The last royal family. The murder of the royal family: causes and consequences. Execution of the family of Nicholas II Where Nicholas’s family was executed
WHO GAVE THE ORDER?
Until now, historians cannot say for sure who exactly gave the order to execute the royal family. According to one version, this decision was made by Sverdlov and Lenin. According to another, they wanted to start by at least bringing Nicholas II to Moscow to judge in an official setting. Another version says that the party leaders did not want to kill the Romanovs at all - the Ural Bolsheviks made the decision to execute them independently, without consulting their superiors.
During the Civil War, confusion reigned, and local branches of the party had broad independence, explains Alexander Ladygin, teacher of Russian history at IGNI UrFU. - Local Bolsheviks advocated world revolution and were very critical of Lenin. In addition, during this period there was an active offensive of the White Czech corps on Yekaterinburg, and the Ural Bolsheviks believed that it was unacceptable to leave such an important propaganda figure as the former tsar to the enemy.
It is also not entirely known exactly how many people took part in the execution. Some “contemporaries” claimed that 12 people with revolvers were selected. Others that there were much fewer of them.
The identities of only five participants in the murder are known for certain. These are the commandant of the Special Purpose House Yakov Yurovsky, his assistant Grigory Nikulin, military commissar Pyotr Ermakov, head of the house security Pavel Medvedev and member of the Cheka Mikhail Medvedev-Kudrin.
Yurovsky fired the first shot. This served as a signal for the rest of the security officers, says Nikolai Neuimin, head of the department of history of the Romanov dynasty at the Sverdlovsk Regional Museum of Local Lore. - Everyone shot at Nicholas II and Alexandra Fedorovna. Then Yurovsky gave the command to cease fire, since one of the Bolsheviks almost had his finger torn off from the indiscriminate shooting. All the Grand Duchesses were still alive at that time. They began to finish them off. Alexei was one of the last to be killed, as he was unconscious. When the Bolsheviks began to carry out the bodies, Anastasia suddenly came to life and had to be bayoneted to death.
Many participants in the murder of the royal family retained written memories of that night, which, by the way, do not coincide in all details. So, for example, Pyotr Ermakov stated that it was he who led the execution. Although other sources claim that he was only an ordinary performer. Probably, in this way the participants in the murder wanted to curry favor with the new leadership of the country. Although this did not help everyone.
ERMAKOV LECTURED ABOUT THE KILLING OF THE TSAR
The grave of Pyotr Ermakov is located almost in the very center of Yekaterinburg - at the Ivanovo cemetery. A tombstone with a large five-pointed star stands literally three steps from the grave of the Ural storyteller Pavel Petrovich Bazhov. After the end of the Civil War, Ermakov worked as a law enforcement officer, first in Omsk, then in Yekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk. And in 1927, he achieved a promotion to the head of one of the Ural prisons. Many times Ermakov met with groups of workers to talk about how the royal family was killed. He was encouraged more than once. In 1930, the party bureau awarded him a Browning, and a year later Ermakov was given the title of honorary drummer and rewarded with a certificate for completing the five-year plan in three years. However, not everyone treated him favorably. According to rumors, when Marshal Zhukov headed the Ural Military District, Pyotr Ermakov met with him at one of the ceremonial meetings. As a sign of greeting, he extended his hand to Georgy Konstantinovich, but he refused to shake it, declaring: “I don’t shake hands with executioners!”
Ermakov lived quietly to the age of 68. And in the 1960s, one of the streets of Sverdlovsk was renamed in his honor. True, after the collapse of the USSR the name was changed again.
Pyotr Ermakov was only a performer. Perhaps this is one of the reasons that he escaped repression. Ermakov never held major leadership positions. His highest appointment is as an inspector of places of detention. No one had any questions for him,” says Alexander Ladygin. “But over the past two years, the monument to Pyotr Ermakov has been vandalized three times. A year ago, during the Royal Days, we cleaned it. But today he is in the paint again.
YUROVSKY DIED FROM STOMACH PROBLEMS
After the execution of the royal family, Yakov Yurovsky managed to work in the Moscow City Council, in the Cheka of the Vyatka province and as chairman of the provincial Cheka in Yekaterinburg. However, in 1920 he began to have stomach problems and moved to Moscow for treatment. During the capital stage of his life, Yurovsky changed more than one place of work. At first he was the manager of the organizational training department, then he worked in the gold department at the People's Commissariat of Finance, from where he later moved to the position of deputy director of the Bogatyr plant, which produced galoshes. Until the 1930s, Yurovsky changed several more leadership positions and even managed to work as director of the State Polytechnic Museum. And in 1933 he retired and died five years later in the Kremlin hospital from a perforated stomach ulcer.
Yurovsky’s ashes were buried in the church of the Donskoy Monastery of Seraphim of Sarov in Moscow, notes Nikolai Neuymin. - In the early 20s, the first crematorium in the USSR opened there, where they even published a magazine promoting the cremation of Soviet citizens as an alternative to pre-revolutionary burials. And there on one of the shelves there were urns with the ashes of Yurovsky and his wife.
MEDVEDEV-KUDRIN BECATED THE BROWNING, WHICH KILLED THE MONARCH, TO KHRUSHCHEV
After the Civil War, the assistant commandant of the Ipatiev house, Grigory Nikulin, worked for two years as the head of the criminal investigation department in Moscow, and then got a job at the Moscow water supply station, also in a leadership position. He lived to be 71 years old.
It is interesting that Grigory Nikulin was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery. His grave is located next to the grave of Boris Yeltsin, they say in the regional museum of local lore. - And 30 meters from him, next to the grave of a friend of the poet Mayakovsky, lies another regicide - Mikhail Medvedev-Kudrin.
The latter, by the way, lived another 46 years after the execution of the royal family. In 1938, he took a leadership position in the NKVD of the USSR and rose to the rank of colonel. He was buried with military honors on January 15, 1964. In his will, Mikhail Medvedev-Kudrin asked his son to give Khrushchev the Browning gun from which the royal family was killed, and to give Fidel Castro the Colt that the regicide used in 1919.
Regularly, by the middle of summer of each year, loud crying for the king, who was killed for no reason, is resumed. NicholasII, whom Christians also “canonized” in 2000. Here is Comrade. Starikov, exactly on July 17, once again threw “wood” into the firebox of emotional lamentations about nothing. I was not interested in this issue before, and would not have paid attention to another dummy, BUT... At the last meeting in his life with readers, Academician Nikolai Levashov just mentioned that in the 30s Stalin met with NikolaiII and asked him for money to prepare for a future war. This is how Nikolai Goryushin writes about it in his report “There are prophets in our fatherland!” about this meeting with readers:
“...In this regard, the information related to the tragic fate of the latter turned out to be amazing Emperor Russian Empire Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov and his family... In August 1917, he and his family were deported to the last capital of the Slavic-Aryan Empire, the city of Tobolsk. The choice of this city was not accidental, since the highest degrees of Freemasonry are aware of the great past of the Russian people. The exile to Tobolsk was a kind of mockery of the Romanov dynasty, which in 1775 defeated the troops of the Slavic-Aryan Empire (Great Tartaria), and later this event was called the suppression of the peasant revolt of Emelyan Pugachev... In July 1918 Jacob Schiff gives command to one of his trusted persons in the Bolshevik leadership Yakov Sverdlov for the ritual murder of the royal family. Sverdlov, after consulting with Lenin, orders the commandant of Ipatiev’s house, a security officer Yakov Yurovsky carry out the plan. According to official history, on the night of July 16-17, 1918, Nikolai Romanov, along with his wife and children, was shot.
After the summit, I and my Italian friend, who was both my driver and translator, went to this village. We found the cemetery and this grave. On the plate was written in German: “ Olga Nikolaevna, eldest daughter of Russian Tsar Nikolai Romanov” – and dates of life: “1895-1976”. We talked with the cemetery watchman and his wife: they, like all the village residents, remembered Olga Nikolaevna very well, knew who she was, and were sure that the Russian Grand Duchess was under the protection of the Vatican.
This strange find interested me extremely, and I decided to look into all the circumstances of the execution myself. And in general, was he there?
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 by rail for Perm. The next morning, leaflets were posted around Yekaterinburg with the message that the royal family was taken away from the city, - so it was. Soon the city was occupied by whites. Naturally, an investigative commission was formed “in the case of the disappearance of Sovereign Nicholas II, the Empress, the Tsarevich and the Grand Duchesses,” which did not find any convincing traces of the execution.
Investigator Sergeev in 1919 he said in an interview with an American newspaper: “I don’t think that everyone was executed here - both the tsar and his family. “In my opinion, the empress, prince and grand duchesses were not executed in Ipatiev’s house.” This conclusion did not suit Admiral Kolchak, who by that time had already proclaimed himself the “supreme ruler of Russia.” And really, why does the “supreme” need some kind of emperor? Kolchak ordered the assembly of a second investigative 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 (led the case from February to May 1919), turned out to be more understanding and issued the well-known conclusion that the entire family was shot, the corpses dismembered and burned at the stake. “Parts that were not susceptible to 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 shortly after the start of perestroika, some skeletons were found in Porosyonkovo Log near Yekaterinburg. In 1998, they were solemnly reburied in the Romanov family tomb, after numerous genetic examinations were carried out before that. 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 Civil War. According to my information, the royal family was divided in 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 at the former dacha of the merchant Konshin. Later in the NKVD reports this place was known as "Object No. 17". Most likely, the prince died in 1920 from hemophilia. I can’t say anything about the fate of the last Russian emperor. Except for one thing: in the 30s “Object No. 17” Stalin visited twice. Does this mean that Nicholas II was still alive in those years?
The men were left hostage
To understand why such incredible events from the point of view of a person of the 21st century became possible and to find out who needed them, you will have to go back to 1918. Do you remember from the school history course about the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty? Yes, on March 3, in Brest-Litovsk, a peace treaty was concluded between Soviet Russia on the one hand and Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey on the other. Russia lost Poland, Finland, the Baltic states and part of Belarus. But this was not why Lenin called the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty “humiliating” and “obscene.” By the way, the full text of the agreement has not yet been published either in the East or in the West. I believe that because of the secret conditions present in it. Probably the Kaiser, who was a relative of Empress Maria Feodorovna, demanded that all women of the royal family be transferred to Germany. The girls had no rights to the Russian throne and, therefore, could not threaten the Bolsheviks in any way. The men remained hostage - as guarantors that the German army would not venture further east than stated in the peace treaty.
What happened next? What was the fate of the women brought to the West? Was their silence a requirement for their integrity? Unfortunately, I have more questions than answers.
Interview with Vladimir Sychev on the Romanov case
On the night of July 16-17, 1918 in the city of Yekaterinburg, in the basement of the house of mining engineer Nikolai Ipatiev, Russian Emperor Nicholas II, his wife Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, their children - Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, heir Tsarevich Alexei, as well as life -medic Evgeny Botkin, valet Alexey Trupp, 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 of the throne for himself and his son Alexei in favor of the younger brother Mikhail Alexandrovich.
After his abdication, from March to August 1917, Nicholas 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 treason. Having not found evidence and documents that clearly convicted them of this, the Provisional Government was inclined to deport them abroad (to Great Britain).
In August 1917, the arrested were transported to Tobolsk. The main idea of the 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; Leon Trotsky was supposed to be the main accuser of Nicholas II. However, information appeared about the existence of “White Guard conspiracies” to kidnap the Tsar, the concentration of “conspiratorial officers” in Tyumen and Tobolsk for this purpose, 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, Doctor Botkin and the servants who were in the house.
© Photo: Museum of the History of Yekaterinburg
The execution scene is known from investigative reports, from the words of participants and eyewitnesses, and from the stories of the direct perpetrators. 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.
Based on documentary sources, it is possible to establish the time when the murder of Nicholas II, members of his family and their servants began. The car that delivered the last order to exterminate the family arrived at half past two on the night of July 16-17, 1918. After which the commandant ordered physician Botkin to wake up the royal family. It took the family about 40 minutes to get ready, then she and the servants were transferred to the semi-basement of this house, with a window overlooking Voznesensky Lane. Nicholas II carried Tsarevich Alexei in his arms because he could not walk due to illness. At Alexandra Feodorovna’s request, two chairs were brought into the room. She sat on one, and Tsarevich Alexei sat on the other. The rest were located along the wall. Yurovsky led the firing squad into the room and read the verdict.
This 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 stood with his back to me. I announced that the Executive Committee of the Councils of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies Ural decided to shoot them. Nikolai turned and asked. I repeated the order and commanded: “I shot first and killed Nikolai on the spot. The shooting 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 was unable to stop this shooting, which had become careless, but when I finally managed to stop it, I saw that many were still alive. For example, Doctor Botkin was lying, leaning on the elbow of his right hand, as if in a resting position, with a revolver shot. Alexey, Tatyana, Anastasia and Olga were also alive. Comrade Ermakov wanted to finish the matter with a bayonet. But, however, this was not found out later (the daughters were wearing diamond armor like bras). I was forced to shoot each one in turn."
After death was confirmed, all the corpses began to be transferred to the truck. At the beginning of the fourth hour, at dawn, the corpses of the dead were taken out of Ipatiev’s house.
The remains of Nicholas II, Alexandra Fedorovna, Olga, Tatiana and Anastasia Romanov, as well as people from their entourage, shot in the House of Special Purpose (Ipatiev House), were discovered in July 1991 near Yekaterinburg.
On July 17, 1998, the burial of the remains of members of the royal family took place in the Peter and Paul Cathedral of St. Petersburg.
In October 2008, the Presidium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation decided to rehabilitate the Russian Emperor Nicholas II and members of his family. The Russian Prosecutor General's Office also decided to rehabilitate members of the imperial family - the Grand Dukes and Princes of the Blood, executed by the Bolsheviks after the revolution. Servants and associates of the royal family who were executed by the Bolsheviks or subjected to repression were rehabilitated.
In January 2009, the Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee under the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation stopped investigating the case into the circumstances of the death and burial of the last Russian emperor, members of his family and people from his entourage, shot in Yekaterinburg on July 17, 1918, "due to the expiration of the statute of limitations for bringing criminal charges 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).
The tragic history of the royal family: from execution to reposeIn 1918, on the night of July 17 in Yekaterinburg, in the basement of the house of mining engineer Nikolai Ipatiev, Russian Emperor Nicholas II, his wife Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, and their children - Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and heir Tsarevich Alexei were shot.On January 15, 2009, the investigator issued a resolution to terminate the criminal case, but on August 26, 2010, the judge of the Basmanny District Court of Moscow decided, in accordance with Article 90 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation, to recognize this decision as unfounded and ordered the violations to be eliminated. On November 25, 2010, the investigation decision 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 resolution was brought in accordance with the court decision and the criminal case regarding the death of representatives of the Russian Imperial House and people from their entourage in 1918-1919 was discontinued. The identification of the remains of members of the family of the former Russian Emperor Nicholas II (Romanov) and persons from his retinue has been confirmed.
On October 27, 2011, a resolution was issued to terminate the investigation into the case of the execution of the royal family. The 800-page resolution outlines the main conclusions of the investigation and indicates the authenticity of the discovered remains of the royal family.
However, the question of authentication still remains open. The Russian Orthodox Church, in order to recognize the found remains as the relics of royal martyrs, the Russian Imperial House supports the position of the Russian Orthodox Church on this issue. The director of the chancellery of the Russian Imperial House emphasized that genetic testing is not enough.
The Church canonized Nicholas II and his family and on July 17 celebrates the day of remembrance of the Holy Royal Passion-Bearers.
The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources
His killers thrived in their new environment. We will tell you how their fate unfolded next.
The fate of Yurovsky
The biography of Yakov Mikhailovich Yurovsky, the most direct participant in the execution of the royal family, is full of unexpected events. Having completed his mission in Yekaterinburg, the former commandant of the Ipatiev House moved to Moscow and became an investigator of the Cheka. His first assignment was the “case” of the Jewish woman who wounded him on August 13, 1918. The investigation was extremely short, and, apparently, Yurovsky limited himself to two or three purely formal interrogations.
Kaplan did not name any names, claiming that she herself made the decision and carried it out; there was no further explanation. Kaplan was shot three days later, forever depriving himself of the opportunity to obtain additional information on this case. However, a few years later a trial took place, because it turned out that, apparently, there was a real conspiracy against Lenin; the question arises: why didn’t they leave Kaplan, the only central participant in the whole case, alive?
Suspicions and all indirect evidence point to left-wing communists who opposed the peace treaty signed in Brest-Litovsk - in a word, to those political leaders who categorically disagreed with Lenin on many issues.
In anticipation of the moment when history will shed light on the “Kaplan secret,” we note once again that in the Soviet Union the struggle for power began immediately after the revolution.
But let's return to Yurovsky. The former commandant of the Ipatiev House left his job at the Cheka and became director of the Moscow Polytechnic Museum. When he subsequently fell ill, he was able to take advantage of the privilege of nomenklatura workers and ended up in the Kremlin hospital; he died from a duodenal ulcer in terrible agony, screaming in pain for three days and almost losing his mind.
Meanwhile, his daughter Rimma, a prominent Bolshevik, was arrested, and her father tried in vain to free her by writing a letter to Comrade Stalin.
Voikov's fate
Even more tragic was the fate of Voikov, who was killed at the train station in Warsaw. It is not yet known for sure whether the future ambassador took a direct part in the murder, but his story about those events, accurately conveyed by Besedovsky, contains details that only an eyewitness could know.
Voikov was a fanfare and also loved to drink - many political leaders of Yekaterinburg suffered from this vice; in any case, the story that Voikov personally tore the necklace with the ring on it from the Empress’s neck sounds quite plausible. Also because someone saw this ring with a large cabochon-shaped ruby in Moscow, and quite recently: it was a gift from the future Nicholas II to Alexandra Feodorovna, and she valued it very much, since it reminded her of the happy time they spent after engagements in Germany.
The fate of the remaining participants in the massacre
Other Bolsheviks who were directly involved in the bloody events in Yekaterinburg died violent deaths: Medvedev and Yakimov were shot by the Whites, and Beloborodov and Didkovsky received a bullet in the back of the head in 1938, during the period of Stalinist repressions. Only Goloshchekin managed to survive until 1941, when he was shot in Kuibyshev without any trial.
I bring to the attention of readers very interesting information from the book “Way of the Cross of the Holy Royal Martyrs”
(Moscow 2002)
The murder of the Royal Family was prepared in the strictest secrecy. Even many high-ranking Bolsheviks were not initiated into it.
It was carried out in Yekaterinburg on orders from Moscow, according to a long-conceived plan.
The investigation names Yankel Movshevich Sverdlov, who held the position of Chairman of the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Escort, as the main organizer of the murder. Committee of the Congress of Soviets, the all-powerful temporary ruler of Russia in this era.
All the threads of the crime converge on him. From him came the instructions received and carried out in Yekaterinburg. His task was to give the murder the appearance of an unauthorized act of the local Ural authorities, thereby completely removing the responsibility of the Soviet government and the real initiators of the crime.
The following persons were accomplices in the murder from among the local Bolshevik leaders: Shaya Isaakovich Goloshchekin - a personal friend of Sverdlov, who seized actual power in the Urals, the military commissar of the Ural region, the head of the Cheka and the main executioner of the Urals at that time; Yankel Izidorovich Weisbart (called himself Russian worker A.G. Beloborodov) - Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Ural Regional Council; Alexander Mobius - Chief of the Revolutionary Staff - Bronstein-Trotsky's special representative; Yankel Khaimovich Yurovsky (who called himself Yakov Mikhailovich, - Commissioner of Justice of the Ural Region, member of the Cheka; Pinhus Lazarevich Weiner (who called himself Pyotr Lazarevich Voikov (the modern Moscow metro station "Voikovskaya" is named after him)) - Commissioner of Supply of the Ural Region, - Yurovsky's closest assistant and Safarov is Yurovsky's second assistant. All of them carried out instructions from Moscow from Sverdlov, Apfelbaum, Lenin, Uritsky and Bronstein-Trotsky (in his memoirs, published abroad in 1931, Trotsky accused himself, cynically justifying the murder of the entire Royal Family, including including the August Children).
In the absence of Goloshchekin (he went to Moscow to Sverdlov for instructions), preparations for the murder of the Royal Family began to take a concrete form: unnecessary witnesses were removed - the internal guards, because she was almost completely disposed towards the Royal Family and was unreliable for the executioners, namely on July 3, 1918. - Avdeev and his assistant Moshkin (who was even arrested) were suddenly expelled. Instead of Avdeev, the commandant of the “House of Special Purpose”, Yurovsky became his assistant, Nikulin (known for his atrocities in Kamyshin, working in the Cheka) was appointed his assistant.
All security was replaced by selected security officers seconded by the local emergency service. From that moment and during the last two weeks, when the Royal Prisoners had to live under the same roof with their future executioners, Their Life became sheer torment...
On Sunday, July 1/14, three days before the murder, at the request of the Sovereign, Yurovsky allowed the invitation of Archpriest Father Ioann Storozhev and Deacon Bumirov, who had previously served a mass service for the Royal Family on May 20/June 2. They noticed a change in the state of mind of Their Majesties and Most August Children. According to St. John, they were not in “depression of spirit, but still gave the impression of being tired.” On this day, for the first time, none of the Members of the Royal Family sang during the Divine Service. They prayed in silence, as if anticipating that this was Their last church prayer, and as if it was revealed to them that this prayer would be extraordinary. And indeed, a significant event took place here, the deep and mysterious meaning of which became clear only when it became a thing of the past. The deacon began to sing “Rest with the Saints,” although according to the rite of the liturgy, this prayer is supposed to be read, recalls Fr. John: “...I also began to sing, somewhat embarrassed by such a deviation from the rules, but as soon as we started singing, I heard that the Members of the Romanov Family standing behind me knelt down...” So the Royal Prisoners, without suspecting it themselves, prepared for death by accepting funeral instructions...
Meanwhile, Goloshchekin brought an order from Moscow from Sverdlov to execute the Royal Family.
Yurovsky and his team of executioners quickly prepared everything for the execution. On the morning of Tuesday, July 3/16, 1918. he removed the cook's apprentice, little Leonid Sednev, I.D.'s nephew, from the Ipatiev house. Sednev (children's footman).
But even in these dying days, the Royal Family did not lose courage. On Monday, July 2/15, four women were sent to Ipatiev's house to wash the floors. One later testified to the investigator: “I personally washed the floors in almost all the rooms reserved for the Royal Family... The princesses helped us clean and move the beds in Their bedroom and talked cheerfully among themselves...”
At 7 o'clock in the evening, Yurovsky ordered the revolvers to be taken away from the Russian outer guards, then he distributed the same revolvers to the participants in the execution, Pavel Medvedev helped him.
On this last day of the life of the Prisoners, the Sovereign, the Heir Tsarevich and all the Grand Duchesses went for their usual walk in the garden and at 4 o'clock in the afternoon during the changing of the guards they returned to the house. They didn't come out anymore. The evening routine was not disrupted by anything...
Suspecting nothing, the Royal Family went to bed. Shortly after midnight, Yurovsky entered Their rooms, woke everyone up and, under the pretext of the danger threatening the city from the approaching White troops, announced that he had orders to take the Prisoners to a safe place. After some time, when everyone had dressed, washed and prepared to leave, Yurovsky, accompanied by Nikulin and Medvedev, led the Royal Family to the lower floor to the outer door facing Voznesensky Lane.
Yurovsky and Nikulin walked ahead, holding a lamp in his hand to illuminate the dark narrow staircase. The Emperor followed them. He carried the Heir, Alexei Nikolaevich, in his arms. The Heir's leg was bandaged with a thick bandage, and with every step He moaned quietly. Following the Emperor were the Empress and the Grand Duchesses. Some of them had a pillow with them, and Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna carried her beloved dog Jimmy in her arms. Next came the physician E.S. Botkin, the room girl A.S. Demidova, the footman A.E. Trupp and the cook I.M. Kharitonov. Medvedev brought up the rear of the procession. Having gone downstairs and passing through the entire lower floor to the corner room - it was the front room with the exit door to the street - Yurovsky turned left into the adjacent middle room, just under the bedroom of the Grand Duchesses, and announced that they would have to wait until the cars were delivered. It was an empty semi-basement room 5 1/3 long and 4 1/2 m wide.
Since the Tsarevich could not stand and the Empress was unwell, at the Emperor’s request three chairs were brought. The Emperor sat down in the middle of the room, seating the Heir next to Him and hugging Him with his right hand. Behind the Heir and slightly to the side of Him stood Doctor Botkin. The Empress sat down on the left hand of the Emperor, closer to the window and a step behind. A pillow was placed on Her chair and on the Heir's chair. On the same side, even closer to the wall with the window, in the back of the room, stood Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna and a little further, in the corner near the outer wall, Anna Demidova. Behind the Empress’s chair was one of the senior V. Princesses, probably Tatyana Nikolaevna. On Her right hand, leaning against the back wall, stood V. Princesses Olga Nikolaevna and Maria Nikolaevna; Next to them, a little ahead, is A. Troupe, holding a blanket for the Heir, and in the corner far left of the door is cook Kharitonov. The first half of the room from the entrance remained free. Everyone was calm. They are apparently accustomed to such night alarms and movements. Moreover, Yurovsky’s explanations seemed plausible, and some “forced” delay did not arouse any suspicion.
Yurovsky went out to make the last orders. By this time, all 11 executioners who shot the Royal Family and Her faithful servants that night had gathered in one of the neighboring rooms. Here are their names: Yankel Haimovich Yurovsky, Nikulin, Stepan Vaganov, Pavel Spiridonovich Medvedev, Laons Gorvat, Anselm Fischer, Isidor Edelstein, Emil Fecte, Imre Nad, Victor Grinfeld and Andreas Vergazi - mercenaries - Magyars.
Each had a seven-shot revolver. Yurovsky, in addition, had a Mauser, and two of them had rifles with fixed bayonets. Each killer chose his victim in advance: Gorvat chose Botkin. But at the same time, Yurovsky strictly forbade everyone else to shoot at the Sovereign Emperor and the Tsarevich: he wanted, or rather, he was ordered, to kill the Russian Orthodox Tsar and His Heir with his own hand.
Outside the window, the noise of the engine of a four-ton Fiat truck, prepared for transporting bodies, was heard. Shooting to the sound of a running truck engine, in order to muffle the shots, was a favorite technique of the security officers. This method was applied here as well.
It was 1 o'clock. 15m. Nights according to solar time, or 3 hours. 15m. according to summer time (translated by the Bolsheviks two hours ahead). Yurovsky returned to the room, along with the entire team of executioners. Nikulin moved closer to the window, opposite the Empress. Gorvat positioned himself facing Doctor Botkin. The others split up on either side of the door. Medvedev took a position on the threshold.
Approaching the Emperor, Yurovsky said a few words, announcing the upcoming execution. This was so unexpected that the Emperor, apparently, did not immediately understand the meaning of what was said. He stood up from his chair and asked in amazement: “What? What?" The Empress and one of the Grand Duchesses managed to cross themselves. At that moment, Yurovsky raised his revolver and shot several times at point-blank range, first at the Sovereign and then at the Heir.
Almost simultaneously, others began shooting. The Grand Duchesses, standing in the second row, saw their Parents fall and began to scream in horror. They were destined to outlive Them for several terrible moments. Those shot fell one after another. About 70 shots were fired in just 2-3 minutes. The wounded Princesses were finished off with bayonets. The heir moaned weakly. Yurovsky killed Him with two shots to the head. The wounded Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna was finished off with bayonets and rifle butts.
Anna Demidova rushed about until she fell under the blows of bayonets. Some victims were shot and stabbed to death before everything died down.
...Through the bluish fog that filled the room from many shots, with the weak illumination of one electric light bulb, the picture of the murder presented a terrifying spectacle.
The Emperor fell forward, close to the Empress. The Heir was lying on his back nearby. The Grand Duchesses were together, as if They were holding each other's hands. Between Them lay the corpse of little Jimmy, whom the Great Anastasia Nikolaevna held close to her until the last moment. Dr. Botkin took a step forward before falling on his face with his right arm raised. Anna Demidova and Alexey Trupp fell near the back wall. Ivan Kharitonov lay supine at the feet of the Grand Duchesses. All those killed had several wounds, and therefore there was especially a lot of blood. Their faces and clothes were covered in blood; it stood in puddles on the floor, splashes and stains covered the walls. It seemed that the whole room was covered in blood and represented a slaughterhouse (an Old Testament altar).
On the night of the martyrdom of the Royal Family, Blessed Maria of Diveyevo raged and shouted: “The princesses with bayonets! Damned Jews! She raged terribly, and only then did they understand what she was screaming about. Under the arches of the Ipatiev basement, in which the Royal Martyrs and their Faithful servants completed their way of the cross, inscriptions left by the executioners were discovered. One of them consisted of four cabalistic signs. It was deciphered as follows: “Here, on the orders of satanic forces, the Tsar was sacrificed for the destruction of the State. All nations are informed of this.”
“...At the very beginning of this century, even before the First World War, small shops in the kingdom of Poland sold under the counter rather crudely printed postcards depicting a Jewish “tzaddik” (rabbi) with a Torah in one hand and a white bird in the other. The bird had the head of Emperor Nicholas II, with an imperial crown. Below... was the following inscription: “Let this sacrificial animal be my cleansing, it will be my substitute and cleansing sacrifice.”
During the investigation into the murder of Nicholas II and His Family, it was established that the day before this crime, a special train consisting of a steam locomotive and one passenger carriage arrived in Yekaterinburg from Central Russia. It brought a face in black clothes, looking like a Jewish rabbi. This person examined the basement of the house and left a Kabbalistic inscription on the wall (the above-mentioned comp.)..."."Christography", magazine "New Book of Russia".
...By this time, Shaya Goloshchekin, Beloborodov, Mobius and Voikov arrived at the “House of Special Purpose”. Yurovsky and Voikov began a thorough examination of the dead. They turned everyone over on their backs to make sure there were no signs of life left. At the same time, they took jewelry from their victims: rings, bracelets, gold watches. They took off the princesses' shoes, which they then gave to their mistresses.
Then the bodies were wrapped in pre-prepared overcoat cloth and transferred on a stretcher made of two shafts and sheets to a truck parked at the entrance. Zlokazovsky worker Lyukhanov was driving. Yurovsky, Ermakov and Vaganov sat down with him.
Under the cover of darkness, the truck drove away from Ipatiev’s house, went down Voznesensky Avenue towards Main Avenue and left the city through the suburb of Verkh-Isetsk. Here he turned onto the only road leading to the village of Koptyaki, located on the shores of Lake Isetskoe. The road there goes through the forest, crossing the Perm and Tagil railway lines. It was already dawn when, about 15 versts from Yekaterinburg and, not reaching four versts to Koptyakov, in a dense forest in the “Four Brothers” tract, the truck turned left and reached a small forest clearing near a row of abandoned mines, called “Ganina Yama”. Here the bodies of the Royal Martyrs were unloaded, cut up, doused with gasoline and thrown onto two large bonfires. The bones were destroyed using sulfuric acid. For three days and two nights, the killers, assisted by 15 responsible party communists specially mobilized for this purpose, carried out their diabolical work under the direct supervision of Yurovsky, on the instructions of Voikov and under the supervision of Goloshchekin and Beloborodov, who came from Yekaterinburg to the forest several times. Finally, by the evening of July 6/19, it was all over. The killers carefully destroyed traces of fires. The ashes and all that was left of the burnt bodies were thrown into a mine, which was then blown up with hand grenades, and the ground around was dug up and covered with leaves and moss to hide the traces of the crime committed there.
Beloborodov immediately telegraphed Sverdlov about the murder of the Royal Family. However, this latter did not dare to reveal the truth not only to the Russian people, but even to the Soviet government. At a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars, which took place on July 5/18 under the chairmanship of Lenin, Sverdlov made an emergency statement. It was a complete pile of lies.
He said that a message had been received from Yekaterinburg about the execution of the Sovereign Emperor, that He was shot by order of the Ural Regional Council and that the Empress and Heir were evacuated to a “safe place.” He kept silent about the fate of the Grand Duchesses. In conclusion, he added that the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee approved the resolution of the Ural Council. Having listened in silence to Sverdlov’s statement, the members of the Council of People’s Commissars continued the meeting...
The next day it was announced in all newspapers in Moscow. After long negotiations with Sverdlov over a direct wire, Goloshchekin made a similar message to the Ural Council, which was published in Yekaterinburg only on July 8/21, since the Yekaterinburg Bolsheviks, who allegedly arbitrarily shot the Royal Family, in fact did not even dare to issue a message without Moscow’s permission about the execution. Meanwhile, as the front approached, the Bolsheviks began a panicky flight from Yekaterinburg. On July 12/25 it was taken by troops of the Siberian Army. On the same day, guards were assigned to Ipatiev’s house, and on July 17/30 a judicial investigation began, which restored the picture of this terrible crime in almost all details, and also established the identities of its organizers and perpetrators. In subsequent years, a number of new witnesses appeared, and new documents and facts became known, which further supplemented and clarified the investigation materials.
Investigating the ritual murder of the Royal Family, investigator N.A. Sokolov, who literally sifted through all the earth at the site of the burning of the bodies of the Royal Family and discovered numerous fragments of crushed and burnt bones and extensive greasy masses, did not find a single tooth, not a single fragment, and As you know, teeth don’t burn in fire. It turned out that after the murder Isaac Goloshchekin immediately went to Moscow with three barrels of alcohol... He took with him to Moscow these heavy barrels, sealed in wooden boxes and wrapped in ropes, and there was no place at all in the cabin of the carriage, without touching the contents in them in the salon. Some of the accompanying security officials and train servants were interested in the mysterious cargo. To all questions, Goloshchekin answered that he was carrying samples of artillery shells for the Putilov plant. In Moscow, Goloshchekin took the boxes, went to Yankel Sverdlov and lived with him for five days without returning to the carriage. What documents in the literal sense of the word, and for what purpose, could be of interest to Yankel Sverdlov, Nakhamkes and Bronstein?
It is quite possible that the murderers, destroying the Royal bodies, separated honest heads from them, to prove to the leadership in Moscow about the liquidation of the entire Royal Family. This method, as a kind of “reporting,” was widely used in the Cheka during those terrible years of mass murder of the defenseless population of Russia by the Bolsheviks.
There is a rare photograph: during the days of the February Troubles, the Tsar's children, sick with measles, after recovery, all five were photographed with shaved heads - so that only their heads are visible, and they all have the same face. The Empress burst into tears: five children’s heads seemed to be cut off...
There is no doubt that it was a ritual murder. This is evidenced not only by the ritual Kabbalistic inscriptions in the basement room of the Ipatiev House, but also by the murderers themselves.
The wrongdoers knew what they were doing. Their conversations are noteworthy. One of the regicides M.A. Medvedev (Kudrin) described the night of July 17 in December 1963:
...We went down to the first floor. That room is “very small.” “Yurovsky and Nikulin brought three chairs - the last thrones of the condemned Dynasty.”
Yurovsky declares out loud: “...we have been entrusted with the mission to put an end to the House of Romanov!”
And here is the moment immediately after the massacre: “Near the truck I meet Philip Goloshchekin.
Where have you been? - I ask him.
I walked around the square. I heard shots. It was audible. — He bent over the Tsar.
The end, you say, of the Romanov Dynasty?! Yes…
The Red Army soldier brought Anastasia's lap dog on a bayonet - when we walked past the door (to the stairs to the second floor) a long, plaintive howl was heard from behind the doors - the last salute to the All-Russian Emperor. The dog's corpse was thrown next to the king's.
Dogs - dog death! - Goloshchekin said contemptuously.”
After the fanatics initially threw the bodies of the Royal Martyrs into the mine, they decided to remove them from there in order to set them on fire. “From July 17th to 18th,” recalled P.Z. Ermakov, - I arrived in the forest again, brought a rope. I was lowered into the mine. I began to tie each one up individually, and two guys pulled them out. All the corpses were taken (sic! - S.F.) from the mine in order to put an end to the Romanovs and so that their friends would not think of creating HOLY RELICS.”
M.A., already mentioned by us. Medvedev testified: “Before us lay ready-made “MIRACULAR POWERS”: the icy water of the mine not only completely washed away the blood, but also froze the bodies so much that they looked as if they were alive—a blush even appeared on the faces of the Tsar, the girls and women.”
One of the participants in the destruction of the royal bodies, security officer G.I. Sukhorukov recalled on April 3, 1928: “So that even if the whites had found these corpses and had not guessed from the number that these were the Royal Family, we decided to burn two of them at the stake, which we did, the first Heir and the second is the youngest daughter Anastasia...”
Participant in the regicide M.A. Medvedev (Kudrin) (December 1963): “Given the deep religiosity of the people in the province, it was impossible to allow even the remains of the Royal Dynasty to be left to the enemy, from which the clergy would immediately fabricate “HOLY MIRACLE-WORKING RECENTS” ....”
Another security officer, G.P., also thought the same. Nikulin in his radio conversation on May 12, 1964: “... Even if a corpse had been discovered, then, obviously, some kind of POWERS were created from it, you know, around which some kind of counter-revolution would have grouped...”.
The same thing was confirmed the next day by his comrade I.I. Rodzinsky: “...It was a very serious matter.<…>If the White Guards had discovered these remains, do you know what they would have done? POWERS. Processions of the cross would take advantage of the darkness of the village. Therefore, the question of hiding traces was more important than even the execution itself.<…>This was the most important thing...”
No matter how distorted the bodies are, M.K. believed. Diterichs, - Isaac Goloshchekin understood perfectly well that for a Russian Christian it is not the finding of a physical whole body that matters, but their most insignificant remains, as sacred relics of those bodies whose soul is immortal and cannot be destroyed by Isaac Goloshchekin or another fanatic like him from the Jewish people "
Truly: even the demons believe and tremble!
...The Bolsheviks renamed the city of Yekaterinburg to Sverdlovsk - in honor of the main organizer of the murder of the Royal Family, and thereby not only confirmed the correctness of the accusations of the judiciary, but also their responsibility for this greatest crime in the history of mankind, committed by the world forces of evil...
The date of the savage murder itself—July 17—is no coincidence. On this day, the Russian Orthodox Church honors the memory of the holy noble prince Andrei Bogolyubsky, who consecrated the autocracy of Rus' with his martyr’s blood. According to the chroniclers, the Jewish conspirators, who “accepted” Orthodoxy and were blessed by Him, killed him in the most cruel way. Holy Prince Andrei was the first to proclaim the idea of Orthodoxy and Autocracy as the basis of the statehood of Holy Rus' and was, in fact, the first Russian Tsar.
According to God's providence, the Royal Martyrs were taken from earthly life all together. As a reward for boundless mutual love, which tightly bound them into one inseparable whole.
The Emperor courageously ascended Golgotha and with meek submission to the Will of God accepted martyrdom. He left a legacy of an unclouded Monarchical Beginning as a precious Pledge received by Him from His Royal ancestors.