0:00

Welcome to Noble Blood, a production

0:03

of I Heart Radio and Aaron Manky

0:05

listener discretion is advised. A

0:11

few years ago, the Russian tourism

0:13

industry discovered that they had

0:15

a problem. That problem

0:18

was winter. If you can imagine,

0:20

the masses weren't flocking to see Russia's

0:23

historically significant architecture or

0:25

world class art collections when

0:28

the temperatures dipped below freezing.

0:31

That's when even stockpiled provisions

0:33

of top tier vodka can't manage

0:35

to unseat the damp, creeping chill

0:38

that settles in your chest in

0:40

Russia in the winter. And

0:43

so in two thousand sis, a

0:45

group of corporate sponsors and luxury

0:48

hotel chains came together with an idea

0:51

an ice sculpture to drum up tourism.

0:54

Not just an ice sculpture, an

0:56

ice palace, a

0:59

palace can structed entirely

1:01

of ice in downtown

1:03

St. Petersburg, one that would

1:05

weigh over five hundred tons

1:08

at a cost of a hundred and fifty

1:10

thousand dollars. It

1:12

was to be an exact replica of

1:14

a massive ice palace that had stood

1:17

on the shore of the frozen Neva River

1:20

two centuries earlier. It

1:22

would be built exactly to the specifications

1:25

laid out by that eighteenth century architect.

1:29

There were ice trees filled with carved

1:32

ice birds, clocks built

1:34

from ice with visible ice gears.

1:37

Guests waited in line for hours

1:39

for their chance to walk through the palace,

1:42

to marvel at the detail of the carving,

1:45

to walk through the ice bedroom

1:47

and see the ice mattress with ice

1:49

blankets and ice pillows

1:51

and cascading ice curtains

1:54

down the four posters,

1:56

all made of ice. Translucent

1:59

law dogs glimmered in the fireplace

2:02

that would never actually be able to contain

2:04

real fire. Ice was dyed

2:06

green on the mantelpiece to resemble

2:08

marble. And then

2:10

as guests worked their way through, they

2:13

came to the throne room, where

2:15

there stood this single change

2:17

that the modern builders had made from

2:19

the eighteenth century original, a

2:22

sculpture of the Empress Anna

2:24

Ivanovna, the patroness

2:26

who had commissioned the original ice

2:29

palace. The Empress

2:31

was a tall woman and broad,

2:33

and she was sculpted in all of her courtly

2:36

splendor, wearing a heavy

2:38

airmine cloak and a massive royal

2:40

crown which ballooned up from her

2:42

head, where a pair of dark,

2:45

tight ringlets fell past

2:47

her shoulders. Her face

2:49

was round in life, her cheeks

2:51

had been described as Westphalian

2:54

ham. Now in ice.

2:57

She was here as a ghost, semi

2:59

trans decent and impossibly still,

3:02

watching an endless stream of tourists

3:05

and locals gawk at the strange

3:07

spectacle that had been constructed

3:09

around them. If you didn't

3:12

know who she was, Empress Anna

3:14

might seem like a proud or even whimsical

3:17

figure, only the second female

3:19

crowned as the leader of Russia, a

3:21

woman with the vision to imagine how

3:23

miraculous a palace would look if

3:26

it was blue and clear and

3:28

glistening. But Empress

3:31

Anna's ice palace wasn't built as

3:33

a celebration of Russia or

3:35

as a way to promote tourism.

3:38

It was built out of cruelty

3:40

and capriciousness. She

3:42

was a woman who spent her entire life

3:44

manipulated, treated as a

3:46

toy, and so when she

3:48

reached power, she treated

3:50

others like toys, their lives

3:53

made malleable for her amusement.

3:56

Her ice palace was meant to be both

3:58

a symbol of her power were and

4:00

an execution chamber, but

4:03

it was also something to make her laugh,

4:06

and if you'll forgive the pun, I

4:08

find that the most chilling part of all.

4:12

I'm Dana Schwartz, and

4:15

this is noble blood. Anna

4:22

Ivanovna had almost no memories

4:24

of her father, Ivan, the older

4:26

brother of Peter the Great. Ivan

4:29

was severely disabled, both physically

4:31

and mentally, and so his younger

4:34

brother was appointed his co regent. By

4:37

the time Ivan was an adult, he was

4:39

half paralyzed and almost blind,

4:42

his mind all but lost to senility.

4:45

When the Emperor finally died at age

4:47

seven, he was unable to remember

4:50

his own name. His daughter,

4:52

Anna was three, and so

4:54

Peter the Great became the singular psar

4:56

of Russia as the niece of

4:58

the Czar, and would never have been allowed

5:01

to marry for love. But it seems

5:03

that when her uncle ordered her to marry Frederick

5:05

William, the Duke of Courland, to

5:08

secure a lucrative alliance, she

5:10

was genuinely excited. Seventeen

5:13

year old Anna wrote to Frederick William, her

5:15

new fiancee. I cannot

5:18

but assure your Highness that nothing

5:20

could delight me more than to hear

5:22

of your declaration of love for me. For

5:24

my part, I assure your Highness

5:26

that I share your feelings at

5:29

our next happy meeting, to which I look

5:31

forward eagerly, I shall God

5:33

willing avail myself of the

5:35

opportunity of expressing them to

5:37

you personally. Anna's

5:40

mother had been an old school Russian

5:42

s arena. She had been selected

5:44

to marry the infirm Sar to be after

5:47

parading in a bride show of

5:49

potential candidates. Throughout

5:52

Ivan's declining health, Anda's

5:54

mother dutifully cared for him,

5:57

standing at his side wiping drool

5:59

from his chin, and her only

6:01

failure as a wife had been berthing

6:03

only daughters. Those

6:06

were the values that she passed on to Anna

6:08

into her sister. They were educated

6:11

at home, taught that their purpose, above

6:13

all else was to be wives. Anna

6:16

was only semiliterate, but she knew

6:18

that much by heart. Anna's

6:21

wedding to Frederick William was a

6:23

gorgeous affair, accompanied

6:25

by the full pageantry of the Russian

6:28

court. Her cape was

6:30

laced with gold, she wore

6:32

a tiara. The night ended

6:34

with a fireworks display over the

6:36

palace, and Anna stood

6:38

side by side with the boy that

6:40

she had pledged to devote herself to for

6:43

the rest of their lives. Anna

6:45

watched the fireworks, completely

6:48

unaware of the misery that would soon

6:50

befall her, where only

6:52

of the glittering sky and her

6:54

new husband's shining eyes. The

7:01

next night, her uncle bizarre through

7:03

a second wedding, this time for

7:05

a pair of dwarves. Peter

7:08

the Great held a fancy of breeding an

7:10

entire race of dwarves, and

7:12

so just as he arranged the wedding of his

7:14

niece, he arranged the wedding of

7:16

two of the fools he kept in his palace

7:19

for his amusement. The dwarf

7:21

bride was dressed exactly as

7:23

Anna had been the previous night, in

7:26

an exact replica of her embroidered

7:29

gown, a fifth of its original size.

7:32

The guests of the party, all of the dwarves

7:34

Peter the Great could summon, were given

7:37

excessive amounts of alcohol so

7:39

the court could watch them stumbled drunkenly

7:42

as they jumped out of cakes and attempted

7:44

to dance. It was a

7:46

cruel mockery, cruel to the dwarves

7:48

forced into a servile role as entertainment,

7:51

but also intended as a cruelty to

7:54

the court that was watching them.

7:56

Peter the Great had designed this second

7:58

wedding as a grow Tesk fun house

8:01

mirror for the Russian court to

8:03

watch themselves, and poor

8:05

Anna, famously unbeautiful

8:08

even then, happened to be the centerpiece.

8:11

The bride doubled in miniature for

8:13

everyone to laugh at, and

8:15

the guests did laugh. They

8:18

laughed, and they drank, and they laughed some

8:20

more, and then drank some more, and the festivities

8:22

continued for another week till

8:25

it was finally time to send Anna and her

8:27

new husband off back to Courland and

8:29

for everyone to get on with their lives.

8:32

To get to Courland in present day Latvia,

8:35

it would be a journey of many days. When

8:37

Anna and Frederick William entered

8:40

their coach the morning of their departure,

8:42

Frederick William was still drunk from

8:45

a drinking competition with Peter the

8:47

Great the night before. He was

8:49

pale and sweating his hair wet

8:51

against his forehead, even in the Russian

8:53

chill. They only made it

8:55

twenty kilometers before Frederick William

8:58

dropped dead. But

9:01

just because a husband dies doesn't mean

9:03

the alliance that the marriage was meant to cement

9:05

is any less important. Anna

9:07

Ivanovna, only seventeen

9:10

years old, was forced to ride the

9:12

entire way to Coreland with the cooling

9:14

corpse of her husband at her side.

9:17

Her destination was a strange

9:19

land that she would be expected to rule alone.

9:23

Though she would write hundreds of letters to

9:25

her uncle in Saint Petersburg begging

9:28

him for permission to come home or to

9:30

marry again, her please

9:32

went unheeded. The

9:34

peace with Corland was essential, Anna's

9:38

happiness was not, And

9:40

besides, if she got married again, her

9:42

husband or God forbid, child could

9:44

complicate the line of succession. No,

9:47

it was better for everyone if Anna stayed

9:50

put, a teenage widow who

9:52

would never be permitted to love again.

10:01

Anna's letters to Peter the Great continued,

10:04

hundreds of them, all desperately

10:06

pleading for her uncle to allow her to get

10:09

married again. She had only been

10:11

seventeen and experienced marriage

10:13

for a period of days. Why

10:15

now did she have to be alone forever? But

10:18

then, in seventeen, fifteen

10:21

years after Anna's all too brief marriage,

10:24

Peter the Great died, and

10:26

five years after that, his grandson

10:29

and heir, Sir Peter the Second, died

10:32

too young and with no heir,

10:35

which meant Russia now faced a crisis

10:37

of succession. Peter

10:40

the Great had daughters, but they were born

10:42

out of wedlock, daughters he had had with the

10:44

maid he married only after she gave birth.

10:47

But then there was Anna and her sister.

10:50

Their father, Ivan had been Peter's

10:52

older brother after all, and

10:54

their mother had been a high born noblewoman

10:56

who cared for her infirm husband

10:59

with all of the virtue that one could ever

11:01

ask for. Anna's sister

11:03

was the elder, but she was married to a prominent

11:06

duke, and she already had a daughter.

11:09

The Privy Council, in charge of appointing

11:11

the next Russian leader, worried

11:14

that the husband could try to steal power, and

11:16

the daughter next in line would complicate

11:18

things all over again. But

11:21

Anna dutiful. Anna was

11:23

a childless widow with no

11:25

husband to try to wield control and

11:28

no children that would be next in line for succession,

11:31

plus being the younger daughter and not naturally

11:34

in line for the throne, She would

11:36

be grateful to the Privy Council for

11:38

choosing her, and deferential

11:41

to them and all of her decision making. She

11:43

would be a figurehead, and to that end,

11:46

they journeyed to Courland to make her sign

11:48

a declaration of conditions. Anna

11:50

would become the Empress. Yes, but she

11:53

could not declare war or peace, impose

11:55

new taxes, or punish the nobility

11:58

without trial. She

12:03

signed the papers to a round of applause

12:06

in her palace in Coreland, before

12:08

embarking on the long journey back

12:10

to St. Petersburg. For the first

12:13

time in twenty years,

12:15

she returned to a Russian court of bickering

12:17

and power hungry noble families.

12:20

The Privy council was made of two noble

12:22

families, which infuriated

12:24

a handful of other noble families who wanted

12:27

their own chance a manipulating the new

12:29

empress and so egged

12:31

on by the lesser nobles. As soon as

12:33

she arrived in the Russian capital and

12:36

Press, Anna Ivanovna dissolved

12:38

the council that had granted her the throne.

12:41

She publicly repudiated the conditions

12:44

she had been forced to sign, ripping them in

12:46

half in public and then for

12:48

good measure. Since some of the men who

12:50

had written them to the scaffold and a few

12:52

more to Siberia, Anna

12:55

would be an autocrat like her predecessors.

12:58

Perhaps, before the council had gone through

13:00

with their selection, they would have been wise

13:02

to look up at the sky the

13:05

night before Anna was crowned, Empress

13:07

Aurora Borealist lit up the Russian

13:10

horizon in shimmering red. People

13:13

at the time said that it looked

13:15

like blood. Though

13:19

as Empress she brought with her a married

13:21

lover from Corland, Anna

13:23

Ivanovna never remarried herself.

13:26

What had been a youthful idealization

13:28

of love and marriage had charred

13:31

and crystallized over the years into

13:33

something cold and sour. One

13:36

Russian Prince, Michael Alexeyevitch

13:39

Galatson, made the mistake of

13:41

getting married without Anna's permission,

13:44

and he made the deadly mistake of

13:46

marrying a Catholic. Prince

13:49

Mikhael Galatson had fallen in love with

13:51

a beautiful Italian woman and brought

13:53

her back to Russia, where their happy

13:55

marriage represented everything that

13:57

the aging power hungry and resented

14:01

about the world. Not long

14:03

after they made it back to Russia, the

14:05

beautiful Italian Catholic woman died,

14:08

and though one might think Anna would see

14:10

that as punishment enough for Prince Michael,

14:13

it wasn't. The Empress

14:15

stripped him of his title and forced

14:18

him to become a court jester for her amusement

14:21

to entertain the privileged aristocrats

14:23

in court with his humiliation

14:26

day after day during

14:28

the endless Russian winter Bortumn.

14:32

First, Michael was forced to pretend

14:34

to be a chicken, sitting on a massive

14:36

nest set up for him in the throne room,

14:39

coated in feathers and clucking on

14:41

command. When guests

14:43

came, Anna would make him pretend

14:46

to lay an egg. But it

14:48

was her ultimate act of creative humiliation

14:51

that would be her master stroke. If

14:54

Michael liked getting married so much, he

14:57

would get married again, only

14:59

this time Anna would choose his bride,

15:02

and she chose one of her female jestures,

15:05

one famous for being the ugliest woman

15:08

in Russia, an older woman

15:10

named Avdotia bouji Nova, her

15:13

surname a nasty joke on the Russian

15:15

word for roast pork. The

15:18

wedding would be a spectacle one

15:20

that would begin with the parade filled with

15:22

dwarves and foreigners taken prisoner,

15:25

and all of the deformed and disabled

15:27

people that served as entertainment

15:30

for Anna and her court. They

15:32

rode in procession all

15:34

these people presented as curiosities,

15:37

along with the low left drunks of the Russian

15:40

streets in carts pulled

15:42

by goats and pigs. The

15:44

subjects from foreign land were dressed

15:47

in clothes from their native countries,

15:49

forced to do what I'm sure Anna believed

15:51

to be authentic native dancing. Finally,

15:55

the bride and groom arrived, dressed

15:58

as clowns, and they were flaunted

16:00

down the street in a golden cage

16:03

together on the back of an elephant.

16:06

Eventually they made it to their destination.

16:09

Anna's Ice Palace, a

16:12

palace made entirely of ice

16:15

pulled from the Neva River, massive

16:17

blocks of it glued together with water

16:20

so it looked like it was carved from a single

16:22

piece of glass. Local

16:25

villagers had watched and gathered breathless

16:28

as the massive edifice had erected

16:30

itself over a matter of weeks, a

16:33

thing both delicate and monumental,

16:36

Over thirty feet tall and

16:38

over one feet long. It

16:41

was spectacular, an apparition,

16:44

a marvel of engineering. It

16:47

was a ghost palace, a reflection

16:50

back at the twisted Empress and

16:52

her malice. There were

16:54

cannons outside, built entirely

16:56

of ice, that, when loaded with gunpowder,

17:00

could actually fire ice cannonballs

17:02

at sixty paces. On the

17:04

ice palaces lawn, a massive

17:06

hollow elephant carved out of

17:08

ice held its trunk aloft in the sky.

17:12

Oil lit on fire could be spewed

17:14

out of the elephant's trunk, so

17:16

it looked like the elephant was spitting flames

17:19

into the dark night sky, and

17:22

inside the hollow elephant sculpture

17:24

was tucked a man with a horn so

17:27

that the ice elephant could really bellow.

17:30

Mikale and his clown bride were

17:33

stripped naked and sent into the palace

17:36

to consummate their union on the ice

17:38

pillows and ice blankets of the

17:40

bed carved entirely out of ice,

17:43

an exact replica of the Royal

17:45

bedchamber. Guards

17:47

were posted at the doors. You

17:50

have to keep each other close if you want to

17:52

stay warm enough to survive the night and

17:54

the laught. It was one

17:57

of the coldest winters on record

17:59

for Russia. The pair only

18:01

survived because the bride of Doughtya

18:04

traded her family's heirloom pearls

18:06

for one of the guard's coats. The

18:09

two kept warm until dawn, running

18:12

through the ice palace as many rooms, breaking

18:15

what they could and huddling under the coat.

18:17

When their extremities began turning

18:19

blue and their breath started

18:21

freezing before their faces, the

18:24

warmth of it being sucked forth from

18:26

their lungs by the greedy colt. The

18:29

wedding celebrations ended with a

18:31

fireworks display over the frozen

18:34

Neva River. The

18:36

entire spectacle was meant as a reminder

18:39

to all of the nobles in Russia, so

18:41

that they could see the power that Anna

18:43

wielded with such capriciousness. Look

18:47

what I can imagine, the palace

18:49

said, Look what I can construct,

18:52

Look what I can force you to endure.

18:56

They say that nine months later Mikhail

18:59

and ev Dotie became the parents of twins,

19:02

and that their marriage, for its brutal origins,

19:05

went on to become a long and happy

19:08

one. I like that story,

19:11

the idea that something beautiful and human

19:13

emerged from that ice palace. You

19:16

can believe that if you want. It

19:19

was so long ago. No one will fault

19:21

you for imagining a pair of bright, cheek

19:23

to Russian babies clenching

19:25

their fists around their father's fingers

19:28

and cooing into their mother's curls,

19:31

Babies who always seemed to run cold

19:34

and needed layers of extra blankets

19:36

before they could finally fall asleep, peaceful

19:40

in a warm home with parents who loved

19:42

them. But the truth

19:44

is that Avdotia caught a chill that

19:47

night and she never recovered,

19:49

and she died a few days later. McHale

19:53

continued to serve at Anna's pleasure until

19:56

the Empress too died within

19:58

the year. It was a slow

20:00

and painful death for her, from

20:02

ulcers on her kidney. With

20:05

her final words, she called

20:07

out for her lover, Ernest Brown and

20:10

proclaimed him regent. Barron's

20:13

regency was short lived, a

20:16

hated figure in Russian court. Three

20:19

weeks after the Empress's death, he

20:22

was banished to Siberia exile

20:27

out in the cold. That's

20:35

the story of Empress Anna Ivanovna's

20:37

ice palace and her icy rein. But

20:40

stick around after a brief sponsor break

20:42

to hear more about what came next in Russia.

20:54

Princess who married Catholics weren't

20:56

the only enemies that in Braziana held.

21:00

Of her most hated rivals was her first

21:02

cousin, Elizabeth, a woman

21:04

nearly two decades younger than her and

21:07

famously beautiful, whereas Anna had

21:09

always been diplomatically described

21:11

as sturdy. A

21:13

foreign minister had once come to Anna's

21:16

court, where Anna had asked him

21:18

who the most beautiful woman in Russia,

21:20

was not understanding the

21:22

game of forced flattery. The noble

21:25

instantly pointed to Elizabeth. Anna

21:28

fumed with no marriage

21:30

setups from her bitter cousin. On the horizon,

21:33

Elizabeth took a lover, a handsome soldier

21:36

named Alexis Shubin. The

21:38

Empress took her revenge when she discovered

21:40

the affair by having Shubin's

21:43

tongue cut out. Years

21:45

later, after Anna's death, Elizabeth

21:48

would rise to power in a coup over

21:51

Anna's infant nephew. Elizabeth,

21:54

who was the daughter of Peter the Great, got

21:56

the nobles on her side by

21:59

pledging that she would never declare a single

22:01

death sentence as Empress. Elizabeth

22:05

reigned as Empress for over twenty

22:07

years, and she

22:10

kept her word. Noble

22:17

Blood is a production of I Heart Radio

22:19

and Aaron Mankey. The show is written

22:21

and hosted by Dana Schwartz and produced

22:23

by Aaron Mankey, Matt Frederick, Alex

22:26

Williams, and Trevor Young. Noble

22:28

Blood is on social media at Noble

22:30

Blood Tales, and you can learn more about

22:33

the show over at Noble Blood Tales dot

22:35

com. For more podcasts from I Heart

22:37

radio, visit the I heart Radio app,

22:39

Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen

22:41

to your favorite shows.