A deferred invitation from the Tsar
“One more story, just one more and then my history’s completed,
all my chronicles written down and my sinner’s debt repaid to God.”
Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
For Coutalianos’s tours in Russia, the most reliable source is the interview of his son Ellin in “Patris” (1933) newspaper. When Coutalianos was in Russia, the Greek, according to some calculations, must have been only 6 years old, but the content of his interview must be a transfer of his father’s stories to him. One of the most interesting incidents of that time was the invitation extended by the Tsar himself to Coutalianos, for the athlete to go to the imperial palace for a demonstration. However, this invitation was canceled almost immediately, because Grand Duchess Alexandra Georgievna of Russia (1870-1891) who had been crowned Princess of Greece and Denmark died on September 24, 1891 at the age of 21.
Despite the tragedy of the event and the misfortune of Panagis, this fact in itself makes our information reliable and we are sure that at least on the date of the princess’s death, Coutalianos was in Russian territory.
The above article is entitled “the death of the little queen”. This death canceled the performance that Coutalianos would have given in front of the family of the Tsars.
Coutalianos also passed through this city.
