Andrei Alexandrovich of Russia

Prince Andrew Alexandrovich of Russia ( – 8 May 1981) was the first son and second child of Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich of Russia and Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna of Russia. He was also the eldest nephew of Nicholas II of Russia, the last Tsar.

Born and raised in Imperial Russia during the reign of his uncle Nicholas II, his military career in the Russian navy and the Chevalier guards was cut short by the Russian Revolution. He escaped the fate of many of his relatives that were killed by the Bolsheviks by fleeing to his parents' estate in Crimea, where he was under house arrest with a large group of family members and got married after a couple of years.

In December 1918, he left Russia with his wife and his father. They lived for a couple of years in Paris, France, which had a large population of Russian refugees. Eventually he settled in England in the household of his mother. His wife died during World War II, a victim of the London Blitz. He remarried in 1942. He moved to Provender House in Faversham, Kent, which was owned by the family of his second wife. Alexandrovich lived quietly there as an English country squire until his death. His son, Prince Andrew Andreevich, was claimant to the headship of the Romanov Family until his death in 2021.

Early life Prince Andrei Mikhailovich with his brothers 1915. From left: Prince Dmitri, Prince Feodor, Prince Nikita, Prince Andrei on the wheel, Prince Rostislav and Prince Vasili. Prince Andrei Alexandrovich was born at the Winter Palace, Saint Petersburg, the second child and first son of Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich and Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna of Russia. Although an Imperial Romanov Family Dynast and a grandson of Emperor Alexander III through his mother, he did not receive the title Grand Duke of Russia because he was a great-grandson of Emperor Nicholas I in the male line through his father. Due to the insistence of his grandmother, the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, he was honoured with a 21 gun salute at birth (which was usually reserved for Grand Dukes), although he was only a Prince of Russia (to be honoured with a 15-gun salute).

His uncle, Nicholas II, wrote to his brother George that: "Her Andrusha is a big, healthy boy, but still very ugly. Please don't tell her [Xenia] that."

In his youth, before World War I, Prince Andrei toured Europe with his parents. At Biarritz, he joined his great uncle King Edward VII of the United Kingdom at the Palace Hotel. Prince Andrei joined the Russian navy and served under his father Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich of Russia. Later he became lieutenant in the Chevalier guards, whose colonel-in-chief was his uncle, Emperor Nicholas II. Just before the Russian revolution, he was the only member of his family to accompany the Empress Alexandra and her four daughters on their last visit to the churches of Novgorod. It was the last time he saw them.

Revolution The Romanovs under house arrest in Ai-Todor, 1917. Standing: Colonel Nikolai Kulikovsky, Mr Fogel, Olga Konstantinovna Vasiljeva, Prince Andrei Alexandrovich. Seated : Mr Orbeliani, Prince Nikita, Grand Duchess Olga, Grand Duchess Xenia, The Dowager Empress, Grand Duke Alexander. On the floor: Prince Vasili, Prince Rostislav and Prince Dmitri. At the fall of the Russian monarchy with the February Revolution in 1917, Prince Andrei moved with his siblings and their parents to his father's property in Crimea, Ai-Todor. A large group of members of the Romanov family gathered there, trying to escape the disturbances in the rest of the country. At first they lived undisturbed while the Russian Provisional Government was in power.

It was during this turbulent period that Prince Andrei began a relationship with Elisabetta Ruffo-Sasso dei duchi di Sasso-Ruffo dei principi di Sant' Antimo, a young divorcée. They had met in St Petersburg in 1916. She was a daughter of Fabrizio Ruffo, Duke of Sasso-Ruffo, and Princess Natalia Alexandrovna Mescherskaya (a descendant of a famous family of the Stroganovs), and distantly related to the Romanovs. Elisabetta had a daughter, (Elisabeth Alexandrovna Friederici), from her first marriage to Major General Alexander Alexandrovitch Friederici (1878–1916) (they had married in 1907). Elisabetta, from the noble house of Ruffo di Calabria, was a cousin of Queen Paola of Belgium.

After Elisabetta became pregnant, the couple married on 12 June 1918 in the family chapel at Ai-Todor in the presence of his family, including his grandmother the Dowager Empress. Prince Andrei was twenty-one years old and his grandmother had thought him too young for marriage, but his parents, Grand Duchess Xenia and Grand Duke Alexander, gave their permission. Prince Michael Andreevich (1920–2008) m. 1 1953 Jill Murphy (1921–2006); they divorced in 1953. m. 2 1954 Shirley Cramond (1916–1983). m. 3 1993 Giulia Crespi (b. 1930). Michael had no children from any of his marriages.

Prince Andrei had one daughter from his second marriage: Princess Olga Andreevna (b. 1950) m. 1975 Thomas Mathew (b. 1945). They had four children. Provender was the prince's only real home in exile.

Prince Andrei Alexandrovich lived quietly until his death at home in Faversham on 8 May 1981, aged 84. He was buried in the church at Norton. His widow died in 2000.

Ancestry