From Catherine the Great (1729 – 1796) up until the last Russian Empress all the ‘Russian’ Tsarinas were, in fact, German. This was not because the path of true love led them straight to Petrograd, but the result of European power play at the highest level. Splendour and Misery of the Last Tsarinas, starting with Princess Charlotte (1798 – 1860), tells the dramatic stories of these young women – torn between strategic marriages, the longing for true love and the shackles of European power politics.