Grand Duchess Anastasia Mikhailovna of Russia before World War I broke out, Grand Duchess Anastasia visited her brother, Grand Duke Michael Mikhailovich of Russia, and his family in England. When many eagerly greeted the outbreak of war, after the Austrian ultimatum, she wrote to Tsar Nicholas II: ""I hope that the war will not happen and that we even can say ‘perhaps in a few days, we’ll all be together again'"". The conflict split her family. Her son was a reigning prince in Germany and her younger daughter was the Kaiser's daughter in law. On the opposite side, her brothers in Russia were fighting to defeat
Ministry of Emergency Situations (Russia) of Muscovy rule and the 1649 "Direction on Municipal rescue" decree of Tsar Alexis of Russia which officially raised the Moscow Municipal Fire Service, the first active fire department in Russia. When Peter the Great was Tsar, Saint Petersburg was given its own fire department modeled on Western practices of the time. By 1863 it was transformed, by orders of Tsar Alexander II of Russia, as the first ever professional fire service in Russia and Eastern Europe. Starting in 1932 civil defense matters were performed by the Local Air Defense Units ("Местная противовоздушная оборона PBO-C", "Mestnaya protivovozdushnaya oborona PVO-S") under