RUSSIA'S ROYAL ROMANCE.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XVIII, Issue 1894, 29 November 1923, Page 7

RUSSIA'S ROYAL ROMANCE.

+..« ■ A PRINCE IN SYDNEY. CZAR STILL LIVES. When Bolshevism stalked through once-mighty Russia, loosening the leashes which held the savage dogs of bloody revolution, and gripping greedily all its hands could hold, hundreds of the royal coterie clustered around the seat of Czardom fled in terror to the four corners of the earth. Hundreds more were slain. One of these fugitives was Eggerl, Prince of the house of Volkonsky, son of the Admiral-Prince of the Baltic Fleet. Fleeing to France, he escaped to Norway, and thence to the icebound expanses of the North, then down through the East to China. Today he is in Sydney, the bearer of a tale unique in the annals of romance, a millionaire prince with neither coin nor crown, an attache of the Czar eking out an existence with grassshears.

By way of preface, it is interesting to note that a story in last week's Sunday Times relative to the "hold-ing-up" of Monte Carlo by a Russian Admiral was the means of Volonsky disclosing the identity he claims. He informed the Sunday Times recently that he was at a loss to understand the origin of the report of the Monte Carlo incident. He was info'rmed that the Sunday Times was represented at a social gathering at which he related it, and then gave these picturesque details of his chequered life.

When the revolution first assumed serious proportions, the family escaped, but not until the elder of the two princes had been murdered. Previous to that Eggert was a student at the Royal Naval College at Kronstadt, and a frequently honoured guest at the Imperial Palace, Petrograd. They were separated —father, mother, a princess and Prince Volkonsy. They arranged to meet in Marseilles, but though the youngprince searched diligently for months, he was unable to learn more than the fact that his father—under an assumed name—had deposited five million roubles with a French bank. All efforts to release the money, or to locate the family have since failed.

WANDERINGS OF ROMANCE. Then, in the latter part of 1918, the prince went to Cambridge University, there meeting the Crown Prince of Siam, with whom he formed a warm friendship. Returning again to France the following year, he resumed the search for his family. But it was all futile. In his aimless wanderings, all haunted by the fiery eyes of Bolshevik spies, he met a French prince named Marat, and a Viscount Lore. They decided to go north, and so from Marseilles they travelled in a cargo steamer to Norway, then to Finland and Helsingfors, where they signed on as members of the crew of a fishing boat bound for the Arctic. They spent some time in the White Sea, but even here the clutching hand of Bolshevism reached, and they were arrested and sent to Siberia. PRISONERS IN SIBERIA. Volkonsky is guarded in his references to the horrors of this hell of the northland. All he would say was that they were given nothing but salt water for two weeks, at the end of which period a Russian commissar aided them to escape and to join a friendly band of Russians, who were organising an expedition to Mongolia. They changed their names, and some weeks later, after countless privations and horrible experiences, reached Tibet. Here they were befriended by an American missioner, who arranged for their despatch to Shanghai. There the roving triumvirate

parted, and the prince secured a job as engineer on the American cargo steamer West Iran, and sailed on her to Hongkong. WITH SIAM'S ROYALTY. The Russian Ambassador afforded him protection as far as Siam, and his friendship with the Crown Prince was resumed. For two months he was his guest at the palace. An Englishman staying at the palace was Lord Hamilton, and the peace of the little kingdom was the first he had experienced since Russia began to run red.

One day a parly, including the Crown Prince, Lord Hamilton and Prince Volkonsky, set out on a tigerhunting expedition in the treacherous jungles north of Rangoon. Volkonsky became separated from the main party, and while watching game-dis-turbing rockets fired by the boys in the vanguard, a tigress, with two cubs following, leaped at him from behind a high thicket and buried its fangs in his left upper-arm. He was borne to the ground, helpless. But a bullet from Lord Hamilton's rifle killed the tigress. The cubs meanwhile had scampered away like frightened kittens. HIS DUCHESS IN SYDNEY. The Prince says he was in hospital for months, and then received a cable from Sydney—signed by his fiancee, Duchess Kootusova —asking him to leave for Australia and meet her here. In Burma he had been given, as valet, a native youth, and the morning he was to leave his hotel at Bangkok to board the Marella for Sydney, the boy mysteriously disappeared with all the Prince's belongings and over £SOO. Fortunately, however, his tickets were in a pocket of his dress suit, which he had worn at a dance the previous night, and he was obliged to wear the dress clothes until he had boarded the ship. Just before reaching Sydney, nearly three months ago, he developed smallpox. This was responsible for a month's quarantine at North Head.

In Sydney he was faced by the mystery of the disappearance of the Duchess, but since has learned that she sailed for America via New Zealand. Meanwhile the homeless Prince is penniless. For the past few weeks he has been eking out a bare existence by clipping lawns at (he Flemington home of a well-known business man! His white hands, once as soft as velvet, are calloused and torn, but in spite of them he has executed one or two miniature sculpture works. His education embraced the Arts, and he has visited Mr Nelson Illingworth on several occasions."CZAR STILL LIVES." This friendless young Russian declares that the Czar and his son still live. He declines to disclose the reasons for his belief, but affirms that the Czar's daughter, the Grand Duchess Tatiana, is at present in Los Angeles, where she will shortly marry an American millionaire.