Natalya Alexandrovna Pushkina-Dubelt, Countess Merenberg

She lived a long and brilliant life of a noble society lady. She gave balls and receptions, parties and dinners. Everyone called her - Countess Natalie, "the radiant princess." She was really a princess, as she was the morganatic wife of Prince Nicholas Wilhelm of Nassau. I spent half my life abroad. And she hardly remembered her father, the great Russian poet Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. Her grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren became related not only with the Romanov family, but also with the English ruling dynasty of Windsor. It is not so easy for an ordinary admirer of the poet's talent to contemplate documents, notes, diaries, albums. All this is behind seven seals with the royal arms. Great-great-great-granddaughter of Alexander Sergeevich, Duchess of Westminster Natalie is the godmother of the current Prince of Wales, William, grandson of the reigning Queen Elizabeth II. Natalya Alexandrovna Pushkina-Dubelt, Countess Merenberg, lived a long and vibrant life. She taught her children to speak Russian, and this ability and interest in Russian roots, lively and genuine, was preserved among her distant descendants. They cannot visit her grave, since the ashes of the Countess-Princess are scattered in the family crypt, over the coffin of her husband. So she indicated in the will, knowing that, due to the strangeness of the estate laws, she would be denied the privilege of lying next to her husband, who sacrificed much for her. But in her apartments, in the palace-museum, there are always fresh flowers. There is also a room in the palace where a portrait of her father, Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, hangs on the wall in a gilded frame. Opposite is a portrait of another relative - Emperor Nicholas I. They look at each other - two contemporaries. And in the sumptuous halls of the Wiesbaden Palace I recall Pushkin's strangely prophetic words, or rather a poetic quote: "Pushkin's were with the tsars ..." It was destined to come true, it comes true further.