For many decades, dynastic marriages among European monarchies led to the Romanovs being related to almost all royal houses in Europe. Despite the passing years, these familial ties have remained, and Grand Duchess Anastasia Mikhailovna, granddaughter of Emperor Nicholas I, is the great-grandmother of the current Queen of Denmark, Margrethe II.

Anastasia Mikhailovna was born on July 28, 1860. Her father was Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolaevich, the younger son of Emperor Nicholas I, and her mother was Grand Duchess Olga Feodorovna, born a princess of Baden. When she turned two, her father was appointed governor of the Caucasus, where she spent her childhood. At 18, Anastasia married Friedrich Franz III, who was nine years older and already held the title of Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Unlike her husband, Anastasia was attractive, loved traveling and sports, played tennis beautifully, attended theaters, and often visited casinos to diversify her seemingly dull family life.

In 1897, after her husband's death, Anastasia Mikhailovna moved to the French Riviera, although she frequently visited Russia. In St. Petersburg, she met priest Georgy Ostrovumov and convinced him to move to Cannes, where she soon initiated the construction of the Orthodox Mikhailo-Arkhangelsk Church, which became the center of life for Russian émigrés in France. The Grand Duchess was the mother of four children: three were born during her marriage to the duke, and the last, an illegitimate son, resulted from an affair with her secretary Vladimir Paltov.

Anastasia Mikhailovna lived in France for almost seventeen years, but with the onset of World War I, she was forced to temporarily move to Switzerland. She passed away on March 11, 1922.