Maria Golitzyna

She served as Ober-Hofmeisterin (Chief Court Mistress) to Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia from 1894 until 1910.

She was the daughter of general lieutenant Michail Vasiljevitj Pashkov and Maria Baranova Trofimovna.

She had one child, Maria Vladimirovna Golitsyna (1860-1933), who at one point served as maid of honour.

Maria Golitzyna is described by contemporaries as an imposing character and as an extreme reactionary conservative, opponent to all forms of liberal reforms of the autocratic monarchy.

A. Mosolov, no one was better suited to supervise the ladies-in-waiting: "it would be hard to find a lady better suited than the princess Golitsyna to personify the high rank of mistress of the robes... She had a well developed feeling for anything not belonging to etiquette.