From abdication to execution: the life of the Romanovs in exile through the eyes of the last empress

On March 2, 1917, Nicholas II abdicated the throne. Russia was left without a tsar. And the Romanovs ceased to be a royal family.

Perhaps this was the dream of Nikolai Alexandrovich - to live as if he were not the emperor, but simply the father of a large family. Many said that he had a gentle character. Empress Alexandra Feodorovna was his opposite: she was seen as a sharp and domineering woman. He was the head of the country, but she was the head of the family.

She was calculating and stingy, but humble and very pious. She knew a lot: she was engaged in needlework, painted, and during the First World War she looked after the wounded - and taught her daughters how to dress. The simplicity of the tsar's upbringing can be judged by the letters of the grand duchesses to their father: they easily wrote to him about the "idiotic photographer", "filthy handwriting" or that "the stomach wants to eat, it is already cracking." Tatiana in her letters to Nicholas signed "Your faithful Ascension", Olga - "Your faithful Elisavetgrad", and Anastasia did so: "Your daughter Nastasya, who loves You. Shvybzik. ANRPZSG Artichokes, etc."

A German who grew up in the UK, Alexandra wrote mostly in English, but spoke Russian well, albeit with an accent. She loved Russia - just like her husband. Anna Vyrubova, a lady-in-waiting and a close friend of Alexandra, wrote that Nikolai was ready to ask his enemies about one thing: not to expel him from the country and let him live with his family "the simplest peasant." Perhaps the imperial family could really live by their own labor. But the Romanovs were not allowed to live a private life. Nicholas turned from a tsar into a prisoner.

"The thought that we are all together pleases and consoles ..."Arrest in Tsarskoe Selo

"The sun blesses, prays, holds on with her faith and for the sake of her martyr. She does not interfere in anything (...). Now she is only a mother with sick children ..." - the former Empress Alexandra Feodorovna wrote to her husband on March 3, 1917.

Nicholas II, who signed the abdication, was at Headquarters in Mogilev, and his family was in Tsarskoe Selo. One by one, the children fell ill with measles. At the beginning of each diary entry, Alexandra indicated what the weather was like today and what temperature each of the children had. She was very pedantic: she numbered all her letters of that time so that they would not get lost. The wife's son was called baby, and each other - Alix and Nicky. Their correspondence is more like the communication of young lovers than a husband and wife, who have already lived together for more than 20 years.

“At first glance, I realized that Alexandra Feodorovna, an intelligent and attractive woman, though broken now and irritated, had an iron will,” wrote the head of the Provisional Government, Alexander Kerensky.

On March 7, the Provisional Government decided to place the former imperial family under arrest. The courtiers and servants who were in the palace could decide for themselves whether to leave or stay.

"You can't go there, mister colonel"

On March 9, Nicholas arrived in Tsarskoe Selo, where he was first received not as an emperor. "The officer on duty shouted:" Open the gates to the former tsar. "(...) When the sovereign walked past the officers gathered in the lobby, no one greeted him. The sovereign was the first to do it.

According to the memoirs of witnesses and the diaries of Nikolai himself, it seems that he did not suffer from the loss of the throne. “Despite the conditions in which we now find ourselves, the thought that we are all together is pleasing and comforting,” he wrote on March 10. Anna Vyrubova (she stayed with the royal family, but she was soon arrested and taken away) recalled that he was not even bothered by the attitude of the guards, who were often rude and could tell the former Supreme Commander-in-Chief: “You cannot go there, Mr. Colonel, come back when you say! "

A vegetable garden was set up in Tsarskoye Selo. Everyone worked: the royal family, confidants and servants of the palace. Even several soldiers of the guard helped

On March 27, the head of the Provisional Government, Alexander Kerensky, forbade Nikolai and Alexandra to sleep together: the spouses were allowed to see only at the table and talk to each other exclusively in Russian. Kerensky did not trust the former empress.

In those days, there was an investigation into the actions of the couple's inner circle, the spouses were planned to be interrogated, and the minister was sure that she would put pressure on Nikolai. "People like Alexandra Feodorovna never forget anything and never forgive anything," he wrote later.

Alexey's mentor Pierre Gilliard (he was called Zhilik in his family) recalled that Alexandra was furious. "To do this to the sovereign, to do this disgusting thing to him after he sacrificed himself and renounced himself in order to avoid a civil war — how low, how petty!" she said. But in her diary there is only one restrained entry about this: "N<иколаю> and I am only allowed to meet while eating, not sleeping together. "

The measure did not last long. On April 12, she wrote: "Tea in the evening in my room, and now we sleep together again."

There were also other restrictions - everyday ones. The guards cut the heating of the palace, after which one of the ladies of the court fell ill with pneumonia. The prisoners were allowed to walk, but passers-by looked at them through the fence - like animals in a cage. The humiliation did not leave them at home either. As Count Pavel Benckendorff said, "when the Grand Duchesses or Empress approached the windows, the guards allowed themselves to behave indecently in front of their eyes, thus causing the laughter of their comrades."

The family tried to enjoy what they have. At the end of April, they set up a garden in the park - the sod was dragged by the imperial children, servants, and even soldiers of the guard. They were chopping wood. We read a lot. They gave lessons to thirteen-year-old Alexei: due to the lack of teachers, Nikolai personally taught him history and geography, and Alexander taught the Law of God. We rode bicycles and scooters, swam in a pond on a kayak. In July, Kerensky warned Nicholas that, due to the turbulent situation in the capital, the family would soon be transported south. But instead of Crimea, they were exiled to Siberia. In August 1917, the Romanovs left for Tobolsk. Some of those close to them followed them.

"Now it's their turn." Link in Tobolsk

“We have settled far from everyone: we live quietly, we read about all the horrors, but we will not talk about it,” Alexandra wrote to Anna Vyrubova from Tobolsk. The family was settled in the former governor's house.

In spite of everything, the royal family recalled life in Tobolsk as "quiet and calm"

The family was not limited in the correspondence, but all messages were viewed. Alexandra corresponded a lot with Anna Vyrubova, who was either released or arrested again. They sent parcels to each other: the former lady-in-waiting somehow sent "a wonderful blue blouse and delicious marshmallow", and also her perfume. Alexandra answered with a shawl, which she also scented with verbena. She tried to help her friend: "I am sending pasta, sausages, coffee - although the fast is now. I always pull greens out of the soup so that I don't eat broth, and I don't smoke." She hardly complained, except for the cold.

In Tobolsk exile, the family managed to preserve the old way of life in many ways. Even Christmas was celebrated. There were candles and a Christmas tree - Alexandra wrote that the trees in Siberia are of a different, unusual sort, and "it smells strongly of orange and tangerine, and resin flows all the time along the trunk." And the servants were presented with woolen vests, which the former empress knitted herself.

In the evenings, Nikolai read aloud, Alexandra embroidered, and his daughters sometimes played the piano. Diary entries of Alexandra Feodorovna of that time - everyday: "I drew. I consulted with the ophthalmologist about new glasses", "all afternoon I sat and knitted on the balcony, 20 ° in the sun, in a thin blouse and silk jacket."

The spouses were interested in everyday life more than politics. Only the Brest Peace really shook both of them. "A humiliating world. (...) Being under the yoke of the Germans is worse than the Tatar yoke," wrote Alexandra. In her letters, she thought about Russia, but not about politics, but about people.

Nikolai loved to do physical labor: sawing wood, working in the garden, cleaning ice. After moving to Yekaterinburg, all this was banned

In early February, we learned about the transition to a new style of chronology. "Today comes out on February 14. There will be no end to misunderstandings and confusion!" - Nikolay wrote. Alexandra in her diary called this style "Bolshevik".

On February 27, according to the new style, the authorities announced that "the people do not have the means to support the royal family." From now on, the Romanovs were provided with an apartment, heating, lighting and soldiers' rations. Each person could also receive 600 rubles a month from personal funds. Ten servants had to be fired. "It will be necessary to part with the servants, whose loyalty will lead them to poverty," wrote Gilliard, who remained with the family. Butter, cream and coffee disappeared from the tables of the prisoners, there was not enough sugar. Local residents began to feed the family.

Food card. "Before the October coup, there was plenty of everything, although they lived modestly," recalled the valet Alexei Volkov. "Lunch consisted of only two courses, and there were sweets only on holidays."

This Tobolsk life, which the Romanovs later recalled as quiet and calm - even in spite of rubella, which the children had had - ended in the spring of 1918: they decided to move the family to Yekaterinburg. In May, the Romanovs were imprisoned in the Ipatiev House - it was called a "special purpose house". The family spent the last 78 days of their life here.

Last days.In a "special purpose house"

Together with the Romanovs, their confidants and servants arrived in Yekaterinburg. Someone was shot almost immediately, someone was arrested and killed a few months later. Someone survived and subsequently was able to tell about what happened in the Ipatiev House. Only four remained to live with the royal family: Dr. Botkin, Trupp's footman, maid Nyuta Demidova and cook Leonid Sednev. He will be the only prisoner who will avoid being shot: on the day before the murder he will be taken away.

Telegram from the chairman of the Uraloblsovet to Vladimir Lenin and Yakov Sverdlov, April 30, 1918

"The house is nice, clean," Nikolai wrote in his diary. "We were assigned four large 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." The commandant was Alexander Avdeev - as they said about him, "a real Bolshevik" (later he was replaced by Yakov Yurovsky). The instructions for the protection of the family said: "The commandant must keep in mind that Nikolai Romanov and his family are Soviet prisoners, therefore an appropriate regime is established in the place of his detention."

The instructions instructed the commandant to be polite. But during the first search, a reticule was snatched from Alexandra's hands, which she did not want to show. “Until now, I have dealt with honest and decent people,” Nikolai said. But I received the answer: "Please do not forget that you are under investigation and arrest." The tsar's entourage was demanded to name family members by name and patronymic instead of "Your Majesty" or "Your Highness". Alexandra was really jarred.

The arrested got up at nine, at ten they drank tea. After that, the rooms were checked. Breakfast at one o'clock, lunch at about four or five, at seven - tea, at nine - dinner, at eleven we went to bed. Avdeev claimed that two hours of walking were allowed per day. But Nikolai wrote in his diary that only an hour was allowed to walk a day. When asked why? the former king was told: "To make it look like a prison regime."

All prisoners were prohibited from any physical labor. Nikolai asked permission to clean the garden - refusal. For a family, all the last months having fun only chopping wood and cultivating the beds, it was not easy. At first, the prisoners could not even boil their own water. Only in May Nikolai wrote in his diary: "They bought us a samovar, at least we will not depend on the guard."

After a while, the painter painted over all the windows with lime so that the inhabitants of the house could not look at the street. In general, it was not easy with the windows: they were not allowed to open them. Although the family would hardly have been able to escape with such protection. And in the summer it was hot.

House of Ipatiev. "Around the outer walls of the house, facing the street, a board fence was erected, rather high, covering the windows of the house," wrote its first commandant Alexander Avdeev about the house

Only by the end of July was one of the windows finally opened. "Such joy, finally, delicious air and one window pane, no longer covered with whitewash," Nikolai wrote in his diary. After that, the prisoners were forbidden to sit on the windowsills.

There were not enough beds, the sisters slept on the floor. We all dined together, not only with the servants, but also with the Red Army men. They were rude: they could crawl into a bowl of soup with a spoon and say: "They still feed you niche."

Vermicelli, potatoes, beet salad and compote - such food was on the prisoners' table. There were problems with meat. “They brought meat for six days, but so little that it would only be enough for soup,” “Kharitonov made pasta pie ... because they did not bring meat at all,” Alexandra notes in her diary.

Hall and living room in the Ipatyev House. This house was built in the late 1880s and later bought by the engineer Nikolai Ipatiev. In 1918, the Bolsheviks commandeered him. After the execution of the family, the owner returned the keys, but he decided not to return there, and later emigrated

“I took a sitz bath, since hot water could only be brought from our kitchen,” Alexandra writes about minor household inconveniences. According to her notes, one can see how gradually for the former empress, who once ruled over "the sixth part of the earth", everyday trifles become important: "great pleasure, a cup of coffee", "good nuns now send milk and eggs for Alexei and us, and cream ".

Products were indeed allowed to be taken from the female Novo-Tikhvinsky monastery. With the help of these parcels, the Bolsheviks staged a provocation: in the cork of one of the bottles they handed over a letter from a "Russian officer" with an offer to help escape. The family replied: "We do not want and cannot RUN. We can only be abducted by force." The Romanovs spent several nights clothed, awaiting possible rescue.

Prisoner

Soon the commandant was replaced in the house. It was Yakov Yurovsky. At first, the family even liked him, but very soon the oppression grew more and more. “You have to get used to living not like a king, but how you have to live: like a prisoner,” he said, limiting the amount of meat received by the prisoners.

From the monastery programs, he allowed to leave only milk. Alexandra once wrote that the commandant "had breakfast and ate cheese; he no longer allows us to eat cream." Yurovsky also banned frequent baths, claiming that they did not have enough water. He confiscated jewelry from family members, leaving only a watch to Alexei (at the request of Nikolai, who said that the boy would be bored without them) and a gold bracelet to Alexandra - she wore it for 20 years, and it could only be removed with tools.

Every morning at 10:00 the commandant checked everything in the field. The former empress disliked this most of all.

Telegram from the Kolomna Committee of the Bolsheviks of Petrograd to the Council of People's Commissars demanding the execution of representatives of the House of Romanov. March 4, 1918

Alexandra, it seems, was the hardest of all in the family to experience the loss of the throne. Yurovsky recalled that if she went out for a walk, she certainly dressed up and put on a hat. “I must say that she, unlike the others, tried to preserve all her importance and the former, despite all her exits,” he wrote.

The rest of the family were simpler - the sisters dressed rather casually, Nikolai wore patched boots (although, according to Yurovsky, he had enough whole ones). His spouse cut his hair. Even the needlework that Alexandra was engaged in was the work of an aristocrat: she embroidered and weaved lace. The daughters washed handkerchiefs, darned stockings and bed linen with the maid Nyuta Demidova.

The family of the emperor was executed on one of the summer July nights from 16 to 17 in the largest city in Russia - Yekaterinburg. The appropriate place was chosen: the basement of a house of one of the local residents - mining engineer Nikolai Ipatiev. Not only the whole family, including children, but also those close to them fell under execution: Yevgeny Botkin, who served as a physician for the tsar; Alexey Trup, known as a valet; Anna Demidova - servant; Ivan Kharitonov - at that time he served the king in the person of a cook. Did Nicholas II contemplate the execution, did he know about imminent death, was he really able to save the family, did the tsar's family manage to escape? These questions are still troubling historians, but there is documentary evidence that is difficult to refute.

Nicholas 2: shooting of the royal family, events before the bloody massacre in stages

1. The date of the beginning of the armed uprising, which affected Petrograd, is subsidized on March 12 (if we take into account the Old Russian calendar, then in those years it fell on February 27). The consequence of it was the abdication of Tsar Nicholas 2 (as well as his son Alexei) on March 15. The refusal was in favor of his brother Mikhail, who was younger than Nikolai. It happened in 1917, a year before the tragedy.

2. The abdication presupposed the arrest of the family, therefore, from the end of summer (August) of 1917, the tsar and his family arrived at the Alexander Palace, which was located in Tsarskoe Selo. The Provisional Government created a special commission to search for materials to bring the emperor's family to justice for high treason. Evidence or evidence of this was never found, so a decision was made in favor of the exile of Nicholas 2 with his entire family to the UK region.

3. However, plans quickly changed: in the same August, the tsar and his family were sent to Tobolsk. This decision was made with the aim of holding an open trial over the prisoners, but it never took place in fact, and only in the spring (April) of 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee decided to transfer the tsarist charges to Moscow. Despite the fact that Lenin was at the head of the decision, fears from "White Guard conspiracies" did not give the interim government rest. There was a high probability that the imperial family would be kidnapped. That is why the prisoners were transported to the Urals in the city of Yekaterinburg and placed in the house of an unknown Ipatiev.

It is not known how long the family would have been in captivity on the territory of Yekaterinburg, if it had not been for the beginning of the White Czech uprising, which entailed the offensive of the White Guards on the city. This only hastened the adoption of the decision on the massacre of the king.

Everything happened in a hurry, so it was entrusted to Yakov Yurovsky, then he acted as commandant of the House of Special Purpose. Documentary evidence (sources) of that terrible night with a detailed description of the events has been preserved. They said that the decree on the execution of the tsar and his loved ones was delivered to their place of residence after midnight (at 1:30 am) from July 16 to July 17, 1918. When the document was delivered, Botkin, a physician, woke up the royal family. The collection took about 40 minutes, then all the prisoners were taken to the basement. Everyone, except for his son Nikolai (Alexei), went down to the execution room on their own. The father carried the child in his arms due to illness. Two chairs were brought into the basement at the insistence of Alexandra Feodorovna (for herself and her husband), all the rest were placed along the wall. The commandant first started a firing squad, and then passed the death sentence.

Later, Yurovsky, in his own words, will describe in detail the scene of the Tsar's execution, adding details and details. Based on his words, it happened like this ... Yurovsky insisted that the prisoners get up from their chairs and occupy the central and side walls of the basement. the room was very small in size. Tsar Nicholas had his back to the commandant. The verdict by Yurovsky was read out and then the command to be shot. From the first shot, Nikolai was killed, and then firing was heard for a long time. She took a turn of carelessness, given the ricochets from the wooden walls, which forced her to stop for a while. During this short period, it was possible to understand that not all the prisoners are dead: Botkin, already lying down, had to be finished off with a shot from a revolver, among the living were Alexei, Anastasia, Olga, Tatyana and Demidova. They decided to end them with a bayonet, but failed because of diamond accessories, shaped like underwear (bodice). They were shot each in turn after a few minutes.

This video contains documentary photographs of the life of the royal family during the period of arrest.

Documentation testifies that the corpses of all the shot were loaded onto a truck and at about 4 am and taken out. The remains were found only in 1991 near Yekaterinburg. It was possible to identify by them: Nicholas 2, Alexandra Fedorovna, Olga, Tatyana, Anastasia, and the tsar's entourage was also found among the remains. After appropriate examinations, they were buried within the walls of the Peter and Paul Cathedral in 1998. A little later, it was possible to find and identify the remains of Mary and Alexei: July 2007.

But today there are a lot of theories that do not agree with the documentary evidence and the execution of the family of Nicholas 2. There are hypotheses about his staging, with the aim of exporting the emperor. Is there any confirmation of this?

One hypothesis is based on the fact that in those days there was a factory in the immediate vicinity of the house where the prisoners were. Back in 1905, its owner, fearing capture by the revolutionaries, made an underground tunnel under it. Its existence was confirmed by the failure of the bulldozers, in those years when Yeltsin made the decision to destroy the building.

A theory appeared that Stalin and intelligence officers helped with the export of the royal family, identifying them in different provinces. This could have taken place during the offensive of the White Guards on Yekaterinburg, during the evacuation of Soviet institutions. In those days, first of all, documents, valuables and property were saved, where the property of the Romanovs fell.

The Provisional Government feared a simulation of the shooting and instructed Captain Malinovsky to investigate Ganina Yama. He led him for a week, together with the officers, after which, a year later, he expressed his suspicion that all the facts that he observed during the investigation spoke of a staged execution.

In this video, suggestions are made about where and how the royal family lived after the salvation. Be sure to leave your questions and wishes for the article.

The family of the last emperor of Russia, Nikolai Romanov, was killed in 1918. In view of the concealment of the facts by the Bolsheviks, a number of alternative versions appear. For a long time there were rumors turning the murder of the royal family into a legend. There were theories that some of his children were saved.

What actually happened in the summer of 1918 near Yekaterinburg? You will find the answer to this question in our article.

Background

Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century was one of the most economically developed countries in the world. Nikolai Alexandrovich, who came to power, turned out to be a meek and noble man. In spirit, he was not an autocrat, but an officer. Therefore, with his outlook on life, it was difficult to manage the crumbling state.

The 1905 revolution showed the bankruptcy of the authorities and their isolation from the people. In fact, there were two authorities in the country. The official one is the emperor, and the real one is officials, nobles and landowners. It was the latter who, by their greed, licentiousness and short-sightedness, destroyed the once great power.

Strikes and rallies, demonstrations and grain riots, famine. All of this testified to the decline. The only way out could be the ascension to the throne of an imperious and tough ruler who could take control of the country completely under his control.

Nicholas II was not like that. It was focused on building railways, churches, improving the economy and culture in society. He has made progress in these areas. But positive changes mainly affected only the top of society, while the majority of ordinary residents remained at the level of the Middle Ages. Luchins, wells, carts and peasant-craft everyday life.

After the entry of the Russian Empire into the First World War, the discontent of the people only increased. The shooting of the royal family became the apotheosis of general insanity. Next, we will take a closer look at this crime.

Now it is important to note the following. After the abdication of Emperor Nicholas II and his brother from the throne in the state, soldiers, workers and peasants began to take the first roles. People who previously had no business with management, who have a minimum level of culture and superficial judgments, gain power.

Petty local commissars wanted to curry favor with the higher ranks. Ordinary and junior officers simply thoughtlessly followed orders. The time of troubles that came in these turbulent years threw unfavorable elements to the surface.

Next, you will see another photo of the Romanov royal family. If you look at them carefully, you will notice that the clothes of the emperor, his wife and children are by no means pompous. They are no different from the peasants and guards who surrounded them in exile.
Let's see what actually happened in Yekaterinburg in July 1918.

Course of events

The execution of the royal family was planned and prepared for a long time. While power was still in the hands of the Provisional Government, they tried to protect them. Therefore, after the events in July 1917 in Petrograd, the emperor, his wife, children and retinue were transferred to Tobolsk.

The place was specially chosen to be calm. But in fact, they found one that was difficult to escape from. By that time, the railway lines had not yet been extended to Tobolsk. The nearest station was two hundred and eighty kilometers away.

He tried to protect the emperor's family, so the exile to Tobolsk became a respite for Nicholas II before the next nightmare. The king, queen, their children and retinue stayed there for more than six months.

But in April, the Bolsheviks, after a fierce struggle for power, recall the "unfinished business." A decision is made to deliver the entire imperial family to Yekaterinburg, which at that time was a stronghold of the red movement.

The first to be transferred to Perm from Petrograd was Prince Mikhail, the king's brother. At the end of March, son Mikhail and three children of Konstantin Konstantinovich are expelled to Vyatka. Later, the last four are transferred to Yekaterinburg.

The main reason for the transfer to the east was the family ties of Nikolai Alexandrovich with the German emperor Wilhelm, as well as the proximity of the Entente to Petrograd. The revolutionaries feared the release of the tsar and the restoration of the monarchy.

An interesting role is played by Yakovlev, who was instructed to transport the emperor and his family from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg. He knew about the attempted assassination of the tsar that the Siberian Bolsheviks were preparing.

Judging by the archives, there are two opinions of experts. The first say that in reality it is Konstantin Myachin. And he received a directive from the Center "to take the tsar and his family to Moscow." The latter are inclined to believe that Yakovlev was a European spy who intended to save the emperor, taking him to Japan through Omsk and Vladivostok.

After arriving in Yekaterinburg, all prisoners were placed in the Ipatiev mansion. A photo of the royal family of the Romanovs has survived when they were handed over by the Yakovlevs to the Ural Soviet The place of confinement among the revolutionaries was called a "special purpose house".

They were kept here for seventy-eight days. More details about the attitude of the convoy to the emperor and his family will be described later. In the meantime, it is important to focus on the fact that it was rude and boorish. They were robbed, crushed psychologically and morally, mocked so that they were not noticeable behind the walls of the mansion.

Considering the results of the investigations, we will dwell in more detail on the night when the monarch with his family and retinue was shot. Now we note that the execution took place at about half past three in the morning. Life-doctor Botkin, by order of the revolutionaries, woke up all the prisoners and went down with them to the basement.

There a terrible crime took place. The commander was Yurovsky. He blurted out a prepared phrase that they "are trying to save, and the matter is urgent." None of the prisoners understood anything. Nicholas II only managed to ask to repeat what he had said, but the soldiers, frightened by the horror of the situation, began indiscriminate shooting. Moreover, several punishers fired from another room through the doorway. According to eyewitnesses, not everyone was killed the first time. Some were finished off with a bayonet.

Thus, this indicates the haste and unpreparedness of the operation. The execution became lynching, to which the Bolsheviks who lost their heads went.

Government misinformation

The shooting of the royal family still remains an unsolved mystery of Russian history. The responsibility for this atrocity may lie both with Lenin and Sverdlov, to whom the Ural Soviet simply provided an alibi, and directly with the Siberian revolutionaries, who succumbed to general panic and lost their heads in wartime.

Nevertheless, immediately after the atrocity committed, the government launched a campaign to whiten its reputation. Among the researchers involved in this period, the latest actions are called a "disinformation campaign."

The death of the royal family was proclaimed the only necessary measure. Since, judging by the custom-made Bolshevik articles, a counter-revolutionary conspiracy was revealed. Some white officers planned to attack the Ipatiev mansion and free the emperor and his family.

The second moment, which was furiously hidden for many years, was that eleven people were shot. The emperor, his wife, five children and four servants.

The events of the crime were not disclosed for several years. Official recognition was given only in 1925. This decision was prompted by the publication in Western Europe of a book that presented the results of Sokolov's investigation. Then Bykov was instructed to write about the "real course of events." This brochure was published in Sverdlovsk in 1926.

Nevertheless, the lies of the Bolsheviks at the international level, as well as the concealment of the truth from the common people, shook faith in power. and its consequences, according to Lykova, caused people's distrust of the government, which has not changed even in the post-Soviet era.

The fate of the rest of the Romanovs

The execution of the royal family had to be prepared. The elimination of the Emperor's brother Mikhail Alexandrovich with his personal secretary became a similar "warm-up".
On the night of June 12-13, 1918, they were forcibly taken out of the Perm hotel outside the city. They were shot in the forest, and their remains have not yet been found.

A statement was made to the international press that the Grand Duke had been kidnapped by malefactors and gone missing. For Russia, the official version was the escape of Mikhail Alexandrovich.

The main purpose of such a statement was to speed up the trial of the emperor and his family. There was a rumor that a runaway might help free the "bloody tyrant" from "just punishment."

It was not only the last royal family that suffered. In Vologda, eight people related to the Romanovs were also killed. The victims include the princes of the imperial blood Igor, Ivan and Konstantin Konstantinovich, the Grand Duchess Elizabeth, the Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich, Prince Paley, the manager and the cell attendant.

All of them were thrown into the Nizhnyaya Selimskaya mine, near the town of Alapaevsk. Only he resisted and was shot. The rest were stunned and thrown down alive. In 2009 they were all canonized as martyrs.

But this lust for blood did not subside. In January 1919, four more Romanovs were also shot in the Peter and Paul Fortress. Nikolai and Georgy Mikhailovich, Dmitry Konstantinovich and Pavel Alexandrovich. The official version of the revolutionary committee was as follows: the elimination of hostages in response to the murders of Liebknecht and Luxembourg in Germany.

Memories of contemporaries

Researchers have tried to reconstruct how members of the royal family were killed. This is best handled by the testimony of the people present.
The first such source is notes from Trotsky's personal diary. He noted that the fault lies with the local authorities. I especially emphasized the names of Stalin and Sverdlov as people who made this decision. Lev Davidovich writes that in the conditions of the approach of the Czechoslovak detachments, Stalin's phrase that "the Tsar cannot be extradited to the White Guards" became a death sentence.

But scholars doubt the exact reflection of events in the notes. They were taken in the late thirties when he was working on a biography of Stalin. A number of mistakes were made there, indicating that Trotsky forgot many of those events.

The second piece of evidence is information from Milyutin's diary, which mentions the murder of the royal family. He writes that Sverdlov came to the meeting and asked Lenin to speak. As soon as Yakov Mikhailovich said that the tsar was gone, Vladimir Ilyich abruptly changed the subject and continued the meeting, as if the previous phrase had not been there.

The history of the royal family in the last days of its life is most fully restored according to the protocols of interrogations of the participants in these events. People from the guard, punitive and funeral detachments gave evidence several times.

Although they are often confused, the main idea remains the same. All the Bolsheviks who were next to the tsar in recent months had complaints against him. Someone in the past was in prison himself, someone has relatives. In general, a contingent of former prisoners was collected.

In Yekaterinburg, the Bolsheviks were pressured by anarchists and Socialist-Revolutionaries. In order not to lose credibility, the local council decided to quickly end this case. Moreover, there was a rumor that Lenin wanted to exchange the royal family for a reduction in the amount of the contribution.

According to the participants, this was the only solution. In addition, many of them during interrogations boasted that they had personally killed the emperor. Some with one, and some with three shots. Judging by the diaries of Nikolai and his wife, the workers guarding them were often drunk. Therefore, real events cannot be reconstructed for certain.

What happened to the remains

The murder of the royal family took place in secret, and it was planned to keep it secret. But those responsible for the elimination of the remains did not cope with their task.

A very large funeral team was assembled. Yurovsky had to send many back to the city "as unnecessary."

According to the testimonies of the participants in the process, they took the task for several days. Initially, it was planned to burn the clothes, and throw naked bodies into the mine and fill them with earth. But the collapse did not work out. I had to extract the remains of the royal family and come up with another method.

It was decided to burn them or bury them along the road that was just being built. Previously, it was thought to disfigure bodies with sulfuric acid beyond recognition. It is clear from the protocols that two corpses were burned and the rest were buried.

Presumably, the bodies of Alexei and one of the servants burned down.

The second difficulty was that the team was busy all night, and in the morning travelers began to appear. An order was given to cordon off the place and prohibit leaving the neighboring village. But the secrecy of the operation was hopelessly lost.

The investigation showed that there were attempts to bury the bodies near mine # 7 and crossing # 184. In particular, they were discovered near the latter in 1991.

Kirsta's investigation

On July 26-27, 1918, peasants discovered a golden cross with precious stones in a fireplace near the Isetsky mine. The find was immediately delivered to Lieutenant Sheremetyev, who was hiding from the Bolsheviks in the village of Koptyaki. It was carried out but later the case was assigned to Kirste.

He began to study the testimony of witnesses who pointed to the murder of the royal family of the Romanovs. The information confused and frightened him. The investigator did not expect that these were not the consequences of a military court, but a criminal case.

He began questioning witnesses who gave conflicting statements. But on their basis, Kirsta concluded that, perhaps, only the emperor and the heir were shot. The rest of the family was taken to Perm.

One gets the impression that this investigator set himself the goal of proving that not the entire royal Romanov family was killed. Even after he clearly confirmed the fact of the crime, Kirsta continued to interrogate new people.

So, over time, he finds a certain doctor Utochkin, who proved that he had treated Princess Anastasia. Then another witness spoke about the transfer of the emperor's wife and some of the children of the emperor to Perm, which she knows from rumors.

After Kirsta finally confused the case, it was transferred to another investigator.

Sokolov's investigation

Kolchak, who came to power in 1919, ordered Dieterichs to figure out how the royal family of the Romanovs was killed. The latter delegated this case to an investigator for especially important cases of the Omsk District.

His last name was Sokolov. This man began to investigate the murder of the royal family from scratch. Although all the paperwork was transferred to him, he did not trust Kirsta's confusing protocols.

Sokolov again visited the mine, as well as the Ipatiev mansion. Inspection of the house was made difficult by the presence of the headquarters of the Czech army there. Nevertheless, a German inscription was found on the wall, a quote from Heine's verse that the monarch was killed by his subjects. The words were clearly carved in red after the loss of the city.

In addition to documents on Yekaterinburg, the investigator was sent cases on the Perm murder of Prince Mikhail and on a crime against the princes in Alapaevsk.

After the Bolsheviks re-seize this region, Sokolov exported all office work to Harbin, and then to Western Europe. Photos of the royal family, diaries, evidence and more were evacuated.

He published the results of the investigation in 1924 in Paris. In 1997, Hans-Adam II, Prince of Liechtenstein, transferred all office work to the Russian government. In return, the archives of his family, taken out during the Second World War, were delivered to him.

Contemporary investigation

In 1979, a group of enthusiasts led by Ryabov and Avdonin discovered a burial site near the 184 km station using archival documents. In 1991, the latter declared that he knew where the remains of the executed emperor were. An investigation was re-launched to finally shed light on the murder of the royal family.

The main work on this case was carried out in the archives of the two capitals and in the cities that appeared in the reports of the twenties. Protocols, letters, telegrams, photos of the royal family and their diaries were studied. In addition, with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, research was carried out in the archives of most Western European countries and the United States.

The investigation of the burial was carried out by the senior prosecutor-criminalist Soloviev. In general, he confirmed all of Sokolov's materials. His message to Patriarch Alexei II says that "under the conditions of that time, it was impossible to completely destroy the corpses."

In addition, the consequence of the late XX - early XXI century completely refuted alternative versions of events, which we will talk about later.
The canonization of the royal family was carried out in 1981 by the Russian Orthodox Church abroad, and in Russia in 2000.

As the Bolsheviks tried to classify this crime, rumors spread, contributing to the formation of alternative versions.

So, according to one of them, it was a ritual murder due to a conspiracy of Jewish Masons. One of the investigator's assistants testified that he saw "kabbalistic symbols" on the walls of the basement. When checked, it turned out to be traces of bullets and bayonets.

According to the theory of Dieterichs, the head of the emperor was cut off and alcoholized. The finds of the remains have refuted this crazy idea.

Rumors spread by the Bolsheviks and false testimonies of "eyewitnesses" gave rise to a series of versions about the survivors. But the photographs of the royal family in the last days of their lives do not confirm them. And also found and identified remains refute these versions.

Only after all the facts of this crime were proved, the canonization of the royal family took place in Russia. This explains why it was carried out 19 years later than abroad.

So, in this article we got acquainted with the circumstances and investigation of one of the most terrible atrocities in the history of Russia in the twentieth century.

The royal family spent 78 days in their last house.

The first commandant of the "House of Special Purpose" was appointed Commissioner A. D. Avdeev.

Preparations for execution

According to the official Soviet version, the decision to shoot was made only by the Ural Soviet, Moscow was notified of this only after the death of the family.

At the beginning of July 1918, the Ural military commissar Philip Goloshchekin left for Moscow to resolve the issue of the future fate of the royal family.

At its meeting on July 12, the Ural Council adopted a resolution on the execution, as well as on methods of destruction of corpses, and on July 16 transmitted a message (if the telegram is genuine) about this via a direct wire to Petrograd - to G. Ye. Zinoviev. At the end of the conversation with Yekaterinburg, Zinoviev sent a telegram to Moscow:

There is no archival source of the telegram.

Thus, the telegram was received in Moscow on July 16 at 21 hours 22 minutes. The phrase "court agreed with Filippov" is a coded decision on the execution of the Romanovs, which Goloshchekin agreed upon during his stay in the capital. However, the Uralsovet asked once again to confirm in writing this earlier decision, referring to "military circumstances", since the fall of Yekaterinburg was expected under the blows of the Czechoslovak Corps and the White Siberian Army.

Firing squad

On the night of July 16-17, the Romanovs and the attendants went to bed, as usual, at 22:30. At 11.30 pm, two special representatives from the Ural Soviet came to the mansion. They handed the decision of the executive committee to the commander of the security detachment P.Z.Yermakov and the new commandant of the house to the commissar of the Extraordinary Investigative Commission Yakov Yurovsky, who replaced Avdeev on July 4, and suggested that the execution of the sentence be started immediately.

The awakened family members and staff were told that in connection with the onset of the White forces, the mansion could be under fire, and therefore, for safety reasons, it was necessary to move to the basement.

On the night of July 16-17, 1918 in the city of Yekaterinburg, in the basement of the house of mining engineer Nikolai Ipatiev, the Russian Emperor Nicholas II, his wife Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, their children - Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, the heir to Tsarevich Alexei, and also the Life -Medic Evgeny Botkin, valet Aleksey Trup, room girl Anna Demidova and cook Ivan Kharitonov.

The last Russian emperor, Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov (Nicholas II), ascended the throne in 1894 after the death of his father, Emperor Alexander III, and ruled until 1917, when the situation in the country became more complicated. On March 12 (February 27, old style), 1917, an armed uprising began in Petrograd, and on March 15 (March 2, old style), 1917, at the insistence of the Provisional Committee of the State Duma, Nicholas II signed an abdication for himself and his son Alexei in favor of the younger brother Mikhail Alexandrovich.

After abdication from March to August 1917, Nikolai and his family were under arrest in the Alexander Palace of Tsarskoye Selo. A special commission of the Provisional Government studied materials for the possible trial of Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna on charges of high treason. Finding no evidence and documents that clearly denounced them in this, the Provisional Government was inclined to expel them abroad (to Great Britain).

In August 1917, the arrested were transported to Tobolsk. The main idea of \u200b\u200bthe Bolshevik leadership was an open trial of the former emperor. In April 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee decided to transfer the Romanovs to Moscow. Vladimir Lenin spoke out for the trial of the former tsar; it was supposed to make Leon Trotsky the main prosecutor of Nicholas II. However, information appeared about the existence of "White Guard conspiracies" for the abduction of the tsar, the concentration for this purpose in Tyumen and Tobolsk "conspiratorial officers", and on April 6, 1918, the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee decided to transfer the royal family to the Urals. The royal family was transported to Yekaterinburg and placed in the Ipatiev house.

The uprising of the White Czechs and the offensive of the White Guard troops on Yekaterinburg accelerated the decision to shoot the former tsar.

The commandant of the House of Special Purpose, Yakov Yurovsky, was entrusted with organizing the execution of all members of the royal family, Dr. Botkin and the servants who were in the house.

© Photo: Museum of the History of Yekaterinburg

The execution scene is known from the investigation protocols, from the words of the participants and eyewitnesses, and from the stories of the direct performers. Yurovsky spoke about the execution of the royal family in three documents: "Note" (1920); "Memoirs" (1922) and "Speech at a meeting of old Bolsheviks in Yekaterinburg" (1934). All the details of this atrocity, conveyed by the main participant at different times and under completely different circumstances, agree on how the royal family and its servants were shot.

According to documentary sources, it is possible to establish the time of the beginning of the murder of Nicholas II, members of his family and their servants. The car that delivered the last order to destroy the family arrived at half past one in the night from July 16-17, 1918. Then the commandant ordered the physician-in-chief Botkin to wake up the royal family. It took the family about 40 minutes to get ready, then they and the servants were transferred to the basement of this house, with a window overlooking Voznesensky Lane. Tsarevich Alexei Nicholas II carried in his arms, since he could not walk due to illness. At the request of Alexandra Fyodorovna, two chairs were brought into the room. She sat on one, Tsarevich Alexei on the other. The rest were positioned along the wall. Yurovsky brought the firing squad into the room and read the sentence.

Here is how Yurovsky himself describes the execution scene: “I invited everyone to stand up. Everyone stood up, occupying the entire wall and one of the side walls. The room was very small. Nikolai had his back to me. I announced that the Executive Committee of Soviets of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies Ural decided to shoot them. Nikolai turned and asked. I repeated the order and commanded: “Shoot.” The first shot I shot and killed Nikolai on the spot. The firing lasted a very long time and, despite my hopes that the wooden wall would not ricochet, the bullets bounced off it For a long time I could not stop this shooting, which took on a disorderly character, but when I finally managed to stop it, I saw that many were still alive.For example, Dr. Botkin was lying with his elbow on his right hand, as if in a resting position, with a revolver shot with Alexei, Tatiana, Anastasia and Olga were also alive. Demidova was also alive. Comrade Ermakov wanted to finish the case with a bayonet. But, however, this did not succeed. The reason was found out later. (the daughters were wearing diamond shells like bras). I had to shoot everyone in turn. "

After the death was pronounced, all corpses were transferred to a truck. At the beginning of the fourth hour, at dawn, the corpses of the dead were taken out of the Ipatiev house.

The remains of Nicholas II, Alexandra Fyodorovna, Olga, Tatiana and Anastasia Romanov, as well as those from their entourage, who were shot in the House of Special Purpose (Ipatiev House), were discovered in July 1991 near Yekaterinburg.

On July 17, 1998, the remains of members of the royal family were buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg.

In October 2008, the Presidium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation made a decision on the rehabilitation of the Russian Emperor Nicholas II and members of his family. The Prosecutor General's Office of Russia also decided to rehabilitate members of the imperial family - the grand dukes and princes of blood, executed by the Bolsheviks after the revolution. The servants and close associates of the royal family were rehabilitated, who were executed by the Bolsheviks or were subjected to repression.

In January 2009, the Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee under the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation terminated the investigation of the case on the circumstances of the death and burial of the last Russian emperor, members of his family and people from the environment who were shot in Yekaterinburg on July 17, 1918, "due to the expiration of the statute of limitations for responsibility and death of persons who committed premeditated murder "(subparagraphs 3 and 4 of part 1 of article 24 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the RSFSR).

On January 15, 2009, the investigator issued an order to discontinue the criminal case, however, on August 26, 2010, the judge of the Basmanny District Court of Moscow ruled, in accordance with Article 90 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation, to recognize this decision as unfounded and ordered to eliminate the violations. On November 25, 2010, the decision of the investigation to terminate this case was canceled by the Deputy Chairman of the Investigative Committee.

On January 14, 2011, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation reported that the decision was brought in accordance with the court decision and the criminal case on the death of representatives of the Russian Imperial House and persons from their entourage in 1918-1919 was terminated. The identification of the remains of family members of the former Russian Emperor Nicholas II (Romanov) and persons from his retinue has been confirmed.

On October 27, 2011, there was a decision to terminate the investigation into the shooting of the royal family. The 800-page resolution contains the main findings of the investigation and indicates the authenticity of the discovered remains of the royal family.

However, the issue of authentication remains open. The Russian Orthodox Church in order to recognize the found remains as the relics of royal martyrs, the Russian Imperial House in this matter supports the position of the ROC. The Director of the Chancellery of the Russian Imperial House emphasized that genetic examination is not enough.

The church canonized Nicholas II and his family and on July 17 marks the day of remembrance of the Holy Royal Passion-Bearers.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from RIA Novosti and open sources