His uncle was killed in 1905 and as his aunt entered religious life, Dmitri spent a great deal of his youth in the company of Tsar Nicholas II and his immediate family at the Alexander Palace as they viewed him almost like a foster son.

[1] As a grandson of Tsar Alexander II in the male line, he occupied a prominent position as the Russian imperial court, but he had little interest in his military career, leading instead a fast life.

Through his friendship with Felix Yusupov, he took part in the assassination of the mystic Grigori Rasputin, who was seen to have an undue and insidious influence on the Tsar and his wife.

Dmitri's father, Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich, was the youngest child of Tsar Alexander II of Russia and his first wife, Empress Maria Alexandrovna.

Dmitri's mother, Alexandra, was a daughter of George I of Greece and Olga Konstantinovna of Russia,[2] and a sister of King Constantine I, and Andrew who was the father of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, making them first cousins.

[3] Although doctors had no hope for Dmitri's survival, he still lived, with the help of his uncle Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia, who gave the premature Dmitri the baths that were prescribed by the doctors, wrapped him in cotton wool and kept him in a cradle filled with hot water bottles to keep his temperature regulated, the treatment of the time to keep premature babies alive.

[4] A commander of the imperial Horse Guards, Grand Duke Paul loved his children, but as was customary at the time, he refrained from showing them spontaneous affection.

The marriage was a violation of the house law of the Romanovs, and as they had married defying Nicholas II's opposition, the Tsar forbade them to return to Russia and Grand Duke Paul was not allowed to take the children with him into exile.

[11] On 4 February 1905, Grand Duke Sergei, who had recently resigned from the post of Governor-General of Moscow, was assassinated by Ivan Kalyaev, a member of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party.

[12] Kalyaev, armed with a homemade bomb, had aborted his first attempt to kill the Grand Duke when he spotted Dmitri and Marie with their uncle in his carriage.

Maria Pavlovna continued to have some feelings of anger toward her aunt, whom she would blame for her overly hasty and unsuccessful marriage to Prince Wilhem of Sweden in 1908, but Dmitri formed a very strong bond with Elizabeth and came to admire her personal fortitude.

[21] In August 1915 when Nicholas II left St. Petersburg to take full command of the Russian armies fighting World War I, his wife Empress Alexandra Feodorovna took on the daily administrative affairs of the government from the capital.

Alexandra relied on Grigori Rasputin, a peasant healer who appeared to have brought her hemophiliac son Alexei, the Tsarevich, back from the brink of death.

Eventually, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich joined Felix Yusupov, Vladimir Purishkevich (the leader of the monarchists in the Duma) Dr. Stanislaus de Lazovert and Lieutenant Sergei Mikhailovich Sukhotin, an officer in the Preobrazhensky Regiment, in a conspiracy to kill Grigory Rasputin hoping that ending his influence over the imperial family this would have a beneficial effect on the Tsar's policies.

He joined his fellow conspirators: Grand Duke Dmitri, politician Vladimir Purishkevich, and army officer Sergei Mikhailovich Sukhotin who were waiting in a ground floor study/drawing-room.

In a rage, Yusopov kicked Rasputin's corpse with the tip of his military boots, smashing his nose and right eye and disfiguring his face.

[26] As a result of his participation in Rasputin's assassination, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich was banished from the Russian court and was sent to exile to the Persian war front.

[31] Dmitri stayed briefly with General Meidel (ru), then the head of the Persian Cossack Division, before being taken in by the British Minister to Tehran, Sir Charles Murray Marling, and his wife, Lucia.

[citation needed] Lady Marling went to see the King's assistant private secretary Lord Cromer to inform him of the grand duke's arrival.

[citation needed] In London, Dmitri was finally reunited with his sister Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna who had escaped Revolutionary Russia though Ukraine with her second husband, Prince Sergei Mikhailovich Putiatin.

Chanel would later comment: "These grand dukes, they are all the same, an admirable face behind which there is nothing, green eyes, broad shoulders, fine hands... the most peaceful people, shyness itself.

[citation needed] On 8 August 1922, a makeshift Zemsky Sobor was convened at Priamurye, and Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich was "elected" Emperor.

Having waited for confirmation of the death of Tsar Nicholas II, his son, and his brother, in 1924 Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich announced (also on 8 August) that he would assume "guardianship" of the throne of Russia.

[45] In 1923 Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna divorced her second husband and bought a small house at Boulogne-sur-Seine and Dmitri moved with her to the top floor.

[46] It was a morganatic marriage, and Audrey, who converted to Russian Orthodoxy and took the name Anna Ioannovna in baptism, was granted the title Her Serene Highness, Princess Romanovskaya-Ilyinskaya by his cousin, Grand Duke Kyril.

During the Nazi annexation of Paris, Dmitri's collection vanished, and it has since been theorized that they were seized by Hermann Göring, a model train collector himself.

He joined this group as a stand-in for Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich, who, as pretender to the throne, could not affiliate himself directly with any political organization or party.

[citation needed] Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich and his wife could afford a very opulent lifestyle with homes in London, Biarritz, Neuilly-sur-Seine, and Château de Beaumesnil near Caen, and visits to America.

[51] Despite not having strong health, Grand Duke Dmitri was, for most of his life, a very active sportsman, excelling at polo, horse riding, tennis, and bobsledding.

He entered the Sanatorium Schatzalp in Davos, Switzerland on 2 September 1939, the day after the German invasion of Poland, and remarked in a letter to his sister that he had never before spent a single night in any kind of hospital or medical institution.