Niko Bagration

In 1899, he attended the Paris international exhibition and was going to leave for big-game hunting when he heard that the Anglo-Boer war had broken out.

Thus, he was the first volunteer from Russia to arrive in Pretoria where he was welcomed by the Boer statesman Paul Kruger and his generals.

He escaped execution because of his royal descent and was exiled to St Helena, where he remained very cheerful and organizing sports and other activities for his fellow prisoners.

He was soon released, and Bagrationi returned to France and then to Georgia, where he wrote a memoir, Burebtan ("With the Boers"; published in Tbilisi, 1951), about his experiences in South Africa.

After the Sovietization of Georgia in 1921, he openly opposed Bolshevik rule and lost his property, but surprisingly survived the 1920s purges that targeted Georgian nobility.