OREANDA-NEWS. The relics of the Yusupov princely family will be one of the most expensive lots of trades in Monaco, which will take place on Saturday. As reported on the website of the auction house Hermitage Fine Art, Felix Yusupov’s boyar costume (1887-1967), valued at € 150-180 thousand, will be on sale as well. Velvet caftan and multi-colored leather boots were sewn in St. Petersburg in 1912 by order of the prince, who put them on a costume ball at Albert Hall (Oxford, United Kingdom). The caftan is made of golden brocade with embroidered red and blue flowers, and also embroidered with gilded and silver threads and diamonds. According to archival photographs, a hat was made for him, but it is not listed among the lots.

“The suit made a splash” Yusupov himself recalled in his memoirs. “That evening, all of London got acquainted with me, and the next day my photo was printed by all London newspapers”. According to him, that evening was attended by "5 thousand guests, the entire hall was decorated with flowers and fun reigned everywhere, unlike the English".

The representative and heir to one of the richest families of the Russian Empire, Felix Feliksovich, after marrying the sovereign’s only niece, entered the inner circle of the royal relatives. He also became the organizer of the murder of the favorite of the royal family, Grigory Rasputin. According to many contemporaries, his participation in the murder of Grigory Rasputin in Petrograd in December 1916, Yusupov delivered a fatal blow to the empire, bringing the revolution closer.

The prince himself to the end of the days did not agree with this judgment. As a close friend of the Yusupov couple, sculptor Victor Contreras, recalled, Felix never regretted his action. Until the end of his days, he suspected the Siberian "old man" of underhanded influence on state affairs. Once, in the presence of a sculptor, the prince expressed his version of Russian history: "The revolution occurred because I didn't manage to kill Rasputin in time to stop him".