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Grand Duchess Ekaterina Mikhailovna was the third child and third daughter of Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich and Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna. She was born in St Petersburg on 28 August 1827. She married Duke Georg August of Mecklenburg-Strelitz in 1851 and had three children – Helene (1857), George (1859) and Charles (1863). She was a member of the Women’s Patriotic Society of St Petersburg (1847–70) and patroness of the institutions founded by her mother. As the only child to outlive her parents, she inherited the Mikhailovsky Palace and the estate of Oranienbaum in 1873. She and her children lived at the Chinese Palace and were the last owners of Oranienbaum before the revolution. Grand Duchess Ekaterina Mikhailovna died in St Petersburg on 12 May 1894 and was buried in the St Peter and St Paul Cathedral on 16 May 1894.