (mostly, the beloved Russian Borzois), guinea pigs, cats, parrots, and even creating a small private zoo in Peterhoff, where, among others, Anastasia kept the cow presented to her by the President of France.

Anastasia had two dogs to call her own. Her first was called Shvybzik, about whom little is known except that he and Anastasia were inseparable, until he suddenly died of a brain disorder. His death was a great shock to her, and for weeks Anastasia was inconsolable. For a time after she lost him, she grew humorless, quiet and pensive. Little Shvybzik was buried on the Children’s Island in Peterhoff, near the graves of other family pets, surrounded by lilies-of-the-valley. Her sisters, brother and she held a special service for him with special hymns and prayers. Later, to help the little girl get over her loss, Anna Vyrubova, a close friend of the Empress, gave Anastasia another dog -- a cavalier King Charles spaniel named Jemmy, who would follow the Tsar’s family into Siberia and the Urals, and would die in the Grand Duchesses’ arms during the execution in Ekaterinburg. His little crushed body would be the only one found by the White Army investigators that night, and would serve as the terrible proof that all the family, even the children, had perished.

Just as Olga and Tatiana were tenderly devoted to each other, Maria and Anastasia were best friends beyond compare. Since her days as a toddler, Anastasia dominated good little Marie, and contemporaries noted that “the youngest girl’s dominant personality shone through and grasped Mashka.” They shared a room, which just happened to be directly above their mother’s reception room. Both would wait very quietly until the Empress had brought in a guest, and then, would blast their phonograph as loud as the music would play, bouncing on their beds and all over the floor, dancing and shrieking, and creating such a commotion that a number of lackeys often came running to the nursery in terror. Tennis was another interest the two shared, and another way to distress their parents and the palace staff -- they would play it right in their

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