page_title: Anna Vyrubova
section_title: Later life
hierarchical_section_title: Anna Vyrubova / Later life
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Анна Вырубова
context_page_description: Anna Alexandrovna Vyrubova; 16 July 1884 – 20 July 1964 was a Russian lady-in-waiting, the best friend and confidante of Tsarina Alexandra Fyodorovna.
context_section_description: Sick with measles, Anna Vyrubova was arrested on 21 March 1917 and underwent five months of prison in the Peter and Paul Fortress, which included a medical examination to prove her virginity. The interrogation on her political role started on 6 May. Vyrubova admitted she saw Rasputin once or twice a week but feigned a childish innocence. The investigator concluded that she was too naïve and unintelligent to have had any influence over the Tsarina.
  In Anna's own memoirs, she describes her perils in prison and her narrow escape from execution when, miraculously, she met several old friends of her father on a St. Petersburg street who helped her escape. She endured much hardship avoiding the Bolsheviks, and she was able to escape to Finland only in December 1920. Before leaving the Soviet Union, she became friends with the revolutionary writer Maxim Gorky, who urged her to write her memoirs; she followed his advice. She met with Zinaida Gippius, Alexander Blok and Valery Bryusov. Her memories of life at court provided rare descriptions of the home life of the Tsar and his family. No one understood Rasputin and Alexandra better than Anna did. She tells a good story but does not seem to tell the truth.
  Vyrubova spent the rest of her life first in Viipuri and later in Helsinki. She took vows as a Russian Orthodox nun but was permitted to live in a private home because of her physical disabilities. She died at 80, in Helsinki, where her grave is located in the Orthodox section of Hietaniemi cemetery.
caption: Anna Vyrubova in Helsinki in 1957
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