to a cottage in Tsarkoe Selo to be closer to Grand Duke Paul who was under house arrest. There, the grand duchess tended a vegetable garden and kept a goat. On 8 July 1918, she gave birth to a son, Prince Roman Sergeievich Putyatin. The same day of Prince Roman's baptism on 18 July 1918, though they did not know it, Maria's half-brother, Prince Vladimir Paley, and her aunt, Grand Duchess Elizabeth, were murdered by the Bolsheviks. With the situation quickly deteriorating in Russia for the Romanovs under the Bolshevik regime, Maria Pavlovna decided to leave for exile, leaving her baby under the care of her in-laws. With her husband and her brother-in-law, Alexander Putyatin, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna left Tsarkoie Selo in late July. Without traveling documents and fearing to be arrested at any stop, Maria Pavlovna, her husband and brother-in-law, made their way by train during two nights and a day. On 4 August they reached Orsha, in today's Belarus, joining many other refugees in similar situations. From the train station, they went straight to the frontier with German occupied Ukraine. She had concealed, inside a bar of soap, a Swedish document identifying her as a former royal princess of that country. This allowed her to enter Ukraine. From there, they continued south until reaching Kiev where new adventures followed. In November, the fugitives made their way to Odessa.Perry & Pleshakov, The Flight of the Romanovs, p. 224 After reaching Kishinev, Moldavia, they received an invitation from Queen Marie of Romania, Maria's first cousin, who had used Joseph W. Boyle to track them down and bring them to safety. Ill with influenza, the grand duchess arrived in Romania beginning her life in exile. Exile In December 1918, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna and her second husband arrived in Bucharest staying at a local hotel. In January 1919, they were given private apartments at the Cotroceni Palace as guests of the Romanian Queen Maria. Tragic news came from Russia. The following month, Maria Pavlovna learned that her father, Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich, had been assassinated by the Bolsheviks along with three of his cousins. A couple of weeks later, she received the news that her aunt Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna and half-brother, Prince Vladimir Paley, had been murdered with several other Romanov relatives in the summer 1918. Tsar Nicholas II and his immediate family had been killed a day earlier.