Hey there, listeners! I know we named you a long time ago, but I don’t remember what we named you, so for now, you are listeners.
Hopefully you’ve had a chance to listen to our most recent episode, “Lost Roses: Sauerkraut is Liberty Cabbage,” but if you haven’t, *SPOILER ALERT* we drank vodka instead of wine and talked a lot about things we know nothing about!
We asked a few questions while recording that our dear friend/podcast editor/genius Alexa knew the answers to. We wanted to post them here for your consumption, so if you’re curious, read on!
First, we wanted to know if ironing newspapers was a thing. Apparently it was! Rich people didn’t want to get wet ink on their fingers and didn’t want to read wrinkly newspapers back then, so they would literally have their household servants iron their newspapers. Alexa credits this knowledge to Downton Abbey.
Second, we talked about how it’s (seemingly) common knowledge that the Romanovs sewed jewels into their clothes, which acted as a sort of armor when the Bolsheviks came to murder them all by firing squad. We wanted to know whether they sewed those jewels into their clothes as armor or because they just didn’t want to lose their jewels if they eventually escaped.
According to Alexa and the Netflix series The Last Czars, the Romanov girls sewed jewels into their corsets because they thought that someone would eventually come to rescue them. They thought this would keep their jewels on their person at all times, so that if they were rescued, they could pay for passage out of Russia or into safety.
So there you have it, folks! A little history lesson for you today. I hope you learned something and continue to enjoy our tipsy ramblings about really great books. Ta-ta for now! ye
(Read) Between the Vines 