Leonid Kulikovsky, the great- grandson of Tsar Alexander III and distant relative of Queen Elizabeth lived a life away from the spotlight of royalty. He had been living alone in a caravan park for five years after his vehicle stalled during a trip around Australia.
Leonid Kulikovsky was actually born in Denmark and emigrated to Australia in 1967 where he worked in water management. He and his sister, who still lives in Denmark had lost contact over 20 years ago.
Just after his family had figured out that where is was and made an effort to contact him, they learnt that Leonid had died from a heart attack whilst out walking his dog.
For two months after his body was found, he lay in a morgue as his identity remained unknown.
There is no Russian Orthodox church where he lived, so his funeral was held in a Serbian Orthodox church on 30 November.
The Paspaley family, who fled Greece after World War I and made their fortune in Pearling, offered to bury Leonid Kulikovsky at their private family burial area. The offer is still under consideration.
The Northern Territory Government was represented at the funeral by Multicultural Affairs Minister Peter Styles, while the Chancellor of the Russian Orthodox church in Australia, Dr Michael Protopopov, was also present, as was Maxim Raku from the Russian Embassy in Canberra.
Leonid Kulikovsky did not often speak of his royal ancestry though he did mention to some friends in Australia that he was related to Tsars. He used the name ‘Nick’ and was known as ‘Boxing Nick’ around the town where he lived.
Friends say he enjoyed reading and that he walked up to seven miles with his dog every single day.
Brendan Hiller, a friend of Leonid spoke his brief mention of his family: “I said to him one day, that name sounds like a Russian name, and he said ‘yes it is’.
“He did tell me that he was related to the Tsars and I said ‘oh you’re famous then’, and he looked up at me and smiled and said, yes. I didn’t think much of it at the time, I thought he was embellishing.”
Just about 30 people attended the funeral and Leonid Kulikovsky never married and he had no children.
The death “came as a great shock to his family”.
A message read at the funeral from the family said: “We had just been taught he was far away from Moscow, about finding him, and had renewed hope that we would be able to come into contact, but a few days later we were informed by the police that he was found dead,”
Leonid Kulikovsky was the youngest son of HIH Grand Duchess Olga Aleksandrovna of Russia, the youngest daughter of Tsar Alexander III and sister to the Emperor Martyr Nicholas II, his grandmother Empress Maria Fyodorovna, born Princess Dagmar of Denmark was sister of Queen Alexandra of Great Britain, so he was a second nephew of King George V, and was a third uncle to Queen Elizabeth II. His mother was married first to Duke Peter of Oldenburg, but during the war she divorced her husband, and married an Aide de Camp to Tsar Nicholas II Colonel baron Kulikovsky. They found refuge during the Revolution in Livadia by the Black See, where they lived with the Dowager Empress, Grand Duchess Xenia Aleksandrovna his aunt, Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich his uncle, and his brother and cousins. When the Red Army threatened Livadia, the Dowager Queen of England sent the Marlborough; this war ship rescued the Imperial family, which survived from the Bolshevik murders of almost 22 Romanov. Being myself half Russian, my grandmother Princess Olga Konstantinovna Orlov-Davydov, née Princess Beloselsky Belozersky escaped with her family, with the Empress, I will pray for the soul of Leonid, who died in Australia so lonely, a real tragedy, a new one from our Imperial family.
Did Leonid not have a younger brother Alexandre Kulikovsky, b. 1948 in Toronto?
Was Leonid not the grandson of the Grand Duchess, son of Capt. Guri Nikolaievich Kulikovsky, with a younger brother, Alexandre, born 1948 in Toronto?