Grand Prince is depicted in the a general's toggery with the honourable distinctions of the Adjutant General, with the ribbon and the star of the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called, the star of the Order of St. Vladimir of the 1st degree (1846) and the Hesse-Darmstadt Ludwig Order (1839). Alexander II Nikolaevich (1818-1881) - Grand Duke, Crown Prince of the Russian Empire, Emperor (since 1855), the eldest son of the Emperor Nicholas I (1796-1855) and the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna (1798-1860). Crowned on August 26, 1856. In 1841, he first married the princess Maximilian-Wilhelmina-Augusta-Sophia-Mary of Hesse-Darmstadt (1824-1880), who adopted the name of Maria Alexandrovna in Orthodoxy. After her death in 1880, he entered into a morganatic marriage with the princess Ekaterina Mikhailovna Dolgorukova (1847-1922), the fairest princess Yuryevskaya. The Emperor Alexander II gained the recognition of his contemporaries as a reformer, whose main merit, along with a broad program of administrative and economic reforms in Russia, was the abolition of serfdom in 1861. He died on March 1, 1881, from a fatal wound as a result of the terrorist I. Grynevitsky attempt, on the embankment of the Catherine Canal in St. Petersburg. Buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral.

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