Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

....final residence of Tsar Nicholas II’s last surviving sibling — a dilapidated semi in Toronto
National Post ^ | November 21, 2014 | Laura Lind

Posted on 11/21/2014 7:08:32 PM PST by Loyalist

If the end result of a war is an exchange of territory, the outcome of a revolution is ultimately the exchange of real estate. The house at 716 Gerrard Street East is an apt illustration of the downward mobility of the politically displaced.

Listed last week on MLS, the modest two-story Riverdale semidetached was the final residence of the Tsar Nicholas II’s last surviving sibling, Grand Duchess Olga Alexandranova. The highest ranking member of the Russian imperial family to emigrate to North America, Olga convalesced in the care of Russian friends who ran the beauty shop on the main floor.

She was bedridden for a year and ate nothing but ice cream, according to Nick Barisheff, who was 15 when the 78-year-old duchess succumbed to cancer in his family’s apartment. She died in the upstairs front bedroom Nov. 24, 1960, 44 years ago this coming Monday.

It was a step down for the Grand Duchess, whose palace of birth, Peterhof, is also known as the “Russian Versailles.”

At age 19, on the occasion of her wedding in 1901, Tsar Nicholas granted his youngest sister a 200-room starter home — a $453-million St. Petersburg, parapeted, neo-Palladian with a 47-window front façade.

It had its own church, coach houses, a two-storey gardener’s shed, a greenhouse and an art studio for Olga, who painted. For sport, the couple hunted wolves. The childless couple was waited on by a staff of 70.

(Excerpt) Read more at news.nationalpost.com ...


TOPICS: Canada; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Russia
KEYWORDS: grandduchessolga; romanov; russia; toronto
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-50 next last
To: SolidRedState

I thought it might’ve meant half of a double wide.


21 posted on 11/21/2014 8:54:25 PM PST by uncitizen (I weep for my country)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: uncitizen

“I thought it might’ve meant half of a double wide.”


Now that would be a sight. With the plastic wrap kind of whipping in the wind. LOL


22 posted on 11/21/2014 9:08:14 PM PST by SolidRedState (I used to think bizarro world was a fiction.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: SolidRedState

Lol yeah, I guess they’re called “single wides”?


23 posted on 11/21/2014 9:09:51 PM PST by uncitizen (I weep for my country)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: Loyalist

Q: What do revolutions and tornados have in common?
A: Some Rooskis and rednecks are losing ... zzzzzzz.


24 posted on 11/21/2014 9:24:24 PM PST by tumblindice (America's founding fathers: all armed conservatives.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Loyalist

wow thanks for this bit of history


25 posted on 11/21/2014 9:28:59 PM PST by woofie
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Loyalist

Heartbreaking. Some of the displaced and impoverished old Russian nobility or near-nobility lived in San Francisco when I was there in the 70’s. They added a lot to the community, as I understand it started the San Francisco ballet school. And ran little restaurants out on Geary near the Russian cathedral. Lovely and very cheap food cooked by little old ladies with their heads held high and a certain starch in their spines. Unbowed…One of them had a bakery that made the best Christmas log cakes loaded with rum, which she pronounced RRRRoooom.


26 posted on 11/21/2014 11:01:44 PM PST by Veto! (Opinions freely dispensed as advice)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Inyo-Mono

So the semi had a flat?

“You can go from boom to bust
from dreams to a bowl of dust.”


27 posted on 11/21/2014 11:18:30 PM PST by 21twelve (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2185147/posts 2013 is 1933 REBORN)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: Loyalist

I understand there was a price the Russian peasants had to pay for such beauty to be created, perhaps too high a price, but it shows the Romanovs could create beauty. What did the Bolsheviks and even our home grown “progressives” ever create that is anywhere comparable? Soviet bloc housing? The Mother Cabrini Projects? Collectivism breeds ugliness as it is death to the human spirit.


28 posted on 11/21/2014 11:18:32 PM PST by Robwin
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Inyo-Mono; Loyalist

He might be another geologist... you know, “give or take a million years”... ARF!


29 posted on 11/22/2014 12:30:29 AM PST by Axenolith (Government blows, and that which governs least, blows least...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Loyalist

Supposedly Olga was happy there, very happy. She had never had a happy life as a Romanov, she was essentially her mother’s ‘companion’ and ended up being happily anonymous.


30 posted on 11/22/2014 2:56:50 AM PST by CorporateStepsister (I am NOT going to force a man to make my dreams come true)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Loyalist

OMG....When I saw those palaces that are BLOCKS LONG and EVERYTHING is Gold, I KNEW why they had a Revolution!!


31 posted on 11/22/2014 2:58:08 AM PST by Ann Archy (ABORTION....... The HUMAN Sacrifice to the god of Convenience.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Loyalist

Didn’t a crown prince of Austria live out his days in a shack in Missouri?


32 posted on 11/22/2014 3:41:16 AM PST by muir_redwoods ("He is a very shallow critic who cannot see an eternal rebel in the heart of a conservative." G.K .C)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Gay State Conservative

I don’t think you can compare the two. That semi in Toronto is listed for $539,000!!!!


33 posted on 11/22/2014 3:56:52 AM PST by Former Proud Canadian (Gold and Silver, Accept No Substitutes)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: SolidRedState
I don't think that is a semi since it is attached on both sides. It looks more like a row house although with a store front maybe a commercial property with maybe an apartment above it. This is what a semi detached house looks like.


34 posted on 11/22/2014 4:09:10 AM PST by xp38
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: Gay State Conservative

Don’t judge Kenya or Kenyans by the one. Most are Christian unlike Obama’s dad and they are turning into quite a vibrant free market economy while the USA under Obama is heading in the opposite direction


35 posted on 11/22/2014 4:09:33 AM PST by Cronos (ObamaÂ’s dislike of Assad is not based on AssadÂ’s brutality but that he isn't a jihadi Moslem)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Yardstick

Not really. The tsarist secret police and gulags were abominable. The soviets made them worse


36 posted on 11/22/2014 4:11:55 AM PST by Cronos (ObamaÂ’s dislike of Assad is not based on AssadÂ’s brutality but that he isn't a jihadi Moslem)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: SolidRedState

Brits use the housing term “semi-detached” to describe what we call a duplex. Perhaps the Canadians use the same term.


37 posted on 11/22/2014 4:41:21 AM PST by ops33 (Senior Master Sergeant, USAF (Retired))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: ops33

We call it a duplex too.


38 posted on 11/22/2014 4:48:55 AM PST by Bulwyf
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 37 | View Replies]

To: Bulwyf

Ok, thanks.


39 posted on 11/22/2014 4:52:49 AM PST by ops33 (Senior Master Sergeant, USAF (Retired))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 38 | View Replies]

To: Loyalist

That’s an old storefront converted to an apartment. Not sure where the “semi” thing comes from, there’s no side alley. It’s not detached at all, and probably only an alley in the rear just big enough for a delivery truck that is shared with opposite side. If it was built as residential there would be a small walled yard and possibly a single garage facing what was called a coal alley.


40 posted on 11/22/2014 4:54:45 AM PST by RegulatorCountry
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-50 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson