The Lives Of The Romanovs

The Charity Work

Tatiana

After I contracted Spanish Flu, my energy was never the same. I overcame my fever, cough, and whatnot. But I still just wanted to lay in bed and sleep all day. I found myself going to bed at 21:00 and waking up at 08:00. Mama and Papa were fine with it as they knew what I had been through the last couple of weeks, but still felt guilt for not helping out with my siblings enough.

"Olga, do you think I do enough?" I asked while sitting in the bathtub. Olga sat next to the bathtub and read her book. We liked to do this so we could speak to one another.
"Whatever do you mean?"
"Do you think I help with our siblings and with our parents enough? Because I cannot help but feel-"
Olga slammed her book on the ground.
"Tatiana Nikolaevna Romanova, you quite literally help our entire family with every chore and every other need. Remember just a couple weeks ago when we were all sick? You were there to help us recover!"
I groaned. "I know, but I feel like I can do more. Maybe I need to not think about what I can do for the family but what I can do for Russia."
Olga shrugged. "Listen, I've been asking myself the same thing for one-month now. All I need is for my Mitya to come back to me and then life will be good again.
I slumped down in the water and started to think about what I could do to help. I was donating some money to help keep medical supplies moving to hospitals here in Petrograd and Moscow. Then, an idea came to my head.
"Olga! What if we became nurses again?"
Olga started to chuckle. "Tatiana, I was a terrible nurse. Do you remember when I broke that window because of my panic attack?"
"Yes, but then they moved you to office work! Listen, we can go to the closest hospital and help. As Russian Grand Duchesses, we need to do more for our country."
Olga sighed. "I understand that. I shall only return to office work if we have Papa's permission."

I confronted Papa that afternoon and had a sit down with him over becoming a nurse again. He was a bit hesitant to let me be a nurse at a hospital in one of the cities, but he obliged later on. Papa told me that the only way Olga and I could go to one of the hospitals is if we brought two Imperial officers with us to guard the place and make sure no one would hurt us. It seemed unreasonable and unlikely someone would try and hurt us. But I guess it was for safety precautions.

That Friday, Olga and I got in the car to go Petrograd. There had been a hospital for the sick that was willing to take Olga and I for work on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Sundays were days we needed to have off. I stared out the window as we traveled into the city. But it was not the glorious city I had remembered hearing about.
I first saw a mother on the street wearing a head scarf and dress while holding her baby. She was very skinny. The three children that ran down the road too were laughing, but were as thin as spaghetti noodles. My eyes started to tear up.
"Olga...are you seeing this?" I gulped.
"Yes, I am...how awful. But I had known conditions in Russia were like this for quite sometime. I just thought that with the war over by now that it would be better."
I looked at her and scoffed. "Olenka, you knew?! And you didn't say anything?"
"I confided into Monsieur Gilliard about it. I just couldn't hurt Papa and Mama by telling them that country is failing."
"Listen, we must do something! When we get home tonight, we can open up soup kitchens all around Petrograd and hand out blankets-"
Olga took my hand. "Tatiana, it is no use. Papa doesn't exactly understand what it's like out here, and maybe that's for the best." I turned my head back towards the streets to continue looking at how dirty the buildings were and how skinny the Russians people were too.
"Dear Tatiana...when will you learn that you just can't save everyone?"

I walked upstairs to the second floor of the hospital. Olga was left downstairs to be trained on how to do more office work. The inside of the hospitals were rather dirty and rundown still. Wood planks covered windows that were broken. I found an old man with a large gray-mustache and circle-wired glasses standing over a patient and looking at a clipboard.
"Excuse me, sir?" I whispered. He looked up and gasped. He walked around the bed to be in front of me. He bowed at me.
"Your imperial highness, it's lovely to meet you."
"Oh please, just call me Tatiana Nikolaevna. And there's no need to bow. I wish to be treated like every other nurse here. I'm assuming you are Doctor Ivanov?"
He smiled and nodded. "The one and only. So, let's get started." He said. Doctor Ivanov and I started to walk around the hallways together.
"So, how old are you again?"
"I'm 21-years-old."
"And you were a nurse during the war, yes?"
"Yes, sir. I can inject people with medication and assist other doctors in surgery. And if there's something I do not know, I am willing to learn."
Doctor Ivanov chuckled. "Well, you must have a will to learn in order to be in the medical fields. Tatiana Nikolaevna, you are a very brave and kind woman. But it's quite different from the war. Will you be able to handle it when a ten-year-old girl comes in because she's dying of malnutrition and you cannot save her?"
I immediately stopped walking. He furrowed his eyebrows at me.
"I...I got a good look at the streets on the way to hospital today. Is this really what the rest of Petrograd looks like outside of Tsarkoye Selo?"
Doctor Ivanov sighed. "Unfortunately, it's much worse than it seems. Hundreds of thousands are living in cramped homes and starving to death. Many come in here but do not have the money to afford it. I'm one of the lucky few."
With all of that considered, something in me knew I had to do more than just be a nurse. I needed to dedicate all of my time to Russia now. The only question was how?