73. Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia, The Luckiest Romanov

As the Romanov era closed, some family members were more fortunate than others. Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, youngest daughter of Tsar Alexander III and baby sister of the doomed Tsar Nicholas II, may be the most fortunate of the Romanov clan, escaping the country and living out a happy life in Denmark and Canada.

Born into a large, loving, royal family that summered with the horde of European royal relatives at her grandfather’s castle in Denmark – this was Christian IX, the so-called “father-in-law of Europe” – where she and her cousins, including Queen Victoria’s nine children, spent genuinely happy family time together.

An arranged marriage was had, but suited neither Olga nor her gay husband, Peter. When she did eventually fall in love with a young soldier named Nikolai, Peter refused to grand the divorce Olga asked for, but hired Nikolai into the household and seemingly approved of their relationship.

Her brother, perhaps sensing the rising tide that would sweep Imperial Russia away, finally annulled her marriage in 1916, allowing her finally wed Nikolai after more than a decade. As the Bolsheviks advanced, Olga and Nikolai, her mother, and her sister, fled to Crimea, and eventually escaping to Denmark.

Decades later, World War II put the Soviet army on the move in Europe, and fearing for their safety, Olga and her family made one last big move, to Canada.

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