A skerry is a small rocky island, usually too small for habitation, or simply a rocky reef. Each summer the Romanov family boarded the imperial yacht and spent a holiday in Finland, where skerries are prevalent. Grand Duchess Tatiana loved the skerries, she even fondly wrote about her beloved skerries in letters from captivity.
From the letters of Tatiana Romanov:
To Nicholas II: “Today, finally, the weather was wonderful in the morning, real skerries or Bielovezh-like . So nice.” “Were you on the ships in Revel and did you see any of our skerries friends?”
To Countess Zinaïda Tolstoy from captivity: “We miss this so much, no sea, no ships! We got so used to all that, spending almost the entire summer at sea, in the skerries; in my opinion there is nothing better than that; it was the best and most beloved time…”
From the book Tatiana Romanov, Daughter of the Last Tsar: Diaries and Letters, 1913–1918
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