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She was a sister-in-law to Nicholas I and born princess of Germany. She became widow after grand duke Michail Pavlovich in the age of 42. Her magnificent home, the Mikhailovsky Palace, became a kind of "open house" for the culture life of St. Petersburg, here did Franz Liszt and Arthur Rubinstein play, the later one she made conductor of the orchestra. She was also one of the founders of the Russian Red Cross. She worked eagerly for the abolition of serfdom in Russia, and she "liberated" her own serfs years before the original abolition.