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The princess died in Rome Zinaida VolkonskayaOne of the most striking women of the "Pushkin era" and "Griboyedov's Moscow." Hostess of a literary salon, writer, possessor of a delightful contralto, and simply a beauty. It was she who managed to make the poet blush with a sudden rendition of his elegy "The Daylight Has Faded" at their first meeting. Pushkin wrote:

Queen of muses and beauty,
You hold me with your gentle hand
The Magic Scepter of Inspiration

Born in 1789, in Dresden, in the family of the prince, ambassador to the Saxon court, Alexander Beloselsky-BelozerskyFrom the age of 19 she served as a maid of honor to Queen Louise of Prussia. 

Three years later she married a general and aide-de-camp of Alexander I. Nikita Volkonsky - that he demonstratively refused, as an envoy of the Russian Emperor, to accept a gift from Napoleon ring with a small diamond.

Accompanied by her husband and son Alexander I During her foreign campaigns, she performed abroad in private theaters and gained fame as a superb performer of Rossini operas. Until the death of Alexander I, she maintained a friendly correspondence with him—here's an excerpt from his letter:

I am burning with impatience, princess, to fall at your feet.

In 1824 she settled in MoscowHer house on Tverskaya became the center of intellectual and artistic life – here, contemporaries wrote, "One could encounter everything that was famous on the Russian Parnassus"Volkonskaya's salon was visited Pushkin, Baratynsky, Mitskevich, VenevitinovThe latter, passionately in love with the princess, before dying of pneumonia, bequeathed to be buried with the ring she had given him.

After the Decembrist uprising, in which the husband's brother participated, Sergei Volkonsky, arranged a send-off for the Decembrists' wives to Siberia. She was placed under police surveillance. From a report to the chief of the gendarmes:

Among the ladies, the two most irreconcilable and always ready to tear the government apart are Princess Volkonskaya and General Konovnitsyna

In 1829 she left for RomeShe founded the first family-type shelter in history. She died at the age of 72. According to legend, she caught a cold and gave her coat to a freezing beggar on the street.