He followed a career as an officer in the Russian army and was Major General, Commander of the Life Guard Dragoon Regiment.

He contracted a morganatic marriage and his rights and inheritance passed to his younger brother Charles Michael, Duke of Mecklenburg.

Although Duke Georg Alexander was, by birth, a German prince of the house of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, his father had settled in Russia within his wife’s family.

[5] From age 12 his teacher was Karl Davydov, a composer, professor of the St Petersburg Conservatory and Russia’s most prominent cellist of the time.

Georg Alexander fell in love with his mother’s lady in waiting Natalia Feodorovna Vanliarskya (Saint Petersburg, 16 May 1858 - Cannes, 14 March 1921), the daughter of Feodor Ardalionovich Vanliarsky (23 December 1833 - 2 February 1903), a Russian State Councillor, who served in the Ministry of Finance, and wife Maria Feodorovna Uvarova, paternal granddaughter of Ardalion Alexeievich Vanliarsky and wife Anastasia Mikhailovna Simanovskaya (?

[9] Grand Duchess Catherine Mikahilovna opposed their union and fired Natalia, hoping that his son would forget the affair and would marry a bride of royal background.

However Georg Alexander persisted and in June 1889 he went to Germany to obtain the permission to marry from the head of the family, his uncle, Grand Duke Frederick William (1819-1904).

[9] After the death of Grand Duchess Catherine Mikhailovna in 1894, the Mikhailovski palace and the bulk of her inheritance passed to Duke Georg Alexander's younger brother Karl Michael and their sister Helene.

The couple's four children received the title of Counts of Carlow after the mother: Georg Alexander was head of the committee for the fiftieth anniversary of the career of Anton Rubinstein celebrated in 1889.

From his grandfather, Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich, he inherited a rich collection of French lithographs, paintings, Meissen porcelain and luxury editions of books.

[1] Over his grave was erected a black marble cross with a plate that bore the inscription: "Here lies a deeply revered husband and father and a great citizen of Oranienbaum."

The couple's youngest child and only son, George Alexander, was adopted by his uncle Karl-Michael, and then took the title of Duke of Mecklenburg, Count of Carlow.