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In June 1831, he moved to St. Petersburg, and he was admitted to the school of guard sergeants and cavalry cadets with further enrollment to the Chevalier Guards. There he immediately showed indiscipline and restlessness. The result was the “weak success in the sciences.” Negligence in the studies passed into negligence in the service. The disciplinary regiment book had many entries about his penalties for “the pranks” of all kinds. As a result, the young Alexander Baryatinsky got his fame as a reveller, a playboy, a participant of binge-drinking parties and scandals. His mother generously provided her son with financial help. But this money was often not enough to pay his gambling debts. Once a future famous Russian poet Alexander Pushkin and his friend Sergei Sobolewsky helped Baryatinsky to get out of such debt.

Tsar Nicholas I had heard about the unauthorized behavior of the young Prince, about his amorous adventures. Moreover, it became known about a love affair of Prince Alexander Baryatinsky with the emperor’s daughter – Grand Princess Olga Nikolaevna. Nicholas I was personally convinced that the relationship between them went beyond it was permitted. So, he sent the young Prince Baryatinsky away to the Caucasus.