Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna of Russia

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Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna of Russia (Olga Nikolaevna Romanova) (In Russian Великая Княжна Ольга Николаевна), also known as Olishka or Olya. (November 3 (O.S.)/November 15 (N.S.) 1895 – July 17, 1918), was the oldest daughter of Nicholas II of Russia and Empress Alexandra of Russia. She was the oldest sister of the Grand Duchesses Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia of Russia, and of Tsarevich Alexei of Russia. Her paternal grandparents were Alexander III and his consort Maria Fyodorovna. Her maternal grandparents were Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine and Princess Alice of the United Kingdom. She is also the great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha on her mother's side.

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She was christened in the chapel at the Catherine Palace. Her godparents were The King of Denmark, The Grand Duke of Hesse, Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich of Russia, The Dowager Empress of Russia, The Queen of the United Kingdom, The Empress of Germany, The Queen of Greece, and Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia.

She was known for her compassionate heart and desire to help others, but also for her temper and blunt honesty. Olga loved to read anything she could get her hands on. She enjoyed reading about politics and read newspapers. Olga also loved her mother's book selection. She would usually take a book before her mother read it and tell her "You must wait, Mama, until I find out whether this book is a proper one for you to read."

Before World War I, there was some discussion of a marriage between her and Prince Carol of Romania, but Olga did not like Carol and the plans were, in any event, put on hold upon the outbreak of war. Prince Edward, eldest son of England's George V, and Crown Prince Alexander of Serbia were also suitors.

During World War I the whole family served a part in the war. and it eventually took a toll on them all. She knew the financial and political state of the country during the war and during the revolution as well. She even knew how the Russian people disliked her mother and father. She was very close to her brother during the war.

The Russian parliament, before Nicholas's abdication, hoped for her to be regent for her brother Alexei. She was twenty-two when she was murdered with her family at the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg on July 17, 1918, after a year of imprisonment following the February/March Revolutions of 1917. The assassination was performed by forces of the Bolshevik secret police under Yakov Yurovsky. Olga made the sign of the cross along with her mother before the firing started. Gripping her sister Tatiana she watched, screaming at the murder of her father, mother, and two servants before the executioner's turned on her, her siblings, and the remaining servants. Alexei was the first to fall and Olga witnessed Yurovsky himself pull Tatiana from her arms and shoot her younger sister through the head directly in front of her. Covered in her sister's blood Olga was ambushed by her mother's executioner military commissar Peter Ermakov who threw her backward firing a direct shot into her jaw which tore through her head. Olga was dead before she fell to the floor.

In 2000, she and her family were canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church.

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