Alexander Palace

This guide to Alexander Palace outside Saint Petersburg opens on Nicholas the Second, thirteen days after signing away the Russian throne in the spring of 1917, returning here not as emperor but as a guarded prisoner the new government called colonel Romanov. You'll hear how Catherine the Great built the palace as a wedding gift for her grandson, why Nicholas chose it over the Winter Palace after 1905, and how his daughter Olga was born within its walls. The guide follows him outside under armed watch, to the small plot of ground where he took up ordinary labor with his own hands.