The Imperial Family aboard the Polar Star: 1905.
Grand Duchesses Tatiana and Olga, Tsarevich Alexei, and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna aboard the Polar Star: 1908.
Some photographs of Grand Duchesses Olga and Anastasia together.
1. 1905: Polar Star
2 &3. 1908: at Tsarskoe Selo and in the Crimea
4 &5. 1914: In the Crimea and aboard the Standart
6. 1916: At Mogilev
I have always given Olga a lot of credit for how sweet and attentive she was to all of her siblings. As a child, I often found it trying to be the eldest of two children; I can only imagine what it must be like to be the eldest of five! I like that despite the age difference between them (6 years), Olga and Anastasia seem to have been quite close and enjoyed one another’s company.
Out of all of the girls, I think that Tatiana and Anastasia were the most often at odds, most likely because of the radical difference in their personalities. Tatiana, “the governess,” probably often disapproved of Anastasia’s tomboyish and free-spirited behavior. In a letter to her father around 1914, Anastasia refers to Tatiana as “stupid, as usual.” There is also the incident with the rock in the snowball (which was, of course, much regretted after the fact) and another time, recounted by Miss Eagar, where Anastasia hit Tatiana in the presence of their father and apologized to her father but had to be convinced to apologize to her sister.
By contrast, I think that Olga was often amused by Anastasia’s behavior and that Anastasia admired her eldest sister.
