Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich of Russia (the poet "K. R."), the fourth child of the Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich of Russia and of Princess Alexandra of Saxe-Altenburg, was born in the Constantine Palace, in Strelna.

From his early childhood KR was more interested in letters, art, and music than in the military upbringing required for Romanov boys. Nevertheless, the Grand Duke was sent to serve in the Imperial Russian Navy. KR was unsatisfied, and left the navy to join the elite Izmailovsky Regiment of the Imperial Guard, where he served with distinction.

He would struggle throughout his life to reconcile his homosexuality with his Orthodox beliefs, and with the social restrictions of a less tolerant age. In spite of his homosexuality, KR married in 1884 in Saint Petersburg Princess Elisabeth of Saxe-Altenburg, his second cousin. He was anyway devoted to his wife and children, and a loving father.

KR's first homosexual experiences occurred in the Imperial Guards. The Grand Duke made great efforts to repress his feelings. But despite his love for his wife, KR could not resist the temptations he encountered. KR claimed in his diary that between 1893 and 1899 he remained away from the practice of what he called his "main sin." Yet by the birth of his seventh child, KR had become a steady visitor to several of the male brothels of St. Petersburg.

In 1904 he wrote in his diary that he "ordered my coachman...to go, and continued on foot past the bath-house. I intended to walk straight on... But without reaching the Pevchesky bridge, I turned back and went in. And so I have surrendered again, without much struggle, to my depraved inclinations." The cycle of resistance and capitulation to temptation is a common theme of KR's diaries. By the end of 1904, KR became somewhat attached to an attractive young man by the name of Yatsko.

"I sent for Yatsko and he came this morning. I easily persuaded him to be candid. It was strange for me to hear him describe the familiar characteristics: he has never felt drawn to a woman, and has been infatuated with men several times. I did not confess to him that I knew these feelings from my own personal experience. Yatsko and I talked for a long time. Before leaving he kissed my face and hands; I should not have allowed this, and should have pushed him away, however I was punished afterwards by vague feelings of shame and remorse. He told me that, ever since the first time we met, his soul has been filled with rapturous feelings towards me, which grow all the time. How this reminds me of my own youth."

A few days later, KR and Yatsko met again, and a relationship developed between the two. In KR's final years, he wrote of his homosexual urges less and less, whether from having reached some arrangement with his conscience, or from the natural advance of age and ill health.

He died of natural causes in 1915, before the Revolution. His son, the Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich was killed by the Bolsheviks in Alapaievsk, Siberia, on July 18, 1918, along with his brother Prince Ioann Konstantinovich and Prince Igor Konstantinovich and other relatives and friends.