Latest / Beheaded / Ella Disenchanted in Imperial Russia | Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine

Transcript

Ella Disenchanted in Imperial Russia | Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine · Beheaded

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to Beheaded.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to season six, episode 11.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Megan Moore.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm Elizabeth Black.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: And we actually have some really difficult news to have to start with.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Pretty tragic.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: This is normally how I start off bad conversations with a team member.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, to a one-on-one.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I know this is really tough to say, actually.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: So so bear with us for a sec, but we do have some bad news.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, tomorrow is the last day of the Renaissance Festival.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: Of the Arizona Renaissance Fair.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: And we haven't been.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_02: And we didn't go at all this time.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: Did I getcha?
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: Did I get you?
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: We're not quitting, but we are terrible runnies right now.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_02: I know.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like embarrassing.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: We normally we even have the conversation every year of like, do we get a Ren Fair pass?
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_02: Because that's how often we go or intend to go.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_02: We normally go three times at least.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_02: With like maybe three to four.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean, we've talked about Megan started a new job.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: I don't even know what I've been doing the last month, but you're training for a marathon.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but you always do training but like the Renaissance fair like helps with your her your um endurance.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: Endurance.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: It does.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: It's an all-day event in the gravel.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: It is, I just I don't know.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have I don't have the Renny spirit in me this year.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have an excuse for not going?
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: I norm no, I have no excuse.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, yeah, I've been working, but I can take a weekend, a day off.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's what also makes it hard though, is like it's only offered, like it's only open on Saturday and Sunday.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_02: And it's only here for like four weeks.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: So you basically only have eight days to not be busy, and you have to make a whole day of it.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: It is but I have I I can do it.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's just I know.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: I know you can't.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's physically exhausting.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: I've been very mentally exhausted, and I normally I can't wait for the Renaissance Festival.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: I even bought a new outfit last year that I haven't even worn yet.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: You did.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um I was gonna wear your old dress.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: And look at us now.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: No dresses, no dresses, no spirits.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: I just I'm just no souls.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: I I want to um I mean it's always gonna be there.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: It will.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: This is the first time for me since 2012 that I haven't been.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_02: 13 years, Megan.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: What the fuck did you do?
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: Is this bad luck?
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: Am I gonna break?
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: Is this am I gonna curse something?
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_02: Ooh.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's either really good luck or extremely bad.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna have to consult with a psychic.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's kind of scary.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: But tomorrow's our last chance, and I I haven't even washed my outfit from last year.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: I can't, it's not clean.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: I can't go.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, like my under stuff, my not the new stuff, but my chemise and everything.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: You still have moldy bread in your back.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think I ever washed them.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: I just threw them in the closet.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, eh, I'll dry clean everything before we go again.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we always wear like tights under our dresses, and those get super dusty and gross.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_02: Mine's washed, but I'm sure mine's still dirty.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_02: I respect your decision to not wash until you need it.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: Just soak in the renaissance sense.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_02: I was gonna say, if you're bored tomorrow, you can just go and just scoop up your dress and act like you're there.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: Is it also just me?
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like the Arizona Renaissance Festival, every single year, it gets more crowded and there's less of uh people dressed up.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: I think we think that because we're really into it, but I don't know if it's necessarily changed.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I also think it depends on time of day because Robbie and I commented last year when we went, like we were there at a very specific time with his mom, and he was like, We need to be there like as soon as it opens.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: And we loved the whole morning there.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: We were pretty much out by midday because we had done everything we wanted to do, like had some great food, saw the jousting at noon, and then we left.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_02: So and we commented, like, oh, it feels lighter right now.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: But by the time we were leaving, it was pretty cold.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_02: It was getting crowded.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, I think it is again what weekend you go, what time of day, who you go with, and sometimes people really get dressed up and in spirit, and other times it's just a lot of normies.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: The normies, which I appreciate them getting out of their comfort zone if that's not something that they've been to before, they're used to.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: And it is kind of fun when people I feel like are more impressed by your outfits because they're not used to seeing something so elaborate because we do go all out, like, you know, very corset.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, very like thick fabrics and everything.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I don't know, maybe we should consider a different festival this year.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_02: Like go on the road?
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: There's really good ones across the country.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: Texas has a big one I've never been to.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's the one that the documentary was about, wasn't it?
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: And on Love on the Spectrum, they go there.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: About the autistic.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't seen that lovely show.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: And what's funny is in the clips where they're there, I recognize some of the performers or the actors because they travel around in air.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and you're like, oh, no, no, not that documentary.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: You're thinking of what was that weird.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was just called Renfare, wasn't it?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: It was terrible, that documentary.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was like it was like sleazy.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: Even it's like the circus life that they made it look really creepy.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: It was very, it had a weird feeling.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: We thought we would really get into that show and be like, oh, this is like pure Renny, you know, indulgence.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I will say every year I try to make it a point to go with like my Renny crowd and then like my normie crowd.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I like seeing the difference.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I like seeing what the normies say about everything.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: Is it good?
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's always good.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's just they just don't know certain things, so they'll be like, oh, like torture museum, like who would go in there?
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, oh my god.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_02: They have no idea.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: That's literally why this podcast started.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: I've been with someone before who hated it.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, sorry, you don't have to say who.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's fine.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, remember when we went with Jake and other people, our neighbors?
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the neighbors came.
• 6:02
  unknown: Okay.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: And he kept trying to, he went off with Jake and he was like, dude, like, let's go.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: This is really weird.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: I remember.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: And he was making fun of everyone, and he was like, you don't, he's like, you're not really into this, are you?
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: Jake's in like full costume.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, no, no.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: She makes me dress like this man.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: I don't even like it.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he was like trying to be cool, and then he I'm I was proud of Jake.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: I think finally he was kind of like, you know what?
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: This is fun for me.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to go, that's fine.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm I'm here to have fun.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: I just like like whatever you like about it, just lean into it.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_02: Like, if you love just the food, great.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: Love just the food.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_02: Try all the food.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_02: Like if you love just the jousting, like, cool.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: Make your day all about the joust.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: The shopping, the shopping, all the vendors.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: The shopping by by itself could be enough of a draw because the vendors are so creative and there's so much artistic talent.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: Like, there's so many things you can like about it.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_02: So for someone to come and be like, I don't like any of this, you're like, then you don't like life.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: You don't like happiness.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_02: You don't like jugglers.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_02: Who doesn't like a good juggler?
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_02: You don't like giant drums being beaten at the end of the day.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: Like, there's certain elements you can like no matter who you want.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: There's something for everyone.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, so if you have good recommendations of maybe we should hit the road and yeah, if we want to go to California, uh Texas.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: The Central Coast one is cool.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: I've been there.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's really small, but it's like in a really cool area.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_02: And obviously it's gonna be like 120 degrees here this summer.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: Perfect.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: So let's get out of here.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_02: Let's go rent fair the right way somewhere else.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_02: Colorado is.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: I mean Arizona.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: We don't need Arizona.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_02: The one I grew up in.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, let's do that one.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: Colorado.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: Hey.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna top this.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: We will figure this out.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: Let us know your recommendations.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: If you guys have suggestions, you let us know.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe we'll do a little meet and greet.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: Tell us who has the best run fare.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: Good.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: We want to know.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: DM us now.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'm waiting for you.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for your time.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: Looking at my message.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's not live yet.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, what are what else are you doing?
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: Running?
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: You run a lot?
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, run a lot.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_02: But I only have two weeks of training, so thank God.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I've been actually going to a lot of fun shows recently.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: Cool.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: You have been.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: I went to Jersey Boys last week.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: Phenomenal show.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: The Phoenix Theater.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, which is being redone if you're in the Phoenix area, like new venue, like they need your support.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but really amazing show.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: Whoever was the guy playing Frankie Valley, like perfect voice.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_02: Perfect voice.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I last night I went and I saw a comedy show, and it was Jerry Seinfeld and Jim Gaffigan.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's good.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: Were they on stage together or they did separate they kind of skits both.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: Not skits, you know.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: They have like what do they call it?
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: What is comedy?
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, they're like stand-up.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_02: They're like your stand-up.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: They're they're special.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: Session.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: There's a word for it.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: Never mind.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm monologue.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I don't know.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: No, there's a word for it.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_02: I know there is a word for it, and I can't think of what it is.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_02: You know, their hour-long show.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: The show.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there was an opener, and then they both came out on stage.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, cool.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I think they kind of like faked out the crowd.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: Like, hey, like, you know, being a comic's lonely.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: We decided we're gonna do this together.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_02: And it was like they were real their timing was off and it was really bad, but I think it was kind of intentionally bad.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: And then they're like, okay, let's just go.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: And then they're funny.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: Then they both start telling individual jokes at the same time.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: And then they're like, I don't think it's gonna work.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_02: So then they're like, okay, Jim Gaffigan, like you go first.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so Jim went first.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you can't do comedy with two people, really.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_02: And it was, we were at the Suns Arena downtown.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: We know.
• 9:20
  unknown: I'm just kidding.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: You take it from us, just teasing.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: But we were at the Suns Arena downtown, and it was a sold-out show.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, and that's a big stadium C was packed, like crazy.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I couldn't tell you who was funnier.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_02: I think I I think I laughed harder at Jim Gaffigan's, but like but Jerry Seinfeld has very like sophisticated comedy.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: I love Jim Gaffigan.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: I need a I think he just got his special up on um Netflix.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna have to watch it.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: He did say that.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: I always like so Jake and I used to go to a ton of comedy shows when we were like kind of newly dating into like the first five years of our relationship.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: And you were in Huntington Beach.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we were we were in California.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: We would go to the Irvine Improv, which was cool because a lot of the big people from like LA and stuff would come and test out material or whatever.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but we got really lucky because we like hit it off with a server once one night, and he gave us a stack of these cards that were called A Laugh on Us.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: And it was basically when they had enough tickets, you could just give them a card and they would just let you in.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like we just got a bunch of free tickets.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: But it was great because we saw a lot of people before they were big.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like um, Sebastian Manascalco, we saw him many times.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_02: And you have like a picture.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like pictures with him.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: Joe Coy.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: I was part of like because you know, when you set up clothes, they always like to use people in the audience.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: I was like a whole little thing with Joe Coy, and he was like going back and forth with me and stuff.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: Sebastian, too, was making fun.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: I was with a friend and we were young.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: We were like just turned 21, I think.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: And the bill comes around, and and I realized we were so in shock over our bill because when you're young and in college and everything's really well, I mean, it's still expensive, but especially it's expensive when you're in college.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: And we were weren't even listening.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: And he was like, Oh, he's like, Oh no, they got the bill, and everyone we didn't realize everyone was laughing at us.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: Because he was, and then he like got him, he's like, girls, let me see the bill, and like kind of did this whole thing with Sebastianic skull.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, and that's when afterwards he like took a picture and stuff with us.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: He actually has a really good skit that's like nowadays, like a modern skit where he talks about the group bill.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, that's basically before he had that, and he was making fun of us and he's like, Oh, they're young.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, Oh, I don't think they can they're trying to figure out how to split it.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: And we were oblivious that they were talking about us.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I love that.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_03: It was really funny, anyways.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: That's like one of my favorite skits.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, a comedy show is great.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: I and like it's one of those things where you go to one and you're like, I need to go to every comedy show now.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, if you're in the Phoenix area and have any good suggestions coming up, let us know.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, good, good live theater, and I love that.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: Cool, love the energy of it.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_02: Good for you getting out into the theater.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, you know, girls gotta go to the theater something.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: So much culture, you know, to try.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: Try my best.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_02: Cool.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, speaking of culture, speaking of a woman was very someone with very high culture tonight.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: That was a good transition.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I got it.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: I was on your wavelength.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: I was on your wavelength.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, wait, we're gonna talk about a very cultured woman here.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: A very prestigious, beautiful woman.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: And she goes by the name of Princess Elizabeth of Hess and by Rhine.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_02: Another Elizabeth.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_02: I know, we've had Elizabeth heavy accounts.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of Elizabeths.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: We should count all of our Elizabeths and line them up.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: And then rank them.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: Rank them according to how much we like them.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_02: Throw you in there.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_02: And then according to how brutal the execution was.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, spoiler alert, she gets executed.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um I know.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: It's shocking.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: You're listening to Beheaded.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I will say the one good thing about this Elizabeth is that she has a nickname that we can call her.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's not gonna be as confusing.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_02: So we're gonna call her Ella, because that was her fun family nickname.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but before we talk about that, we're just gonna give her a little background on who she was, why she's important, and all of that.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_02: So, of Hessen by Rhine, you'll notice sounds German.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_02: So she was in fact a uh, she was half German, half English, and she was very noble.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_02: She was born November 1st, 1864, and she was the second child of Ludwig IV, who was the Grand Duke of Hessen by Rhine, and the daughter of Princess Alice, who was the daughter of Queen Victoria.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_02: I love when things come around full circle.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: So, obviously, very, very prominent family by German standards and by English standards.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: I do love how there are so many.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna say Ludwig, because that's how they would say Ludwig.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: You're better at German pronunciation than me.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know any German, but um, I love that there were so many Ludwigs.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there were so many Ludwigs in the that dynasty that they had to restart the numbers at some point.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like they were on like 400.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, like they restarted back to like the first, the second, the third.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because they were like going far too far into it.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's a fun fact.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: Do you not think of Ludwig von Drake, the duck?
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um I should know this.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: Donald Duck's like German cousin or something, you know.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_02: I just I've seen the Donald Duck family tree, and I'm a little, I don't know as much about Ludwig.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: I know more about the whole song, and he's like, I am Ludwig von Drake, Ludwig von Drake, and he's German and he does this little like Ludwig thing.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: That's cute.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: He's a professor.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, just no, no, no.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: I know this because I've seen like the graphic.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: I've seen the graphic of the family.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_02: And he goes, okay, okay, one, two, three.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: He goes and he goes on the chalkboard and then he sings the song.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_02: Does he have a little like sport coat?
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he's a little professor with glasses.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: I think I know what he looks like.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: Anyways, whenever I see the name Ludwig, that song just comes into my brain.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe that's our outro.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: We keep the Disney references strong on the show.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_02: If you know, you know.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: If you know, you know.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but so to be clear about the family as well, you know, there there was uh several kids.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_02: So Ella, Elizabeth, she had uh quite a few siblings.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and the first daughter of the family was named Victoria in honor of Queen Victoria.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: That's it should be.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but Elizabeth was given the name of Elizabeth uh because of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, and that was the house of Hess like ancestress.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_02: I guess she was like a big icon in that house.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and Ludwig's mother was the Elizabeth of Prussia.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: So that's why they gave her the nickname Ella, because they're like, okay, at least they I'm I'm thankful when families do that because it's like, all right, we have a line of Elizabeths, you're also Elizabeth, but we're gonna call you Ella.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_02: Ella enchanted.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_02: Beautiful princess.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I think I think the parents, at least from what I understand in this story, were very responsible parents.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_02: Like they weren't just these aristocrats that left their child with a governess and never saw them.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: They made it very clear that they wanted all their children to be brought up very simply.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_02: So they were like, we're not gonna put them in like fancy garments, they're gonna be in simple frocks.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they're gonna learn uh really basic life skills and household skills.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_02: So they literally like ate just rice pudding and baked apples, um, and they were taught to bake, they were taught to make their own beds, they were taught to sweep, dusting, like good for them.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and not just like okay, make sure your room is tidy, like dust your room, like sweep the things like German, like start a fire, yeah.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: Germans raise their cat their kids very, very well behaved.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: Responsibly.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, responsible and well behaved.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: At least today I have noticed that.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_02: And and Princess Alice, um, so Ella's mother, made a comment, and I I don't have the exact quote, but she essentially said, like, even though they're born of nobility, they're gonna have large responsibility in their life.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_02: And the way to teach them responsibility is to give them these, like, you know, not glamorous chores.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_02: Which is great.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_02: And they they had an English nanny, and I very much picture it Mary Poppins-esque, where she's like, okay, like let's all clean our rooms.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: They have to learn to do things that they don't want to do though.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and apart from that, apart from the household stuff, they were also uh encouraged to visit hospitals and donate to charity and do all those things.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: So they weren't just in the house doing chores, they were also out in the community, kind of making a good name for the family.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um can I interject really quick too?
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: Of where where they're growing, growing up and everything.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: So Elizabeth, you, Elizabeth, Elizabeth Black, yes, uh, recommended um doing this story.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I was completely oblivious and then put the dots together, that this family grew up in Darmstadt, Germany, which is where I went last summer.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: That was the the town, the city, right?
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: I would call it almost like a village where I went.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, I've seen all of these places.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: I went through the palace that she grew up in.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: I we'll get to it later, but other places that she's been to, Darmstadt, I've seen as well, and I didn't even realize it.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: And then I got really excited.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, my friend Lisa, who I went to Germany with, Dr.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: Lisa.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: Dr.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: Lisa, her family all lives in Darmstadt.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's a beautiful, really, really cool city outside of Frankfurt, right?
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: Where their palace there, which still stands today and you can take tours of, is where a lot of other princesses went for like princess training.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: Princess training.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: They went which isn't that amazing.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: Because it's like they're teaching the kids very simple tasks, but also it's adjacent to like this princess training school.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um so it's great.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_02: Again, I feel like the whole like sentiment of it was like, let's bring up people in like the proper way, teach people responsibility, yeah, manners, you know, simple life things.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and yeah, and for those that don't know about Megan's trip, for because those the listeners that don't know about your trip, that was what uh what about it?
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm saying that was your Taylor Swift trip.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: That was that was when I saw Taylor in London, and but then we went to Germany afterwards, um, to because I went with Dr.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: Lisa and she was like, come meet my family in Germany.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, this is cool because it was it was a really interesting trip because I got to see everyday life.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for example, her family had a barbecue with all the neighbors, and it was like, okay, this doesn't feel touristy, this is what real German life feels like.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: And it was everyone was very nice, the food was delicious, but Darmstadt has a lot of history, and of course, Lisa loves history with us, so we did a lot of walking tours, and the palace was really cool.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: So as we're going through the story, I could I could envision it.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, I was there, I was there, I had photos of it.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_02: And please interject throughout the story if we reference a certain place.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: What are you saying?
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just saying, like, tell us, tell us what you remember of these places when we get to those parts in the story.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_02: I remember pretzels.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_02: When we get to those parts in the story.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: I remember beer and pretzels.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: Beautiful.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, and we'll see.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: I was gonna comment on one more thing about your trip, but then I lost it.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_02: Is it about Taylor Swift?
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: Moving on.
• 20:15
  unknown: Okay.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_02: Alright, so um, even though uh, you know, they had this very lovely upbringing, very tight-knit family, unfortunately every story has some tragedy woven in.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_02: Can't be that perfect.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_02: I know.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_02: So by the time Ella was about nine years old, so at this point it's 1873, um, she has a brother, Fred Friedrich, and Friedrich is a hemophiliac, so he already has like, you know, a whole laundry list of health problems.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_02: But he that year falls out of a window.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_02: Which feels very Game of Thronesy to me.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, what the hell makes it?
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_02: She's like, fuck.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, you're already a hemophiliac.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: So that means like you can't bruise yourself at all, right?
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like you're like glass right out of everything that could have happened.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: You fall out of a freaking window.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like you have one job is to just not fall over things.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: How do you fall out of a window?
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_02: I was gonna say, uh, the reason I said it feels very game Game of Thronesy is because like that sounds like someone pushed you out of a window.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_02: Somebody fall out of a window.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you think you'd be extra careful if you're a hemophiliac.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: You don't just spawn windows.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and with this like event, he didn't he didn't die right away.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: He he like landed, hit his head really hard, and then died of a brain hemorrhage.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_02: Like, yeah, and all of his bones probably quite shattered into glass.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so poor little guy, didn't have much of a shot.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's what it is, right?
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's what I'm thinking of.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: Hemophilia?
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_02: That's what it is.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean that's what when we talked about the Romanov episode.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Alexi, the young boy in the family.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_02: Because it runs in the family.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_02: Was a hemophilia.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we'll get to that because we haven't tied in that connection.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_02: There is a Romanov connection coming up.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_02: Good teaser, Megan.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_02: Who could it be?
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_02: But but yes, he had the same problem.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Problem and I believe it is kind of like a hemorrhage blood, you know, situation.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's gross.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so so that had happened, and then the eldest sister, Victoria, who we mentioned, right?
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_02: She's the one named after Queen Victoria.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, she got this really bad respiratory illness called, and you might say it better than me, diphtheria.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: Why would I say it better?
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: We're saying it all night.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: Diphtheria, I think.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_02: Diphtheria.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I don't know.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_02: So she got diphtheria, and because of her illness, she got every other child and their mother Alice sick.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_02: I know.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_02: So everyone now got this illness.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_02: The only one who didn't get sick was Ella, strong lady.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and they knew right away that they had to like separate all the children, like quarantine everybody, send everyone away from Victoria's room.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but by 1878, at this point, Ella's 14.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, November 16th, her sister Marie dies.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_02: And then December of that same year, Alice dies, the mother.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_03: Oh.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_02: So Princess Alice dies.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_02: She was only 35 years old at the time, Alice was.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_02: Seems so young.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_02: And we are 35.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: I am 35.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's so sad.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_02: I know.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a Imagine the guilt, you just got your entire family sick and they died.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_02: And Victoria, I mean, she survived this, but she was kind of the reason.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_02: Not, I don't want to say reason, I don't want to blame her, but she did introduce the sickness to the family.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so when Ella finally came back home after like all of this had taken place, she described seeing the rest of her family as terribly sad.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_02: And she said it felt like a horrible dream.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_02: So obviously she had this like wonderful upbringing until she was about nine years old, brother dies, family falls sick, and by the time she's 14, it's just like now we're kind of a family struck by a severe tragedy.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but that didn't stop her from still being a charming person, a very um kind of accommodating person, and a very lovely lady.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: Very likable.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, she was known to be one of the most beautiful women in all of Europe.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, not even just Darmstadt, not even just Germany, but just beautiful everyone who saw her.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: Her cousin, Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, was in love with her.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: Cousin love, cousin.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: Cousin love.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: He said she But he's her first cousin.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: First cousin said she was the most beautiful woman he's ever seen.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: And she denied him, which probably, you know, good good job, Ella.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: Good sense.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: But she had many suitors.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Frederick II, who was a grand duke, actually proposed to her.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: She turned him down as well.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: Good for you.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: There was another famous German poet who was in love with her.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone was just like falling to their knees in front of her.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, we'll post some photos of her.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: She was definitely pretty.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: Very unique looking.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_02: I think she had very like piercing eyes.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_02: Some weird bangs.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_02: I know Megan was like, well, look at her bangs.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, damn, Megan.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: She had good cheekbones.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, very light, nice cheekbones.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I wouldn't say she's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_02: Well, this is also like early, like late 1800s, early 1900s.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_02: That's true.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's like there's not a lot of beauty root.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: She was.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: But there was one man who stole her heart.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: Kinda.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: A little bit.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: He's the Grand Duke Sergei of Russia.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: You might need to elaborate a little bit more of the connections, but I do know that her grandmother, Queen Victoria of England, who we're very familiar with, she was not very pro-Russia and she didn't approve of the relationship at first.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: And eventually, though, they they've decided to follow your heart and go with true love and don't worry about the politics that goes behind it, or you know, being so afraid that it's gonna cause poor relations between different countries or anything like that.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: But they fell in love while in Darmstadt and they got engaged, and they were married on June 15th, 1884.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, and Ella was about 19 years old at the time.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: So you know, that's a good age for 1884.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_02: I was gonna say for that time, you know.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_02: Not bad.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: You're not 14.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um he ha so he had some connections to to nobility in Russia.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: He's his older brother was Tsar Alexander III.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of like a big flux.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, Tsar is the like Emperor King.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: He's basically resident.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he's like the little brother of the of the Russian king.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, basically.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: You know, she she didn't aim too low, I think.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: I think that was probably a good match for her.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: Doing pretty well, Ella.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so then there's some funny family connections, then because so Ella's younger sister is Alexandra.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: Alexi, that she also went by, right?
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: I think so.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: Who, if that sounds familiar, it should be because she goes on to marry Tsar Nicholas II once he comes onto the throne, and then this is the Romanov family.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: So Ella's younger sister is the mother of the Romanov family, of Anastasia.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: Go back to season one.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: And we're gonna, that episode we get into a lot more of the politics and the climate of what was happening and why they were sent to death.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, not to jump to the end of that part, but we all know what happened to the Romanov family.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: Hopefully.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: If not, you should look into it.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_02: I was gonna say one thing that was kind of a weird similarity, and I don't want to give too much away about our Romanov episode if you haven't listened to it.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but during their engagement, uh, Ella and Sergei's engagement, he was like showering her with jewelry and gifts, and at one point he like pinned all of the like brooches and things he was gifting her onto her at once.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_02: Like, look at all these pins.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_02: And she's like, Oh my gosh, like I look like a Christmas tree.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_02: Like, this is ridiculous.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like they were laughing about it.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_02: But on a dark note, in our Romanov episode, that's actually when the Romanovs were trying to like escape their situation.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_02: All the women put the jewelry on under their bodices, and it kind of served as like almost like body.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: The bullets were ricocheting off the diamonds when they were it was kind of firing squad.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_02: It was like a bulletproof vest.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's this weird, symbolic, like um, like prophetic moment thing.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_02: She's like, why would I ever wear all these at once?
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: Like, look what laughing about it.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then eventually they use that as like a safety guard.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: It was kind of creepy.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't even think of that until you said you're like, isn't that kind of ominous?
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: Very dumb.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: It was said that they had a very happy marriage.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: They very much loved each other.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: For the most part.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there were speculations that perhaps Sergei was was gay.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: Sir Sergei was gay.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: There you go.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: Possibly.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: We don't know.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: Only a little bit.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: I think people just speculate that because they had no kids.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's like the backup is like, well, if you're not having kids, it's because you're not interested in each other.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_02: And there were some, like, again, there were some people that said it looked like they were compatible and happy.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_02: And at this time it wasn't um common for people to like share the same bed, like married people, at least of that status.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so they did share same, like the same bed every night.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but it did say there was like no intimacy in their rel like in their marriage.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_02: And maybe it was just a very platonic, like it could have been just more friendly, you know, and maybe if he was in fact a homosexual, it's like, okay, well, he's just my great friend.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: I guess it was like they used to liked each other a lot.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, she liked him so much that she really wanted to commit to his religion, his nationality, and his family loved her.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: They loved Ella.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: The whole country was a fanatic over Ella when she showed up.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: When they did move um into when they moved to Russia, right, and her train had white roses all on it, and everyone was just cheering for her, and she had this big procession coming into St.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: Petersburg.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: They settled into St.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: Petersburg.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they had like, you know, she had this big golden carriage and was waving and everyone was just cheering.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: So she was welcomed very warmly to Russia, and she loved Russia.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: It did take her about seven years to make this a very serious decision, right?
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: Completely on her own, though, wasn't required.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: She did decide to convert to Russian or to be a Russian Orthodox.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: And that I think is a real testament to her wanting to have that closeness with her husband and with his culture and because he was very religious.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: They said he went to church more than he needed to, right?
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_02: Like almost every year.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I I read that she originally was Lutheran, but it also said that she was very devout Protestant.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_02: Hmm, interesting.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_02: But those aren't the same.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm not the expert.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: I might be.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't know.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_02: I think I read more things that said she was Protestant.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but when it was talking about her conversion, it was like, oh, she converted from Lutheranism.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, it's a little different, but I don't know for sure.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not an expert on that because I was raised Catholic, so I'm I'm not sure.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, Martin Luther was in fact Protestant.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, they all kind of wasn't that?
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so maybe.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: But he created Lutheranism as his own.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_02: You're right.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: But he was Protestant.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's not Catholic.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: Because when it was Catholic, somebody correct me on this because I don't know this.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_02: You know what we're to say confidently?
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, but she did convert to Russian Orthodox.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: I will say also, one of the really cool things in Darmstadt is they have, it seems out of place, but when Dr.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: Lisa was explaining to me, it made perfect sense.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: In this beautiful park area, there's this gorgeous Russian Orthodox church.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: And it looks like a piece of Russia just got moved into Germany.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's got the big turrets and it's very rounded and gold and elaborate.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_02: Very imperial.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: And she was explaining to me because the sisters moved to Russia to marry the Russian nobility and then they converted to Russian Orthodox, it was a place for them to come and worship with their families because they did come back to Darmstadt a lot to visit the family.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: And they were that was still their hometown.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: So this big elaborate church that we saw.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: Church, I guess that's the right word for Russian Orthodox.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, I thought that was like really cool.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: So that was because of the Romanovs, they did that.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: And it's still there today and it's still functioning and all of that.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_02: Like if my hometown was like, well, she loves Disney, so we're just gonna put a cute little mini Disneyland in her house.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: When she's back, she can celebrate here with us.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: Basically, that was the same thing.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_02: Same thing.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so when they were in uh Russia, they eventually moved from St.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_02: Petersburg to Moscow.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_02: And things at this point in history, this is about like 1891, 1892, start to get a bit like turbulent when it comes to just what's going on in like the political Russian landscape.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_02: This is also the same time where uh 20,000 Jews are being expelled from Russia.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_02: Never a good sign of things to come when things like that happen.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it was very strategic in how the Jews were being expelled.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_02: It because the government essentially planned it in like phases because they didn't want to alarm anyone by being like, hey, by the way, Jews are gone tomorrow.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_02: So what they did was they had a three-pronged approach.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_02: The first phase was only the Jews that are either childless or unmarried.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_02: So both of us.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm the Jew here, so it would have been.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, but I'm not If we were Jewish, if it were me, was it was it childless and or both or one or the other.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: And or so it was like me with my Jewish heritage, then I would have been gone.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_02: If you were unmarried, like okay, I say so perfect example.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_02: If I if I'm Jewish, I'm currently unmarried, I would be gone.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_02: But you as a married Jew would also be gone because you are childless.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna have to look into my now that I'm all into my heritage for the last episode.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: We were doing a lot about family heritage.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: I need to look down into my dad's route of like when did they leave Russia because we're Russian Jewish.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: That was our thing.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: It could have been then.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: Unless, unless one of my great-great-grandmothers stayed back for a reason because that was one of the conditions.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_02: Who knows?
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um, very cra very spooky, but this was their approach.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_02: So that was the first phase of Jews to leave.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, okay, don't no one freak out.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's just the childless and the unmarried.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_02: No one wants them anyway.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_02: Childless cat ladies go.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_02: And then the second um phase was families up to four members.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_02: So even if you were a married Jew with like, you know, two uh children, then you were forced to go next.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: Wait, wasn't it more than four?
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_02: No, four or less.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, you would think they'd want to get the big families.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's the third phase.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, sorry, I'll let you finish.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_02: It's okay.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, so phase one, childless and unmarried.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it was if you'd been there less than a couple years.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_02: And then phase two, families up to four, or if you were there less than six years.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_02: And then phase three was any like old Jewish family, like any Jewish settlement, everyone.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_02: Everyone.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_02: But that's why they did it in three because they didn't want to alarm everyone by being like, all the Jews are gone.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_02: It was like this phased approach where people are supposed to be more understanding.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: But where sorry, where I was leading in about my potential great-great-great-grandmother, whatever.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, there was a c a caveat that if a young woman was willing to stay to be a prostitute, oh yeah, she could stay.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm like, maybe my family did stay there.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: Who knows?
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's so fucked up.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: Isn't that terrible?
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you can stay, you just have to be a prostitute.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: But like what?
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: They hated Jews so much.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: Wouldn't why why would they want to sleep with?
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: Because men are disgusting and defiling and they don't they don't care.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I forgot about that.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: You forgot about the men.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: I forgot about that piece.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: It makes sense.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_02: So terrible though.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_02: Really terrible.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and what can confused me about this whole story, and we'll talk about this more at the end, but Ella has always been a very like charitable, caring person, and there's just like no commentary on what she thought during this period of time.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't like she was like, she stood up to her husband and was like, no, like this isn't right.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of strange that like she's charitable in the beginning of her life.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_02: We'll get into end-of-life stuff, but it's like during this whole phase of Jewish expulsion, she just kind of sits by idly.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_01: I would love to know her reaction to it.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: It actually did a lot of damage just financially as well to Russia.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: They lost about a hundred million rubles from it between the trade and um well and like people not production.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: And then yeah, and then for businesses that had Jewish employees and they were leaving, it actually did more.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: If anything, on yes, on a moral aspect, it's terrible, but also on a financial aspect of the wealth of the city, it plummeted.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: So none of it was good.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, Sergei was considered head of military, basically.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: His his actual title again was Grand Duke, but he basically oversaw military, so he definitely had a huge say and a huge amount of participation in this decision to expel 20 million Jews from the country, absolutely.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and uh and just around this time, too, 1894, is when uh Ella's sister, Alexandra, she gets married to Tsar Nicholas II.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_02: So just to put that in perspective, so over here in Russia, you have the Jewish being like expelled.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_02: Over here in Russia, you have this Romanov family coming to power.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_02: So this is when obviously there starts to be talks of revolution.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_02: There starts to be high.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_02: Tensions are high, people are like, what can we do?
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_02: We don't like these families coming into power.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_02: And they just saw all of this family as just one big conglomerate, like that's just like torching Russia.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_02: They're like, they're destroying our country, they're weakening our economy, and they're sending people out of here.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like, this is they didn't have fans necessarily.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and particularly the Socialist Revolutionary Party did not like Sergei.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_01: They knew they wanted to assassinate him.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: Specifically, we're gonna talk about a guy named Ivan Kalyavekka.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: Perfect.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_01: Kalya Kalya.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's all you because I didn't write his name down.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, we're gonna call him Ivan.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh February 15th, 1905, he has a plan that he is going to assassinate Sergei.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_01: The whole family is attending a concert, and he realizes though, that there were children in the carriage.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: And they're going to Jim Gathigan and I I should mention, even though Ella and Sergei didn't have kids, they still really liked kids.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and they like threw parties for children.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they had these big parties and they pretty much like adopted one of their nieces and nephews on Sergei's side of the family.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so that I mean, in a sense, they had a family, they just didn't have their own kids.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but it was kind of nice that Ivan was like, no, no, no, Nazi children.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_02: Nazi children.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: So not today.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: But then at this point, there knew they knew that there was a threat.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_01: A threat to the family, and Sergei knew that his family wasn't safe and he wasn't safe.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_01: So he tried to stay away from them and keep things as separate as possible.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_01: So on February 17th, two days later, two days later, he had he met his wife for lunch because they were staying separately, and then he was getting in a carriage to go back to the governor's mansion.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: It was at about 2.25 p.m.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_01: to be exact.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's very specific.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_01: Half the time.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so Ivan, yes, who Megan just mentioned, uh, he goes and throws a nitroglycerin bomb into essentially Sergei's lap.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_02: He like throws it into the carriage and it lands in Sergei's lap.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: He was only four feet away from him, too.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like he basically just tossed it into the window.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_01: And took it.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_01: And blows.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_02: Took a hit, too.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_02: Blows immediately.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_02: And it, I mean, it killed it killed Sergei instantly, obviously.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's a bomb.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it was so graphic that even his fingers were found on like nearby rooftops.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like, and they still had rings on them, like just graphic explosion.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_02: And unfortunately, Ella is there to witness it.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_02: Like, she's close enough to see this happen.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_01: She she like she like hears the bomb and instantly she goes, Sergey, and like runs over and sees that it's his carriage.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_02: And she was said to have ran over and like amid the kind of the blood and the gore, she's like gathering up his remains.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: You have to be in a weird state of mind to do that.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_01: They said she was she looked upset, but they said she was very collected.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_01: They said she was basically stunned.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_01: Because it was during winter there was snow.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_01: So the blood was all over the snow.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_01: And his body parts and remains were in every direction.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: And like Elizabeth said, even up on the roof, they found body parts.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_02: His like bits of leather and fur that of what he was wearing, just like pieces everywhere.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_01: Nearby, somebody had a stretcher that would have been used for like a soldier, kind of, and she just starts putting his remains on the stretcher.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like just scooping everything.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_01: Just kind of collecting him up.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I can't imagine.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_01: Quietly without really saying, which is just a really spooky vision.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_01: I do feel bad for her.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's like really terrible.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's gotta give you some PTSD to see that.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, a thousand percent.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, on the eve of his funeral, she wants to meet Ivan.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_01: And this is a real, I think, representation of her character and who she was as a person.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_01: She meets him and all she says is, Why did you kill my husband?
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: And she and he says he's a weapon of tyranny.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_01: And she says, you know what, I'm I'm gonna forgive you because you're a human and people make mistakes.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I want you though to repent.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_01: I want to get you a pardon.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_01: I want to forgive you.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want you to die over this, but you just need to turn, you know.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_01: She she gives him a Bible and she says, You need to repent, right?
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_01: Turn to the Lord, and I will forgive you.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: I have forgiven you.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_02: She's forgiven him, but she's like, But I will fight for your pardon.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_01: And he doesn't want to.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_01: He says, he's like, No, I was prepared to die for this.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_02: This is what I'm going down for.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he did not care.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure it was probably touching that she had even said that she forgave him.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_02: But he was not gonna back down.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_02: He wanted to literally die on that hill where he was like, nope, like this was my intention.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_01: And he did.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_02: He was hanged shortly after.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_02: Like two months later.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_01: But he killed like pretty brutally.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_02: So and so this was obviously a big turning point in Ella's life because here she is, like, you know, essentially like Russian, slash German, slash English socialite, right?
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_02: You know, doing her charity work, like living with a man she loves, and everything is just turned upside down.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_02: And she senses that obviously there's other political forces at work.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so she being deeply affected by his death, decides that she's going to retire from the royal family.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_02: And she's also going to found the Russian Orthodox convent of Martha and Mary.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_02: So she's creating a whole new convent and she decides to be a nun.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_02: I know.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_02: Good for her.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and uh she decides, like, you know, she doesn't want to just be a nun to like dedicate herself to to the Lord.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_02: She wants to also like work in the slums of Moscow.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_02: She wants to care for Moscow's, like, you know, sick and suffering.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so she really just redirects her whole life to like, how can I be a part of a solution here?
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_02: How can I, in one way, honor my dead husband, but also like help the people of Russia?
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_01: Extremely charitable woman.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_01: She sells all of her jewels, all of her clothing.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: Everything she gives it up.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_01: She wears all white now moving forward.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_01: None think Russian Orthodox Russian nun outfit.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_00: Habit.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_01: And she becomes the abbess of the convent of Saints Martha and Mary.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: So she put all that money in towards building this convent.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: I always say that wrong.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_01: I always say coven.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: Every time I say it, which is yeah, which is covenant.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_01: Which is coven.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: But she was still very close to her family.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_01: So she's doing all this charitable work.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: The the the coven, which is still in Covenant.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my god.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_02: That's okay.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_02: If you say coven, I know what you mean.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_01: Y'all know what I mean.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it was a running hospital.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_01: It was like surgery.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_01: She was involved too.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_01: She was she was helping surgeons, handing them tools, bandaging people up, like helping the sick.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_01: Similar to like Edith Cavill.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_01: There was this one interesting story where one of the um revolutionists, one of the social revolutionists, his wife was in the hospital and she was dying, and he was talking terrible about the Romanovs and the Imperial family and the nationalists.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_01: Had no idea who she was.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then sadly his wife died, but he was so in awe how caring she was and everything through all of the stuff of his rantings.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then he found out that she was the Grand Duchess of related to the Romanov family and part of the Imperial family.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_01: And he was just so struck by her and like, you but you were so nice.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_01: You were helping me, even though I was saying such terrible things about you and your family and didn't know it was her.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_01: She's probably just listening, like, yes, yes, I will help your wife.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway, so she's um whatever I was getting at those, she's doing all of this, but she's also still connected with her family.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, her and her sister, they go back to Darmstadt, you know, to go to their big church that they built for them.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_01: Hang out in their church.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_01: And she's she's, you know, hearing what's going on with her sister and with the Tsar and everything, and and Ras Buton.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_02: She knows about Ross Button.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_02: And we talked about Ross Butin at length and how creepy of a man he was in a Romanov episode.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but it's funny that Ella kind of knew the whole time and was warning Alexandra, she was like, hey, like, this guy is a drunk and he's a fraud.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_02: Like you think he's this holy man, but I'm here to tell you he is not.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I think she was even aware of the plan to get Ross Putin like murdered.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_01: Aware or involved?
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_01: Potentially involved.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_01: How virtuous was Ella?
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_01: But there were theories that came up in 2010 that Ella they knew they figured out that she knew about the murder with Ross Putin, but there are these theories that maybe she knew more.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_01: Had a little bit more to do with it, right?
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_01: Which is interesting.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_01: But she is very worried about her family, and the political climate is continuing to escalate.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_01: Her her sister and her brother-in-law, and all of her nieces and nephews are now under house arrest.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_01: Once they get back to Russia, the year now we're gonna jump ahead.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_01: The year now is 1918, and she's very stressed out for her family.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_01: She knows that they are in danger because the political parties are trying to take down the imperial family.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_01: They don't want royal royalty in in charge anymore.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_02: And we should know at this time, because many years have passed, so she's roughly in her like 50s, like early 50s at this point.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_02: Decrepit.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_02: Just okay by this day standards.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um so the person who's leading the like Russian revolutionaries, like the Bolsheviks, is a man named Vladimir Lenin, who we've talked about briefly, like again in Romanov episodes and potentially others.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but he in 1918 decides like she, because of her connection to the Imperial family, needs to be arrested.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_01: The most sweetest, honest, literally a nun, helping the people on the streets.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_01: I think the poor and the sick and the wounded needs to be arrested.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_01: That that makes sense.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, let's target her.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_01: But it was everyone they were rounding up.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_01: She, and I think she was prepared for it.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_01: I think she knew she was in danger.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't I think she knew that her, not her coven, but her convent was wasn't enough to protect her.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_01: She was arrested, and actually two of her sisters came with her, right?
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_02: They were very uh a sister, I think her name was like Barbara, came with her.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_02: I think she was the only one though.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_02: I think they denied other nuns coming with her.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_01: They were like, hey, she doesn't, she can't get the bandwagon coming with her.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_02: There's a little fan club.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_02: The movie sister act when they're like in the casino trying to confuse the mafia.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_02: Like they they keep trying to round up the nuns and they're all different.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_02: You're like trying to protect the main girl.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_02: So the night of July 16th, and we talked about this on a Romanov episode, but unfortunately, the Romanov family, the Imperial family of Russia, is taken from their home, which again they were already under house arrest, essentially led to this little basement basement, cottage house, and murdered all, executed all by firing squad.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_02: The whole family.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_02: The whole family.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_02: And the dog.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_02: And the dog?
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_02: We didn't actually know the dog survived.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, the dog did survive, that's right.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that really bothered me.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_01: It was like a cocker spaniel.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think he was like an English Springer spaniel or something.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, he was of the spaniel.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_02: The spaniel breed variety.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but so But the children died.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the children all died.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_02: We mentioned the jewelry.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_02: The jewelry kept them alive probably longer than they should have been alive and had to die very slowly and painfully.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_02: They said even when they loaded their bodies up on carts, they had to like double check that every person was dead because they were so well insulated.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_01: Anastasia made it, right?
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_01: No, she didn't.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then I kick her, sir.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_02: We'll get to that.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but that very next day, so this is again the night of the 16th going into the morning of the 17th.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_02: The very next day, which is July 17th at noon, so Ella probably didn't even know about what had happened.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_01: Probably not.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_01: Probably not.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_01: And she was with some of her other royal family members too.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_01: She was with like a couple grand dukes and princes and a lot of imperial family members.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_01: There was they there was a little cluster of imperial family members that she was with right now.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_01: And Sister Barbara.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_01: That they all got arrested together.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_01: And barbs.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_01: And Barbs was there.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_02: Barbs came along.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_02: Don't know why, but she wanted to.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_02: She probably regretted that a little.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um to voted.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_02: So they uh the Bolsheviks like round up all these prisoners and they're taken to an iron mine.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_02: And it was said that the iron mine had like this 68-foot drop.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_02: Like a mine shaft.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_02: Like a mine shaft, yeah.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so they were brutally beaten.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_02: They started with Ella.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's they like beat her physically and then threw them down the mine shaft.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_02: And they said they pushed Ella down first.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_02: So they beat her up, threw her down this pit.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_01: Now the kicker's seems a little out of place.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so sorry for that.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_02: That wasn't my intention.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_02: This is serious stuff.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_02: And then this is even worse.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_02: So once like everyone is down in the in the pit in the mineshaft, they start singing this like orthodox hymn.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_02: So they're singing this like religious song.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_01: They can hear Ella singing.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_01: How old do you sing after falling down 68 feet?
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_02: She's a strong woman.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_02: She had done Splash Mountain a time or two, she was ready.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_02: That's impressive.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_02: And so what they did to silence everyone in the pit is they threw a grenade down there.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_02: And then the singing continued.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_02: So they had to throw a second grenade down and then essentially leave a guard there to make sure, like the guard had to stay there until he heard no more singing and was very sure everyone was dead.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then there was, and I'm not sure if you have it written down, but when they finally, after all of this, recovered the bodies, they um found Ella's body and she was like had her arms like tightly wrapped around herself so much so that- Oh my god, why are you telling me this?
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know that.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_01: That was in the article we were reading.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't get to that point.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_01: It was really upsetting.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_02: They like found her body and she was tightly like wrapped around herself, like hugging herself so much so that like were her like nails were kind of piercing into her skin.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my god.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_02: And she tried, she attempted to have like a scarf kind of wrapped around her.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if it was to block out fumes or something, I don't know exactly, but they had they had she had like a wrap around her face that had been wrapped a couple times to kind of help her breathe.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so it was a very tragic end for her, similar to the Romanovs, like there was no trial or like anything that was, hey, this is an official execution.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_02: It was more so the Bolsheviks are taking over, they want the imperial family out, they call it an execution.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_01: It is referred to as an execution.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_01: But there's no this is this is where I think it gets really tricky.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_01: There's a very thin line.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_01: Is it considered an execution if somebody doesn't even know that this is what's happening to them?
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like they're just brought out to this mine shaft, and then they just all of a sudden get beaten and thrown down it.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_01: There's no d declaration, there's no there's no witnesses, there's again, there's no trial, there was no sentence, there was no this is what's going to happen to you.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_01: They did say for the Roman offs, they did read that.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_01: They read it final and they did a firing squad.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_01: But it was like they didn't have a chance.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, is this execution or is this just murder?
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_02: And she's remembered today as a martyr.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it is remembered today as an execution.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_02: But it is right.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, when we look back at history, it's like I guess execution just means you know a political It's a political death as opposed to just a cold-blooded murder.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's like assassination versus murder.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's yeah.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_01: To me, I feel like I don't I almost think it's not even like giving her justice by saying it's an execution.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's it's a hard one to chew.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's like her only thing she was guilty of was association with the city.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_01: That's the thing, is because she wasn't guilty of anything.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_01: She was the most like nicest woman on this on this planet.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_01: Why would they do such a thing to such a nice nut?
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, this one like got to me a little bit.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we the last episode was more of a I don't want to say a silly one, but it was uh it was a crime fits the punishment situation.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_01: He was just an idiot.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_01: This episode, ones like this, I think gets to me when it's like, what did they do wrong?
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and it reminds me of Madame Dewberry as well.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's like Madame Dewberry, uh, who we kicked the season off with.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_02: You know, same thing.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_02: What was she actually guilty of?
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_02: Guilty by association.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, um, the family member at the novel.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_02: So it is it is just unfortunate to see these kind of ends, and especially in such a turbulent time where it's like her life started off so promising with this very supportive, loving family, you know, marriage to someone that she loved, and then it's just between political climate and all the hate going on at the time, it's just like this is how it ends for her.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's very unfortunate.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_01: I've never heard of her story before.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't even know I saw the mausoleum that she's buried in.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_01: I have photos of it.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_01: I was gonna say, you didn't know until we were watching a documentary tonight, which is so cool.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember Dr.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_01: Lisa telling me, like, we were in this really pretty park, and we brought bottles of rose, and it was a very nice park day, and we brought sandwiches, and we took a walk through the park, and she wanted to show me the mausoleum where the royals were all buried, the whole family, and we couldn't get that close to it, so my videos are very far away, kind of in a nice foresty area.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_01: Beautiful, yeah, it was really nice, and um, so when I we were looking up where she buried, and it came up with this park, I'm like, oh wait, I saw that.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's really cool.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_01: I I wish um like I I kind of knew what I was looking at, but I didn't know the specific stories.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_01: I obviously knew about you know the Romanovs and that, but I didn't understand her part of it and what happened to her, which is just as crazy.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_02: Very sad.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_02: And they do still have some of her relics in Moscow as well.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um, one of the documentaries we were watching was this little like Russian nun, and she's explaining all the things that were left behind by her.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they have a little like altar to to um memorialize her, and they even have a glove, and they said that was the last thing that she left behind.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_02: So as like she was being taken off by the Bolsheviks, like it said that her her glove fell on the glove.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and so they have it framed, and it's like kind of the last piece of her, essentially.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_02: Very sad.
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_01: But um, it's I like the martyr stories also because like the legacy lives on.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's true, very inspirational.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, hopefully.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_01: I I from the documentary we we watched, which was really cool, just the yeah, the influence that she had on so many and how her legacy continues on in the church and the the coven, the content.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_01: The content.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that's a good one.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_01: Good, good find.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_01: We almost researched two different stories tonight because I was one episode ahead and I was already trying to research the next one.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_02: And she starts talking about something like, what are you talking about?
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_02: And then when I got to Megan's house, she was like, Oh, I have like sauerkraut and sausage and all this German.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_02: I went all German.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_02: I did soft pretzels with mustard.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like all this German themed stuff.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, and I don't want to reveal what we're doing next time, but I was like, that doesn't really fit what we're doing tonight, does it?
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_02: She's like, Well, yeah, she was German.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, oh crap.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then we had a ring.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, let me look at my notes again.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_01: That was funny.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_01: But we have um sausages and potato.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_01: We could do either potato salad tonight or mashed potatoes.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_02: Potato salad.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we have to go and do that, Elizabeth.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_01: Any final words?
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_02: Not till next time.