Anyone wishing to explore this extraordinary story further should read Edvard Radzinsky’s brilliant The Rasputin File or Alexandra: The Last Tsarina by Carolly Erickson. The best contemporaneous account of the old regime is Once a Grand Duke by Grand Duke Alexander, and the most complete and scholarly study of the revolution, A People’s Tragedy by Orlando Figes. I would also recommend Michael and Natasha by Rosemary and Donald Crawford, the story of the doomed love affair between Grand Duke Michael, brother of Nicholas II, and a divorcée.

Those wishing to take their research a stage further should go to a library and try to get hold of a copy of the memoirs of the French ambassador to Petrograd, Maurice Paléologue, which provide a fascinating, day-by-day account of the onset of revolution.

The imperial family and many other members of Russia’s former elite were, of course, executed by the Bolsheviks. The St. Petersburg of today is still brimming with reminders of a world that disappeared with them.

Tom Bradby