Few years in recent Russian history have been as turbulent as 1999. In five months, from May till October, the country has seen three different prime ministers, an Islamic fundamentalist invasion in Dagestan and five terrorist assaults against Russian cities that cost the lives of 300 civilians. In the shadow of these developments, few noticed an event that in a calmer year would have made big news: the death of the last remaining Romanov in Russia.
The Romanovs, once omnipotent rulers of one-sixth of the Earth, were dethroned in 1917, and after that either died at the hands of communists, like Czar Nicholas II and his family, or fled the country, seeking safe haven in Europe and North America. For seven decades it had been maintained that no Romanov survived the Red Terror and that descendants of the czars were to be found only in Paris, London or New York.
But the collapse of communism created a sensation for people interested in history's attic: There was a Romanov survivor in Russia, a great-great-granddaughter of Emperor Nicholas I, Princess Natalia Iskander. She lived all alone in a slum district of Moscow -- having finished her career in a circus as a professional motorcyclist 30 years earlier -- surrounded by the Romanov memorabilia and books of poetry signed by the leading Russian authors of her day. For the next decade she was popular with journalists and TV crews, but the stormy events of last summer made her death July 25 pass almost unnoticed. Everybody who used to know her will agree that such an end was unfair.