Secret photos of the Romanovs

The last days of the Romanovs… An exhibition of personal photographs taken by the French tutor of the five children of the last Russian Tsar opens in Moscow’s State Historical Museum on Red Square on September 8.

Perre Gilliard spent 13 years with the Imperial Family, tutoring the four daughters of Tsar Nicolas II: Olga, Tatyana, Maria and Anastasia. In 1913 he also became a tutor for the Tsar’s son Aleksey, who suffered from a rare blood disease.

Daughters of Tsar Nicholas II. Photo by Pierre Gilliard

Perre Gilliard felt attached to the Romanovs and followed them to Tsarskoye Selo, Tobolsk and Ekaterinburg, where the family were kept under arrest and executed on July 17, 1918.

For some reason, it so happened that Gilliard escaped death from the Bolsheviks and managed to save hundreds of photographs he took that feature the last years of life of the Romanov family. He secretly sent the pictures to France and then to Switzerland.

A selection of his works will be on public display until September 28.