At the very end of the 19th century, Princess Zinaida Nikolaevna Yusupova ordered a painting from the artist who was gaining popularity. More precisely the picture, since she needed portraits of all members of her family.
Valentin Aleksandrovich was famous for the fact that he did not like to write “rich, famous and swaggering”, but he liked the princess and her family. The artist gallantly remarked that if all rich people were the same, then there would be no injustice and misfortune in the world. The princess sadly replied that not everything in life is measured in money. Alas, the history of the Yusupovs was so complex and tragic that it had every reason to be sad.
Genus origin
The origin of the family was very ancient. Even at the end of the 19th century, when there were more and more wealthy merchants and manufacturers among the highest nobility of the Russian Empire, the Yusupovs remained not only rich, but also honored their kind, knew a lot about their ancient roots. In those years, not everyone could boast of it.
So, the history of the Yusupov clan begins with the khan of the Nogai Horde - Yusuf-Murza. Knowing full well the glory of Ivan IV the Terrible, he did not at all want to quarrel with the Russians. Wanting reconciliation with the formidable sovereign, he sent his sons to his court. Ivan appreciated such behavior: the heirs of Yusuf were not only showered with villages and rich gifts, but also became "forever rulers of all the Tatars in Russian land." So they found a new homeland.
So the Yusupovs (princes) appeared. The history of Russian families was replenished with another glorious page. The very progenitor of the family ended badly.
Khan knew very well that in the distant and alien Muscovy his sons would be much better. As soon as they managed to cross the borders of their former state, their own brother treacherously slaughtered his father. The history of the Yusupov family says that the fellow tribesmen were so furious at the news that they had heard that the sons of the murdered khan converted to Orthodoxy that they asked one of the most powerful steppe sorceresses to curse their entire family. It was scary.
The curse of the kind
The Yusupovs themselves passed down the words of the curse from generation to generation: “And let only one survive from the family of only 26 years old. And so be it, until the whole race is known to the root. ” Superstitions are superstitions, but the words of such a florid spell came to pass scrupulously. No matter how many women from this family give birth to children, only one of them always survived to the unfortunate 26 years and more advanced age.
However, modern historians say that the family probably had some kind of genetic disease. The fact is that the "tribal curse of the Yusupov princes" began to manifest itself far from immediately, no matter what the legend says. One child only began to survive after Boris Grigorievich (1696-1759). Until then, there is no information about the small number of surviving heirs, which suggests a hereditary disease. This suspicion is confirmed by the fact that things were much better with the girls in the family - they lived much more often until adulthood.
Since then, each head of the clan had only one son. Because of this, throughout the XVIII-XIX centuries, the family was actually on the verge of complete extinction. However, this sad circumstance also had its positive side: unlike all other princely families, which by the end of the 19th century for the most part had completely squandered their fortunes, the Yusupovs had more than nothing to do with money.
Family well-being
However, problems with the gene pool did not affect material well-being. By the revolution, the Yusupov family was only a little “poorer” than the Romanovs themselves. Although the history of the Yusupov clan transparently hints that in fact the clan was much richer than the imperial family.
According to official information, the distant descendants of Yusuf owned more than 250 thousand acres of land, they also owned hundreds of factories, mines, roads and other profitable places. Each year, the profit from all this exceeded 15 million (!) Gold rubles, which, when translated into modern money, exceeded 13 billion rubles annually.
The luxury of the palaces that belonged to them, envied even the families whose ancestors came from the time of Rurik. So, in the St. Petersburg estate, many rooms were furnished with furniture that previously belonged to the executed Marie Antoinette. Among their property were such paintings that even the Hermitage collection would be honored to have them in their collection.
In the caskets of women from the Yusupov clan casually lay jewelry, previously collected around the world. Their value was incredible. For example, the “modest" pearl of Pelegrin, with which Zinaida Nikolaevna can be seen in all the paintings, was once the property of the famous Spanish crown and was a favorite decoration of Philip II himself.
However, everyone considered their family happy, but the Yusupovs themselves were not happy about it. The history of the clan has never been different in excess of happy days.
Countess de Chaux
The grandmother of Zinaida Nikolaevna, Countess de Chavo, probably lived the happiest life (compared to the other women in the family). She came from an ancient and noble family of the Naryshkins. Zinaida Ivanovna was extradited as Boris Nikolayevich Yusupov at a very young age.
She gave birth to her mature husband, first a son, and then a daughter, who died in childbirth. Only then did she find out that all the Yusupovs had faced this. The history of the family impressed the young girl so much that she still flatly refused to give birth: “I don’t want to produce the dead.”
On the hardships of family life
She immediately stated to her husband that he was free to run after all the yard girls, she would not be captive. And so they lived until 1849, when the old prince had already passed away. The princess at that time was not even forty years old, but because she, as it is now customary to put it, "went all out." In those years, gossip about her adventures was transmitted throughout the empire, to say nothing of Petersburg!
But the most scandalous episode of her biography was a passion for one young volunteer. When he was imprisoned in the Shlisselburg fortress, she threw all the balls and masquerades, by hook or by crook, seeking to soften the prison regime for her beloved.
New husband
In those years, and for lesser sins, one could fly out of the upper world, but Zinaida Ivanovna was sorry: after all, the Yusupovs! The incredible story had its continuation, but for a long time it was believed that the princess's quirks were over. Her binges suddenly stopped, the woman lived a complete recluse for a long time. Then she meets a beautiful, noble, but completely ruined Frenchman, falls in love and leaves Russia forever. She abandoned the “damned family name” and became Countess de Chavaux, Marquise de Serre.
Strange find
Everyone forgot about this strange and stupid story, but then a revolution broke out. The Bolsheviks were well aware of the wealth of the family, since the curse of the clan of the Yusupov princes, even in Moscow, was widely heard. They assumed that the “crazy potbelly stove” could well hide its jewelry somewhere in its former house on Liteiny Prospekt, and therefore they tapped all its rooms literally in millimeters. An absolutely incredible find was waiting for them: they found a secret room, the door to which was walled up.
There was a coffin in the room, in which the embalmed body of a young man rested. We can safely assume that the answer to the missing Narodnaya Volya has been found. Most likely, the countess was unable to obtain a review of the verdict, and therefore went on a whirl. Only having bought the body of her executed lover, she managed to calm down.
Zinaida Ivanovna, as we already said, had an only son. Nikolai Borisovich Yusupov himself had three children at once. The eldest was the son of Boris. There were two daughters - Zinaida and Tatyana. No one was surprised that Boris died of scarlet fever at an early age. Parents were comforted only by the fact that their daughters were beautiful and healthy. It was only in 1878 that misfortune happened with Zinaida.
New trouble
The family in the autumn of that year lived in their Arkhangelsk estate. Nikolai Borisovich, being constantly busy in the service, he rarely came home for long. Tatyana preferred to read, and Zinaida liked to make long horseback riding. Once she injured her leg. The wound was tiny and did not seem to pose any danger, but by the evening the girl had a fever.
Dr. Botkin, hastily summoned to the estate, made a disappointing diagnosis. Blood poisoning in those days ended only in death. By morning, Zinaida did not have a fever, she fell into unconsciousness. It seemed that the clan of the Yusupov princes would soon suffer another loss.
John of Kronstadt: Appearance
Subsequently, Zinaida recalled that in that strange and unsteady state that separated reality from dreams, she saw Saint John of Kronstadt, with whom her family had long been friends. When she suddenly regained consciousness, the old man was urgently summoned to the estate. He prayed for her, and the girl quickly recovered. But the sad story of the princely family of the Yusupovs did not end there. At 22, Tatyana died of measles.
Procreation
It is not surprising that the old prince longed for the marriage of his daughter. Zinaida Nikolaevna then recalled that the father, who by that time had started to get sick a lot, was very afraid not to live up to the time of the appearance of his grandchildren.
Soon the applicant was found. Young Yusupov was accompanied by the Bulgarian prince Battenberg, who was a direct relative of the imperial couple. The prince's retinue consisted of a modest young man, Felix Elston, whose duties included introducing the future bride to the groom. And then thunder struck. Felix and Zinaida fell in love literally at first sight, and the feelings were mutual. Soon the young married.
Nikolai Borisovich at first almost fainted from such an extravagant decision of his daughter, but did not dare to contradict his only heiress. Just a year later, the first couple was born to a young couple, who was named Nikolai in honor of their grandfather.
New shocks
The boy was very reserved and unsociable, the princess tried all her life to bring him closer to herself, but she did not achieve much success. On Christmas Day 1887, a little boy with icy calmness told his mother: "I do not want you to have other children." It soon turned out that one of the nannies told him that the Yusupovs were a damned family. The stupid woman was immediately fired. Zinaida, who had been awaiting the birth of her second child by that time, thought with fear how his older brother would meet him.
At first, everything indicated that the boy hated his younger brother Felix. Only when he was ten years old did they begin to communicate normally. But all contemporaries noted that the relationship between the two young princes resembled just strong friendship, but not brotherly love. So the history of the Yusupov clan continued. The discussion of the terrible curse that hung over their family gradually came to naught. But then came 1908.
The death of Nicholas
Nikolai fell madly in love with Maria Heyden, who was soon to marry Arvid Manteuffel, and the wedding took place, as the young people loved each other.
Despite the desperate exhortations of all friends, the insulted Nikolai went after them on a honeymoon. The duel was only a matter of time. It took place on June 22, 1908. Nikolai died six months before his twenty-sixth birthday. Parents almost went crazy with grief, and from now on all their thoughts were directed at the young Felix. Unfortunately, the obvious happened: the spoiled boy became a "spoiled cherub", greedy and capricious.
However, the trouble was not in this, but in his exceptional extravagance. When in 1919 the family sailed from the blazing Russia, they had more than enough money. For just a couple of “small and faded” diamonds, Felix bought French passports to all his household, they bought a house in the Bois de Boulogne. Alas, the prince did not give up that free life that he led in his homeland. As a result, his wife and daughter Irina were buried right in the grave of Zinaida Nikolaevna. There was no money for the funeral. Rod broke off completely.