 She was always ready to give, freely and generously, to anyone who appealed to her, to do what she could to help anyone in distress, to lend her name, her house, her resources for any worthy cause, but she shrank from publicity, from all the complications of executive administration".Princess Zinaida Yusupova served as lady-in-waiting to both the Empress Maria Feodorovna and later Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and was a close friend to Grand Duchess Elisabeth Feodorovna wife of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia.In private, she became a severe critic of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, Grand Duchess Elisabeth's sister.