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Welcome to Noble Blood, a production

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of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild

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from Aaron Mankie. Listener discretion

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advised. If

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you were living in eastern Toronto in

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the year nineteen sixty, you might

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have seen an old woman bustling

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in and out of a little apartment that

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she lived in above the local barbershop.

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She might have nodded at the patrons

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of Ray's Barbershop and Gerrard

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Street East, which was located

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a short walk away from Lake Ontario,

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with a view to New York State across

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the water. The woman was

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a widow who spoke with boundless

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love for her late husband. She adored

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her grandchildren. She was an artist,

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often seen with a paint brush in

0:55

her hand. But this woman

0:57

also had unusual guests

1:00

come visit her from time to time,

1:03

people whose bearing and dress

1:06

appeared undeniably regal.

1:09

Rumor had it that when Queen Elizabeth

1:12

the Second visited Canada, the

1:14

Queen herself invited the old

1:16

woman onto the Royal yacht. Rumor

1:19

had it that if you looked closely

1:22

around the mouth, the old

1:24

widow bore a slight resemblance

1:27

to the Queen. They were, after

1:29

all, first cousins twice

1:31

removed, and if you looked

1:34

even closer at the old woman's

1:36

face, you might have seen that

1:38

she had a haunted look about

1:41

her eyes. Because this woman

1:43

who lived above the local barber shop

1:45

in Canada was no ordinary

1:48

widow. She was Grand Duchess

1:51

Olga Alexandrovna, the

1:53

last living member of Russia's

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once fearsome Romanov dynasty,

1:58

not the only descendant, but the

2:00

last person alive who had

2:03

actually lived during the Romanov's

2:05

three hundred year reign. She

2:08

was the final vestige of a lineage

2:10

that had ruled Russia from sixteen

2:13

thirteen to nineteen

2:15

seventeen. Grand Duchess

2:17

Olga was a decorated nurse

2:20

who served on the front in World

2:22

War One, a mother who escaped

2:25

Russia while pregnant with a child

2:27

in tow. But most of all,

2:29

she was the last living remnant

2:32

of the dynasty that had ended in

2:35

revolution and the gruesome murder

2:37

of her brother's entire family, including

2:40

most famously, the little Princess

2:43

Anastasia. Grand

2:45

Duchess Olga had called the young

2:47

Anastasia the little One, and

2:50

she had loved the girl with all of

2:52

her heart, and Grand

2:54

Duchess Olga had been deceived

2:57

later in life by Anastasia,

3:00

Ja's most famous pretender,

3:03

and after all of that, there

3:05

she was in Toronto at the end

3:07

of her life. You can almost

3:09

see her, aged seventy

3:12

eight in nineteen sixty, the

3:14

year JFK was elected president,

3:17

when Elvis Presley and Chubby Checker

3:19

played on the radio. It was

3:21

there that Olga Alexandrovna

3:24

lived and eventually died,

3:26

above the clippers and hair shavings

3:29

of the barber shop below.

3:31

The public had been obsessed with

3:33

the possible survival of

3:36

the little Grand Duchess Anastasia,

3:39

but the public largely ignored

3:41

this other Grand Duchess of the Romanovs,

3:44

who was still living in their

3:46

midsts. The one survivor

3:48

left behind. I'm

3:51

Danish Schwartz and this is noble

3:53

blood.

3:57

The Grand Duchess Olga was born on

4:00

June thirteenth, eighteen eighty

4:02

two, at the Peterhoff Palace in Saint

4:04

Petersburg. She was the youngest

4:06

and last child of her father,

4:09

Czar Alexander, the third of the Romanov

4:12

dynasty, and her mother, Grand

4:14

Duchess Dagmar Baby.

4:16

Olga's birth was heralded with a

4:18

one hundred and one gun salute,

4:21

a sign of how cherished she would

4:23

feel in her youth before

4:25

it would all get taken away with the revolution

4:28

that was still decades in the future.

4:30

At this point, Olga had a

4:33

very happy childhood. Her big,

4:35

burly father adored her, and she

4:37

adored him. He was everything

4:40

to her. In her own words, some

4:42

observers even remarked that they were

4:44

soulmates. Olga lived more

4:47

simply than we might imagine of a

4:49

Russian royal. Her biographer

4:51

Ian Vores notes that she slept

4:53

on a slim mattress with one hard

4:55

pillow, but then he goes

4:57

on to tell us that she spent her days a

5:00

in a nine hundred room

5:02

palace, so she still

5:04

lived far more opulently than

5:06

most. The resident palace

5:09

ghost of Oga's childhood was

5:11

Paul the First, the assassinated

5:13

son of Catherine the Great. Even

5:15

as a child, Olga was even keeled

5:18

in the face of death. I never did

5:20

see his ghost, she would later tell her

5:23

official biographer, and it made

5:25

me despair. I would have liked to

5:27

meet him. Olga's beloved

5:29

father was unusually doting

5:32

and present for a Czar of Russia,

5:35

but he was also gone too soon

5:37

after a shockingly short bout

5:40

of kidney disease. He died

5:42

in Olga's mother's arms in eighteen

5:45

ninety four, when he was forty

5:47

nine years old. Olga was

5:49

only twelve. It was the first

5:51

of a long series of heartbreaks

5:54

that fate had in store for her. Olga's

5:57

brother took the throne as Nicholas

6:00

the Second, twenty six years old,

6:02

and everyone agreed ill

6:04

prepared for the rule. He

6:07

was to be the last Czar of

6:09

Russia and the end of the three

6:11

hundred year rule of the Romanovs,

6:14

but Olga didn't know that yet. She

6:16

had her own personal problems to deal

6:19

with. In nineteen oh one, just

6:21

before her nineteenth birthday, the same

6:23

year her niece Anastasia was born,

6:26

Olga was attending a seemingly

6:28

normal party. Suddenly she

6:30

was swept unceremoniously to

6:32

a sitting room upstairs. Inside

6:35

was Duke Peter Alexandrovitch,

6:38

a distant cousin of hers, who was fourteen

6:40

years older. Olga didn't

6:42

understand what she was doing alone in

6:44

a room with him, and what he did

6:47

next made even less sense

6:49

to her. In Olga's own words,

6:52

I was just tricked. I saw

6:54

old cousin Peter, standing there, extremely

6:57

ill at ease. He did not look

6:59

at me. I heard him stammer through

7:01

a proposal. I was so taken

7:03

aback that all I could say was thank

7:05

you. She had gotten engaged

7:08

without realizing what was happening.

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The proposal was a shock, largely

7:14

because everyone at court and

7:16

across Saint Petersburg assumed

7:19

that Peter was gay. He

7:21

probably was. Olga's

7:23

marriage to him would go unconsummated.

7:27

Olga spent the night of her betrothal

7:29

crying. The problem

7:31

wasn't only that Peter had no interest

7:34

in women. He was a gambler who,

7:36

according to Olga's biographer quote,

7:39

loathed pets about the house, open

7:41

windows and walks. Seems

7:43

like a fun guy. So poor

7:46

Olga, once the beloved, littlest

7:48

daughter of her father, the Czar, was

7:51

married to a man who could not make

7:53

her happy. She was so depressed

7:55

that she lost her hair for some time

7:58

and had to wear a wig. Unable

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to focus on domestic bliss,

8:03

Olga focused instead on a white

8:06

villa she had built for herself, called

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Olgino. It was where she spent her

8:10

happiest times. Out near

8:13

the peasant classes, Olga

8:15

discovered an interest in nursing and

8:17

a passion for helping the poor and

8:19

wretched. It was a passion

8:21

that would hurt her years later, when

8:24

a woman in ill health pretending

8:27

to be Anastasia would try

8:29

to trick her. And

8:31

perhaps Olga's life would have gone on

8:33

that way, happy at her villa, lonely

8:36

at home, if not for the

8:38

fateful day in nineteen o three

8:41

when she spotted Nikolay Kolokovski.

8:44

He was the tall man standing

8:46

in a guard's uniform at a military

8:49

review, and Olga, with all

8:51

of the quashed love she had felt

8:53

in her youth rising up in her heart,

8:56

met his eye. Suddenly,

8:58

unexpectedly, Olga's life

9:01

became a love story. Suddenly

9:03

she was a fairytale princess meeting

9:06

her prince charming. She described

9:08

it as love at first sight. Quote.

9:11

I was twenty two years old, she said,

9:13

and I loved for the first time in my

9:16

life, and I knew that my love

9:18

was accepted and returned. Of

9:21

course, there was still the small

9:23

matter of her being married. Olga

9:26

knew she needed to take care of

9:28

that, so, flushed with the

9:30

urgency and passion of new love,

9:33

she cornered her husband in the library

9:35

at home, just as he had once cornered

9:37

her at a party with his unwelcome

9:39

proposal. She told her astonished

9:42

husband that she was in love and

9:44

she needed them to get divorced. Olga

9:47

was surrounded by his books and

9:49

backlit by the open door. Her

9:51

husband had no sexual attraction to

9:54

her, had never pretended to any

9:56

from the moment of their proposal Throughout

9:58

the two years thus far of their marriage.

10:01

She must have been flushed there in the

10:03

library, requesting her freedom

10:06

from him. I can imagine her excited

10:08

round cheeks, the hair on her

10:10

neck standing up. Though history

10:13

does not remark upon her as a great

10:15

beauty, to modern eyes, she was

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beautiful. One photo of

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her as a young woman shows her

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with a delicate, long neck encircled

10:24

by a single strand pearl

10:26

necklace, her expression somewhere

10:29

between serene strength and coming

10:32

fear, her long hair flowing

10:34

down her back. There

10:36

in the library, she stood

10:38

facing her husband. But

10:41

Peter, of course, said that they

10:43

could not get a divorce right then,

10:46

maybe in time seven years.

10:48

He proposed a sabbatical

10:50

that would waste the best years of her

10:52

life with him. Yet Olga's

10:55

husband was calculating not

10:57

cruel. A gambler to the last,

11:00

took on another kind of gamble, probably

11:02

hoping for a win win scenario.

11:05

He appointed his wife's great

11:07

love to be his own aide, moving

11:10

Nikolay Kolokovski into

11:12

their house. Olga spent

11:14

over a decade as a married woman

11:17

who lived alongside a man who was

11:19

the love of her life, a strange

11:21

but not unworkable domestic

11:23

drama. If only that

11:26

had been the greatest challenge of her life.

11:31

During those years married to Peter but

11:33

in love with Kolokovsky, Olga

11:36

did have familial love in her life as

11:38

well. In particular, she took

11:40

a liking to her brother Nikki's

11:42

children. The Emperor Nicholas

11:44

the second had four daughters,

11:47

and Olga's favorite was the youngest,

11:50

like Olga had been herself, Little

11:53

Anastasia, Olga said, was

11:55

always my favorite. I

11:57

liked her fearlessness. She never went

12:00

or cried even when hurt. She was

12:02

a fearful tomboy. Goodness

12:05

only knows which of the young cousins

12:08

had taught her how to climb trees, but

12:10

climbed them Anastasia did, even

12:12

when she was quite small. Anastasia

12:15

was feisty, bold, spirited,

12:18

Olga lovingly called her quote

12:20

the Little One. Aunt Olga

12:22

would take the Little One and her sisters

12:25

out to see the world beyond the palace

12:27

gates. She delighted in Olga's

12:30

impish talent for imitating palace

12:32

guests, even as inside

12:35

Olga's own heart she wondered

12:37

whether she would ever get to have children

12:40

herself. Her husband had

12:42

never slept with her, and the

12:44

man she loved lived in the home

12:46

with them, but they could not share

12:48

a bed. And then

12:51

war came for the world, and the

12:53

problem of marriage, childlessness

12:56

and true love was shunted

12:58

aside for Olga as it was for

13:00

the rest of Russia. In nineteen

13:02

fourteen, she left to serve as

13:04

a nurse on the front. It

13:07

was astonishing the tsar's

13:09

own sister donning a nurse's

13:11

uniform as the Great war raged,

13:14

kneeling to apply a tourniquet, her

13:16

hands splashed with wounded soldier's

13:19

blood. And yet it's completely

13:21

true. Olga had always had

13:23

a soft spot for the infirm,

13:26

even when her brother Nikki was losing

13:28

favor with his people. As Russia

13:31

retreated and soldiers died

13:33

and morale nosedived,

13:36

she continued to care for the wounded.

13:39

At one point, an angry fellow nurse

13:42

attempted to kill the tsar's

13:44

sister by smashing a giant

13:46

glass jar of vasileene on her

13:48

head, but Olga escaped

13:51

intact. It was to be the

13:53

story of her life. She escaped

13:55

intact, even when her family

13:58

did not. As

14:01

the nineteen tens wore on, Olga's

14:03

brother was becoming increasingly

14:06

unpopular. As tzar, he

14:08

could not please his people, but he

14:10

was able to offer one final

14:13

gift to his youngest sister. In

14:15

nineteen sixteen, he granted

14:18

her the long awaited annulment

14:20

from her husband, Peter. She

14:22

immediately married her longtime love

14:25

Kolikovski, but there

14:27

was no grand Russian wedding

14:29

for Olga. She spoke her vows

14:31

wearing a Red Cross uniform.

14:34

Yet she felt that quote something

14:37

like new strength came to me. And then

14:39

and there, in that chapel, standing

14:41

beside my beloved Kukushkin,

14:44

I resolved to face the future,

14:46

whatever it brought. That

14:49

future was to be darker than she might

14:51

have imagined. In the bitter

14:53

cold of winter nineteen seventeen,

14:56

the February Revolution succeeded

14:59

in ending the Russian monarchy,

15:01

Olga's brother Nicholas abdicated

15:04

the throne. It was a

15:06

dangerous time to be a Romanov.

15:09

Olga and her now husband

15:12

fled south, but their train was

15:14

intercepted and they were captured. Olga

15:17

thought she was going to die. She

15:19

was a dynastic Romanov, the

15:22

non creepy soulmate of her father,

15:24

the late Czar Alexander, A

15:27

loving sister recently gifted

15:29

the blessing of love by her brother, who

15:32

was being hunted by the revolutionaries.

15:35

The soldier who held Olga and her

15:37

husband in captivity did

15:39

not make eye contact with her. He

15:42

did not want to look at those he might

15:44

have to murder. But the

15:47

Soviets could not decide between

15:49

Sevestopol and Yalta, whose

15:52

duty it was to chop off Olga's

15:55

royal head. So Olga

15:57

and her husband Nikolay were essentially

15:59

placed under house arrest in Crimea

16:02

while Olga feared for the rest

16:04

of her family. What had become

16:06

of her brother, her nieces, the

16:09

Sarvich, her only nephew, and what

16:11

had become of the little one Anastasia.

16:14

Olga heard horrific rumors

16:16

about what might have happened to her

16:18

brother and his family, but she

16:21

didn't want to believe them. The Emperor

16:23

and his family had disappeared,

16:26

Olga and her mother hoped

16:28

against hope that they had escaped,

16:30

perhaps to England. If you

16:33

want the story on that possible escape,

16:35

go back to a very early

16:37

episode of Noble Blood called

16:40

Our Dearest Cousin Nikki. The

16:43

Russian sky seemed dark,

16:46

almost bloody. Olga gave

16:48

birth to her first child, a son,

16:51

essentially under house arrest. She

16:54

was pregnant again when she and her husband

16:56

managed to escape, this time

16:58

to the Caucuses. They kept

17:00

fleeing, facing extreme danger.

17:03

At one point, Olga and her two boys

17:06

were kicked out of a moving train into

17:08

a freezing night, but Olga's

17:11

story was to survive. At

17:13

last. She and her little family

17:16

wound up in Denmark, where

17:18

they finally settled into their exile

17:20

in nineteen nineteen. Her

17:23

mother, Dagmar, had been Danish.

17:26

Only later would Olga really

17:28

let herself hear about the brutal

17:31

end to her brother's family, the

17:33

story that would enrapture the

17:35

world. They were brought into

17:38

a basement by Bolshevik revolutionaries

17:41

and shot and then bayoneted

17:43

until they were all dead. The

17:46

myth of The Survival of the Lost

17:49

Romanov Anastasia is

17:52

full of wild hope, painful

17:54

delusion, Disney and Broadway

17:57

musicals, but most of all

17:59

pretend. Anyone familiar

18:02

with the historical stories about Anastasia's

18:05

possible survival will be familiar

18:07

with the name Anna Anderson. If

18:09

you aren't an Anastasia enthusiast

18:12

listener, then you should know that Anna Anderson

18:15

was the most famous of the women

18:17

who came forward claiming to be

18:19

the beloved lost daughter, the

18:22

sole survivor of the Russian Revolution,

18:25

the miraculously enduring Anastasia.

18:29

And the reason that Anna Anderson

18:31

was the most famous impostor of

18:34

all was in large part

18:36

the perceived acceptance of her as

18:39

Anastasia by Anastasia's

18:41

own dear aunt, Olga.

18:44

In October of nineteen twenty five,

18:47

Olga left Denmark, not

18:49

as a refugee this time, but as

18:52

a seeker. She was headed to Berlin

18:54

to visit a young, very ill

18:56

woman who claimed to be her

18:59

niece, Anna sion Stasia. The

19:01

young woman had been pulled from a canal.

19:03

In Berlin, Olga found

19:05

her very thin, frail in a

19:07

hospital bed. Though the young

19:10

woman seemed to understand Russian,

19:12

she would speak only German. Still,

19:16

she had the same joint problem

19:18

that Anastasia had in her feet, she

19:20

knew a nickname that only the

19:23

Imperial nieces would have known. And

19:26

most of all, in the moment when

19:28

the Grand Duchess Olga saw

19:30

her, Olga told the

19:32

Danish ambassador that her heart

19:35

told her this was the

19:37

little One, or did

19:40

she so. Much of the

19:42

truth of the story of Olga's meeting

19:44

with Anna Anderson wound up recanted

19:47

and changed later, perhaps

19:49

in service of truth or perhaps

19:52

out of embarrassment, which means

19:54

that we can't be entirely sure.

19:57

What actually happened is

20:00

that, after meeting the girl, Olga

20:03

did not dismiss her. She wrote five

20:05

letters to the girl imploring her to get

20:08

well. She also asked her

20:10

own people to investigate the matter more

20:12

deeply, writing in a letter that

20:14

she could not definitively say

20:17

the woman wasn't Anastasia.

20:20

So the question is, did

20:22

Olga believe the pretender? History

20:25

doesn't know. Olga's

20:28

own memoirs were written after

20:30

the fact, after Olga had

20:32

decided to insist that she had

20:34

never believed Anna Anderson

20:37

and never had a moment's hesitation,

20:40

but here's what I think. We

20:42

have to remember who we're dealing with.

20:45

Olga Alexandrovna was, according

20:47

to her granddaughter, quote, kindness

20:50

itself to anyone in need. This

20:53

was the daughter of the tsar who found

20:55

happiness serving the peasants

20:58

at her villa, the brother of

21:00

the Emperor, who had worked as a humble

21:02

nurse to wounded soldiers at the front.

21:05

The woman who later in life would

21:07

respond to every letter she received

21:10

in Toronto quote, be they from

21:12

kings or crackpots. It's

21:14

no surprise that Olga would give

21:16

a frail, wounded woman in Berlin

21:19

the time of day, if only

21:21

for a brief time, whether or not

21:24

she believed she was her niece. And

21:27

I think this too. When Olga

21:29

was traveling to Berlin beside her husband,

21:32

all she could see was the little one

21:34

in her mind. God, how

21:36

badly Olga must have wanted

21:38

the story to be true. Let

21:41

Anastasia be alive for just

21:43

a moment more, she must have been thinking

21:46

as she stepped into that hospital room,

21:48

Let me, for one moment pretend.

21:54

Ultimately, both Olga and

21:56

the world rejected Anna

21:58

Anderson's claim, recognizing

22:00

the younger woman for what she was. An

22:03

impostor. Years later,

22:05

DNA evidence would make that undeniable.

22:09

It's hard to avoid noticing that

22:11

one of the most interesting parts of Olga's

22:14

life was the way it intersected

22:16

with the life of a more famous person,

22:19

Anastasia, more famous

22:21

because her tragic life was

22:23

cut short, and cut short

22:25

brutally at only seventeen.

22:29

Olga escaped both her niece's

22:31

fame and her fate. She

22:33

was blessed with a long and mostly

22:36

happy life, but after

22:38

twenty five contented years spent

22:41

in Denmark on a dairy farm with

22:43

her husband and children, the

22:45

Romanov name did come to haunt

22:47

Olga again. In nineteen

22:50

forty eight, fearing extradition

22:52

to the Kremlin. After World War II,

22:55

sixty six year old Olga and her family

22:57

fled to Ontario. Her sons

23:00

married women who were not from royal families,

23:03

and Olga loved her grandchildren.

23:06

She painted charming in bright scenes

23:08

of Russian folk life, replete

23:10

with colorful flowers and teas.

23:13

She was not above using her quote

23:16

nepo baby status as a Romanov

23:19

to help place her paintings in galleries.

23:22

Queen Elizabeth the Second owned

23:25

nine paintings by her cousin Olga.

23:27

Olga outlived her husband, but she

23:29

loved him to the last. As her

23:32

health deteriorated, fittingly, she

23:34

was watched over by a former Imperial

23:37

guard who had also found himself

23:39

in Canada. Still she

23:42

carried the weight of her history. I

23:44

always laugh, she said, for

23:46

if I ever start crying, I will never

23:49

stop. And at the

23:51

very end, on November twenty

23:53

fourth, nineteen sixty, at

23:56

seventy nine years old, Olga

23:58

died. The last living

24:00

Romanov who had been quote born in

24:03

the Purple to a sitting emperor,

24:05

died above Ray's barbershop

24:08

in Toronto, a reminder

24:10

that history, with all its great

24:12

heights and terrible falls, is

24:15

never really far away. That's

24:23

the story of Grand Duchess Olga, the

24:26

last surviving Romanov. But keep

24:28

listening after a brief sponsor break,

24:30

to find out what really happened to her

24:32

little one, Anastasia. If

24:44

you've seen the Disney or Broadway musical,

24:46

you are probably familiar with the legend

24:49

of the survival of the young Romanov

24:51

daughter Anastasia. People

24:54

love a story and a fantasy

24:56

of a missing princess who managed to survive

24:58

a massacre. It's fascinating,

25:01

but what actually happened to Anastasia.

25:04

For a long time, the world did not

25:07

know for certain, and in that gap of

25:09

knowledge, many pretenders stepped

25:11

in with compelling stories

25:13

people wanted to believe, including

25:16

a young woman in Berlin named

25:18

Anna Anderson who was institutionalized

25:21

in a mental hospital after a suicide

25:23

attempt, a woman who was most

25:26

likely a Polish factory

25:29

worker with a history of mental illness

25:32

in nineteen ninety one. DNA evidence

25:34

that was discovered in Russia was

25:36

analyzed and reported to the public

25:38

in nineteen ninety four, which proved

25:41

definitively that the remains of

25:43

Anna Anderson had no genetic

25:45

overlap with the remains of Zar Nicholas

25:48

and his wife. Anderson had

25:50

been an impostor. On

25:53

top of disproving the pretender,

25:55

it was also announced that Anastasia's

25:58

bones had been discovered alongside

26:01

her parents, so the

26:03

saddest story of Olga's favorite

26:06

niece was the true one. She

26:08

had been shot and killed, her

26:11

remains identified. The

26:13

discovery was made more than thirty

26:16

years after Olga's death, so

26:18

Olga never had to know for certain

26:21

about the tragic fate of her little one.

26:24

She could always hope.

26:39

Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio

26:43

and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky.

26:46

Noble Blood is hosted by me Danish

26:48

Forts, with additional writing

26:50

and researching by Hannah Johnston,

26:53

Hannah Zewick, Courtney Sender,

26:55

Julia Milani, and Armand Casam.

26:58

The show is edited and produced

27:00

by Noahmy Griffin and rima

27:03

il Kaali, with supervising

27:05

producer Josh Thain and executive

27:08

producers Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams,

27:10

and Matt Frederick. For more

27:12

podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit

27:15

the iHeartRadio app, Apple

27:17

Podcasts, or wherever you listen

27:19

to your favorite shows.