Chachara

While the Kshesinskaia mansion contained over two dozen rooms, there were ten principal areas that defined Kshesinskaia (and the Russian aristocracy in general). While dedicated to different uses, these rooms shared overlapping themes of space usage: they evoked a world of financial abundance, of great cultural sensibility, of cosmopolitan tastes, of expectations of leadership within a ritualizedelite and the classes beneath it. The first of these spaces would be the rooms that first greeted the visitor, including the foyer and winter garden. From the very first step, the house was meant to impress. Entering the main doorway, the visitor entered a circular marbled foyer of classical design, signifying Kshesinskaia’s pretensions to traditional aristocratic values. It was flooded withlight, thanks to dramatic one and a half story windows, and on closer inspection, proved again the wealth of the owner, with an array of different colored marble in the lower wall and floor, and an ormolu chandelier from Paris above.35 To the left, however, was her nod to fashion: the entry to Kshesinskaia’s multi-story winter garden, the private greenhouse whose iron frames one could gawk at fromstreet level. Inside the winter garden, exotic plants like wisteria, ivy, honeysuckle, and even tall palms proved again the wealth of the owner; the goal was to evoke the “natural terrain” of a gazebo, according to the architect.36 These rooms were of great significance in establishing the immediate character of the home and its owner. Kshesinskaia herself spoke repeatedly with the Russian pressabout how she used her marble foyer for dancing practice, making her home a “shining” temple of art. The drawings accompanying one article depicted in Kshesinskaia mid-dance on the foyer’s marble floor.37 The foyer served as another kind of stage as well. Receiving—greeting guests and going as guests—was a daily practice for the Russian nobility, geared to confirm their status in each other’s eyes. Byspending the time to go to an “at home,” ritualized visits in which aristocrats called upon each other, one validated the owner’s position of social importance; by being received, one in turn was confirmed as belonging to the elite. Visits generally took place in the early afternoon. One British visitor described the aristocrats as near vampires, rising so late that it appeared they “[wished] toexclude the light of day as far as possible.”38 This routine, mostly performed by the women, went like this: Every afternoon, Mama and I got into a closed carriage and drove from house to house, leaving cards or attending at-homes [weekly receptions]. We generally managed fifteen to twenty calls from two o’clock to seven. It meant hastily divesting oneself of one’s fur coat and felt overshoes andstaying for some fifteen or twenty minutes at the most.39 Four days a week, aristocrats performed this rush from house to house, saving one day for their own “at home”—an open house of approximately twenty seven in which the hostess (or host) would make himself/herself available and have tea and sandwiches ready for guests.40 While men could avoid these functions (heading instead to the stockexchange on Vasil’evskyi Island or a men’s club), women were always expected to be in attendance on these daily rituals. The hostess’ function was to have a “sweet smile and a pleasant word for all,” and age was no excuse; by the age of seven, a child was expected to be able to welcome the guests and carry on a conversation.41 Although the idea of the “at-home” was an informal meet-and-greet, thestandards were exacting, reflecting the importance of ritual to this class. Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, for example, “received at the head of her marble staircase, inevitably dressed in a black satin gown and wearing a magnificent wheat and oak leaf cluster diamond tiara atop her head.”42 Aristocrats were expected to be gracious and hospitable, demonstrating their natural social leadership....