Word: czarina
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...rose quartz, pearls and diamonds-were the gifts of Russia's wealthy classes; the largest and costliest eggs were reserved for the reigning Romanovs. Three handsome examples (opposite) are the gold and lapis lazuli egg, with a miniature portrait of Czarevitch Alexis, given by Nicholas II to his Czarina in 1912; the fabulous rock crystal egg (at top), which contains a revolving gallery of twelve gold-framed miniatures capped with a perfect, 27-karat Siberian emerald; and the engraved gold egg which opens to eight painted panels showing favorite imperial charities...
...Petersburg as a young apprentice, Fabergé became court jeweler to Alexander III and Nicholas II, and the most sought after goldsmith of his time. Russia's Easter eggs are his proudest creation. Fabergé turned out his first as a surprise for Alexander III's Czarina. At a glance, it seemed to be a plain chicken egg of opaque white enamel. But inside, the Czarina found a glittering yolk of gold, and within the yolk a gold chicken. The chicken opened, too, and there the Czarina discovered an exact replica of the imperial crown, perfect...
Craps & Hand Grenades. But as soon as Onassis called on his old friend, Prince Rainier, the atmosphere became more friendly. The Casino, once the gathering place of rich royalty and the royally rich, had fallen on bad times. Gone were the days when Alexandra, Czarina of all the Russias, could bring the entire corps of the Imperial Ballet to dance while she gambled, when a Casino patron could toss a hand grenade into the roulette wheel after losing his wad and scarcely raise a commotion. Currency restrictions had cut the once-rich British trade to a trickle; the recently installed...
...Hearth. Evita spends $40,000 or more a year just for dresses from Paris' top designers.*In 1950, she ordered gowns from Balmain, Dior, Fath and Rochas. She has the furs of a czarina, the jewels of a maharani. Last year Perón took a fancy to a U.S. visitor and volunteered to show him around the presidential mansion. While displaying roomful after roomful of Evita's clothes the President guffawed: "Not exactly a descamisada, eh?" Evita herself is not a bit abashed. She is quite likely to appear at a streetcleaners' rally dressed...
Custine reports that when a squall hit a flotilla of small craft carrying "chosen bourgeoisie" on an outing to Czar Nicholas I's seaside palace, scores were drowned. The newspapers suppressed the disaster, so as not to "distress the Czarina [or] imply blame to the Czar." By a similar procedure, when a serving girl was murdered in a back street, the police did not bother to report the crime, but were careful to make a few rubles by selling her body to medical students for dissection...