Anastasia wrote the following in a form of a letter, but it was an English language writing exercise she did as part of her lesson. In the video, I kept all her original errors (and there were a number of them), but here, I corrected them in brackets, to avoid confusion.

As we can see, Anastasia's written English wasn't the best, she probably spoke it better than she wrote it, but by the awkward-ish turn of her phrases, you can tell that she was not fluent in English, contrary to popular belief. Her best and preferred language always was, indeed, Russian.

Anastasia's sense of humour is clear in this composition, as in many of her other writings; one of the reasons I chose this particular letter is because it shows her frame of mind at the time of their transfer to Siberia: she still saw it as an adventure of a sort, and wasn't particularly scared or concerned. In contrast, when we read her later letters, she seems like a different, much older person, who is no longer the carefree, happy "Shvybzik" she was just a half a year ago.

I hope you enjoy this letter, and the video. It is, of course, published in full in our latest book "Anastasia Romanov: The Tsar's Youngest Daughter Speaks Through Her Writings", now available:
[ Ссылка ]

"My dear Friend. I will describe to you who [how] we travelled. We started in the morning and when we got in to the train I went to sleap [sleep], so did all of us. We were very tierd [tired] because we did not sleap [sleep] the whole night. The first day was hot and very dusty. At the stations we had to shut out [our] window curtanse [curtains] than [that] nobody should see us. Once in the evening I was looking out, we stopped near a little house, but there was no station so we could look out. A little boy came to my window and asked: "Uncle, please give me, if you have got, a newspaper.” I said: “I am not an uncle but and anty [aunty] and I have no newspaper.” At the first moment I could not understand why did he call me “Uncle”, but then I remembered that my hear [hair] is cut and I and the soldiers laught [laughed] very much.
On the way many funy [funny] things happened, and if I shall have
time I shall write to you and [about] our travell [travels] father [farther] on. Good by [bye]. Don’t forget me. Many kisses from us all to you my darling.
Your A."

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