A trove of documents detailing the private lives of Russia's Romanov family has returned home 100 years after the 1917 revolution.

The archive contains telegrams about hunting parties, anguished letters, photographs and drawings during the period of the Bolshevik takeover.

The collection was secreted to Europe by members of the royal family who fled the chaos and persecutions of the revolution which saw Vladimir Lenin seize power.

It was bought in July by the state-owned Sberbank Russian bank, which acquired the entire archive for 70,000 euros ($84,000). The owner and seller did not want to be identified.

The items on display contain anguished letters, photographs and drawings during the period of the Bolshevik takeover

There was a growing sense of foreboding among members of the royal family in the years leading up to the revolution with many aristocrats predicting that events were likely to end violently

Correspondence has previously gone on display which includes this letter written by a duchess who escaped the execution of other members of the royal family in 1918. She spent the remainder of her life embittered against the British for not saving her relatives from 'cold blooded devils'

Tsar Nicholas II with his wife Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna (background), the Tsarevitch (2nd from right) and his four daughters, the Grand Duchesses in 1914. A century after Russia's last Tsar and his family were executed, some of their correspondence has gone on display

The family of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia (1868-1917): Front, L-R: Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna; Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna; Grand Duchess Olga; Two unknown women. Second row: Czar Nicholas; Grand Duke Michael. Third row: Unknown soldier (Undated photo)

Several members of the Russain imperial family were accomplished artists, including Alexander III's daughter, Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna (1882-1962) whose enjoyed painting water colours

Most of the family of Tsar Nicholas II (left) were killed by the Communists after he abdicated in 1917

'These archives are of huge interest to researchers. We were lucky to find them,' she said.

The collection consists of:

More than 200 pieces dating from 1860 to 1928

Letters written by Russia's last Tsar, Nicholas II

Letters written by other family members

Drawings and photographs by members of the royal family

The collection can now be seen at a museum in Tsarskoye Selo, the former summer residence of the tsars, on the outskirts of Saint Petersburg. It goes on display as Russia marks the centenary of the end of royal rule.

The documents are written in Russian, French and English on paper that has yellowed over time. But their age does not mask the privileged and pampered lives that were enjoyed by Russian royalty.

Death of a dynasty Nicholas II abdicated his throne in 1917 as revolution swept Russia. He and his family were placed under house arrest in Tsarskoe Selo, then evacuated to Tobolsk in the Urals in August that year. The Bolsheviks came to power in October 1917 and by March 1918 the family were forced to live on soldier's rations. The next month, the Red Army moved the Romanovs to Yekaterinburg. There were plans to put Nicholas on trial, but these were scuppered when the city became the target of the rival anti-communist White Army. The Bolsheviks decided to shoot the entire family on July 17 so they could not be rescued by the White Army. They woke them, told them to get dressed and pretended they were being moved from Yekaterinburg away from the oncoming battle. They were shot in a basement and their bodies buried in a pit near the city. Their remains were reburied in 1998 by the Russian government, who gave them a state funeral. Advertisement

In a telegram to his daughter Ksenia just before he died in 1895, Alexander III moans about a disappointing shooting expedition.

'This is not going very well. But I have hunted and killed eleven pheasants,' he wrote.

The tome of the letters gets blacker as the revolution approaches and the tumultuous events of 1917 unfold - from the fall of the royal family to the Communist seizure of power by the end of the year.

'All relations with the revolutionaries are ruined,' Grand Duke Nikolai Mikhailovich, Nicholas II's uncle laments on the day before Lenin's revolutionary forces stormed the Winter Palace.

'It is likely that the Bolsheviks will win.'

Things only got worse by the start of the next year as the new authorities launched a crackdown on the members of the royal family.

'We continue to descend down a slope and it is not difficult to imagine what awaits us,' the grand duke writes with growing despair.

'Alas, all of our friends are awaiting a place where there is neither joy or regret,' he recorded in his final letter in February 1918.

Several months later in July the Bolsheviks executed Nicholas II and his family in the central Russian city of Yekaterinburg.

Mikhailovich was shot six months later along with his brother and cousins in Saint Petersburg.



