The most affecting story in the news today

There is so much to think about here. Alexander III, who died in 1894, was the penultimate Emperor of Russia, King of Poland, and Grand Prince of Finland. His great-grandson has died alone, in poverty and obscurity, in a trailer park in the Australian Outback, and his body lay in a hospital morgue for two months before the authorities could name him.

When they searched for his family, they found just the one sister in Denmark, the country where both were born, with whom he had lost touch two decades ago, and also discovered his identity as the tsar’s great-grandson. The other people in the trailer park, where he had lived for years, knew him only as Old Nick.

You can read more here.

The coronation of Tsar Alexander III and the Empress Maria Fyodorovna – a painting by Georges Becker, now in the Hermitage. His great-grandson has died alone in poverty in an Australian trailer park.