Alexei Nikolaevich was the last Tsesarevich. He was the youngest child and only son of Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. He was born with haemophilia, which his parents tried treating with the methods of peasant faith healer Grigori Rasputin.
Alexei as an infant in 1904
Alexei (right) with his sailor nanny Andrei Derevenko aboard the Imperial yacht Standart in 1908
The former palace of Russian emperors in the Polish Białowieża Forest, where Alexei had a particularly grave crisis, early October 1912
Pierre Gilliard
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Pierre Gilliard was a Swiss academic and author, best known as the French language tutor to the five children of Emperor Nicholas II of Russia from 1905 to 1918. In 1921, after the Russian Revolution of 1917, he published a memoir, Thirteen Years at the Russian Court, about his time with the family. In his memoirs, Gilliard described Tsarina Alexandra's torment over her son's hemophilia and her faith in the ability of starets Grigori Rasputin to heal the boy.
Pierre Gilliard (left) and Nicholas II sawing wood while in exile at Tobolsk, winter 1917–18
Gilliard and Tsarevich Alexei on board the imperial yacht Standart
Pierre Gilliard (1923). Thirteen Years at the Russian Court (open source). Chapter Thirteen "Tsar at the Duma – Galacia – Life at G.Q.H. – Growing Disaffection". Click to open the PDF.