Princess Katya Desnitskaya of Thailand: The Russian girl for whom Prince Chakrabon gave up polygamy

They met at the dawn of the twentieth century, and by all conventional standards should not have been together. But their forbidden love withstood all, or almost all, the tests. We tell how the Prince of Siam secretly married a Russian noblewoman.

17-year-old orphan Katya Desnitskaya studied in St. Petersburg at the course of the sisters of mercy and dreamed of going to the front. But in 1905, at a social event, she met a young man who turned out to be Prince Chakrabon, the son of the king of Siam (present-day Thailand). He proposed to her, and the young couple left for the groom's homeland. So the Russian girl became the princess of Thailand. However, it was not recognized there for a long time.

In the summer of 1897, the King of Siam traveled to Europe and decided to also visit Russia. Nicholas II gave him a warm welcome in St. Petersburg and offered to send one of his sons to study in Russia. Prince Chakrabon took advantage of this offer, and soon he was enrolled in the Imperial Page Corps, where young men from noble families studied. After that, Chakrabon continued his studies at the General Staff Academy and graduated with the rank of colonel of the Russian Army.

Katya's parents died when she was still a child. Together with his brother, they moved from Kiev to St. Petersburg. There was a Russian-Japanese war, and the girl decided to go to the front as a nurse after graduation. Her decision was not changed even by the fateful meeting with the Siamese prince — she went to the Far East. Every day, the prince bombarded her with letters and begged her to come back.

Katerina Desnitskaya returned to St. Petersburg with three awards "for undaunted bravery", including the St. George Cross. But the biggest reward was waiting for her on her return — Prince Chakrabon proposed to her. The wedding took place in Constantinople, where marriages between people of different faiths were allowed. The prince returned to the Siamese kingdom with his wife.

The prince's parents did not approve of this union: they believed that he had corrupted the royal blood by marrying an unborn foreign woman, and violated their ancient traditions, because in their dynasty it was customary to marry with representatives of large royal relatives. Chakrabon was deprived of his allowance and excluded from the succession to the throne. He earned a living on his own — as the head of a military school. Despite the difficulties, the newlyweds were very happy and lived in love and harmony. For the sake of Catherine, the prince refused polygamy — the first of the royal dynasty.

Over time, thanks to the calm, submissive and gentle nature of Catherine, the noble relatives of Chakrabona came to terms with the circumstances and accepted the daughter-in-law. This was facilitated by the birth of their son in 1908. The prince became the chief of staff of the Thai army, and later the founder of the country's air force. And Katerina took the name of the princess On Pitsanulok and became the most welcome guest of the best houses in Bangkok. She mastered Thai, and was fluent in English, French, and German.

But the cloudless happiness did not last long. In 1920, Prince Chakrabon died. A year before that, the couple divorced — because of the revealed infidelity of her husband. Ekaterina Desnitskaya was forced to leave Thailand. Her son was not given to her, and she left alone. The woman could not return to Russia — because of the revolution and the civil war. She settled in France, where she lived until her death in 1960. And the descendants of the Russian princess and the Siamese prince still live in Thailand.

The love story of a Russian girl and a Thai prince is described in several literary works — in the" Distant Years " by K. Paustovsky, in the novel by G. Vostokova "The Jade Elephant", in the story by V. Shklovsky "Captions to Pictures", in the book of their granddaughter — the Thai Princess Narissa Chakrabon — "Katya and the Prince of Siam". In 2011, based on this book, a ballet of the same name was staged at the Yekaterinburg Opera and Ballet Theater.