The commandant of the House of Special Purpose, Yakov Yurovsky, was assigned to command the execution of the family members of the former emperor. It was from his manuscripts that it was later possible to restore the terrible picture that unfolded that night in the Ipatiev House.

According to the documents, the order for the execution was delivered to the place of execution at half past one in the night. After forty minutes, the entire Romanov family and their servants were brought to the basement. “The room was very small. Nikolai stood with his back to me, - he recalled. -

I announced that the Executive Committee of the Soviets of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies of the Urals had decided to shoot them. Nikolai turned and asked. I repeated the order and commanded: "Shoot." I fired the first and killed Nikolai on the spot. "

The emperor was killed the first time - unlike his daughters. Commander of the execution royal family later he wrote that the girls were literally "booked into bras made of a solid mass of large diamonds," so the bullets bounced off them without causing harm. Even with the help of a bayonet, it was not possible to pierce the "precious" corsage of the girls.

Photo report: 100th anniversary of the execution of the royal family

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“For a long time I was unable to stop this shooting, which took on a disorderly character. But when I finally managed to stop, I saw that many were still alive. … I had to shoot everyone in turn, ”wrote Yurovsky.

Even the tsar's dogs could not survive that night - together with the Romanovs, two of the three pets belonging to the emperor's children were killed in the Ipatiev house. The corpse of a spaniel of the Grand Duchess Anastasia, preserved in the cold, was found a year later at the bottom of a mine in Ganina Yama - the dog had a broken paw and a head punctured.

The French bulldog Ortino, which belonged to the Grand Duchess Tatiana, was also brutally killed - presumably hanged.

Miraculously, only Tsarevich Alexei's spaniel by the name of Joy survived, who was later sent to recover from his experience in England to Nicholas II's cousin, King George.

The place "where the people put an end to the monarchy"

After the execution, all the bodies were loaded into one truck and sent to the abandoned mines of Ganina Yama in Sverdlovsk region... There, at first, they tried to burn them, but the fire would go out huge at all, so it was decided to just throw the bodies into the shaft of the mine and throw branches.

However, it was not possible to hide what had happened - the very next day rumors about what had happened at night began to spread throughout the region. As one of the members of the firing squad, forced to return to the place of the failed burial, later admitted, ice water washed away all the blood and froze the bodies of those killed so that they looked like they were alive.

The Bolsheviks tried to approach the organization of the second burial attempt with great attention: the area was previously cordoned off, the bodies were again loaded onto a truck, which was supposed to transport them to a more secure place. However, even here they were in for a failure: after a few meters of the way, the truck was firmly stuck in the swamps of Porosenkov's log.

The plans had to be changed on the go. Some of the bodies were buried right under the road, the rest were doused with sulfuric acid and buried a little further away, covered with sleepers from above. These cover-up measures have proven to be more effective. After Yekaterinburg was occupied by Kolchak's army, he immediately gave the order to find the bodies of those killed.

However, forensic investigator Nikolay u, who arrived at Porosenkov Log, managed to find only fragments of burnt clothes and a severed female finger. “This is all that remains of the August Family,” Sokolov wrote in his report.

There is a version that the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky was one of the first to learn about the place where, according to him, "the people put an end to the monarchy." It is known that in 1928 he visited Sverdlovsk, having previously met with Pyotr Voikov, one of the organizers of the execution of the royal family, who could give him secret information.

After this trip, Mayakovsky wrote a poem "The Emperor", in which there are lines with a fairly accurate description of the "grave of the Romanovs": "Here the cedar was torn with an ax, notches at the root of the bark, at the root under the cedar there is a road, and in it the emperor is buried."

Confession of execution

New at first Russian government She tried with all her might to assure the West of her humanity in relation to the royal family: they say, they are all alive and are in a secret place in order to prevent the implementation of the White Guard conspiracy. Many high-ranking politicians of the young state tried to evade an answer or answered very vaguely.

Thus, the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs at the Genoa Conference of 1922 told reporters: “The fate of the tsar's daughters is not known to me. I read in the newspapers that they are in America. "

Pyotr Voikov, who answered this question in a more informal setting, cut off all further inquiries with the phrase: "The world will never know what we did to the royal family."

Only after the publication of materials from the investigation of Nikolai Sokolov, which gave a distant idea of ​​the massacre of the imperial family, the Bolsheviks had to admit at least the very fact of the execution. However, the details and information about the burial still remained a mystery, shrouded in darkness. basement Ipatiev House.

Occult version

It is not surprising that a lot of falsifications and myths have appeared regarding the execution of the Romanovs. The most popular of these was the rumor about a ritual murder and about the severed head of Nicholas II, which was allegedly taken for storage by the NKVD. This, in particular, is evidenced by the testimony of General Maurice Janin, who oversaw the investigation of the shooting by the Entente.

Supporters of the ritual nature of the murder of the imperial family have several reasons. First of all, attention is drawn to the symbolic name of the house in which everything happened: in March 1613, which marked the beginning of the dynasty, ascended the kingdom in the Ipatiev Monastery near Kostroma. And 305 years later, in 1918, the last Russian Tsar Nikolai Romanov was shot in the Ipatiev House in the Urals, requisitioned by the Bolsheviks specifically for this.

Later, the engineer Ipatiev explained that he had acquired the house six months before the events unfolded in it. There is an opinion that this purchase was made on purpose to impart symbolism to the dark murder, since Ipatiev communicated quite closely with one of the organizers of the execution - Pyotr Voikov.

Investigating the murder of the royal family on behalf of Kolchak, Lieutenant General Mikhail Diterikhs concluded in his conclusion: “It was a systematic, premeditated and prepared extermination of the Members of the House of Romanov and those who were exceptionally close to them in spirit and belief.

The straight line of the Romanov Dynasty ended: it began in the Ipatiev Monastery in the Kostroma province and ended in the Ipatiev House in the city of Yekaterinburg. "

Conspiracy theorists also drew attention to the connection between the murder of Nicholas II and the Chaldean ruler of Babylon, king Belshazzar. So, some time after the execution in the Ipatiev house, lines from the Heine ballad dedicated to Belshazzar were discovered: “Belzatsar was killed the same night by his servants”. Now a piece of wallpaper with this inscription is kept in the State Archives of the Russian Federation.

According to the Bible, Belshazzar, like, was the last king in his family. During one of the celebrations in his castle, mysterious words appeared on the wall, predicting his imminent death. That same night, the biblical king was killed.

Prosecutor's and ecclesiastical investigation

The remains of the royal family were officially found only in 1991 - then nine bodies were found buried in the Pig Meadow. Nine more years later, two missing bodies were discovered - severely burned and mutilated remains, presumably belonging to Tsarevich Alexei and Grand Duchess Maria.

Together with the specialized centers of the UK and the USA, she conducted many examinations, including molecular genetic. With her help, DNA isolated from the found remains and samples of the brother of Nicholas II Georgy Alexandrovich, as well as the nephew - the son of Olga's sister Tikhon Nikolayevich Kulikovsky-Romanov, were deciphered and compared.

The examination also matched the results with the blood on the king's shirt stored in. All researchers agreed that the found remains really belong to the Romanov family, as well as their servants.

However, the Russian Orthodox Church still refuses to recognize the remains found near Yekaterinburg as genuine. This was due to the fact that the church was not initially involved in the investigation, officials said. In this regard, the patriarch did not even come to the official burial of the remains of the royal family, which took place in 1998 at the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg.

After 2015, the study of the remains (which had to be exhumed for this) continues with the participation of a commission formed by the patriarchy. According to the latest conclusions of experts, published on July 16, 2018, complex molecular genetic examinations "confirmed that the discovered remains belonged to the former Emperor Nicholas II, members of his family and people from their environment."

The lawyer of the imperial house, German Lukyanov, said that the church commission would take note of the results of the examination, but the final decision would be announced at the Council of Bishops.

Canonization of the Passion-Bearers

Despite the ongoing controversy over the remains, back in 1981, the Romanovs were numbered among the martyrs of the Russian Orthodox Church abroad. In Russia, this happened only eight years later, since from 1918 to 1989 the tradition of canonization was interrupted. In 2000, the murdered members of the royal family were awarded a special church rank - martyrs.

As the scientific secretary of the St. Philaret Orthodox Christian Institute, church historian Yulia Balakshina told Gazeta.Ru, martyrs are a special rite of holiness, which some call the opening of the Russian Orthodox Church.

“The first Russian saints were also canonized precisely as martyrs, that is, people who humbly, imitating Christ, accepted their death. Boris and Gleb - from the hand of their brother, and Nicholas II and his family - from the hand of the revolutionaries, ”Balakshina explained.

According to the church historian, it was very difficult to rank the Romanovs as saints by the fact of life - the clan of rulers did not stand out for their pious and virtuous deeds.

It took six years to complete all the documents. “In fact, there is no timeframe for canonization in the ROC. Nevertheless, disputes about the timeliness and necessity of canonization of Nicholas II and his family continue to this day. The main argument of the opponents is that by transferring the innocent Romanovs to the level of celestials, the ROC has deprived them of elementary human compassion, ”said the church historian.

Attempts to canonize the rulers were also in the West, added Balakshina: “At one time, such a request was made by the brother and direct heir of the Scottish Queen Mary Stuart, motivating it by the fact that at the hour of her death she showed great generosity and commitment to faith. But I am still not ready to positively resolve this issue, referring to the facts from the life of the ruler, according to which she was involved in the murder and was accused of adultery. "

The Bolsheviks and the execution of the royal family

Over the past decade, the topic of the execution of the royal family has become relevant in connection with the discovery of many new facts. Documents and materials reflecting this tragic event began to be actively published, causing various comments, questions, doubts. This is why it is important to analyze the available written sources.

Emperor Nicholas II

Perhaps the earliest historical source is the materials of N.A. Sokolov, who, in hot pursuit, conducted the first investigation of this crime.

Nikolay Alekseevich Sokolov

He found traces of fireplaces, fragments of bones, pieces of clothing, jewelry, and other fragments, but he did not find the remains of the royal family.

According to the modern investigator, V.N. Solovyov, manipulations with the corpses of the royal family because of the slovenliness of the Red Army would not fit into any schemes of the most intelligent investigator for especially important cases. The subsequent offensive of the Red Army reduced the search time. The version of N.A. Sokolova was that the corpses were dismembered and burned. Those who deny the authenticity of the royal remains rely on this version.

Another group of written sources is the memoirs of participants in the execution of the royal family. They often contradict each other. They clearly show the desire to exaggerate the role of the authors in this atrocity. Among them - “note by Ya.M. Yurovsky ", which was dictated by Yurovsky to the chief keeper of party secrets, academician M.N. Pokrovsky back in 1920, when information about the investigation of N.A. Sokolov has not yet appeared in print.

Yakov Mikhailovich Yurovsky

In the 60s, the son of Ya.M. Yurovsky transferred copies of his father's memoirs to the museum and archive so that his "feat" would not be lost in the documents.
Also preserved are the memories of the head of the Ural workers' squad, a member of the Bolshevik party since 1906, an employee of the NKVD since 1920 P.Z. Ermakov, who was entrusted with organizing the burial, for he, as a local resident, knew the surroundings well. Ermakov said that the corpses were burnt to ashes, and the ashes were buried. His memoirs contain many factual errors that are refuted by the testimony of other witnesses. Memories date back to 1947. It was important for the author to prove that the order of the Yekaterinburg Executive Committee: “to shoot and bury so that no one ever finds their corpses,” has been fulfilled, the grave does not exist.

The Bolshevik leadership also created considerable confusion, trying to cover up the traces of the crime.

Initially, it was assumed that the Romanovs would be awaiting trial in the Urals. Materials were collected in Moscow, and L.D. Trotsky. But the civil war exacerbated the situation.
At the beginning of the summer of 1918, it was decided to take out royal family from Tobolsk, since the council there was headed by the SRs.

transfer of the Romanov family to the Yekaterinburg security officers

This was done on behalf of Ya.M. Sverdlov, Extraordinary Commissar of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, Myachin (aka - Yakovlev, Stoyanovich).

Nicholas II with his daughters in Tobolsk

In 1905 he rose to fame as a member of one of the most daring train robbery gangs. Subsequently, all the militants - Myachin's comrades-in-arms - were arrested, imprisoned or shot. He also managed to escape abroad with gold and jewelry. Until 1917, he lived in Capri, where he knew Lunacharsky and Gorky, and sponsored underground schools and printing houses of the Bolsheviks in Russia.

Myachin tried to send the tsarist train from Tobolsk to Omsk, but a detachment of Yekaterinburg Bolsheviks accompanying the train, having learned about the route change, blocked the road with machine guns. The Ural Council has repeatedly demanded that the royal family be placed at its disposal. Myachin, with the approval of Sverdlov, was forced to concede.

Konstantin Alekseevich Myachin

Nicholas II and his family were taken to Yekaterinburg.

This fact reflects the confrontation in the Bolshevik environment over the question of who and how will decide the fate of the royal family. Whatever the balance of power, one could hardly hope for a humane outcome, given the mood and track record of the people who made the decisions.
Another memory appeared in 1956 in Germany. They belong to I.P. Meyer, who was sent to Siberia as a captured soldier in the Austrian army, but the Bolsheviks freed him, and he joined the Red Guard. Since Meyer knew foreign languages, then he became a confidant of the international brigade in the Ural military district and worked in the mobilization department of the Soviet Ural administration.

I.P. Meyer witnessed the execution of the royal family. His memoirs supplement the picture of the execution with essential details, details, including the names of the participants, their role in this atrocity, but do not resolve the contradiction that arose in previous sources.

Later, written sources began to be supplemented with material ones. So, in 1978 the geologist A. Avdonin found a burial place. In 1989, he and M. Kochurov, as well as screenwriter G. Ryabov, spoke about their discovery. In 1991, the ashes were recovered. August 19, 1993 prosecutor's office Russian Federation opened a criminal case in connection with the discovery of the Yekaterinburg remains. The investigation began to be conducted by the prosecutor-criminalist of the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation V.N. Soloviev.

In 1995 V.N. Solovyov managed to get 75 negatives in Germany, which were made hot on the heels in the Ipatiev house by the investigator Sokolov and were considered lost forever: the toys of Tsarevich Alexei, the bedroom of the grand duchesses, the execution room and other details. Unknown originals of N.A.'s materials were also delivered to Russia. Sokolov.

Material sources made it possible to answer the question whether there was a burial of the royal family, and whose remains were found near Yekaterinburg. For this, numerous Scientific research, in which more than a hundred of the most authoritative Russian and foreign scientists took part.

To identify the remains were used latest techniques, including DNA expertise, assisted by some current reigns and other genetic relatives Russian emperor... To remove any doubts about the conclusions of numerous examinations, the remains of Georgy Alexandrovich were exhumed, sibling Nicholas II.

Georgy Alexandrovich Romanov

Modern advances in science have helped to restore the picture of events, despite some discrepancies in written sources. This made it possible for the government commission to confirm the identity of the remains and to bury Nicholas II, the Empress, three Grand Duchesses and courtiers with dignity.

There is another controversial issue related to the tragedy of July 1918. For a long time it was believed that the decision to shoot the royal family was made in Yekaterinburg by the local authorities at their own peril and risk, and Moscow learned about this after the fact. This needs to be clarified.

According to the memoirs of I.P. Meyer, on July 7, 1918, a meeting of the revolutionary committee was held, chaired by A.G. Beloborodov. He proposed to send F. Goloshchekin to Moscow and receive a decision from the Central Committee of the RCP (b) and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, since the Ural Council cannot decide on its own the fate of the Romanovs.

It was also proposed to give Goloshchekin an accompanying paper outlining the position of the Ural authorities. However, the majority of votes adopted F. Goloshchekin's resolution that the Romanovs deserve death. Goloshchekin as an old friend of Ya.M. Sverdlov, was nevertheless sent to Moscow for consultations with the Central Committee of the RCP (b) and the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee Sverdlov.

Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov

On July 14, F. Goloshchekin, at a meeting of the revolutionary tribunal, made a report on his trip and on negotiations with Ya.M. Sverdlov about the Romanovs. The Central Executive Committee did not want the tsar and his family to be taken to Moscow. The Ural Soviet and the local revolutionary headquarters must decide for themselves what to do with them. But the decision of the Ural Revolutionary Committee had already been made in advance. This means that Moscow did not object to Goloshchekin.

E.S. Radzinsky published a telegram from Yekaterinburg, in which V.I. Lenin, Ya.M. Sverdlov, G.E. Zinoviev. G. Safarov and F. Goloshchekin, who sent this telegram, asked to urgently inform if there were any objections. Judging by further events, there were no objections.

The answer to the question, but whose decision the royal family was put to death, was also given by L.D. Trotsky in his memoirs relating to 1935: “The liberals were inclined, as if, to the fact that the Ural executive committee, cut off from Moscow, acted independently. This is not true. The decision was made in Moscow. " Trotsky reported that he was proposing an open trial in order to achieve widespread propaganda effect. The process was to be broadcast throughout the country and commented on every day.

IN AND. Lenin reacted positively to this idea, but expressed doubts about its feasibility. There might not be enough time. Later, Trotsky learned from Sverdlov about the execution of the royal family. To the question: "Who decided?" Ya.M. Sverdlov replied: “We decided here. Ilyich believed that we should not leave them a living banner, especially in the current difficult conditions. " These diary entries by L.D. Trotsky was not intended for publication, did not respond to "the news of the day", and were not expressed in polemics. The degree of reliability of the presentation in them is great.

Lev Davydovich Trotsky

There is another clarification of L.D. Trotsky, concerning the authorship of the idea of ​​regicide. In the drafts of the unfinished chapters of the biography of I.V. Stalin, he wrote about the meeting between Sverdlov and Stalin, where the latter spoke in favor of the death sentence to the tsar. At the same time, Trotsky did not rely on his own memories, but quoted the memoirs of the Soviet functionary Besedovsky, who had fled to the West. These data need to be verified.

Message from Ya.M. Sverdlov at a meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on July 18 about the execution of the Romanov family was greeted with applause and recognition that in the current situation the Ural Regional Council did the right thing. And at the meeting of the Council of People's Commissars Sverdlov announced this incidentally, without causing any discussion.

The most complete ideological substantiation of the shooting by the Bolsheviks of the royal family with elements of pathos was presented by Trotsky: “In essence, the decision was not only expedient, but also necessary. The severity of the reprisals showed everyone that we would fight mercilessly, stopping at nothing. The execution of the royal family was needed not only to confuse, horrify, and deprive the enemy of hope, but also to shake up their own ranks, to show that there was no retreat, that there was a complete victory or complete death ahead. In the intellectual circles of the party, there were probably doubts and shaking their heads. But the masses of workers and soldiers did not hesitate for a minute: they would not have understood or accepted any other decision. Lenin felt this well: the ability to think and feel for the masses and with the masses was in the highest measure characteristic of him, especially at great political turns ... "

For some time, the Bolsheviks tried to hide the fact of the execution not only of the tsar, but also of his wife and children, and even from their own. So, one of the prominent diplomats of the USSR, A.A. Ioffe, officially reported only about the execution of Nicholas II. He knew nothing about the king's wife and children and thought that they were alive. His inquiries to Moscow did not yield any results, and only from an unofficial conversation with F.E. Dzerzhinsky, he managed to find out the truth.

“Let Ioffe know nothing,” Vladimir Ilyich said, according to Dzerzhinsky, “it will be easier for him there, in Berlin, to lie ...” The text of the telegram about the execution of the royal family was intercepted by the White Guards who entered Yekaterinburg. Investigator Sokolov deciphered and published it.

The royal family from left to right: Olga, Alexandra Fedorovna, Alexey, Maria, Nicholas II, Tatiana, Anastasia

The fate of the people involved in the liquidation of the Romanovs is of interest.

F.I. Goloshchekin (Isai Goloshchekin), (1876-1941), secretary of the Ural regional committee and member of the Siberian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), military commissar of the Ural military district, was arrested on October 15, 1939 at the direction of L.P. Beria and was shot as an enemy of the people on October 28, 1941.

A.G. Beloborodoe (1891-1938), chairman of the executive committee of the Ural regional council, participated in the twenties in the internal party struggle on the side of L.D. Trotsky. Beloborodoy provided Trotsky with his housing when the latter was evicted from the Kremlin apartment. In 1927 he was expelled from the CPSU (b) for factional activities. Later, in 1930, Beloborodov was reinstated in the party as a repentant oppositionist, but this did not save him. In 1938 he was repressed.

As for the direct participant in the execution, Ya.M. Yurovsky (1878-1938), a member of the collegium of the regional Cheka, it is known that his daughter Rimma suffered from repression.

Yurovsky's assistant in the "House of Special Purpose" P.L. Voikov (1888-1927), People's Commissar for Supply in the government of the Urals, when appointed in 1924 as the USSR ambassador to Poland for a long time could not get an agreman from the Polish government, since his personality was associated with the execution of the royal family.

Pyotr Lazarevich Voikov

G.V. Chicherin gave the Polish authorities a characteristic explanation on this matter: “... Hundreds and thousands of fighters for the freedom of the Polish people who perished over the course of a century on the tsar's gallows and in Siberian prisons, otherwise they would have reacted to the fact of the destruction of the Romanovs, than this could be concluded from Your messages ". In 1927 P.L. Voikov was killed in Poland by one of the monarchists for participating in the massacre of the royal family.

Another name in the list of persons who took part in the shooting of the royal family is of interest. This is Imre Nagy. The leader of the Hungarian events of 1956 was in Russia, where in 1918 he joined the RCP (b), then served in the Special Department of the Cheka, and later collaborated with the NKVD. However, his autobiography says about his stay not in the Urals, but in Siberia, in the region of Verkhneudinsk (Ulan-Ude).

Until March 1918 he was in a prisoner of war camp in Berezovka, in March he joined the Red Guard, took part in the battles on Lake Baikal. In September 1918, his detachment, located on the Soviet-Mongolian border, in Troitskosavsk, was then disarmed and arrested by the Czechoslovakians in Berezovka. Then he ended up in a military town near Irkutsk. The curriculum vitae shows how the future leader of the Hungarian Communist Party led a mobile lifestyle on the territory of Russia during the period of the execution of the royal family.

In addition, the information indicated in his autobiography did not always correspond to the personal data. However, no direct evidence of the involvement of Imre Nagy, and not of his probable namesake, in the execution of the royal family can be traced at the moment.

Imprisonment in the Ipatiev house

Ipatiev's house

The Romanovs and their servants in the Ipatiev house

The Romanov family was placed in a "special purpose house" - the requisitioned mansion of a retired military engineer NN Ipatiev. Doctor E.S.Botkin, chamberlaine A.E. Trup, maid of Empress A.S.Demidov, cook I.M.Kharitonov and cook Leonid Sednev lived here with the Romanov family.

The house is nice, clean. We were assigned four rooms: a corner bedroom, a dressing room, next to a dining room with windows to the garden and overlooking the low-lying part of the city, and, finally, a spacious hall with an arch without doors. They were positioned as follows: Alix [the empress], Maria and I three of us in the bedroom, the common dressing room, in the dining room - N [yuta] Demidova, in the hall - Botkin, Chemodurov and Sednev. Near the entrance there is a guard officer's room. The guard was placed in two rooms near the dining room. To go to the bathroom and W.C. [water closet], you need to go past the sentry at the door of the guardhouse. A very high plank fence was built around the house, two fathoms from the windows; there was a chain of sentries, in the kindergarten too.

The royal family spent 78 days in their last house.

AD Avdeev was appointed commandant of the "special purpose house".

Firing squad

It is known from the memoirs of the participants in the execution that they did not know in advance how the "execution" would be carried out. Proposed different variants: stab the arrested with daggers while sleeping, throw grenades into the room with them, shoot them. According to the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation, the issue of the procedure for carrying out the "execution" was resolved with the participation of employees of the UraloblChK.

At 1:30 am on July 16-17, a truck arrived at Ipatiev's house to transport corpses, which was one and a half hours late. After that, the doctor Botkin was woken up, who was informed of the need for everyone to urgently go downstairs due to the alarming situation in the city and the danger of staying on the top floor. It took about 30-40 minutes to get ready.

Evgeny Botkin, medical life Ivan Kharitonov, cook Alexey Trup, valet Anna Demidova, maid

went to the basement room (Nicholas II was carrying Alexei, who could not walk). There were no chairs in the basement, then, at the request of Alexandra Fedorovna, two chairs were brought. Alexandra Fedorovna and Alexei sat on them. The rest were placed along the wall. Yurovsky introduced a firing squad and read out the verdict. Nicholas II only had time to ask: "What?" (other sources convey the last words of Nikolai as "Huh?" or "How, how? Reread"). Yurovsky gave the command, and indiscriminate shooting began.

The gunmen did not succeed in immediately killing Alexei, the daughters of Nicholas II, the maid A.S. Demidova, and Dr. E.S. Botkin. Anastasia screamed, Demidov's maid rose to her feet, Alexei remained alive for a long time. Some of them were shot; the survivors, according to the investigation, were finished off with a bayonet by P.Z. Ermakov.

According to Yurovsky's memoirs, the shooting was indiscriminate: many probably fired from a nearby room, through the threshold, and the bullets bounced off stone wall... At the same time, one of the gunmen was slightly wounded (“A bullet from one of the shooters from behind buzzed past my head, and one, I don’t remember, either a hand, a palm, or a finger touched and shot through”).

According to T. Manakova, two dogs of the royal family, the French bulldog Ortino Tatiana and the royal spaniel Jimmy (Jemmy) Anastasia, were also killed during the execution. The third dog - Aleksey Nikolayevich's spaniel named Joy - was spared its life, as it did not howl. The spaniel was later taken by the guard Letemin, who because of this was identified and arrested by whites. Subsequently, according to the story of Bishop Vasily (Rodzianko), Joy was taken to Great Britain by an emigrant officer and handed over to the British royal family.

after the shooting

The basement of the Ipatiev house in Yekaterinburg, where the royal family was shot. GA RF

From a speech by Ya.M. Yurovsky to the old Bolsheviks in Sverdlovsk in 1934

The younger generation may not understand us. They can reproach that we killed the girls, killed the boy heir. But to today girls-boys would grow ... into what?

In order to muffle the shots, a truck was started near the Ipatiev House, but shots were still heard in the city. In the materials of Sokolov there are, in particular, testimony about this by two incidental witnesses, the peasant Buyvyd and the night watchman Tsegov.

According to Richard Pipes, immediately after that, Yurovsky harshly suppresses attempts by the guards to plunder the jewelry they discovered, threatening to be shot. After that, he instructed PS Medvedev to organize the cleaning of the premises, and he himself left to destroy the corpses.

The exact text of the sentence pronounced by Yurovsky before the execution is unknown. In the materials of the investigator N. A. Sokolov, there is testimony from the guard guard Yakimov, who, with reference to the guard Kleschev who watched the scene, stated that Yurovsky said: “Nikolai Alexandrovich, your relatives tried to save you, but they did not have to. And we are forced to shoot you ourselves. "

M.A.Medvedev (Kudrin) described this scene as follows:

Mikhail Alexandrovich Medvedev-Kudrin

- Nikolai Alexandrovich! The attempts of your associates to save you were unsuccessful! And so, in a difficult time for the Soviet Republic ... - Yakov Mikhailovich raises his voice and chops the air with his hand: - ... we are entrusted with the mission of ending the house of the Romanovs!

In the memoirs of Yurovsky's assistant G.P. Nikulin, this episode is described as follows: Comrade Yurovsky uttered such a phrase that:

"Your friends are attacking Yekaterinburg, and therefore you are sentenced to death."

Yurovsky himself could not remember the exact text: “… right there, as far as I remember, I told Nikolai something like the following that his royal relatives and friends both in the country and abroad tried to free him, and that the Council of Workers' Deputies decided to shoot them ".

On July 17, in the afternoon, several members of the executive committee of the Uraloblsovet contacted Moscow by telegraph (the telegram indicates that it was received at 12 o'clock) and reported that Nicholas II had been shot, and his family had been evacuated. The editor of Uralsky Rabochy, member of the executive committee of the Uraloblsovet V. Vorobyov later claimed that they “were very uncomfortable when they approached the apparatus: former king was shot by a resolution of the Presidium of the Regional Council, and it was not known how the central government would react to this “arbitrariness” ... ”. The reliability of this testimony, wrote G.Z. Ioffe, cannot be verified.

Investigator N. Sokolov claimed that he had found an encrypted telegram from the chairman of the Uraloblispolkom A. Beloborodov to Moscow, dated July 17 at 21:00, which was allegedly deciphered only in September 1920. It reported: “To the Secretary of the Council of People's Commissars, NP Gorbunov: tell Sverdlov that the whole family suffered the same fate as the head. Officially, the family will die during the evacuation. " Sokolov concluded: this means that on the evening of July 17, Moscow knew about the death of the entire royal family. However, the minutes of the meeting of the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on July 18 only mention the execution of Nicholas II.

Destruction and burial of remains

Ganinsky ravines - the burial place of the Romanovs

Jurowski's version

According to Yurovsky's recollections, he went to the mine at three o'clock in the morning on July 17. Yurovsky reports that Goloshchekin must have instructed P.Z. Ermakov to carry out the burial. However, things did not go as smoothly as they would have liked: Ermakov brought in too many people as the funeral team (“Why are there so many, I still don’t know , I heard only individual cries - we thought that they would be given to us here alive, but here, it turns out, they are dead "); the truck is stuck; jewelry was found sewn into the clothes of the grand duchesses, some of Ermakov's people began to appropriate them. Yurovsky ordered to put security guards on the truck. The bodies were loaded onto bays. On the way and near the mine planned for burial, strangers met. Yurovsky assigned people to cordon off the area, as well as to report to the village that Czechoslovakians are active in the area and that it is forbidden to leave the village under threat of execution. In an effort to get rid of the presence of an overly large funeral team, he sends some of the people to the city "as unnecessary." Orders to make fires to burn clothes as possible physical evidence.

From the memoirs of Yurovsky (spelling preserved):

The daughters wore bodices, so well made of solid brilliant and other valuable stones, which were not only containers for valuables, but also protective armor.

That is why neither the bullet nor the bayonet gave results when shooting and bayonet strikes. In these death throes, by the way, except for themselves, no one is to blame. These values ​​turned out to be only about (half) a pound. The greed was so great that on Alexandra Feodorovna, by the way, there was just a huge piece of round gold wire, bent in the form of a bracelet, weighing about a pound ... in the ashes of the fires.

After the confiscation of valuables and the burning of clothes on bonfires, the bodies were thrown into the mine, but “... a new hassle. The water slightly covered the bodies, what can I do here? " The funeral team unsuccessfully tried to bring down the mine with grenades ("bombs"), after which Yurovsky, according to him, finally came to the conclusion that the burial of the corpses had failed, since they were easy to find and, in addition, there were witnesses that something was happening here ... Leaving the guards and taking the valuables, at about two o'clock in the afternoon (in the earlier version of his memoirs - "at 10-11 am") on July 17, Yurovsky drove to the city. I came to the Uraloblispolkom and reported on the situation. Goloshchekin summoned Ermakov and sent him to retrieve the corpses. Yurovsky went to the city executive committee to its chairman S.E. Chutskaev for advice on the place of burial. Chutskaev reported about deep abandoned mines on the Moscow highway. Yurovsky went to inspect these mines, but he could not get to the place immediately due to a breakdown of the car, he had to walk. Returned on requisitioned horses. During this time, another plan appeared - to burn the corpses.

Yurovsky was not entirely sure that the incineration would be successful, so the plan for burial of corpses in the mines of the Moscow highway was still an option. In addition, he had an idea, in case of any failure, to bury the bodies in groups in different places on a clay road. Thus, there were three options for action. Yurovsky went to the Ural supply commissar Voikov to get gasoline or kerosene, as well as sulfuric acid to disfigure faces, and shovels. Having received this, they were loaded onto carts and sent to the location of the corpses. A truck was sent there. Yurovsky himself stayed to wait for Polushin, “the“ specialist ”in burning," and waited for him until 11 o'clock in the evening, but he never arrived, because, as Yurovsky later found out, fell from his horse and injured his leg. At about 12 o'clock at night, Yurovsky, not counting on the reliability of the car, went to the place where the bodies of the dead were, on horseback, but this time another horse crushed his leg, so that he could not move for an hour.

Yurovsky arrived at the site at night. Work was underway to extract the bodies. Yurovsky decided to bury several corpses along the way. By dawn on July 18, the pit was almost ready, but a stranger appeared nearby. I had to abandon this plan too. Waiting for the evening, they loaded onto a cart (the truck was waiting in a place where it shouldn't have gotten stuck). Then we were driving a truck and it got stuck. Midnight was approaching, and Yurovsky decided that it was necessary to bury somewhere here, since it was dark and no one could be a witness to the burial.

... everyone was so devilishly tired that they didn't want to dig a new grave, but, as always in such cases, two or three got down to business, then others started, immediately lit a fire, and while the grave was being prepared, we burned two corpses: Alexei and by mistake instead of Alexandra Feodorovna they burned, obviously, Demidova. A hole was dug at the site of the burning, the bones were folded, leveled, a large fire was re-lit and all traces were hidden with ashes.

Before putting the rest of the corpses into the pit, we doused them with sulfuric acid, the pit was filled up, the sleepers were closed, the truck drove through empty, the sleepers were rammed a little and put an end to it.

I. Rodzinsky and M.A.Medvedev (Kudrin) also left their memories of the burial of corpses (Medvedev, by his own admission, did not personally participate in the burial and retold the events from the words of Yurovsky and Rodzinsky). According to the memoirs of Rodzinsky himself:

The place where the remains of the alleged bodies of the Romanovs were found

We have immediately opened this quagmire. She is deep, God knows where. Well, then some of these same darlings were decomposed and they began to pour sulfuric acid, disfigure everything, and then all this into a quagmire. There was a railway nearby. We brought in rotten sleepers, laid a pendulum through the bog. They laid out these sleepers in the form of a bridge so thrown through the bog, and the rest at some distance began to be burned.

But now, I remember, Nikolai was burned, there was this same Botkin, now I can't tell you for sure, here is the memory. How many we burned, whether four, or five, or six people were burned. Whom, I don’t remember exactly. I remember exactly Nicholas. Botkin and, in my opinion, Alexei.

Shooting without trial and investigation of the king, his wife, children, including minors, was another step but the path of lawlessness, neglect human life, terror. Many problems of the Soviet state began to be solved with the help of violence. The Bolsheviks who unleashed the terror themselves often became its victims.
The burial of the last Russian emperor eighty years after the execution of the royal family is another indicator of the inconsistency and unpredictability of Russian history.

"Church on blood" on the site of the Ipatiev house

First, the Provisional Government agrees to fulfill all the conditions. But on March 8, 1917, General Mikhail Alekseev informs the tsar that he "can consider himself, as it were, arrested." After a while, a notification of refusal comes from London, which had previously agreed to accept the Romanov family. On March 21, the former Emperor Nicholas II and his entire family were officially taken into custody.

A little over a year later, on July 17, 1918, the last royal family Russian Empire will be shot in a cramped basement in Yekaterinburg. The Romanovs suffered hardships, getting closer and closer to their gloomy finale. Let's take a look at rare photos of members of the last tsarist family in Russia, taken some time before the execution.

After the February Revolution of 1917, the last tsarist family of Russia, by decision of the Provisional Government, was sent to the Siberian city of Tobolsk to protect it from the anger of the people. A few months earlier, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated the throne, as a result of which more than three hundred years of the reign of the Romanov dynasty were interrupted.

The Romanovs began their five-day journey to Siberia in August, on the eve of the 13th birthday of Tsarevich Alexei. The seven family members were joined by 46 servants and a military escort. The day before reaching their destination, the Romanovs sailed past Rasputin's hometown, whose eccentric influence on politics might have made a dark contribution to their mournful ending.

The family arrived in Tobolsk on August 19 and began to live in relative comfort on the banks of the Irtysh River. In the Governor's Palace, where they were placed, the Romanovs were well fed, and they could communicate a lot with each other, without being distracted by state affairs and official events. Children performed plays for their parents, and the family often went to the city for religious services - this was the only form of freedom they allowed.

When the Bolsheviks came to power at the end of 1917, the regime of the tsarist family began to tighten slowly but surely. The Romanovs were banned from attending church and generally leaving the territory of the mansion. Soon coffee, sugar disappeared from their kitchen butter and cream, and the soldiers assigned to protect them wrote obscene and offensive words on the walls and fences of their homes.

Things got worse and worse. In April 1918, a commissar, a certain Yakovlev, arrived with an order to transport the former tsar from Tobolsk. The Empress was adamant in her desire to accompany her husband, but Comrade Yakovlev had other orders that complicated things. At this time, Tsarevich Alexei, suffering from hemophilia, because of a bruise, began to suffer from paralysis of both legs, and everyone expected that he would be left in Tobolsk, and the family would be divided during the war.

The commissioner's demands to move were adamant, so Nikolai, his wife Alexandra and one of their daughters, Maria, soon left Tobolsk. They eventually took a train to travel through Yekaterinburg to Moscow, where the Red Army was headquartered. However, Commissar Yakovlev was arrested for trying to save the royal family, and the Romanovs got off the train in Yekaterinburg, in the heart of Bolshevik-occupied territory.

In Yekaterinburg, the other children joined the parents - everyone was locked in the Ipatiev house. The family was placed on the second floor and completely cut off from the outside world, the windows were boarded up and guards were posted at the door. The Romanovs were allowed to go to Fresh air just five minutes a day.

In early July 1918, the Soviet authorities began to prepare for the execution of the royal family. The ordinary soldiers on the guard were replaced by representatives of the Cheka, and the Romanovs were allowed to go to church services for the last time. The priest who conducted the service later admitted that none of the family spoke a word during the service. On July 16, the day of the murder, five trucks were ordered with barrels of benzidine and acid to quickly dispose of the bodies.

Early in the morning of July 17, the Romanovs were gathered and told about the offensive of the White Army. The family believed that they were simply being transferred to a small lighted basement for their own protection, because soon it would be unsafe here. Approaching the place of execution, the last Tsar of Russia walked past trucks, one of which will soon contain his body, not even suspecting what a terrible fate awaits his wife and children.

In the basement, Nikolai was told that he would be executed now. Not believing his own ears, he asked again: "What?" - immediately after which the Chekist Yakov Yurovsky shot the tsar. Another 11 people pulled the trigger, flooding the basement with the blood of the Romanovs. Alexei survived the first shot, but was finished off by Yurovsky's second shot. The next day, the bodies of members of the last royal family of Russia were burned 19 km from Yekaterinburg, in the village of Koptyaki.

He was not shot, and the entire female half of the royal family was taken to Germany. But the documents are still classified ...

For me, this story began in November 1983. I was then working as a photojournalist for a French agency and was sent to a summit of heads of state and government in Venice. There I met by chance an Italian colleague who, upon learning that I was Russian, showed me a newspaper (I think it was "La Repubblica") dated the day of our meeting. In the article to which the Italian drew my attention, it was said that in Rome, at a very old age, a certain nun, Pascalina's sister, had died. I later learned that this woman was important post in the Vatican hierarchy under Pope Pius XII (1939 -1958), but that's not the point.

The secret of the "iron lady" of the Vatican

THIS sister of Pascalina, who earned the honorary nickname "Iron Lady" of the Vatican, before her death called a notary with two witnesses and in their presence dictated information that she did not want to take with her to the grave: one of the daughters of the last Russian Tsar Nicholas II - Olga - was not shot by the Bolsheviks on the night of July 16-17, 1918, and lived long life and was buried in a cemetery in the village of Marcotte in northern Italy.

After the summit, my Italian friend, who was my driver and translator, went to this village. We found a cemetery and this grave. On the slab it was written in German: "Olga Nikolaevna, the eldest daughter of the Russian Tsar Nikolai Romanov" - and the dates of life: "1895 - 1976". We talked with the cemetery watchman and his wife: they, like all the villagers, remembered Olga Nikolaevna very well, knew who she was, and were sure that she was Russian. grand duchess is under the protection of the Vatican.

This strange find interested me extremely, and I decided to figure out all the circumstances of the execution myself. And in general, was he?

I have every reason to believe that there was no execution. On the night of July 16-17, all the Bolsheviks and their sympathizers left for railroad to Perm. The next morning in Yekaterinburg, leaflets were pasted up with the message that the royal family had been taken away from the city - and so it was. Soon the city was occupied by whites. Naturally, a commission of inquiry was formed "on the case of the disappearance of Tsar Nicholas II, Empress, Tsarevich and Grand Duchesses," which did not find any convincing traces of the execution.

In 1919, investigator Sergeev said in an interview with an American newspaper: “I don’t think everyone was executed here - both the tsar and his family. In my opinion, the Empress, the Tsarevich and the Grand Duchesses were not executed in the Ipatiev house.” Such a conclusion did not suit Admiral Kolchak, who by that time had already proclaimed himself "the supreme ruler of Russia." Indeed, why does the "supreme" need some kind of emperor? Kolchak ordered to assemble a second investigation team, which got to the bottom of the fact that in September 1918 the Empress and the Grand Duchesses were kept in Perm. Only the third investigator, Nikolai Sokolov (conducted the case from February to May 1919), turned out to be clearer and issued the well-known conclusion that the whole family was shot, the corpses were dismembered and burned at the stake. "The units that did not succumb to the action of fire," wrote Sokolov, "were destroyed with the help of sulfuric acid." What, then, was buried in 1998 in the Peter and Paul Cathedral? Let me remind you that soon after the start of perestroika, some skeletons were found on Porosyonkovy Log near Yekaterinburg. In 1998, in the ancestral tomb of the Romanovs, they were solemnly reburied, before that they had carried out numerous genetic examinations. Moreover, the guarantor of the authenticity of the royal remains was the secular power of Russia in the person of President Boris Yeltsin. But the Russian Orthodox Church refused to recognize the bones as the remains of the royal family.

But let's go back to the times of the Civil War. According to my information, the royal family was divided into Perm. The path of the female part lay in Germany, while the men - Nikolai Romanov himself and Tsarevich Alexei - were left in Russia. Father and son were kept for a long time near Serpukhov. former dacha merchant Konshin. Later, in the reports of the NKVD, this place was known as "Object No. 17". Most likely, the prince died in 1920 from hemophilia. I cannot say anything about the fate of the last Russian emperor. Except for one thing: in the 1930s, "Object No. 17" was visited by Stalin twice. Does this mean that in those years Nicholas II was still alive?

The men were left hostage

To understand why such incredible events from the point of view of a person of the XXI century became possible and to find out who needed them, you will have to return to 1918. Remember from the school history course about the Brest Peace? Yes, on March 3 in Brest-Litovsk between Soviet Russia on the one hand, a peace treaty was concluded by Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey on the other. Russia lost Poland, Finland, the Baltic States and part of Belarus. But it was not because of this that Lenin called the Brest Peace "humiliating" and "obscene". By the way, the full text of the treaty has not yet been published either in the East or in the West. I believe it is because of the secret conditions it has. Probably, the Kaiser, who was a relative of Empress Maria Feodorovna, demanded that all the women of the royal family be transferred to Germany. The girls did not have the right to the Russian throne and, therefore, could not threaten the Bolsheviks in any way. The men, however, remained hostage - as guarantors that the German army would not thrust further east than it was written in the peace treaty.

What happened next? What was the fate of the women exported to the West? Was their silence a prerequisite for their immunity? Unfortunately, I have more questions than answers.

by the way

Romanovs and false Romanovs

In DIFFERENT years, more than a hundred "miraculously saved" Romanovs have appeared in the world. Moreover, in some periods and in some countries there were so many of them that they even arranged meetings. The most famous false Anastasia is Anna Anderson, who declared herself the daughter of Nicholas II in 1920. The Supreme Court of the Federal Republic of Germany finally denied her this only after 50 years. The most recent "Anastasia" is the centenary Natalia Petrovna Bilikhodze, who continued to play this old play already in 2002!

Hundreds of books have been published about the tragedy of the family of Tsar Nicholas II in many languages ​​of the world. In these studies, the events of July 1918 in Russia are fairly objectively presented. Some of these writings I had to read, analyze and contrast. However, many mysteries, inaccuracies and even deliberate lies remain.

Among the most reliable information are interrogation protocols and other documents of Kolchak's judicial investigator for particularly important cases N.A. Sokolov. In July 1918, after the capture of Yekaterinburg by white troops, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of Siberia, Admiral A.V. Kolchak appointed N.A. Sokolov as the head in the case of the execution of the royal family in this city.

ON. Sokolov

Sokolov worked in Yekaterinburg for two years, interrogated a large number of people involved in these events, tried to find the remains of the executed members of the royal family. After the capture of Yekaterinburg by the red troops, Sokolov left Russia and in 1925 in Berlin he published the book "The Murder of the Tsar's Family". He took with him all four copies of his materials.

In the Central Party Archives of the CPSU Central Committee, where I worked as a leader, mostly original (first) copies of these materials (about a thousand pages) were kept. How they got into our archive is unknown. I read all of them carefully.

For the first time, a detailed study of materials related to the circumstances of the execution of the royal family was carried out on the instructions of the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1964.

In a detailed information "on some circumstances associated with the execution of the royal family of the Romanovs" dated December 16, 1964 (CPA of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU, fund 588, inventory 3C), all these problems are documented and objectively considered.

The reference was then written by the head of the sector of the ideological department of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Alexander Nikolayevich Yakovlev, an outstanding political figure in Russia. Not being able to publish all the mentioned help, I am citing only some passages from it.

“The archives have not found any official reports or decisions preceding the execution of the royal family of the Romanovs. There is no indisputable information about the participants in the execution. In this regard, the materials published in the Soviet and foreign press and some documents of the Soviet party and state archives were studied and compared. In addition, the stories of the former assistant to the commandant of the House of Special Purpose in Yekaterinburg, where the royal family were kept, G.P. Nikulin and a former member of the board of the Ural Regional Cheka I.I. Radzinsky. These are the only surviving comrades who had one or another relation to the execution of the royal family of the Romanovs. Based on the available documents and memoirs, often contradictory, one can draw up such a picture of the execution itself and the circumstances associated with this event. As you know, Nicholas II and members of his family were shot on the night of July 16-17, 1918 in Yekaterinburg. Documentary sources indicate that Nicholas II and his family were executed by the decision of the Ural Regional Council. In the minutes No. 1 of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee meeting dated July 18, 1918, we read: “We listened to: The report on the execution of Nikolai Romanov (telegram from Yekaterinburg). Resolved: After discussion, the following resolution is adopted: The Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee recognizes the decision of the Ural Regional Council as correct. Instruct com. Sverdlov, Sosnovsky and Avanesov to draw up a corresponding notice for printing. Publish about the documents available in the All-Russian Central Executive Committee - (diary, letters, etc.) of the former Tsar N. Romanov and instruct Comrade Sverdlov to form a special commission for the analysis of these papers and their publication. " The original, kept in the Central State Archives, was signed by Ya.M. Sverdlov. According to V.P. Milyutin (People's Commissar of Agriculture of the RSFSR), on the same day, July 18, 1918, a regular meeting of the Council of People's Commissars ( Council of People's Commissars.— Ed.) chaired by V.I. Lenin. “During the report of Comrade Semashko, Ya.M. Sverdlov. He sat down on a chair behind Vladimir Ilyich. Semashko finished his report. Sverdlov approached, bent down to Ilyich and said something. “Comrades, Sverdlov asks for the floor for a message,” Lenin announced. “I must say,” Sverdlov began in his usual even tone, “a message has been received that Nikolai was shot in Yekaterinburg by order of the Regional Council. Nikolai wanted to run away. The Czechoslovakians were advancing. The CEC Presidium decided to approve. Silence of all. “Let's move on to reading the draft article by article," Vladimir Ilyich suggested. " (Magazine "Searchlight", 1924, p. 10). This message by Ya.M. Sverdlov was recorded in the minutes No. 159 of the Council of People's Commissars meeting dated July 18, 1918: “We heard: The extraordinary statement of the CEC Chairman comrade Sverdlov on the execution of the former Tsar Nicholas II by the verdict of the Yekaterinburg Council of Deputies and on the approval of this verdict by the CEC Presidium. Resolved: Take note. " The original of this protocol, signed by V.I. Lenin, kept in the party archives of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism. A few months before this, at a meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the issue of transferring the Romanov family from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg was discussed. Ya.M. Sverdlov says about this on May 9, 1918: “I must tell you that the question of the position of the former tsar was raised in our Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee back in November, at the beginning of December (1917), and since then has been repeatedly raised, but we did not accept no decision, taking into account the fact that it is necessary to familiarize yourself with exactly how, in what conditions, how reliable the security is, how, in a word, the former Tsar Nikolai Romanov is being kept. " At the same meeting, Sverdlov reported to the members of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee that at the very beginning of April, the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee heard a report from the representative of the committee of the team that guarded the tsar. “On the basis of this report, we came to the conclusion that it is impossible to leave Nikolai Romanov in Tobolsk any longer ... The Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee decided to transfer the former Tsar Nikolai to a more reliable point. The center of the Urals, the city of Yekaterinburg, was chosen as such a more reliable point. " The fact that the issue of transferring the family of Nicholas II was resolved with the participation of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee is also said in their memoirs by the old communists of the Urals. Radzinsky said that the initiative for the translation belonged to the Ural Regional Council, and "the Center did not object" (Tape recording of May 15, 1964). P.N. Bykov, a former member of the Ural Council, in his book “ The last days Romanovs ”, published in 1926 in Sverdlovsk, writes that at the beginning of March 1918, the regional military commissar I. Goloshchekin (party nickname“ Philip ”) went to Moscow on this occasion. He was given permission to transfer the royal family name from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg. "

Further, in the certificate "On some circumstances connected with the execution of the royal family of the Romanovs," there are terrible details of the brutal execution of the royal family. It talks about how the corpses were destroyed. It is said that about half a pound of diamonds and jewelry was found in the corsets and belts of the dead. In this article I would not like to discuss such inhuman acts.

For many years, the world press has been spreading the assertion that "the true course of events and the refutation of the" falsifications of Soviet historians "are contained in Trotsky's diary entries, which were not intended for publication, therefore, they say, especially frank. They were prepared for publication and published by Yu.G. Felshtinsky in the collection: “Leon Trotsky. Diaries and Letters ”(Hermitage, USA, 1986).

Here is an excerpt from this book.

“On April 9 (1935), the White press once very heatedly debated the question of whose decision the royal family was put to death. The liberals were inclined, as if, to the idea that the Ural executive committee, cut off from Moscow, acted independently. This is not true. The decision was made in Moscow. It happened at a critical time civil war, when I spent almost all my time at the front, and my memories of the case of the royal family are fragmentary. "

In other documents, Trotsky tells of a Politburo meeting a few weeks before the fall of Yekaterinburg, at which he argued for the need for an open trial, "which was supposed to unfold the picture of the entire reign."

“Lenin responded in the sense that it would be very good if it were feasible. But there may not be enough time. There was no debate, since (as) I did not insist on my proposal, absorbed in other matters. "

In the next episode from his diaries, the most frequently quoted, Trotsky recalls how, after the execution, to his question about who decided the fate of the Romanovs, Sverdlov replied: “We decided here. Ilyich believed that we should not leave them a living banner, especially in the current difficult conditions. "

Nicholas II with his daughters Olga, Anastasia and Tatiana (Tobolsk, winter 1917). Photo: Wikipedia

"Decided" and "Ilyich considered" can, and according to other sources, and should, be interpreted as the adoption of a general principled decision that the Romanovs should not be left as the "living banner of counter-revolution."

And is it so important that the Ural Council issued a direct order to execute the Romanov family?

Here is another interesting document. This is a telegraphic request dated July 16, 1918 from Copenhagen, in which it was written: “To Lenin, member of the government. From Copenhagen. Here a rumor spread that the former king had been killed. Please tell us the facts by phone. " On the telegram, Lenin wrote with his own hand: “Copenhagen. The rumor is wrong, the former tsar is healthy, all rumors are lies of the capitalist press. Lenin ".

We were unable to find out whether a reply telegram was sent at that time. But this was the very eve of that tragic day when the tsar and his loved ones were shot.

Ivan Kitaev- specially for "Novaya"

reference

Ivan Kitaev is a historian, candidate of historical sciences, vice-president of the International Academy of Corporate Governance. He went from a carpenter at the construction of the Semipalatinsk test site and the Abakan-Taishet road, from a military builder who erected a uranium enrichment plant in the taiga wilderness to an academician. Graduated from two institutes, the Academy of Social Sciences, graduate school. He worked as secretary of the Togliatti city committee, Kuibyshev regional committee, director of the Central Party Archive, deputy director of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism. After 1991 he worked as the head of the central board and head of the department of the Ministry of Industry of Russia, taught at the academy.

Lenin is characterized by the highest measure

About the organizers and customer of the murder of the family of Nikolai Romanov

In his diaries, Trotsky does not limit himself to quoting the words of Sverdlov and Lenin, but also expresses his own opinion about the execution of the royal family:

“In essence, the decision ( about the execution. — OH.) was not only expedient, but also necessary. The severity of the reprisal showed everyone that we will fight mercilessly, stopping at nothing. The execution of the royal family was needed not only to intimidate, horrify, and deprive the enemy of hope, but also to shake up their own ranks, to show that there was no retreat, that there was a complete victory or complete death ahead. In the intellectual circles of the party, there were probably doubts and shaking their heads. But the masses of workers and soldiers did not hesitate for a minute: they would not have understood or accepted any other decision. Lenin felt this well: the ability to think and feel for the masses and with the masses was in the highest measure characteristic of him, especially at great political turns ... "

As for the highest measure inherent in Ilyich, Lev Davidovich, of course, is arch-righteous. So Lenin, as you know, personally demanded to hang as many priests as possible, as soon as he received a signal that the masses in some places on the ground had shown such an initiative. How can the people's power fail to support the initiative from below (and in reality the most base instincts of the crowd)!

As for the trial of the tsar, to which, according to Trotsky, Ilyich agreed, but time was pressing, then this trial would most obviously have ended with a sentence of Nicholas to the death penalty. Only in this case, unnecessary difficulties could arise with the royal family. And then how glorious it turned out: the Ural Soviet decided - and that's it, bribes are smooth, all power to the Soviets! Well, maybe only “in the intellectual circles of the party” there was some confusion, but it quickly passed, like Trotsky himself. In his diaries, he cites a fragment of a conversation with Sverdlov after the Yekaterinburg execution:

“- Yes, but where is the king? - It's over, - he answered, - shot. - And where is the family? - And the family is with him. - Everything? I asked, apparently with a tinge of surprise. - Everything! - answered Sverdlov. - And what? He was waiting for my reaction. I didn't answer. - Who decided? - We decided here ... "

Some historians emphasize that Sverdlov did not answer “decided”, but “decided”, which is supposedly important for identifying the main culprits. But at the same time they take Sverdlov's words out of the context of the conversation with Trotsky. And here, after all, how: what is the question, this is the answer: Trotsky asks who decided, here Sverdlov answers, "We decided here." And then he speaks even more concretely - about what Ilyich believed: "We must not leave us a living banner for them."

So in his resolution on the Danish telegram of July 16, Lenin was clearly cunning, speaking about the lies of the capitalist press about the "health" of the tsar.

In modern terms, we can say this: if the Ural Soviet was the organizer of the murder of the royal family, then Lenin was the customer. But in Russia, organizers are rare, and those who order crimes almost never, alas, find themselves in the dock.