Exile

Following the assassination of Grigory Rasputin, the mysterious monk credited with supernatural powers who had become very close to the Royal Family, Felix Yusupov was exiled to his country estate Rakitnoe in the Kursk Province. At the end of March 1917, the Yusupovs returned to St. Petersburg, which had already been renamed Petrograd. Tensions were running high in the capital and soon both the older and younger Yusupov couples left Petrograd for their Crimean estate.

The Red Army came too close for comfort to the Crimea in 1919. On April 13 that year, the widowed Empress Maria and her closest friends, including Irina, Felix, their four year-old daughter, Zinaida and Felix Yusupov Senior left Russia for good. The long years of exile began which Felix Yusupov would describe as "the vicissitudes and suffering of our life in a foreign land".

Zinaida and Felix Sr. settled down in Rome. Irina and Felix Jr. went to London, then moved to Paris two years later where they bought a modest house at Boulogne-sur-Seine. Only later did they find out that the house had once belonged to the sprawling property empire of Zinaida Yusupova, Felix's great-grandmother. From their first months in exile on, the Yusupovs contributed actively and selflessly to the Russian division of the Red Cross, helping their less fortunate fellow-countrymen forced into exile.

Prince Felix Yusupov, Count Sumarokov-Elston Sr. died in 1928 and was buried in Rome. Zinaida moved in with her son in Paris. In 1938, Felix and Irina's daughter married Count Nikolai Sheremetev. The newlyweds went to live in Rome, where Nikolai's parents were based. Their daughter Xenia was born in Rome in 1942.

In 1941, the Yusupovs purchased a modest house at Pierre Guerain Street in downtown Paris. Their granddaughter Xenia still owns this cozy little place.

Felix Yusupov began writing his memoirs at the beginning of the 1950s. His first book, The End of Rasputin, had been published in 1927. His memoirs came in two volumes: Before Exile. 1887-1919, and In Exile. Zinaida, Felix, Irina Sr. and Irina Jr. did not live to see their exile end. They were all buried at the Russian cemetery Saint Genevieve de Bois in Paris.

Xenia came to the land of her ancestors for the first time in 1991. At her request, Russian President Vladimir Putin granted Xenia Sphiri, nee Yusupov-Sheremetev, Russian citizenship in 2000.