Looking for a fun place to go this weekend? Like possibly the Museum Center’s new exhibit, “Nicholas and Alexandra”? Well, don’t go, and let me tell you why. Being a huge history buff and willing to go to the museum any time they have some new and fascinating information, I was extremely excited to go see the Romanov exhibit, almost ecstatic to go.
I have read a lot about Nicholas II of Russia, who was the last Tsar, and I have been fascinated by the stories I have heard surrounding the Romanov family.
The brochure lured me in: “This winter, Cincinnati Museum Center visitors can step into the private world of Russia’s last Imperial family. Nicholas and Alexandra: At Home with the Last Tsar and His Family is the first exhibit to display the Romanov family’s personal belongings from their living quarters in the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoye Selo, 15 miles outside of St. Petersburg.” This made me even more excited to go.
I took along my little sister, who is fascinated with the conspiracy theories surrounding the possibility that the Tsar’s youngest daughter, Anastasia, survived their execution during the Bolshevik revolution. I also dragged along my boyfriend, who was not at all thrilled about our little adventure. He had spoken with a friend who told him the exhibit was not worth the $10 one had to spend on it to see it.
Nevertheless, I was thinking we would get to roam around the Cincinnati history portion of the museum as well and decided against my boyfriend’s arguments. The museum had also claimed that there was supposed to be a nice exhibit piece on Marie Antoinette. Hint, I said piece.
I paid the $30 and all too excitedly headed for the main entrance of the History Museum. But we were turned. The gentleman at the counter nicely pointed us instead toward the elevator near the main museum entrance and told us to take it down to the first floor. I had never been on this elevator and was excited, thinking, “Wow, this must be a big exhibit.” As we entered the exhibit a nice older gentleman told us a brief, very brief description of what we were about to see, and emphasized that no pictures were to be taken at any time inside. Much to my dismay I reluctantly put my camera back in my purse and entered. This is also why there is no photograph to accompany this article.
There were about 13 more volunteer workers on the inside of the exhibit, one about every 30 or 40 feet to make sure no one took any pictures.
The pictures of the Imperial family that hung on the walls were fascinating. Tsar Nicholas was a photography buff, and the museum acquired hundreds of original negatives to show off to the poor souls willing to pay. I hurriedly went from picture to picture, afraid I would miss one and trying to drag my boyfriend along with me.
I was tempted to pull out my camera phone and start snapping away. If they have the original negatives it would be impossible for me to try to sell the pictures as originals. It was hard to keep up with my sister, because she only wanted to look at the pictures that had Anastasia in them. She would examine each picture of Anastasia, hoping she could remember distinctly what she looked like.
We saw hundreds of pictures, a few Faberge eggs, and some old toys from the Tsarevitch Alexei’s room. We saw a few dresses that the Tsar’s four daughters wore, and more and more pictures. Then we saw a portrait of Marie Antoinette and some of her dining room chairs, which were placed directly in the middle of the whole Tsar exhibit, and that was it; nothing else of Marie Antoinette was showing.
Very little was written about Rasputin the crazy medicine man who tried to heal the Tsarevitch of hemophilia. The most that was written about Rasputin was how he died. The most interesting thing I had read about and had actually never heard about on any History channel shows was that a member of the Tsar’s family married a woman from Cincinnati. Grand Duke Dimitri Pavlovitch was the grandson of Tsar Alexander II and a first cousin of Tsar Nicholas II. He often lived in the palace with the Tsar’s family and missed being killed by the Bolsheviks because he was exiled for killing Rasputin. He later changed his last name to Ilyinsky, and met Audrey Emery in Paris in 1918. Audrey was originally from Cincinnati and many of their descendants still live in Cincinnati today.
All in all, this exhibit, which only lasted 30 minutes, was a huge disappointment. The only thing that would have saved this disaster would have been if we were able to walk through the Cincinnati history section and be able to see the models of what Cincinnati looked like in the 1950’s.
My sister was greatly disappointed as well because they did not talk about what may or may not have happened to any of the family members if they survived the revolution. And furthermore, as we left the obscure basement of what is the Museum Center and walked out the front doors extremely irritated with the waste of time and money I had spent there, I received a wonderful “I told you so,” from my boyfriend, who was all too eager to leave and had no intention of discussing the possibility of seeing another older, much more thought through exhibit.