In the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg an extraordinary collection of state and personal possessions has been preserved from which curators in the National Museums of Scotland were allowed to select for bringing to Edinburgh. Many of the objects have never been seen outside St Petersburg before, or in public anywhere. This is not only a catalogue of the 400+ wonderful objects on display but also the story of the Russian Royal Family whose lives and deaths are so closely interwoven with the course of history.