...like the beautiful (and ultimately notorious; he was one of the plotters who killed Rasputin) Prince Felix Felixovich Yusupov, Count Sumarokov-Elston!
He was a divinely decadent character, as these extracts about the Prince's exploits (from the faboo The Esoteric Curiosa blog) confirm. Described by one confidant of the Tsarina as "that effeminate and elegantly dressed young man", his close relationship with Tsar Nicholas II's favourite Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich (who was for a while the fiancé of the Tsar's daughter Olga Nikolaevna Romanova) caused somewhat of a scandal:
"Almost every night we drove to Petersburg and carried on a merry life in restaurants, night cafés, among the Gypsies. We invited performers to dine with us in private rooms. And often Pavlova would join us!" But it was not only Anna Pavlova who joined, Felix’s unconventional tastes, which he writes about himself in his memoirs, attracted to the private rooms male ballet dancers who shared these tastes.The rest of the story, especially that involving Rasputin, is well-documented. Both men survived the Russian Revolution - Dmitri died in 1942, and Felix lived until 1967. It is unclear whether either man saw each other again, and (eventually) both denied the rumours about their relationship.
The Imperial Family was horrified. "Their Majesties, knowing of my scandalous adventures, looked askance at our friendship," Felix recalled. Or, to put it more accurately, knowing of Felix’s homosexual propensities, which at the time were punishable by Imperial law, the Tsar’s family regarded Dmitri’s passionate attachment to Felix with fear...
...The encounters with Felix continued. Rumour had a simple explanation: Dmitri was bisexual. And Dmitri was madly infatuated with Felix. In the idiom of the salons of the day, it was called ‘making mistakes in grammar!’ Dmitri preferred to move out of Alexander Palace. Now he was lodged in his own house in Petersburg, and Felix helped him to furnish it in the luxury for which his own home, the Yusupov Palace on the Moika Canal, was celebrated. With precious furniture and paintings.
And so Dmitri had made his choice. Now with a clear conscience [the Tsarina, who never liked Dmitri] could, or, more accurately, was compelled to, break off Olga’s engagement. Dmitri had compromised himself by his scandalous friendship.
Ohhhh, those Russians...
