Prince Esper Konstantinovich was an officer of the Baltic Fleet in the elite "Guarde-Marine" corps and had served as an officer on the imperial yachts Alexandria [ru] and Polar Star [ru] (both had served the Emperor and his family until the Standart was built, after which the more modern of the older two, the Polar Star served exclusively the Dowager Empress, Maria Feodorovna, mother of Nikolai II).

Together with his two young sons, Georges and Paul Esperovich, their mother Madeleine Jakovlena (née Moulin), and nannies and household servants, he fled to Finland at first, during Revolution of the 1917.

Together with the rest of the extended family at that time in Finland, they awaited developments until it was clear that there was little hope to return to Russia.

Meanwhile, Esper Konstantinovich's oldest son Konstantin Esperovich, a freshly promoted 18-year-old ensign of the Horse Guards, was with his detachment in Kiev.

He was murdered there on 28 January 1918 by a Red Guardist sailor who shot him in the back of the head, in connection with the first revolutionary and nationalistic waves of fighting in Kiev, where Russian imperial officers were targeted by all.