Great-great-granddaughter of Emperor Nicholas I and Citizen of the USSR

Natalia Androsova, great-great-granddaughter of Emperor Nicholas I, citizen of the USSR Of the descendants of the House of Romanov, Natalia Nikolaevna Androsova (1917-1999), née Princess Iskander — great-great-granddaughter of Emperor Nicholas I, and her brother Kirill (1915-1992) lived their entire lives in the USSR.

The princess was born during the February Revolution, when her family was forever deprived of power in Russia. But her grandfather, Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich, greeted the February Revolution with delight: he raised a red flag over his house in Tashkent and sent a congratulatory telegram to the Provisional Government. Which was not at all surprising — after all, he spent virtually his entire life in exile, under the supervision of gendarmes, accused of stealing family jewels in his youth. And he was officially declared mentally ill.

The Grand Duke attended the christening of his granddaughter and, according to legend, noticed that the young lady would have character. And so it turned out… The young lady in the USSR became… a biker, a motorcycle racer, moreover, the most famous motorcycle stuntwoman in the country.

In 1939, Natalia began performing at an attraction in the Moscow Gorky Park of Culture and Leisure, racing along the vertical “Wall of Death” on a motorcycle, surprising the audience with unprecedented and very risky pirouettes.

Considering her youth and spectacular appearance, popularity was not unexpected. Performances on the “Wall of Death” often brought her injuries. “I fell more than once,” she recalled, “I crashed so badly that the doctors predicted that I would need crutches for the rest of my life, but I got back on a motorcycle. I never allowed myself to cry and complain.Then, in the 1940s, I lost a knee: I fell from a height along with the motorcycle. I look, and there are bones sticking out of my knee. “Well,” I say, “take me to the hospital.” But a year later I was kicking the wall again. Until 1967.”

During the Great Patriotic War, the born princess drove a “lorry and a half,” delivered bread to the front lines, and put out fires from German bombing.

And in parallel with this life, there was a completely different life for Natalia’s relatives in exile. Her father took part in the anti-Soviet uprising in Tashkent and the fight against the Bolsheviks, left Russia with the Whites, and in exile was awarded the title of “His Serene Highness Prince Romanovsky-Iskander” by the “All-Russian Emperor in Exile” Kirill.

But Natalia Androsova knew nothing about this life, and it passed her by. Natalia’s mother recalled: “Some family photographs of the Romanovs always stood in our house, they were never hidden. I looked at them, I knew that they were relatives, but nothing more.” Natalia herself always told her close friends about her origins.

Writer Yuri Nagibin wrote: “Who among the old Muscovites does not remember the legendary Natalia Androsova, who shook the wooden pavilion in the Park of Culture and Leisure with her crazy motorcycle?”