Nina Georgievna of Russia

Princess Nina Georgievna of Russia, (20 June 1901 – 27 February 1974), was the elder daughter of Grand Duke George Mikhailovich and Grand Duchess Maria Georgievna of Russia. A great-granddaughter of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia, she left her native country in 1914, before World War I finished her education in England and spent the rest of her life in exile. In London in 1922, she married Prince Paul Chavchavadze, a descendant of the last king of Georgia. They had one child, Prince David Chavchavadze, born there two years later. In 1927 the family of three moved to the United States and settled in New York. In 1939 they bought a home in Wellfleet, Massachusetts. Princess Nina was an artist, her husband worked as an author; he wrote five books and translated several others. Their son, Prince David Chavchavadze, served with the U.S. Army during World War II and, thanks in part to his knowledge of Russian, eventually became a CIA officer. After his retirement, he wrote his memoirs and published those of his grandmother, Grand Duchess George, as well as a book about the grand dukes of Russia. Early life Princess Nina was born on in the New Mikhailovsky Palace on the Palace Embankment in Saint Petersburg, the residence of her paternal grandfather, Grand Duke Michael Nicolaievich of Russia. She was the elder daughter of Grand Duke George Mikhailovich and Grand Duchess Maria Georgievna of Russia. Through her father, she was a member of the Romanov family, and princess of the Imperial blood as a great-granddaughter of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia. Nina's mother was a princess of Greece and Denmark, and on her maternal side, Nina was a granddaughter of King George I of Greece, great-granddaughter of King Christian IX of Denmark and related to members of many European royal families. Princess Nina spent the first years of her life in the family's apartments at the New Mikhailovsky Palace. In 1905, however, the family moved to a newly built small palace in the Crimea. Constructed in English style, they gave the property a Greek name, "Harax". For nine years the family led a quiet life. A contemporary of Tsar Nicholas II two youngest daughters, Princess Nina and her only sibling Princess Xenia, played sometimes with them, while they were in the Imperial capital.