Elizaveta Narishkina

She was appointed chief lady-in-waiting to empress Alexandra in succession to Maria Golitzyna, who died in 1910. As such, she was the first in rank of female office holders of the empress household and responsible for the ladies-in-waiting.

During the World War I, she remained in service at Tsarskole Selo with the empress along with the ladies-in-waiting Princess Sonia Orbeliani (d. 1915), O. E. Butzow, Sophie Buxhoeveden and Anastasia Hendrikova.

After the Russian Revolution, she remained during the house arrest of the former tsar and empress at Tsarskole Selo. On 21 March, when the household staff where informed by the government that they would have to choose by leaving or remaining and henceforth be submitted to the conditions of house arrest themselves, she chose to remain. At one point, Narishkina unsuccessfully suggested to Alexandra that she and Nikolai could escape without their children (who were ill and could not be moved) who they could leave in the care of Narishkina, who would then bring the children to them when the children had recovered from their illness.

In 8 April, Kerensky informed them that there were plans to separate Alexandra from the rest of the family for political reasons. Narishkina, according to Sophie Buxhoevden, protested and managed to persuade him to abstain from this, as it would be cruel to separate the children from their mother when they were ill. Instead, Kerensky chose to simply keep the former emperor on a different floor of the palace until Alexandra had been questioned by him on her political involvement (an interview which took place on 25 April).

Ultimately, Narishkina did not accompany Alexandra to Siberia, as she fell ill with brochitis and left for health reasons on 27 May. She lived for a long time in a peasants house on her former estate in the Tver district, until she managed to travel to the frontier with the help of her former maid and, from the frontier, out of Russia to Denmark and from there to her Tastichev grandson and her nephew Prince Kurakin in Paris. [1]