for Praskovia claiming that she was the long-lost descendant of a Polish nobleman by the name of Kovalevskii. Around the time of the wedding he sent a forger to Poland with a purse full of money to purchase a patent of nobility from a willing noble family. Within months of their wedding Praskovia became pregnant. On February 3, 1803 she gave birth to a son, Dmitry. However, the burden of her illness plus pregnancy and childbirth was too much for her system and she died on February 23, at the Sheremetev palace in St. Petersburg. Just before she died Nikolai informed Emperor Alexander I of his marriage and requested official recognition, which Alexander granted. News of the marriage scandalized society and angered Nikolai's family. Nikolai's two nephews, the Razumovsky brothers, had planned to inherit their uncle's vast fortune, and upon hearing that they were to lose it all to the son of a serf they contemplated murdering the infant. Praskovia was buried in an elaborate ceremony at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery attended by clergy and servants from the Sheremetev household. Nikolai was too overcome with grief to attend, and the nobility stayed away to signal its disapproval of Nikolai's marriage. Nikolai was overwhelmed with grief. Ultimately, the only comfort he found was in fulfilling her final wish that he contribute to caring for the poor and the sick. In memory of Praskovia, Nikolai built in Moscow on Sukharevskaya square, a large almshouse that tended to the sick, poor, and orphaned up until the revolution of 1917. Under the Soviets the almshouse was shut down and replaced by a scientific research institute named after N. Sklifosovsky. Quotations The love affair between Count Sheremetyev and his serf actress set the rumour mill rolling with the high society really shocked to see the count to be so madly in love with his servant and even preparing to build a theatre for her in his Ostankino estate just north of Moscow. And still, this public criticism of his choice was really playing on the young count's nerves who realised all too clear that the society would never forgive him if he ever married the commoner girl. In the meantime, Praskovya the actress was making strides on stage and her theatre's fortnightly performances always played to a full house." (Lyubov Tsarevskaya, Russian Culture). The plaque on Praskovia's grave reads-- This plain marble, unfeeling and impermanent,