Vladimir Galitzine

He then moved to St. Petersburg and enlisted as a volunteer in the Horse-Guards Regiment of The Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna;[3] soon he passed his exams and become an officer.

On the eve of the World War I, he was invited to become aide-de-camp to the Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, commander in chief of the Imperial Russian Army up until 1915, then Viceroy to the Caucasus.

Galitzine emigrated from post Revolutionary Russia in June 1919, arranged by his aunt, Princess Helen of Saxe-Altenburg on a British Naval vessel HMS Grafton from Novorossiysk (accompanied by the HMS Marlborough in which the Tsar's sister, Grand Duchess Xenia and her children, and the Empress Dowager Maria Feodorovna were on), arriving in Taranto, Italy and gradually making their way as a family to Rome, Paris and eventually arriving in London in July 1919.

[4] In order to support his family, he "proceeded to make a livelihood out of a hobby in which he had long qualified as a connoisseur",[5] by setting up an Art and Antiques shop in Berkeley Street, in Mayfair, of which Queen Mary was a regular customer.

Born at Oranienbaum, Russia, Katia was the eldest daughter of the morganatic marriage of Duke Georg Alexander of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and Countess Natalia Feodorovna Vanljarskya,[4] she was also distantly related to the Princess Marina, the Duchess of Kent.