by Terri Dixon
“I’ll miss you.”
“I will miss you more.” A tear fell from Peter’s eye too.
We joined Tish, Tania, Steve and Boris.
I hugged Boris. “Thank you for showing me St. Petersburg.”
“You remember me when you return to take your place.”
" That would never happen. You tell that sister of yours thank you from me.”
“I will.”
Then I hugged Tish. “You take good care of that grandson of yours. He’s special.”
“Indeed he is. You remember that no matter what the government says, you are always welcome at my home.”
“I can’t thank you enough for everything. I really owe you.”
“Nonsense. I would not have missed meeting the Tsarina for anything in the world. I believe we will meet again.”
"I certainly hope so." I hugged her again before I moved on to hug Steve. “You’re quite a teacher.”
“I guess I am. Do you think you learned what you came here to find out?”
I thought about it. There was one piece of information missing. “No. There’s one thing that I still don’t understand.”
“What is that?”
“The ring. Catherine was a Tsarina, a Grand Duchess, an Empress and a Romanov. Why the word Queen? Why not the Russian word, Tsar? The Ring of the Queen. Why?”
Steve smiled. “I was wondering if anyone would ever think about that. Platon Zubov was the last of Catherine’s lovers. He was with her until she died. People say that he was the one that she was craziest about besides Potemkin. He loved to spend money on both her and himself. Platon gave her the ring. Catherine loved everything Asian and French throughout her life, so he had it designed by one of Louis XVI’s favorite artists. To this day, no one knows who the artist was. Catherine thought that since it was a work of art, it should have a name. She asked Zubov to name it. He called it The Ring of the Queen, because of Louis XVI. Louis used to call Catherine the Queen of the World.”
"Well, I'll be damned," I replied.
The Ring of the Queen