wedding anniversary. With the passing of the years, they still respected each other but grew apart romantically, particularly after the deterioration of her health and the death of their eldest children. Alexander had many affairs, but they did not threaten their marriage. From the mid-1850s until 1862, he had a relationship with Alexandra Sergeevna Dolgorukova, one of Russia's most illustrious noblewomen and the Tsarina's ladies-in-waiting. This affair ended in 1862 when Alexandra married General Pyotr Pavlovich Albedinsky (1826–1883). In 1865, Alexander II fell deeply in love with 18-year-old Catherine Dolgorukova, a distant cousin of his former mistress. Catherine resisted his advances for over a year, but they became lovers in July 1866. Empress Maria inevitably heard about the affair, but she initially did not attach great importance to it. In order to have comfortable accommodations and rest in their route from St Petersburg to Crimea, Alexander II ordered the reconstruction of the Imperial Palace in Kiev. It was in total disrepair and abandoned for almost half a century after the palace burned down in a series of fires in the early 19th century. The commission was assigned in 1867 to the architect Konstantin Mayevsky, using old drawings and watercolors as guide. Work took place from 1868 to 1870 and the Kievan palace was then renamed Mariinskyi Palace after the Empress Maria Alexandrovna. By her wish, a large park was established off the southern side of the palace. The palace was used as a residence for visiting members of the imperial family until 1917. Currently it is the official ceremonial residence of the President of Ukraine. Last years From the early 1860s through the 1870s, Maria Alexandrovna began to pay extended visits to her homeland. Usually accompanied by her husband, children and their Russian entourage, she stayed at Schloss Heiligenberg, the small castle of her brother Alexander, who lived with his morganatic wife and their children at Jugenheim outside Darmstadt. There she met Princess Alice, second daughter of Queen Victoria and wife of her nephew Louis of Hesse. She resisted Alice's suggestion that her brother, Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, marry her only daughter Maria, but the couple would wed anyway in 1874. In December 1875, Empress Maria visited England to meet her first British grandchild. Queen Victoria wrote in her diary: "I thought her very ladylike, kind and amiable. We were at ease at once, but she has a sad