ONLY A NUTTER WOULD GO ON HOLIDAY TO FOLLOW A COFFIN

Well, that's how Mike saw it.  He'd done one reburial and no way was he doing another.  "Go with someone else," he said. That someone else was Karen Roth and Colin and Coryne Hall.  And so one bright, sunny afternoon the Halls and I arrived in Copenhagen.  Other nutters were already there, other nutters arrived after us.  Having touched base with nutter Roth, we went our separate ways for the day, me to my very very flash 4* hotel. No, we haven't won the lottery; I had cashed in Mike's American Express loyalty points and had got myself a room in a great hotel overlooking a canal, not far from the central station. Bliss and great comfort, with free internet and the best hotel breakfast I've ever had.  Mike had bitterly complained about how he never manages to use his own loyalty points and if he'd seen this hotel, he'd have been even crosser.  Not, mind you, that I hung around in it very long as I'd had a tip off on a 2ndhand book sale, so I was out the door like a shot.  This is a regular occurrence in Copenhagen and the sale is held in a church in the main street.  I picked up nothing for myself but did find a book Charlotte [Zeepvat] was looking for.  Back at the hotel, I turned on the TV to find myself looking at Paul Kulikovsky, then realised it was a rerun of the episode of Royal Family about Dagmar.  End credits and Mike's music followed. "Good" I thought, "that's more of his royalties for me to spend!!!!!!!!!"

Next day was the launch of a book called "Storfyrstinde Olga - 25 Kapitler af mit Liv" (Grand Duchess Olga - 25 Chapters of my Life). The idea for this book originated with the late Jorgen Bjerregaard who founded the Pederstup Egnsmuseum. The Egnsmusuem has a whole section dedicated to Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna - see last month's Majesty article by Coryne. The museum is a work of love and is beautifully laid out. Jorgen wanted this book of Olga's memoirs to be published to coincide with Dagmar's reburial. Sadly, Jorgen died earlier this year. Paul and Karen took over and worked feverishly to edit the book in tribute to Jorgen. So rightly, the book was launched the day before the reburial ceremonies at the Egnsmuseum. There was a very good turn out of friends to the museum and Paul made a moving speech in tribute to Jorgen. Mette, who is the temporary curator at the Egnsmuseum had arranged for Russian musicians to play during the launch as well. The book is a triumph - very nicely put together, photos not seen before, some of Olga's paintings of course, family trees etc etc. I understand from Karen that it is doing brilliantly in Denmark. It is in Danish but there are hopes it will be published in English. It deserves to be.

Our little band of friends were last to leave the Egnsmuseum. In fact, were rather stranded at the Egnsmuseum. We phoned for a taxi but we only had one number (as did Mette so I guess there is only 1 taxi driver in that area of Denmark) that kept going to voicemail. In the end, the Russian musicians came to our rescue and we had to squash into various cars and vans. I believe Ove spent some quality time with a balalaika in the back of a van.

Back in central Copenhagen, we had dinner with Stig and Trond whom Kevin had met via various messageboards. So, 7 nutters around a table in a Danish restaurant. Yes, it was a good evening but Colin wore an expression of total puzzlement most of the time as he hadn't a clue who all these obscure royals were that we talked about. Trond and I compared book collections and discovered that we had purchased the same bookshelves from Ikea (model name Billy, very strong). Mike has very much become an expert at putting these up since we moved. Currently he has done 7 and counting.

So this took us to reburial day and the party had to split again. Sox, Ove (head of all things necrophiliac) and the Halls headed into Roskilde cathedral. Ove, being sartorially elegant, divested himself of his coat and left it with us which was a good thing. Roskilde is a tadge on the exposed side and the wind howled around us as we awaited guests going into the cathedral. Karen and I took turns at wearing the coat. We spotted many a Romanov and Danish royal. The biggest cheer from the crowd was for Fred and Mary. Karen and I liked to think that the coach that went past with people waving madly at us contained Zandra, Maiken and Luda. We had a chilly hour outside the cathedral and then the coffin, draped in bright yellow flag with doubleheaded eagle on it, was brought out, accompanied by ceremonials from the Life Guard, and placed into a hearse. The families came out of the cathedral and watched the hearse depart.

Then, a mad scramble back to the station, led by Stig for the first train into town. We took Ove's coat with us having decided we needed it more than he did. Straight onto a train, and off it at Osterport, for a mad dash to Langelinie where the coffin was to be put on the ship to go to St P. We beat the coffin by a long way, and had a pretty good vantage point, thanks to Stig who had planned this with military precision. Trond meanwhile, watched proceedings in central Copenhagen, with the coffin being removed from the ordinary hearse at Christiansborg and put onto a horse drawn one to be taken at slow pace through the centre of the city. Trond told us later that it passed the Yellow Palace, Amalienborg where the royal family watched from their usual balcony, then to the Orthodox Church for a short service.

After a while, members of both families arrived at Langeline. Margrethe and Henrik inspected the Life Guard whilst everyone else assembled in a marquee. The Life Guard were playing. The horse drawn hearse drew up alongside the ship and a very dignified ceremonial ensued with the guard removing the coffin from the hearse, and placing it on a plinth. The plinth was raised hydraulically to the height of the ship's lower deck. The coffin was then slid, by 6 members of the Life Guard, into the hold of the ship. Nicholas and Dimitry Romanov, their wives, and our Paul then climbed the stairs into the ship. It pulled away with them on the deck waving to us all, the hold still open with the coffin on show, and a gun salute. I don't think my words are conveying just how moving this whole ceremonial was. When the Life Guard played "In Denmark I Was Born," many of the crowd, inc all of us, were in tears. We watched the boat move off into the far distance.

Somehow, amongst all the people at Langeline, we managed to find Sox and Ove and return the coat to its rightful owner. We sat with Stig and Kevin in a cafe just discussing our experiences of the day. Later the Halls were able to join us for the evening, and some of us managed (in our luxury hotel) to watch the highlights of the day, presented by Anna, on Danish TV - the highlight of the highlights being Paul giving a speech in the cathedral which was very well received.

Too soon, we had to leave Denmark and make our way to Russia to follow proceedings there. We were travelling, the Halls, nutter Roth and myself, on the same SAS flight as Michael Ilinsky. Also on the same flight as someone even more mad than us, a kind of spiritualist who was, as he put it, "following the light". He appeared to mean the Empress's light. He spent a lot of time talking to the Halls.

OK, so it wasn't a 4* hotel in St P but it was a great hotel, clean, and comfy. But best of all, next door was a 24 hr knigi shop. Now for those of you who don't know what knigi are, it's Russian for "books"!! Couldn't have been a better choice. Karen and I spent a lot of time and money in there. And we had ourselves a very nice driver, a friend of Karen's who has helped us before in St P. His name is Alexei and he's a surveyor by trade and very sweet. And very patient. The phrase of the holiday became "poor Alexei" as we asked him to do more and more bizarre things.

On our arrival, we flung down our bags and dashed off to the Menage building near St Isaacs where there was a major exhibition about Dagmar. We thought we could do it in a couple of hours. Oh no we couldn't. Alexei made the first mistake of this trip by saying he'd come in with us. Poor man sat very patiently waiting for us for ages. Two floors, pictures, photos, furniture, costumes, oh you name it they had it, everything to do with Dagmar, quite a lot to do with Alexander II, just heaps of Romanov history. And a video going of a Russian TV prog starring one Coryne Hall! A well stocked knigi stall too, the owner of which soon became a personal friend offering us discount and free entry to the exhibit. There was a lot here we hadn't seen before, but I think the dresses were the things that struck me as most incredible. So much seems to have survived - Dagmar liked vivid rich velvets in dark reds and greens. And I could have sworn one dress, a white one, was a maternity one as it had an elasticated waist. The curator of the exhibition had tried to recreate rooms from Gatchina and the Anitchov too. And Alexander III's throne, the first thing you saw as you walked through the door, was rescued from a storeroom in Moscow and renovated by the curator of Pavlovsk specifically for the exhibit. She assured us later that it was genuine.

We rather destroyed our well planned itinerary at this point and changed our minds about what we were to do with our spare day before the various reburial events. We chose this day to go out to Tsarskoye and see the Sobor and Alexander Palace park. The Sobor, you will all be pleased to hear, is in good order though they have removed the rather nice large paintings they had of N&A in the main church. The church is well used, with a nice icon of the Imperial family. Renovations continue but downstairs is in good order, the work completed that we saw being done last time. It is not open to the public but charm worked for Coryne and Karen. Scarily, there is a gift shop in the grounds of the church. And now a fence around the trees planted so long ago by N&A. Most surprisingly in the park was the Gorodok or Tsar's Village. Derelict for so many years, restoration has now started on it. We were allowed for the first time ever to go inside and take photos. They have started with the roofs, and they are repairing them with what looks like aluminium. Many other buildings in the park are still derelict; we found the Llama Pavilion and Farm in their usual mess and got thoroughly lost looking for the horse cemetery. Fortunately, we found our way back to Alexei for what must have been the highlight of his week - finding obscure Romanov buildings.

We had Xeroxes of pages from Zoia's wonderful book, Romanov St Petersburg, of buildings we wanted to find. Alexei's task was to ask unsuspecting passers-by where the buildings were and take us to them. Now do please remember that we were only supposed to be employing him as a driver, that's all he'd agreed to. Fortunately, he's got a very good sense of humour and is very good natured. He just got on with it and performed miracles. Some of these buildings some of us had found before, but we did them all anyway. Starting with railway stations, we found the Romanov's private station - derelict, and now boarded up which was a shame as Coryne and Karen had not been inside and could not see the ornate ceiling. Next, the public Alexandrovsky station, still in use. This is the one the Romanovs had to walk to get their train to Tobolsk. Quite a walk through the park we felt. A good mile or two. We ran around taking photos whilst Colin and Alexei tried to get us put on a train to Siberia.

Then to the centre of Tsarskoye town and the palaces belonging to Grand Duke Vladimir and Grand Duke Paul. Outside Grand Duke Paul's is a bust which we frantically took photos of thinking it was Paul but alas not. Couldn't get up close to this one but the Vlad one, a curved, pillared building, has its grounds now open to the public. It is some kind of drama school, though looks abandoned inside. We peered into windows. On to the Yusupov dacha, once so derelict that it was possible to creep in and steal pieces of masonry and take them home to decorate your house with (who would do such a strange thing?). Now virtually renovated, closed to the public, and painted a rather nice shade of pink. Last, the biggest challenge of all, Grand Duke Boris's cottage, which none of us had ever seen before. This really tried Alexei's patience, and even led to an encounter with a local demanding vodka with menaces for information. But we found it, and we can now see why it was used by the Romanovs after the revolution as some kind of hideaway. It's well hidden, not on a main road, down a few dusty, unmade up roads, hidden by much undergrowth. You really would have to know it's there. Red brick, English in style, a bit like a school we thought. It's now the Potato Science Research centre. We know this because we opened the main door and walked in, with Alexei. You'd never guess from the inside that it once belonged to a Grand Duke, but we went up stairs into a turret, explored rooms, took photos of floor plans, and saw as much as we could. A mess really.

We ended our day in a knigi shop in Tsarskoye town centre before having to head back to St P for what seemed like an endless series of concerts by the Life Guards that the Halls had to attend. I was luckier and was able to join some friends for dinner. One of the beauties of being in ST P for the reburial was that there were many people from many countries to catch up with and I saw friends from DC and Australia and met new friends from Texas and Australia as well.

And so dawned the first day of reburial ceremonial and we were out early at Peterhof in the hopes of glimpsing the arrival of the Esbern Snare ship carrying Dagmar. We took poor Alexei with us. We paid to get into Peterhof Park and wander down alley after alley, trying to get near the sea. Every time we came up against a policeman who said no. Alexei did his best though may have been saying to each policeman "please arrest these nutcases because they are driving me mad". Eventually he established from two passing officials that Dagmar's cortege would pass through the park at Peterhof which would be closed to the public. We weren't giving up. We spotted a handy cameraman and TV reporter, and decided they had to be hanging around the Chequerboard fountain for some reason. So we did too, to the amusement of the police guards. "I'm cold," Alexei said after a while. We took pity and let him go back to his car. And we waited and we waited. We heard church bells mournfully tolling, and gun salutes and eventually were rewarded with a view of the cortege passing through the park to the gothic chapel in the Alexandria Park.

And so, after a warming cup of tea, we headed there (having to tear Coryne away from the Peterhof souvenir shops selling dolls). By the gates of the Alexandria Park, a queue of mainly ordinary Russians was forming to pass Dagmar's coffin which was lying-in-state at this tiny but beautiful chapel. Heading this queue was our spiritualist from the SAS flight. "OH no, not him," Colin said but too late, he'd spotted us. He told us how he'd managed to see the ceremonials of Dagmar's arrival by following the light to the waters edge at Peterhof. I think we were sceptical. We were pretty near the front of the queue ourselves and were amongst the first into the lying-in-state. Dagmar lay in the middle of the chapel, covered with the double-headed eagle flag, within touching distance as the chapel is so small. Only a few people were allowed in at a time, and you went in one side, and out the other. Russian priests intoned the prayers for the repose of the soul and waved incense. Karen, Coryne and myself stood virtually rooted to the spot for a good while. When we left, we were all moved to tears. But it seemed to us that we were the only ones moved to tears, nobody else was (mind you, we had lost sight of you know who by then).

It took us a while to recover from all this, and by then it was time for us to rush back to St P for the Halls to go to a concert by the Life Guards. Karen and I went to the exhibit "Dagmar and Denmark" at the Anichkov which was absolutely dreadful. Time for a knigi shop. Oh, and an evening in front of the TV back at the hotel. By no means was Dagmar the top story but there was a report which we caught. And there, on TV, was our spiritualist friend. He was, by the way, Danish.

As Dagmar was lying-in-state the next day and the Halls seemed to have another few concerts to go to, we headed off to the Lomonsov porcelain factory, a wonderful place that our friend Linda once introduced us to. Their pricing labels were interesting and confusing. Having tortured Alexei in this shop last time, he whisked off and left us to it so we got in a lot of a muddle. Eventually, it turned out that despite the shop looking much smarter than in previous years, prices were still as good as ever and I purchased a tea set which I had always wanted. I had carefully not told Mike about this in advance. Our afternoon was spent back at the Menage where we attended a lecture by Julia Kudrina who has written in Russian on Dagmar. And we had the joy of bumping into Zoia [Beliakova, the author of various books on Petersburg] at the exhibition too. Alexei, now surprised by nothing we did, batted not an eyelid when we presented him with a famous author and asked him to drive her home.

And so to reburial day. Alexei was defeated completely by the traffic so we piled into a taxi to St Isaacs. There we left the Halls in best black outfits to go into the cathedral. Karen and I found ourselves a good vantage point outside and waited. We were the right side of the cathedral for the end of the proceedings and saw the coffin carried down the steps and put into an impossibly dirty hearse. The Romanov family followed (yes, we could see Paul and the girls). We moved swiftly to the Menage steps, joined a bunch of Cossacks in cherkasskas and watched Dagmar driven slowly passed. As if by magic, Alexei appeared, having guessed that we'd be back at the Menage exhibit again. He hadn't been able to bring his car into St P at all but piled us into a taxi to go to Zoia's flat so we could watch the proceedings inside the P&P on her TV. Zoia had several friends and a lot of food waiting for us (inc an avocado salad to die for). We watched the ceremonial but it wasn't like the 1998 reburial - not wall to wall coverage, just a few quick shots. Zoia and her friends were disgusted, they had expected much more. We sat around discussing the days event and it turned out that one of Zoia's friends was the curator of Pavlovsk. She invited us to visit the palace on Saturday and that was an opportunity not to be missed. It would have been lovely if the Halls could have joined us at this point and told us about their day but they had to attend a concert by the Life Guards. 

The day after the reburial, Karen and I headed straight to the Peter and Paul Fortress to see Dagmar's tomb. For those of you who've speculated about where the tomb is, it's not. We all expected it to be next to AIII, to his left as you come in the cathedral, where a candle has stood for many years. But no, it's to his right as you come in, outside one of the railed off enclosures (presumably it will be railed off), but next to AIII. It was covered in wreaths and flowers. Two wreaths with red and white ribbons belonged to Fred and Mary and Daisy and Henrik [the Danish royal family - Ed.] - they had initials on the ribbons and were the typical Danish, evergreen wreaths rather than flowers. The Romanov family had left a many coloured flowered wreath, and there was also one from the absent Putin and from the govt. White roses decorated the cathedral and surrounded the tomb as well. Ordinary Russians kept arriving and leaving flowers. There were no queues to get in but queues to see NII and family's chapel - this one could only view from the doorway, you can't go in these days. One can also not go into the Grand Ducal vault which is being renovated - viewed from the doorway, there's lots of scaffolding. Karen and I attempted to find the plaque placed in memory of Grand Duke George Mikhailovich and the other Grand Dukes killed in the fortress. It was nowhere to be seen, so Karen asked a guide. Said guide denied any Grand Dukes were ever killed in the fortress, so we drew a complete blank on that. Just as we were leaving, Marie Vlad turned up, presumably to pay her respects (she had been at the ceremony the day before).

Alexei met us at the Ionnovsky bridge and guided us back to his car so that we could travel on to Strelna where we had a guided tour booked. Zoia had sighed and warned we would be disappointed. Well, it was what we expected really. Having got through reams of security which we would not have managed without Alexei (who gamely said he'd do the tour with us), our guide led us around the outside of the palace, pointing out architectural and horticultural highlights and avoiding Grand Ducal talk. The exterior is painted a sludge brown - it's smart enough but one feels that it would have had a much nicer exterior colour in GD days. The grounds have been renovated nicely but it's all a bit false. "Will we ever get inside?" Coryne wondered. Eventually we did, where we were faced with our happy guide telling us all about an exhibit on diplomatic gifts. We listened politely until she pointed to a few things that NII had brought back from his youthful travels, then Coryne and I went mad with cameras. At last we got to a couple of rooms that had KR stuff in them. Poor guide wanted to zap through them but was defeated by the camera clickers and a barrage of questions. She looked uncomfy and answered a few. She was not at all happy when Karen asked about the plaque at the P&P again and denied its existence. She swept us off to a couple of gala rooms which reminded us of those in the Kremlin Grand Palace, and were laid up for big events. As she walked us back to the exit, Alexei turned on his considerable charm and enquired about the grounds and where Ksschinskaya's dacha was. Our guide melted a bit and said we could go for a wander and have a look, and even told Alexei roughly where it was. Now, there are small palaces in the grounds that are for hire and one was planted in the area that the dacha would have been. There's also a hotel in the grounds but we decided it did not look inviting enough to stop for a cup of tea.

It goes without saying that the Halls were off to a military band concert that evening. I met up with a BBC friend whom I hadn't seen in ages.

Our last day, and the Halls were off to meet Prince Michael of Kent who, I believe, presented them with a CD of music played by the Life Guards. Karen and I went out to Pavlovsk to meet Zoia's friend, the curator. She was so so kind to us, spent hours with us taking us around the palace and pointing things out to us. Of course, we had been twice before but it's a gem of a building and you miss so much when you aren't with a guide. Two hours of marvellous information. And then, she took us to a small costume exhibit that featured dresses of both Empress Marie Feodorovnas. Our nutters would have been pleased to see 2 of Dagmar's outfits - a small brown suit she wore when she first arrived in Russia, and the costume she had on at Borki [the train accident in 1888 which nearly wiped out the imperial family]. This is peasant style, like 2 large Russian scarves, one as a skirt, and the other as a triangular covering over a white blouse. There were also several of Alexandra's dresses. We were told that a lot of Dagmar's dresses are at Pavlovsk. Our last view of Pavlovsk was of the lake, to the right of the courtyard at the back of the building. This has been completely drained and is being renovated.

Back to St P we went, to meet Alexei who had agreed on another drive around to find obscure Grand Ducal residences. We had more Xeroxed pages from Zoia's book and were able to find the Rose Palace, the bridge Rasputin's body was thrown from, the Millionaya Ulitsa house that GD Michael abdicated in, Ducky's palace and the prison that Grand Duke Paul was originally housed in.

The Halls had a night off from concert going and were able to join myself and some friends for a lovely dinner in an excellent restaurant called 1913.

And that was in, flight back next day, except that on that flight were Dimitry and Nicholas Romanov and wives, and they were separated by one row of seats in which sat Karen and I (with copious amounts of fragile hand luggage). We offered to give Nicholas and his wife our seats so they could sit directly behind Dimitry but they declined. The Halls chatted to them as if they were old friends. Back at Heathrow, Mike was appalled by the weight of my case which he had to lug across London, straining an arm in the process. He is now refusing to put up anything more from Ikea for a while. 

c. All images and text copyright Sue Woolmans, 2006

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