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Ilustrovana politika, 24 September 2005
 PRINCE
ALEXANDER AND PRINCESS KATHERINE – TWO DECADES OF HAPPY
MARRIAGE
My husband is my king
The Crown Prince and his wife spoke
to us about how they met, how they decided to meet
again, and how to get married, where they spent their
honeymoon. Princess revealed why she is jealous of her
husband’s computer
Instead of spending the day dedicated
to one another by evoking memories of the greatest
moments from the last twenty years of their life
together, Prince Alexander II and Princess Katherine
merely went to the church to light candles and give
their thanks to God for granting them this happy and
harmonious marriage. Afterwards interviews, business
meetings and the welcome for friends who are bringing
humanitarian help from abroad for hospitals in Serbia
followed…
 On
the eve of little intimate jubilee Crown Prince gave a
present: lotion and crème with “Hermes” logo on it,
while she chose…
- No, I’m not impatient like my
husband who always wants to surprise me first – admits
Princess Katherine. – I prepared a surprise and he will
get it later.
Although, we soon learned that the
Princess is thrilled with the new audio-technology
marvel called “IPOD”, which is something like a disc-man
but has computer music memory, so this would be a
present from her husband on the next occasion.
Meanwhile Crown Prince Alexander went
to The Royal Complex Garden and personally picked two
yellow roses. “For each decade of their marriage – one
rose”, he said to us with a smile while hurrying toward
the Blue Salon of The Royal Palace where his wife waited
for him with a telephone in her hand.
- I apologize for this – Princess
excused herself - but I have to speak to people who work
so hard, who help and call my husband.
Then she handed over the telephone to
her husband who skilfully hid the roses out of
Princess’s sight.
- I believe that my husband is one of
the Serbs who cares and thinks the most about this
country, this people, every single moment. That is why I
love him. I’m often asked what attracted me to him and
my answer is – his honesty. He is always so honest. He
simply doesn’t like muddy games and does not have time
for them.
And then the man we spoke about
showed up in front of us and gave the roses to his wife.
They fell into each others arms, smiled to each other,
kissed – this happiness because of a small but tender
gesture is hardly seen even on a Latin-American soap
opera. Each whisper they shared was followed with a warm
smile and in this mood (of loving teenagers) they stood
in front of a camera, ready to eternalize this jubilee.
- Those twenty years went by too fast
– says her husband. – So much happened. My wife is a
lovely lady, a caring mother who is concerned for our
country, who helped me in everything I was doing and
that wasn’t so easy. Not only that I love her but I
admire her. We travelled a lot, spent time with friends
and but she was always not only lovely but incredibly
positive.
In the morning
straight to the church
 Princess
likes to talk about bridges of destiny which lead people
to their happiness. She has an impression that her
husband and she were going over those bridges through
their lives and first marriages until they met each
other at the lunch in Washington in 1985.
- The day when we met each other was
an end to our journeys over these bridges which defined
our destinies. It was God’s will and we never imagined
that happiness like this one belonged to us. This is why
we went to the church this morning to give our thanks to
God for uniting us and keeping us together.
That fateful luncheon was arranged by
a common acquaintance of Greek origin. Crown Prince,
being a real gentleman, doesn’t use many words to
describe those romantic moments.
- We sat next to each another and saw
that we have many things in common, sparks lightened up
and we decided to see each other again and shortly
afterwards we started living together. We both had
children, went through hard moments when we divorced
from our first marriages but all that didn’t stop our
decision to live together.
With many details and emotions
Princess describes those moments from two decades ago.
- Our friend was wise enough not to
tell us in advance where we are going to sit. Maybe,
this encounter wouldn’t have happened at all, because it
was only one month since I divorced and two months since
Alexander divorced when we first met. I’m not quite sure
whether we really knew if we were ready for a new
relationship, whether we were still at the middle of our
bridges or at their end. We weren’t aware that our
wandering is going to be awarded.
Then Princess assured us that she
feared her husband to be. It is true!
- Because I loved him too much! Until
I met him I didn’t know that before that until then I
had never really been in love, that I didn’t know what
the real love was. He was my first true love. Sitting
next to him I lost my mind, a real mess. I couldn’t wait
for the lunch to end because I felt that I was going to
be sick, I didn’t know what I wanted. I was shocked when
I realized that until that moment I hadn’t known true
love. I didn’t know what to do, what to think, even if I
wanted to see him again because of the fear that I will
not endure those strong feelings again. I was thinking
about him so much that I couldn’t act normally. I began
to believe in love at first sight in which I never
believed before. I decided to follow my destiny and not
to fight against it. Somebody asked me how do I know
what is my destiny? The simple answer is: when I feel
that I’m calm I know that that is my destiny.
At the wedding, on 21 September 1985
What was the subject of conversation
that Crown Prince Alexander and Princess Katherine had?
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At the wedding, on 21
September 1985
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It was about where we lived
before, how both of us went to a school in Switzerland
at about the same time; we talked about our journeys,
about how we earned our living, about how we had not
inherited anything, nor had any other kind of support.
It was an interesting conversation.
As you can presume – this was the
answer of the Crown Prince – of a gentleman who is sure
that his wife is going to explain everything much better
and livelier. That is why he let her speak about them.
- In fact, we could have met a year
before. I was in Alexander’s office with some friends.
He was there and friends told me that he was in the
office and that his grandfather was the Greek King and
asked if I would like to meet him. Certainly, I would be
honoured, I answered. But, Alexander left before that
and went to Seville for the baptism of his two sons –
twins Philip and Alexander. Someone gave me his business
card but I never phoned him. I didn’t see the reason,
maybe I was too shy, and anyhow we were then still
married so that even if we had met then, our romance at
the time would not have happened.
How long was it before you met again
after the lunch?
- The second encounter followed
quickly after that, at Alexander’s initiative, I have to
say. He was braver than I – says Princess, laughingly. –
I spoke with my wise mother with whom I was sharing
everything I felt. She told me:” Well, try to see him
once more, maybe you will feel better!” Two weeks later,
I agreed to meet him and I will never forget that
moment. Each of us got out of our cars that were parked
quite far from one another but we suddenly ran into each
others arms. We embraced, and it seemed to me that it
lasted for eternity... and there was nothing more to
say. We started talking about spending the rest of our
lives together, where would we live, how…
Princess seems to have been
overwhelmed again with the same feelings while she was
recollecting her memories about what she went through
twenty years ago. Almost breathlessly, she returns to
“that” lunch:
- After it was organized by one Greek
friend and the lunch was Greek too and one of the
courses was saranaki, a kind of fried cheese served with
exquisite domestic bread, and we both love bread.
Crown Prince illustratively completes
this habit by pointing out to his stomach with a remark:
- It is obvious that we are real
Serbs!
But his wife had the continuation of
that cheese story:
Prince Alexander with wife
Katherine and sons from the first marriage
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- They placed saranaki in one plate
between us so we had to share it. That was the first
thing that we had to share, and it was a very delicious
one. We both dipped pieces of bread into saranaki and I
knew then that saranaki will “get me into trouble” at
the end of the day because we were non-stop laughing and
were happy about simple things… I remember asking
Alison, my daughter…the only girl that we have…she, my
children David and Alison loved Alexander from the very
beginning and they wondered how I managed to bond to
someone so quickly. My son and daughter considered me
the real child because I got married at 19 the first
time. They thought that I would not know what I would do
with myself after the divorce. I asked Alison what she
liked about Alexander. She answered: “His sense of
humour and that he makes you laugh when he is around.”
Two months later they decided to get
married. Because of his work The Crown Prince had moved
to London already. They planned to commit in September.
- We got married in a Serbian
Orthodox Church – adds Crown Prince. Our best man was
The Greek King Constantine and the “stari svat” was
Prince Tomislav. It was a beautiful ceremony. We settled
down in London. My sons came to live with us but we
insisted that they spent all their holidays and
vacations with their mother in Spain where she
remarried. We often went with them. We just wanted for
the boys to have a careless and nice childhood, to
receive a good education. I think we succeeded.
Prince Alexander with wife Katherine
and sons from the first marriage
- We built a very good relationship
with the first wife of my husband – adds Princess
Katherine. – I remember she was coming to London and
that we used to bathe the twins in the bathroom
together, I even have those photos. I wanted our
children to be happy.
- We first lived in a very nicely
decorated loft, and then we bought the apartment next to
Saint James Park, by The Buckingham Palace. That is
where we used to live until we came back to Belgrade –
says Crown Prince.
The Prince is happy that Peter,
Philip, and Alexander had different childhood then his
own.
- As a boy I went from country to
country, from a hotel to a hotel…and that is what I
wanted to spare my sons of.
Of course, Katharine and Alexander
thought of having their own child, but very soon they
gave up that idea.
-We realized that three boys should
not share our love with somebody else in the house they
live in. We both decided to sacrifice, to give up our
happiness for the happiness of three little boys. Maybe
I would have had a guilty conscience about whether I
devoted more attention to them or to my child. My
children from the first marriage were already grown up
and they did not live with me, they were studying. We
never regretted that decision even though I always
wondered how that baby would have looked like, that
fruit of love, but now I am sure that Peter, Philip and
Alexander are also fruits of our love.
They spent their honeymoon travelling
by Orient Express from London to Venice. There are many
anecdotes such as the one with the goose pâté that
looked like dog food, for instance, or that wonderful
vacation in Venice. Everything had changed, they say, by
the early nineties, when they visited Yugoslavia for the
first time.
- The changes followed and it
appeared to me that my long-time dream to live in my
country would come true. I asked my wife “Are you with
me” and she confirmed. The things began to move in a
positive direction, but not for long. We came in 1991
for just a few days. There were many dirty games, the
political ones, many people tried to use us. I think
that my grandfather, Alexander I, would have been
shocked to see what was left of his dream of Yugoslavia.
After we came back to visit the sick Prince Tomislav,
but we realized that the regime played terrible tricks
with us, which was sad. We went to the Republic of
Srpska, Montenegro, and Kosovo. Our next visit was on a
sad occasion – the funeral of Prince Tomislav. And the
regime again played with us. A couple of days after the
5th October 2000, we came back again, and we were
received by Kostunica and Djindjic which marked a new
beginning for us.<
Baby – State Enemy
The Prince stresses that he has never
been bitter about the injustice that the communists did
to his family.
The newly weds at their first holiday
together
The newly weds at their
first holiday together
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- I was only two years old when they
pronounced me as the state enemy, very dangerous, with
huge teeth covered with blood, very dangerous muscles,
the third on a list of dangerous enemies’ right behind
my father and my mother.
- I could not visit The Palace during
the nineties; they did not let me, even though I wrote
requests. All the other members of the family could come
here. The simple principle of the regime was – divide
and rule. That is why in December 2000, when I came here
I was overflowed with emotions as I saw the house where
my father and grandfather had lived. I wondered where he
used to sit, what books he used to read. Some of this he
told me, in those moments when he let show how much he
suffered for his homeland. I, my wife and my sons fell
in love with The Compound. I decided that it has to be
preserved as one entity, that it mustn’t be
disintegrated. The heirs are the children of the last
King and the rules set in 1938 by the court are very
simple. All this needs to be taken care off and open for
the public which some members of the family do not seem
to understand. Nothing will leave this complex.
Everything in here belongs to Serbia.
The romance that we started with this
interview, we left for the very end.
- I find romantic the possibility to
dream together about the beautiful things – says the
Prince and Princess continue:
- I find romantic the possibility to
be alone together, without the phone, without being
disturbed, even for just an hour. And not to be
interrupted by anyone. Even if we were spending that
hour watching movies and eating popcorn.
Still, we wonder whether she is a
little bit jealous, in this happy marriage, of her
husband’s computer!? Since we know of his passion for
the Internet.
- Yes, I do feel as if the computer
is a the third party in our marriage, that he looks more
at the computer, than at me, that he would transfer a
computer virus to me. And then I think, maybe it is
because computer is thinner than I am so I try to lose
weight and to become slim, as the computer. I am trying
to be as attractive as the computer, but I am sure that
when he researches me he always finds some new,
interesting person whereas computer is always the same
machine…
- You never know what you can find on
“Google” – tries to defend the descendant of the
Karadjordjevics.
- Whatever – insists the “opponent”
of the Prince’s computer – I know that my only advantage
over that machine is that he (my husband) cannot shut me
down.
- You have endless batteries – ads
with laugh Prince Alexander.
Srđan JOKANOVIĆ
Photos: Željko SINOBAD and private album |
