Fyodor Tyutchev's eldest daughter thought Smolny an unsuitable place for her sisters: "I was struck by the shortcomings of the upbringing given to children in this institution

Fyodor Tyutchev's eldest daughter thought Smolny an unsuitable place for her sisters: "I was struck by the shortcomings of the upbringing given to children in this institution. The education received there was altogether very weak, but the moral upbringing was especially badly arranged."

Anna Fyodorovna herself had grown up in Germany, where her father was in diplomatic service. She was a graduate of the Munich Royal Institute and, having come to Russia only after her sixteenth birthday, compared everything she saw in her "alien homeland" with the European realities she was used to.

What troubles Tyutcheva most is the moral life of Smolny, which differs markedly from the atmosphere in which she herself was brought up: "The whole spirit that reigned in the establishment developed in the children, above all, vanity and worldliness. The good pupils, those who could dance best and curtsey most gracefully, who knew how to dress their hair with taste and artificially tint the pallor of their faces with cranberry juice, could always count on the favour of the headmistress, Madame Leontieva, and consequently of the directress and the class ladies as well. The children of wealthy and high-ranking parents formed a separate aristocracy in the classes. For them the rules of institutional discipline scarcely existed. They could miss lessons with impunity, sleep late in the mornings without heeding the ringing of the bell, disdain the dinner served in the common dining hall (revolting, incidentally) and live on sweetmeats from the shop next door. Both morally and physically, the whole regime was appalling."

So much for the elite and its prestige!

"My sisters, thanks to their pretty little faces and their parents' position, but chiefly thanks to the patronage of the grand duchesses, whose pensioners they were, at once fell into the category of aristocrats, that is, of children doomed to corruption," writes Tyutcheva.

Do you know, it reminds me very much of School No. 57. And of certain other establishments for the chosen few.