Even the tsars loved chocolate: the oldest praline in the world was discovered at the Hermitage

The oldest chocolate praline

The oldest chocolate praline in the world is 118 years old. The finding is the result of a casual discovery, in an unexpected place, among the precious clothes kept at the Hermitage Department of the History of Russian Culture. The dress in question, studded with stones and refined embroidery, was worn by Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna, sister of Tsar Nicholas II, on the occasion of a grand court ball organized in February of 1903, in the halls of the Winter Palace.

The history of the chocolate praline

And the reconstruction of history, although partially fictional, helps to isolate a curious moment in the past of one of the most powerful dynasties in the world: the hypothesis of the scholars who found the chocolate - perfectly preserved - in the sleeve of the royal dress, in fact , traces the presence of the praline to a fleeting gesture of the Grand Duchess, who after taking a bite, led back to the whirlwind of the party, hastened to hide it in a stitching in her dress, perhaps hoping to enjoy it more calmly at a later time. The more than one-hundred-year-old chocolate, therefore, will become part of the collection of relics of the Russian tsars, exhibited in a display case next to the dress that preserved it from the passage of time.