Tsar Nicholas II was shot. There was no execution of the Royal Family

The Romanov family was numerous; there were no problems with the successors to the throne. In 1918, after the Bolsheviks shot the emperor, his wife and children, a large number of impostors appeared. Rumors spread that that very night in Yekaterinburg, one of them still survived.

And today many believe that one of the children could have been saved and that their offspring could live among us.

After the massacre of the imperial family, many believed that Anastasia managed to escape

Anastasia was Nikolai's youngest daughter. In 1918, when the Romanovs were executed, Anastasia’s remains were not found in the family’s burial place and rumors spread that the young princess had survived.

People all over the world have been reincarnated as Anastasia. One of the most prominent impostors was Anna Anderson. I think she was from Poland.

Anna imitated Anastasia in her behavior, and rumors that Anastasia was alive spread quite quickly. Many also tried to imitate her sisters and brother. People all over the world tried to cheat, but Russia had the most doppelgängers.

Many believed that the children of Nicholas II survived. But even after the burial of the Romanov family was found, scientists were unable to identify the remains of Anastasia. Most historians still cannot confirm that the Bolsheviks killed Anastasia.

Later, a secret burial was found, in which the remains of the young princess were discovered, and forensic experts were able to prove that she died along with the rest of the family in 1918. Her remains were reburied in 1998.

Scientists were able to compare the DNA of the found remains and modern followers of the royal family

Many people believed that the Bolsheviks buried the Romanovs in various places in the Sverdlovsk region. In addition, many were convinced that two of the children were able to escape.

There was a theory that Tsarevich Alexei and Princess Maria were able to escape from the scene of the terrible execution. In 1976, scientists picked up a trail with the remains of the Romanovs. In 1991, when the era of communism was over, researchers were able to obtain government permission to open the burial site of the Romanovs, the same one left by the Bolsheviks.

But scientists needed DNA analysis to confirm the theory. They asked Prince Philip and Prince Michael of Kent to provide DNA samples to compare with those of the royal couple. Forensic experts confirmed that the DNA did indeed belong to the Romanovs. As a result of this research, it was possible to confirm that the Bolsheviks buried Tsarevich Alexei and Princess Maria separately from the rest.

Some people devoted their free time to searching for traces of the real burial site of the family

In 2007, Sergei Plotnikov, one of the founders of an amateur historical group, made an amazing discovery. His group was searching for any facts related to the royal family.

In his free time, Sergei was engaged in searching for the remains of the Romanovs at the supposed site of the first burial. And one day he was lucky, he came across something solid and started digging.

To his surprise, he found several fragments of pelvic and skull bones. After an examination, it was established that these bones belong to the children of Nicholas II.

Few people know that the methods of killing family members differed from each other.

After an analysis of the bones of Alexei and Maria, it was found that the bones were severely damaged, but differently than the bones of the emperor himself.

Traces of bullets were found on Nikolai's remains, which means the children were killed in a different way. The rest of the family also suffered in their own ways.

Scientists were able to establish that Alexei and Maria were doused with acid and died from burns. Despite the fact that these two children were buried separately from the rest of the family, they suffered no less.

There was a lot of confusion around the Romanov bones, but in the end scientists were able to establish that they belonged to the family

Archaeologists discovered 9 skulls, teeth, bullets of various calibers, fabric from clothes and wires from a wooden box. The remains were determined to be those of a boy and a woman, with approximate ages ranging from 10 to 23 years.

The likelihood that the boy was Tsarevich Alexei, and the girl Princess Maria, is quite high. In addition, there were theories that the government managed to discover the location where the Romanov bones were kept. There were rumors that the remains had been found back in 1979, but the government kept this information secret.

One of the research groups was very close to the truth, but they soon ran out of money

In 1990, another group of archaeologists decided to start excavations, in the hope that they would be able to discover some more traces of the location of the remains of the Romanovs.

After several days or even weeks, they dug up an area the size of a football field, but never completed the study because they ran out of money. Surprisingly, Sergei Plotnikov found bone fragments in this very territory.

Due to the fact that the Russian Orthodox Church demanded more and more confirmation of the authenticity of the Romanov bones, the reburial was postponed several times

The Russian Orthodox Church refused to accept the fact that the bones actually belonged to the Romanov family. The Church demanded more evidence that these same remains were actually found in the burial of the royal family in Yekaterinburg.

The successors of the Romanov family supported the Russian Orthodox Church, demanding additional research and confirmation that the bones really belong to the children of Nicholas II.

The reburial of the family was postponed many times, as the Russian Orthodox Church each time questioned the correctness of the DNA analysis and the belonging of the bones to the Romanov family. The church asked forensic experts to conduct an additional examination. After scientists finally managed to convince the church that the remains really belonged to the royal family, the Russian Orthodox Church planned a reburial.

The Bolsheviks eliminated the bulk of the imperial family, but their distant relatives are alive to this day

The successors of the family tree of the Romanov dynasty live among us. One of the heirs to the royal genes is Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and he provided his DNA for research. Prince Philip is the husband of Queen Elizabeth II, grandniece of Princess Alexandra, and the great-great-great-grandson of Nicholas I.

Another relative who helped with DNA identification is Prince Michael of Kent. His grandmother was a cousin of Nicholas II.

There are eight more successors of this family: Hugh Grosvenor, Constantine II, Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna Romanova, Grand Duke George Mikhailovich, Olga Andreevna Romanova, Francis Alexander Matthew, Nicoletta Romanova, Rostislav Romanov. But these relatives did not provide their DNA for analysis, since Prince Philip and Prince Michael of Kent were recognized as the closest relatives.

Of course the Bolsheviks tried to cover up the traces of their crime

The Bolsheviks executed the royal family in Yekaterinburg, and they needed to somehow hide the evidence of the crime.

There are two theories about how the Bolsheviks killed children. According to the first version, they first shot Nikolai, and then put his daughters in a mine where no one could find them. The Bolsheviks tried to blow up the mine, but their plan failed, so they decided to pour acid on the children and burn them.

According to the second version, the Bolsheviks wanted to cremate the bodies of the murdered Alexei and Maria. After several studies, scientists and forensic experts concluded that it was not possible to cremate the bodies.

To cremate a human body, you need a very high temperature, and the Bolsheviks were in the forest, and they did not have the opportunity to create the necessary conditions. After unsuccessful attempts at cremation, they finally decided to bury the bodies, but divided the family into two graves.

The fact that the family was not buried together explains why not all family members were initially found. This also disproves the theory that Alexei and Maria managed to escape.

By decision of the Russian Orthodox Church, the remains of the Romanovs were buried in one of the churches in St. Petersburg

The mystery of the Romanov dynasty rests with their remains in the Church of Saints Peter and Paul in St. Petersburg. After numerous studies, scientists still agreed that the remains belong to Nikolai and his family.

The last farewell ceremony took place in an Orthodox church and lasted three days. During the funeral procession, many still questioned the authenticity of the remains. But scientists say the bones match 97% of the royal family's DNA.

In Russia, this ceremony was given special significance. Residents of fifty countries around the world watched as the Romanov family retired. It took more than 80 years to debunk the myths about the family of the last emperor of the Russian Empire. With the completion of the funeral procession, an entire era passed into the past.

Almost a hundred years have passed since that terrible night when the Russian Empire ceased to exist forever. Until now, no historian can state unequivocally what happened that night and whether any of the family members survived. Most likely, the secret of this family will remain unsolved and we can only guess what really happened.

According to official history, on the night of July 16-17, 1918, Nikolai Romanov, along with his wife and children, was shot. After opening the burial and identifying the remains in 1998, they were reburied in the tomb of the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg. However, then the Russian Orthodox Church did not confirm their authenticity.

“I cannot exclude that the church will recognize the royal remains as authentic if convincing evidence of their authenticity is discovered and if the examination is open and honest,” Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, said in July of this year.

As is known, the Russian Orthodox Church did not participate in the burial of the remains of the royal family in 1998, explaining this by the fact that the church is not sure whether the original remains of the royal family are buried. The Russian Orthodox Church refers to a book by Kolchak investigator Nikolai Sokolov, who concluded that all the bodies were burned.

Some of the remains collected by Sokolov at the burning site are kept in Brussels, in the Church of St. Job the Long-Suffering, and they have not been examined. At one time, a version of Yurovsky’s note, who supervised the execution and burial, was found - it became the main document before the transfer of the remains (along with the book of investigator Sokolov). And now, in the coming year of the 100th anniversary of the execution of the Romanov family, the Russian Orthodox Church has been tasked with giving a final answer to all the dark execution sites near Yekaterinburg. To obtain a final answer, research has been carried out for several years under the auspices of the Russian Orthodox Church. Again, historians, geneticists, graphologists, pathologists and other specialists are rechecking the facts, powerful scientific forces and the forces of the prosecutor's office are again involved, and all these actions again take place under a thick veil of secrecy.

Genetic identification research is carried out by four independent groups of scientists. Two of them are foreign, working directly with the Russian Orthodox Church. At the beginning of July 2017, the secretary of the church commission for studying the results of the study of the remains found near Yekaterinburg, Bishop Tikhon (Shevkunov) of Yegoryevsk, said: a large number of new circumstances and new documents have been discovered. For example, Sverdlov’s order to execute Nicholas II was found. In addition, based on the results of recent research, criminologists have confirmed that the remains of the Tsar and Tsarina belong to them, since a mark was suddenly found on the skull of Nicholas II, which is interpreted as a mark from a saber blow he received while visiting Japan. As for the queen, dentists identified her using the world's first porcelain veneers on platinum pins.

Although, if you open the conclusion of the commission, written before the burial in 1998, it says: the bones of the sovereign’s skull are so destroyed that the characteristic callus cannot be found. The same conclusion noted severe damage to the teeth of Nikolai’s presumed remains due to periodontal disease, since this person had never been to the dentist. This confirms that it was not the tsar who was shot, since the records of the Tobolsk dentist whom Nikolai contacted remained. In addition, no explanation has yet been found for the fact that the height of the skeleton of “Princess Anastasia” is 13 centimeters greater than her lifetime height. Well, as you know, miracles happen in the church... Shevkunov did not say a word about genetic testing, and this despite the fact that genetic studies in 2003 conducted by Russian and American specialists showed that the genome of the body of the supposed empress and her sister Elizabeth Feodorovna did not match , which means no relationship

In addition, in the museum of the city of Otsu (Japan) there are things left after the policeman wounded Nicholas II. They contain biological material that can be examined. Using them, Japanese geneticists from Tatsuo Nagai’s group proved that the DNA of the remains of “Nicholas II” from near Yekaterinburg (and his family) does not 100% match the DNA of biomaterials from Japan. During the Russian DNA examination, second cousins ​​were compared, and in the conclusion it was written that “there are matches.” The Japanese compared relatives of cousins. There are also the results of a genetic examination of the President of the International Association of Forensic Physicians, Mr. Bonte from Dusseldorf, in which he proved: the found remains and doubles of the Nicholas II Filatov family are relatives. Perhaps, from their remains in 1946, the “remains of the royal family” were created? The problem has not been studied.

Earlier, in 1998, the Russian Orthodox Church, on the basis of these conclusions and facts, did not recognize the existing remains as authentic, but what will happen now? In December, all conclusions of the Investigative Committee and the ROC commission will be considered by the Council of Bishops. It is he who will decide on the church’s attitude towards the Yekaterinburg remains. Let's see why everything is so nervous and what is the history of this crime?

This kind of money is worth fighting for

Today, some of the Russian elites have suddenly awakened an interest in one very piquant history of relations between Russia and the United States, connected with the Romanov royal family. The story in a nutshell is this: More than 100 years ago, in 1913, the United States created the Federal Reserve System (FRS), a central bank and international currency printing press that still operates today. The Fed was created for the newly created League of Nations (now the UN) and would be a single global financial center with its own currency. Russia contributed 48,600 tons of gold to the “authorized capital” of the system. But the Rothschilds demanded that Woodrow Wilson, who was then re-elected as US President, transfer the center to their private ownership along with the gold. The organization became known as the Federal Reserve System, where Russia owned 88.8%, and 11.2% belonged to 43 international beneficiaries. Receipts stating that 88.8% of gold assets for a period of 99 years are under the control of the Rothschilds were transferred in six copies to the family of Nicholas II.

The annual income on these deposits was fixed at 4%, which was supposed to be transferred to Russia annually, but was deposited in the X-1786 account of the World Bank and in 300 thousand accounts in 72 international banks. All these documents confirming the right to the gold pledged to the Federal Reserve from Russia in the amount of 48,600 tons, as well as income from leasing it, were deposited by the mother of Tsar Nicholas II, Maria Fedorovna Romanova, for safekeeping in one of the Swiss banks. But only heirs have conditions for access there, and this access is controlled by the Rothschild clan. Gold certificates were issued for the gold provided by Russia, which made it possible to claim the metal in parts - the royal family hid them in different places. Later, in 1944, the Bretton Woods Conference confirmed Russia's right to 88% of the Fed's assets.

At one time, two well-known Russian oligarchs, Roman Abramovich and Boris Berezovsky, proposed to tackle this “golden” issue. But Yeltsin “didn’t understand” them, and now, apparently, that very “golden” time has come... And now this gold is remembered more and more often - though not at the state level.

Some suggest that the surviving Tsarevich Alexei later grew into Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin

People kill for this gold, fight for it, and make fortunes from it.

Today's researchers believe that all wars and revolutions in Russia and in the world occurred because the Rothschild clan and the United States did not intend to return gold to the Federal Reserve System of Russia. After all, the execution of the royal family made it possible for the Rothschild clan not to give up the gold and not pay for its 99-year lease. “Currently, out of three Russian copies of the agreement on gold invested in the Fed, two are in our country, the third is presumably in one of the Swiss banks,” says researcher Sergei Zhilenkov. – In a cache in the Nizhny Novgorod region, there are documents from the royal archive, among which there are 12 “gold” certificates. If they are presented, the global financial hegemony of the USA and the Rothschilds will simply collapse, and our country will receive huge money and all the opportunities for development, since it will no longer be strangled from overseas,” the historian is sure.

Many wanted to close the questions about the royal assets with the reburial. Professor Vladlen Sirotkin also has a calculation for the so-called war gold exported to the West and East during the First World War and the Civil War: Japan - 80 billion dollars, Great Britain - 50 billion, France - 25 billion, USA - 23 billion, Sweden - 5 billion, Czech Republic – $1 billion. Total – 184 billion. Surprisingly, officials in the US and UK, for example, do not dispute these figures, but are surprised at the lack of requests from Russia. By the way, the Bolsheviks remembered Russian assets in the West in the early 20s. Back in 1923, People's Commissar of Foreign Trade Leonid Krasin ordered a British investigative law firm to evaluate Russian real estate and cash deposits abroad. By 1993, this company reported that it had already accumulated a data bank worth 400 billion dollars! And this is legal Russian money.

Why did the Romanovs die? Britain did not accept them!

There is a long-term study, unfortunately, by the now deceased professor Vladlen Sirotkin (MGIMO) “Foreign Gold of Russia” (Moscow, 2000), where the gold and other holdings of the Romanov family, accumulated in the accounts of Western banks, are also estimated at no less than 400 billion dollars, and together with investments - more than 2 trillion dollars! In the absence of heirs from the Romanov side, the closest relatives are members of the English royal family... It is whose interests may be the background to many events of the 19th–21st centuries...

By the way, it is not clear (or, on the contrary, it is clear) for what reasons the royal house of England denied asylum to the Romanov family three times. The first time in 1916, in the apartment of Maxim Gorky, an escape was planned - the rescue of the Romanovs by kidnapping and internment of the royal couple during their visit to an English warship, which was then sent to Great Britain. The second was Kerensky's request, which was also rejected. Then the Bolsheviks’ request was not accepted. And this despite the fact that the mothers of George V and Nicholas II were sisters. In surviving correspondence, Nicholas II and George V call each other “Cousin Nicky” and “Cousin Georgie” - they were cousins ​​with an age difference of less than three years, and in their youth these guys spent a lot of time together and were very similar in appearance. As for the queen, her mother, Princess Alice, was the eldest and beloved daughter of Queen Victoria of England. At that time, England held 440 tons of gold from Russia’s gold reserves and 5.5 tons of Nicholas II’s personal gold as collateral for military loans. Now think about it: if the royal family died, then who would the gold go to? To the closest relatives! Is this the reason why cousin Georgie refused to accept cousin Nicky's family? To obtain gold, its owners had to die. Officially. And now all this needs to be connected with the burial of the royal family, which will officially testify that the owners of untold wealth are dead.

Versions of life after death

All versions of the death of the royal family that exist today can be divided into three. First version: the royal family was shot near Yekaterinburg, and its remains, with the exception of Alexei and Maria, were reburied in St. Petersburg. The remains of these children were found in 2007, all examinations were carried out on them, and they will apparently be buried on the 100th anniversary of the tragedy. If this version is confirmed, for accuracy it is necessary to once again identify all the remains and repeat all examinations, especially genetic and pathological anatomical ones. Second version: the royal family was not shot, but was scattered throughout Russia and all family members died a natural death, having lived their lives in Russia or abroad; in Yekaterinburg, a family of doubles was shot (members of the same family or people from different families, but similar on members of the emperor's family). Nicholas II had doubles after Bloody Sunday 1905. When leaving the palace, three carriages left. It is unknown which of them Nicholas II sat in. The Bolsheviks, having captured the archives of the 3rd department in 1917, had data of doubles. There is an assumption that one of the families of doubles - the Filatovs, who are distantly related to the Romanovs - followed them to Tobolsk. Third version: the intelligence services added false remains to the burials of members of the royal family as they died naturally or before opening the grave. To do this, it is necessary to very carefully monitor, among other things, the age of the biomaterial.

Let us present one of the versions of the historian of the royal family Sergei Zhelenkov, which seems to us the most logical, although very unusual.

Before investigator Sokolov, the only investigator who published a book about the execution of the royal family, there were investigators Malinovsky, Nametkin (his archive was burned along with his house), Sergeev (removed from the case and killed), Lieutenant General Diterichs, Kirsta. All these investigators concluded that the royal family was not killed. Neither the Reds nor the Whites wanted to disclose this information - they understood that American bankers were primarily interested in obtaining objective information. The Bolsheviks were interested in the tsar's money, and Kolchak declared himself the Supreme Ruler of Russia, which could not happen with a living sovereign.

Investigator Sokolov was conducting two cases - one on the fact of murder and the other on the fact of disappearance. At the same time, military intelligence, represented by Kirst, conducted an investigation. When the Whites left Russia, Sokolov, fearing for the collected materials, sent them to Harbin - some of his materials were lost along the way. Sokolov’s materials contained evidence of the financing of the Russian revolution by the American bankers Schiff, Kuhn and Loeb, and Ford, who was in conflict with these bankers, became interested in these materials. He even called Sokolov from France, where he settled, to the USA. When returning from the USA to France, Nikolai Sokolov was killed.

Sokolov’s book was published after his death, and many people “worked” on it, removing many scandalous facts from it, so it cannot be considered completely truthful. The surviving members of the royal family were observed by people from the KGB, where a special department was created for this purpose, dissolved during perestroika. The archives of this department have been preserved. The royal family was saved by Stalin - the royal family was evacuated from Yekaterinburg through Perm to Moscow and came into the possession of Trotsky, then the People's Commissar of Defense. To further save the royal family, Stalin carried out an entire operation, stealing it from Trotsky’s people and taking them to Sukhumi, to a specially built house next to the former house of the royal family. From there, all family members were distributed to different places, Maria and Anastasia were taken to the Glinsk Hermitage (Sumy region), then Maria was transported to the Nizhny Novgorod region, where she died of illness on May 24, 1954. Anastasia subsequently married Stalin’s personal security guard and lived very secludedly on a small farm; she died on June 27, 1980 in the Volgograd region.

The eldest daughters, Olga and Tatyana, were sent to the Seraphim-Diveevo convent - the empress was settled not far from the girls. But they did not live here for long. Olga, having traveled through Afghanistan, Europe and Finland, settled in Vyritsa, Leningrad Region, where she died on January 19, 1976. Tatyana lived partly in Georgia, partly in the Krasnodar Territory, was buried in the Krasnodar Territory, and died on September 21, 1992. Alexey and his mother lived at their dacha, then Alexey was transported to Leningrad, where they “did” a biography on him, and the whole world recognized him as party and Soviet leader Alexei Nikolaevich Kosygin (Stalin sometimes called him Tsarevich in front of everyone). Nicholas II lived and died in Nizhny Novgorod (December 22, 1958), and the queen died in the village of Starobelskaya, Lugansk region on April 2, 1948 and was subsequently reburied in Nizhny Novgorod, where she and the emperor have a common grave. Three daughters of Nicholas II, besides Olga, had children. N.A. Romanov communicated with I.V. Stalin, and the wealth of the Russian Empire was used to strengthen the power of the USSR...

Yakov Tudorovsky

Yakov Tudorovsky

The Romanovs were not executed

According to official history, on the night of July 16-17, 1918, Nikolai Romanov, along with his wife and children, was shot. After opening the burial and identifying the remains in 1998, they were reburied in the tomb of the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg. However, then the Russian Orthodox Church did not confirm their authenticity. “I cannot exclude that the church will recognize the royal remains as authentic if convincing evidence of their authenticity is discovered and if the examination is open and honest,” Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, said in July of this year. As is known, the Russian Orthodox Church did not participate in the burial of the remains of the royal family in 1998, explaining this by the fact that the church is not sure whether the original remains of the royal family are buried. The Russian Orthodox Church refers to a book by Kolchak investigator Nikolai Sokolov, who concluded that all the bodies were burned. Some of the remains collected by Sokolov at the burning site are kept in Brussels, in the Church of St. Job the Long-Suffering, and they have not been examined. At one time, a version of Yurovsky’s note, who supervised the execution and burial, was found - it became the main document before the transfer of the remains (along with the book of investigator Sokolov). And now, in the coming year of the 100th anniversary of the execution of the Romanov family, the Russian Orthodox Church has been tasked with giving a final answer to all the dark execution sites near Yekaterinburg. To obtain a final answer, research has been carried out for several years under the auspices of the Russian Orthodox Church. Again, historians, geneticists, graphologists, pathologists and other specialists are rechecking the facts, powerful scientific forces and the forces of the prosecutor's office are again involved, and all these actions again take place under a thick veil of secrecy. Genetic identification research is carried out by four independent groups of scientists. Two of them are foreign, working directly with the Russian Orthodox Church. At the beginning of July 2017, the secretary of the church commission for studying the results of the study of the remains found near Yekaterinburg, Bishop Tikhon (Shevkunov) of Yegoryevsk, said: a large number of new circumstances and new documents have been discovered. For example, Sverdlov’s order to execute Nicholas II was found. In addition, based on the results of recent research, criminologists have confirmed that the remains of the Tsar and Tsarina belong to them, since a mark was suddenly found on the skull of Nicholas II, which is interpreted as a mark from a saber blow he received while visiting Japan. As for the queen, dentists identified her using the world's first porcelain veneers on platinum pins. Although, if you open the conclusion of the commission, written before the burial in 1998, it says: the bones of the sovereign’s skull are so destroyed that the characteristic callus cannot be found. The same conclusion noted severe damage to the teeth of Nikolai’s presumed remains due to periodontal disease, since this person had never been to the dentist. This confirms that it was not the tsar who was shot, since the records of the Tobolsk dentist whom Nikolai contacted remained. In addition, no explanation has yet been found for the fact that the height of the skeleton of “Princess Anastasia” is 13 centimeters greater than her lifetime height. Well, as you know, miracles happen in the church... Shevkunov did not say a word about genetic testing, and this despite the fact that genetic studies in 2003 conducted by Russian and American specialists showed that the genome of the body of the supposed empress and her sister Elizabeth Feodorovna did not match , which means no relationship.

The family of the last Emperor of Russia, Nicholas Romanov, was killed in 1918. Due to the concealment of facts by the Bolsheviks, a number of alternative versions appear. For a long time there were rumors that turned the murder of the royal family into a legend. There were theories that one of his children escaped.

What really 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 views on life, it was difficult to manage the crumbling state.

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

Strikes and rallies, demonstrations and bread riots, famine. All this indicated decline. The only way out could be the accession to the throne of an imperious and tough ruler who could take complete control of the country.

Nicholas II was not like that. It was focused on building railways, churches, improving the economy and culture in society. He managed to make progress in these areas. But positive changes affected mainly only the top of society, while the majority of ordinary residents remained at the level of the Middle Ages. Splinters, wells, carts and everyday life of peasants and craftsmen.

After the entry of the Russian Empire into the First World War, the discontent of the people only intensified. The execution of the royal family became the apotheosis of general madness. Next we will look at this crime in more detail.

Now it is important to note the following. After the abdication of Emperor Nicholas II and his brother from the throne, soldiers, workers and peasants began to take the leading roles in the state. People who have not previously dealt with management, who have a minimal level of culture and superficial judgments, gain power.

Small local commissars wanted to curry favor with the higher ranks. The rank and file and junior officers simply mindlessly followed orders. The troubled times that ensued during these turbulent years brought unfavorable elements to the surface.

Next you will see more photos 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 figure out what really happened in Yekaterinburg in July 1918.

Course of events

The execution of the royal family was planned and prepared for quite 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 deliberately chosen to be calm. But in fact, they found one from which it was difficult to escape. By that time, the railway lines had not yet been extended to Tobolsk. The nearest station was two hundred and eighty kilometers away.

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

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

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

The main reason for the transfer to the east was Nikolai Alexandrovich’s family ties 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.

The role of Yakovlev, who was tasked with transporting the emperor and his family from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg, is interesting. He knew about the assassination attempt on the Tsar that was being prepared by the Siberian Bolsheviks.

Judging by the archives, there are two opinions of experts. The first ones say that in reality this is Konstantin Myachin. And he received a directive from the Center to “deliver 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 by taking him to Japan through Omsk and Vladivostok.

After arriving in Yekaterinburg, all prisoners were placed in Ipatiev’s mansion. A photo of the Romanov royal family was preserved when Yakovlev handed it over to the Urals Council. The place of detention among the revolutionaries was called a “house of special purpose.”

Here they were kept for seventy-eight days. The relationship of the convoy to the emperor and his family will be discussed in more detail below. For now, it is important to focus on the fact that it was rude and boorish. They were robbed, psychologically and morally oppressed, abused so that they were not noticeable outside the walls of the mansion.

Considering the results of the investigations, we will take a closer look at the night when the monarch with his family and retinue were shot. Now we note that the execution took place at approximately half past two in the morning. Life physician Botkin, on the orders of the revolutionaries, woke up all the prisoners and went down with them to the basement.

A terrible crime took place there. Yurovsky commanded. He blurted out a prepared phrase that “they are trying to save them, and the matter cannot be delayed.” None of the prisoners understood anything. Nicholas II only had time to ask that what was said be repeated, but the soldiers, frightened by the horror of the situation, began to shoot indiscriminately. 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 a hasty and unprepared operation. The execution became lynching, which the Bolsheviks, who had lost their heads, resorted to.

Government disinformation

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

Nevertheless, immediately after the atrocity, the government began a campaign to whiten its reputation. Among researchers studying 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 ordered Bolshevik articles, a counter-revolutionary conspiracy was uncovered. Some white officers planned to attack the Ipatiev mansion and free the emperor and his family.

The second point, 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 of a book in Western Europe that outlined the results of Sokolov’s investigation. Then Bykov is instructed to write about “the current course of events.” This brochure was published in Sverdlovsk in 1926.

Nevertheless, the lies of the Bolsheviks at the international level, as well as hiding the truth from the common people, shook faith in power. and its consequences, according to Lykova, became the reason for people's distrust of the government, which did not change even in post-Soviet times.

The fate of the remaining Romanovs

The execution of the royal family had to be prepared. A similar “warm-up” was the liquidation of the Emperor’s brother Mikhail Alexandrovich and his personal secretary.
On the night from the twelfth to the thirteenth of June 1918, they were forcibly taken from the Perm hotel outside the city. They were shot in the forest, and their remains have not yet been discovered.

A statement was made to the international press that the Grand Duke had been kidnapped by attackers and went 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. They started a rumor that the escapee could contribute to the release of 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, Grand Duchess Elizabeth, Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich, Prince Paley, the manager and the cell attendant.

All of them were thrown into the Nizhnyaya Selimskaya mine, not far from the city 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 the thirst 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 the following: the liquidation of hostages in response to the murder of Liebknecht and Luxemburg in Germany.

Memoirs of contemporaries

Researchers have tried to reconstruct how members of the royal family were killed. The best way to cope with this is the testimony of the people who were present there.
The first such source is notes from Trotsky's personal diary. He noted that the blame lies with the local authorities. He especially singled out the names of Stalin and Sverdlov as the people who made this decision. Lev Davidovich writes that as Czechoslovak troops approached, Stalin’s phrase that “the Tsar cannot be handed over to the White Guards” became a death sentence.

But scientists doubt the accurate reflection of events in the notes. They were made 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 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 topic and continued the meeting as if the previous phrase had not happened.

The history of the royal family in the last days of its life is most fully reconstructed from the interrogation protocols of the participants in these events. People from the guard, punitive and funeral squads testified several times.

Although they are often confused, the main idea remains the same. All the Bolsheviks who were close to the tsar in recent months had complaints against him. Some were in prison themselves in the past, others had relatives. In general, they gathered a contingent of former prisoners.

In Yekaterinburg, anarchists and Socialist Revolutionaries put pressure on the Bolsheviks. In order not to lose authority, the local council decided to quickly put an end to this matter. Moreover, there was a rumor that Lenin wanted to exchange the royal family for a reduction in the amount of indemnity.

According to the participants, this was the only solution. In addition, many of them boasted during interrogations that they 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 secretly and was planned to be kept secret. But those responsible for the disposal of the remains failed to 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 testimony of the participants in the process, they spent several days with the task. At first it was planned to burn the clothes and throw the naked bodies into the mine and cover them with earth. But the collapse did not work out. We 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 under construction. The preliminary plan was to disfigure the bodies with sulfuric acid beyond recognition. It is clear from the protocols that two corpses were burned and the rest were buried.

Presumably the body of Alexei and one of the servant girls burned.

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 area and prohibit travel from the neighboring village. But the secrecy of the operation was hopelessly failed.

The investigation showed that attempts to bury the bodies were near shaft No. 7 and the 184th crossing. 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 fire pit 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 Kirsta.

He began to study the testimony of witnesses pointing to the murder of the Romanov royal family. The information confused and frightened him. The investigator did not expect that this was not the consequences of a military court, but a criminal case.

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

It seems that this investigator set himself the goal of proving that not the entire Romanov royal family was killed. Even after he clearly confirmed the crime, Kirsta continued to interrogate more people.

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

After Kirsta completely confused the case, it was given to another investigator.

Sokolov's investigation

Kolchak, who came to power in 1919, ordered Dieterichs to understand how the Romanov royal family was killed. The latter entrusted this case to the investigator for particularly 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 handed over to him, he did not trust Kirsta’s confusing protocols.

Sokolov again visited the mine, as well as Ipatiev’s mansion. Inspection of the house was made difficult by the location of the Czech army headquarters there. However, a German inscription on the wall was discovered, a quote from Heine's verse about the monarch being killed by his subjects. The words were clearly scratched out after the city was lost to the Reds.

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

After the Bolsheviks recapture this region, Sokolov takes all office work to Harbin, and then to Western Europe. Photos of the royal family, diaries, evidence, etc. were evacuated.

He published the results of the investigation in 1924 in Paris. In 1997, Hans-Adam II, Prince of Liechtenstein, transferred all paperwork to the Russian government. In exchange, he was given the archives of his family, taken away during the Second World War.

Modern investigation

In 1979, a group of enthusiasts led by Ryabov and Avdonin, using archival documents, discovered a burial near the 184 km station. In 1991, the latter stated 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 countries of Western Europe and the USA.

The investigation of the burial was carried out by the senior prosecutor-criminologist Soloviev. In general, he confirmed all of Sokolov’s materials. His message to Patriarch Alexei II states that “under the conditions of that time, the complete destruction of the corpses was impossible.”

In addition, the investigation of the late 20th - early 21st centuries completely refuted alternative versions of events, which we will discuss later.
The canonization of the royal family was carried out in 1981 by the Russian Orthodox Church abroad, and in Russia in 2000.

Since the Bolsheviks tried to keep this crime secret, rumors spread, contributing to the formation of alternative versions.

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

According to Dieterichs' theory, the emperor's head was cut off and preserved in alcohol. The finds of remains also refuted this crazy idea.

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

Only after all the facts of this crime were proven, the canonization of the royal family took place in Russia. This explains why it was held 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.

Execution of the royal family(former Russian Emperor Nicholas II and his family) was carried out in the basement of the Ipatiev house in Yekaterinburg on the night of July 16-17, 1918 in pursuance of the resolution of the executive committee of the Ural Regional Council of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies, headed by the Bolsheviks. Along with the royal family, members of her retinue were also shot.

Most modern historians agree that the fundamental decision to execute Nicholas II was made in Moscow (they usually point to the leaders of Soviet Russia, Sverdlov and Lenin). However, there is no unity among modern historians on the questions of whether sanction was given for the execution of Nicholas II without trial (which actually happened), and whether sanction was given for the execution of the entire family.

There is also no consensus among lawyers about whether the execution was sanctioned by the top Soviet leadership. If forensic expert Yu. Zhuk considers it beyond doubt that the executive committee of the Ural Regional Council acted in accordance with the instructions of the top officials of the Soviet state, then the senior investigator for particularly important cases of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation V. N. Solovyov, who since 1993 led investigation into the circumstances of the murder of the royal family, in his interviews in 2008-2011, he claimed that the execution of Nicholas II and his family was carried out without the sanction of Lenin and Sverdlov.

Since before the decision of the Presidium of the Supreme Court of Russia on October 1, 2008, it was believed that the Ural Regional Council was not a judicial or other body that had the authority to pass a verdict, the events described for a long time were considered from a legal point of view not as political repression, but as murder, which prevented posthumous rehabilitation of Nicholas II and his family.

The remains of five members of the imperial family, as well as their servants, were found in July 1991 near Yekaterinburg under the embankment of the Old Koptyakovskaya Road. During the investigation into the criminal case, which was conducted by the Prosecutor General's Office of Russia, the remains were identified. On July 17, 1998, the remains of members of the imperial family were buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg. In July 2007, the remains of Tsarevich Alexei and Grand Duchess Maria were found.

Background

As a result of the February Revolution, Nicholas II abdicated the throne and, together with his family, was under house arrest in Tsarskoe Selo. As A.F. Kerensky testified, when he, the Minister of Justice of the Provisional Government, just 5 days after the abdication, stood up to the podium of the Moscow Council, he was showered with a hail of shouts from the place demanding the execution of Nicholas II. He wrote in his memoirs: “The death penalty for Nicholas II and the sending of his family from the Alexander Palace to the Peter and Paul Fortress or Kronstadt - these were the furious, sometimes frantic demands of hundreds of all kinds of delegations, deputations and resolutions that appeared and presented them to the Provisional Government...”. In August 1917, Nicholas II and his family, by decision of the Provisional Government, were exiled to Tobolsk.

After the Bolsheviks came to power, at the beginning of 1918, the Soviet government discussed a proposal to hold an open trial of Nicholas II. Historian Latyshev writes that the idea of ​​​​trial Nicholas II was supported by Trotsky, but Lenin expressed doubts about the timeliness of such a trial. According to the People's Commissar of Justice Steinberg, the issue was postponed for an indefinite period, which never came.

According to historian V.M. Khrustalev, by the spring of 1918, the Bolshevik leaders had developed a plan to gather all representatives of the Romanov dynasty in the Urals, where they would be kept at a considerable distance from external dangers in the form of the German Empire and the Entente, and on the other hand, the Bolsheviks , who have strong political positions here, could keep the situation with the Romanovs under their control. In such a place, as the historian wrote, the Romanovs could be destroyed by finding a suitable reason for this. In April - May 1918, Nicholas II, together with his relatives, was taken under guard from Tobolsk to the “red capital of the Urals” - Yekaterinburg - where by that time other representatives of the imperial house of Romanov were already located. It was here in mid-July 1918, in the context of the rapid advance of anti-Soviet forces (the Czechoslovak Corps and the Siberian Army) approaching Yekaterinburg (and actually capturing it eight days later), the massacre of the royal family was carried out.

As one of the reasons for the execution, local Soviet authorities cited the discovery of a certain conspiracy, allegedly aimed at the release of Nicholas II. However, according to the recollections of members of the board of the Ural Regional Cheka I. I. Rodzinsky and M. A. Medvedev (Kudrin), this conspiracy was in fact a provocation organized by the Ural Bolsheviks in order, according to modern researchers, to obtain grounds for extrajudicial reprisals.

Course of events

Link to Yekaterinburg

Historian A.N. Bokhanov writes that there are many hypotheses as to why the tsar and his family were transported from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg and whether he intended to flee; at the same time, A. N. Bokhanov considers it a definitely established fact that the move to Yekaterinburg stemmed from the Bolsheviks’ desire to tighten the regime and prepare for the liquidation of the tsar and his family.

At the same time, the Bolsheviks did not represent a homogeneous force.

On April 1, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee decided to transfer the royal family to Moscow. The Ural authorities, who categorically objected to this decision, proposed to transfer her to Yekaterinburg. Perhaps as a result of the confrontation between Moscow and the Urals, a new decision of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of April 6, 1918 appeared, according to which all those arrested were sent to the Urals. Ultimately, the decisions of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee boiled down to orders to prepare an open trial of Nicholas II and to move the royal family to Yekaterinburg. Vasily Yakovlev, specially authorized by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, was entrusted with organizing this move, whom Sverdlov knew well from joint revolutionary work during the years of the first Russian revolution.

Commissar Vasily Yakovlev (Myachin), sent from Moscow to Tobolsk, headed a secret mission to transport the royal family to Yekaterinburg with the aim of subsequently transporting it to Moscow. Due to the illness of the son of Nicholas II, it was decided to leave all the children, except Maria, in Tobolsk in the hope of reuniting with them later.

On April 26, 1918, the Romanovs, guarded by machine gunners, left Tobolsk, and on April 27 in the evening they arrived in Tyumen. On April 30, a train from Tyumen arrived in Yekaterinburg, where Yakovlev handed over the imperial couple and daughter Maria to the head of the Urals Council A.G. Beloborodov. Together with the Romanovs, Prince V.A. Dolgorukov, E.S. Botkin, A.S. Demidova, T.I. Chemodurov, I.D. Sednev arrived in Yekaterinburg.

There is evidence that during the move of Nicholas II from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg, the leadership of the Ural region tried to assassinate him. Beloborodov later wrote in his unfinished memoirs:

According to P. M. Bykov, at the 4th Ural Regional Conference of the RCP(b), which was taking place at that time in Yekaterinburg, “in a private meeting, the majority of local delegates spoke out for the need for the speedy execution of the Romanovs” in order to prevent attempts to restore the monarchy in Russia.

The confrontation that arose during the move from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg between the detachments sent from Yekaterinburg and Yakovlev, who became aware of the intention of the Urals to destroy Nicholas II, was resolved only through negotiations with Moscow, which were conducted by both sides. Moscow, represented by Sverdlov, demanded from the Ural leadership guarantees for the safety of the royal family, and only after they were given, Sverdlov confirmed the order previously given to Yakovlev to take the Romanovs to the Urals.

On May 23, 1918, the remaining children of Nicholas II arrived in Yekaterinburg, accompanied by a group of servants and retinue officials. A. E. Trupp, I. M. Kharitonov, I. D. Sednev’s nephew Leonid Sednev and K. G. Nagorny were allowed into Ipatiev’s house.

Immediately upon arrival in Yekaterinburg, the security officers arrested four people from among the persons accompanying the royal children: the Tsar’s adjutant Prince I.L. Tatishchev, Alexandra Fedorovna’s valet A.A. Volkov, her maid of honor Princess A.V. Gendrikova and the court lecturer E. A. Schneider. Tatishchev and Prince Dolgorukov, who arrived in Yekaterinburg along with the royal couple, were shot in Yekaterinburg. After the execution of the royal family, Gendrikova, Schneider and Volkov were transferred to Perm due to the evacuation of Yekaterinburg. There they were sentenced by the Cheka authorities to execution as hostages; On the night of September 3-4, 1918, Gendrikova and Schneider were shot; Volkov managed to escape straight from the place of execution.

According to the work of Communist P.M. Bykov, a participant in the events, Prince Dolgorukov, who, according to Bykov, behaved suspiciously, was found to have two maps of Siberia with the designation of waterways and “some special notes,” as well as a significant amount of money. His testimony convinced that he intended to organize the escape of the Romanovs from Tobolsk.

Most of the remaining members of the retinue were ordered to leave the Perm province. The heir's doctor, V.N. Derevenko, was allowed to stay in Yekaterinburg as a private person and examine the heir twice a week under the supervision of Avdeev, the commandant of the Ipatiev house.

Imprisonment in Ipatiev's house

The Romanov family was placed in a “special purpose house” - the requisitioned mansion of retired military engineer N. N. Ipatiev. Doctor E. S. Botkin, chamberlain A. E. Trupp, the Empress' maid A. S. Demidova, cook I. M. Kharitonov and cook Leonid Sednev lived here with the Romanov family.

The house is nice and clean. We were assigned four rooms: a corner bedroom, a restroom, next to it a dining room with windows into the garden and a view of the low-lying part of the city, and, finally, a spacious hall with an arch without doors.<…> We were accommodated as follows: Alix [the Empress], Maria and the three of me in the bedroom, a shared restroom, in the dining room - N[yuta] Demidova, in the hall - Botkin, Chemodurov and Sednev. Near the entrance is the room of the guard officer. The guard was located in two rooms near the dining room. To go to the bathroom and W.C. [water closet], you need to pass by the sentry at the door of the guardhouse. A very high board fence was built around the house, two fathoms from the windows; there was a chain of sentries there, and in the kindergarten too.

The royal family spent 78 days in their last home.

A.D. Avdeev was appointed commandant of the “special purpose house”.

Investigator Sokolov, who was entrusted by A.V. Kolchak in February 1919 to continue conducting the case of the murder of the Romanovs, was able to recreate a picture of the last months of the life of the royal family with the remnants of their retinue in Ipatiev’s house. In particular, Sokolov reconstructed the system of posts and their placement, and compiled a list of external and internal security.

One of the sources for investigator Sokolov was the testimony of the miraculously surviving member of the royal retinue, valet T.I. Chemodurov, who stated that “in the Ipatiev House, the regime was extremely difficult, and the attitude of the guards was downright outrageous.” Not fully trusting his testimony ( “I admitted that Chemodurov might not have been completely frank in his testimony to the authorities, and found out what he told other people about life in the Ipatiev House”), Sokolov double-checked them through the former head of the royal guard Kobylinsky, valet Volkov, as well as Gilliard and Gibbs. Sokolov also studied the testimony of some other former members of the royal retinue, including Pierre Gilliard, a French teacher originally from Switzerland. Gilliard himself was transported by the Latvian Svikke (Rodionov) to Yekaterinburg with the remaining royal children, but he was not placed in Ipatiev’s house.

In addition, after Yekaterinburg fell into the hands of the whites, some of the former guards of Ipatiev's house were found and interrogated, including Suetin, Latypov and Letemin. Detailed testimony was given by former security guard Proskuryakov and former guard guard Yakimov.

According to T. I. Chemodurov, immediately upon the arrival of Nicholas II and Alexandra Fedorovna at Ipatiev’s house, they were subjected to a search, and “one of those who carried out the search snatched the reticule from the hands of the Empress and caused the Sovereign to remark: “Until now I have dealt with honest and decent people."

The former head of the royal guard, Kobylinsky, according to Chemodurov, said: “a bowl was placed on the table; there were not enough spoons, knives, forks; Red Army soldiers also took part in the dinner; someone will come and reach into the bowl: “Well, that’s enough for you.” The princesses slept on the floor, since they did not have beds. A roll call was arranged. When the princesses went to the restroom, the Red Army soldiers, ostensibly on guard duty, followed them...” Witness Yakimov (who was leading the guard during the events) said that the guards sang songs “which, of course, were not pleasant for the Tsar”: “Together, comrades, in step,” “Let’s renounce the old world,” etc. Investigator Sokolov also writes that “the Ipatiev house itself speaks more eloquently than any words, how the prisoners lived here. Unusual in their cynicism, inscriptions and images with a constant theme: about Rasputin.” To top it all off, according to the testimony of witnesses interviewed by Sokolov, the working boy Faika Safonov defiantly sang obscene ditties right under the windows of the royal family.

Sokolov very negatively characterizes some of the guards of Ipatiev’s house, calling them “propagandaized scum from among the Russian people,” and the first commandant of Ipatiev’s house, Avdeev, “the most prominent representative of these scum of the working environment: a typical rally loudmouth, extremely clueless, deeply ignorant, a drunkard and a thief”.

There are also reports of the theft of royal belongings by guards. The guards also stole food sent to the arrested person by the nuns of the Novo-Tikhvin Convent.

Richard Pipes writes that the thefts of the royal property that began could not but worry Nicholas and Alexandra, since, among other things, there were boxes with their personal letters and diaries in the barn. In addition, writes Pipes, there are many stories about the rude treatment of members of the royal family by the guards: that the guards could afford to enter the princesses’ rooms at any time of the day, that they took away food and even that they pushed the former king. " Although such stories are not unfounded, they are much exaggerated. The commandant and the guards undoubtedly behaved rudely, but there is no evidence to support open abuse.“The amazing calm with which Nikolai and his family endured the hardships of captivity, noted by a number of authors, is explained by Pipes as a sense of self-esteem and “ fatalism rooted in their deep religiosity».

Provocation. Letters from an “Officer of the Russian Army”

On June 17, those arrested were informed that the nuns of the Novo-Tikhvin Monastery were allowed to deliver eggs, milk and cream to their table. As R. Pipes writes, on June 19 or 20, the royal family discovered a note in French in the cork of one of the bottles of cream:

Friends are not asleep and hope that the hour they have been waiting for so long has come. The Czechoslovak uprising poses an increasingly serious threat to the Bolsheviks. Samara, Chelyabinsk and all of eastern and western Siberia are under the control of the national Provisional Government. The friendly army of the Slavs is already eighty kilometers from Yekaterinburg, the resistance of the Red Army soldiers is unsuccessful. Be attentive to everything that happens outside, wait and hope. But at the same time, I beg you, be careful, because the Bolsheviks, while they have not yet been defeated, they pose a real and serious danger to you. Be ready at all times, day and night. Make a drawing your two rooms: location, furniture, beds. Write down the exact hour when you all go to bed. One of you must stay awake from 2 to 3 every night from now on. Answer in a few words, but please give the necessary information to your friends outside. Give the answer to the same soldier who will give you this note, in writing, but don't say a word. The one who is ready to die for you. Russian Army officer.

Original note Les amis ne dorment plus et espèrent que l'heure si longtemps attendue est arrivée. La révolte des tschekoslovaques menace les bolcheviks de plus en plus sérieusement. Samara, Tschelabinsk et toute la Sibirie orientale et occidentale est au pouvoir de gouvernement national provisoir. L'armée des amis slaves est à quatre-vingt kilometres d'Ekaterinbourg, les soldats de l armée rouge ne résistent pas efficassement. Soyez attentifs au tout mouvement de dehors, attendez et esperez. Mais en meme temps, je vous supplie, soyez prudents, parce que les bolcheviks avant d’etre vaincus represent pour vous le peril réel et serieux. Soyez prêts toutes les heures, la journée et la nuit. Faite le croquis des vos deux chambres, les places, des meubles, des lits. Écrivez bien l'heure quant vous allez coucher vous tous. L un de vous ne doit dormir de 2 à 3 heure toutes les nuits qui suivent. Répondez par quelques mots mais donnez, je vous en prie, tous les renseignements utiles pour vos amis de dehors. C’est au meme soldat qui vous transmet cette note qu’il faut donner votre reponse par écrit mais pas un seul mot. Un qui est prêt à mourir pour vous L'officier de l'armée Russe.

In the diary of Nicholas II, there even appears an entry dated June 14 (27), which reads: “The other day we received two letters, one after the other, [in which] we were informed that we should prepare to be kidnapped by some loyal people!” The research literature mentions four letters from the “officer” and the Romanovs’ responses to them.

In the third letter, received on June 26, the “Russian officer” asked to be on alert and wait for a signal. On the night of June 26-27, the royal family did not go to bed, “they stayed awake dressed.” In Nikolai’s diary there is an entry that “the waiting and uncertainty were very painful.”

We do not want and cannot RUN. We can only be kidnapped by force, just as we were brought from Tobolsk by force. Therefore, do not count on any active help from us. The commandant has many assistants, they change frequently and have become restless. They guard our prison and our lives vigilantly and treat us well. We wouldn't want them to suffer because of us or for you to suffer for us. Most importantly, for God's sake, avoid shedding blood. Collect information about them yourself. It is absolutely impossible to go down from the window without the help of a ladder. But even if we go down, there remains a huge danger, because the window of the commandant’s room is open and on the lower floor, the entrance to which leads from the yard, there is a machine gun. [Strikethrough: “Therefore, abandon the thought of kidnapping us.”] If you are watching us, you can always try to save us in case of imminent and real danger. We have absolutely no idea what is happening outside, since we do not receive any newspapers or letters. After they allowed us to open the window, the surveillance intensified and we cannot even stick our heads out of the window without the risk of getting a bullet in the face.

Richard Pipes draws attention to obvious oddities in this correspondence: the anonymous “Russian officer” was clearly supposed to be a monarchist, but addressed the Tsar as “vous” instead of “Your Majesty” ( "Votre Majesté"), and it is unclear how the monarchists could slip letters into traffic jams. The memoirs of the first commandant of the Ipatiev house, Avdeev, have been preserved, who reports that the security officers allegedly found the real author of the letter, the Serbian officer Magic. In reality, as Richard Pipes emphasizes, there was no Magic in Yekaterinburg. There was indeed a Serbian officer with a similar surname in the city, Micic Jarko Konstantinovich, but it is known that he arrived in Yekaterinburg only on July 4, when most of the correspondence had already ended.

The declassification of the memories of participants in the events in 1989-1992 finally clarified the picture of the mysterious letters of the unknown “Russian officer”. Participant in the execution M.A. Medvedev (Kudrin) admitted that the correspondence was a provocation organized by the Ural Bolsheviks in order to test the readiness of the royal family to flee. After the Romanovs, according to Medvedev, spent two or three nights dressed, such readiness became obvious to him.

The author of the text was P. L. Voikov, who lived for some time in Geneva (Switzerland). The letters were copied out completely by I. Rodzinsky, since he had better handwriting. Rodzinsky himself states in his memoirs that “ my handwriting is in these documents».

Replacing Commandant Avdeev with Yurovsky

On July 4, 1918, the protection of the royal family was transferred to a member of the board of the Ural Regional Cheka, Ya. M. Yurovsky. Some sources mistakenly call Yurovsky the chairman of the Cheka; in fact, this position was held by F.N. Lukoyanov.

An employee of the regional Cheka, G. P. Nikulin, became the assistant commandant of the “special purpose house”. The former commandant Avdeev and his assistant Moshkin were removed, Moshkin (and, according to some sources, also Avdeev) was imprisoned for theft.

At the first meeting with Yurovsky, the tsar mistook him for a doctor, since he advised the doctor V.N. Derevenko to put a plaster cast on the heir’s leg; Yurovsky was mobilized in 1915 and, according to N. Sokolov, graduated from paramedic school.

Investigator N.A. Sokolov explained the replacement of commandant Avdeev by the fact that communication with prisoners changed something in his “drunken soul,” which became noticeable to his superiors. When, according to Sokolov, preparations began for the execution of those in the special purpose house, Avdeev’s security was removed as unreliable.

Yurovsky described his predecessor Avdeev extremely negatively, accusing him of “decay, drunkenness, theft”: “there is a mood of complete debauchery and laxity all around,” “Avdeev, addressing Nikolai, calls him Nikolai Alexandrovich. He offers him a cigarette, Avdeev takes it, they both light a cigarette, and this immediately showed me the established “simplicity of morals.”

Yurovsky’s brother Leiba, interviewed by Sokolov, described Ya. M. Yurovsky as follows: “Yankel’s character is quick-tempered and persistent. I studied watchmaking with him and I know his character: he loves to oppress people.” According to Leia, the wife of another brother of Yurovsky (Ele), Ya. M. Yurovsky is very persistent and despotic, and his characteristic phrase was: “Whoever is not with us is against us.” At the same time, as Richard Pipes points out, soon after his appointment, Yurovsky harshly suppressed the theft that had spread under Avdeev. Richard Pipes considers this action advisable from a security point of view, since guards prone to theft could be bribed, including for the purpose of escape; as a result, for some time the contents of those arrested even improved, since the theft of food from the Novo-Tikhvin Monastery stopped. In addition, Yurovsky compiles an inventory of all the jewelry in the possession of the arrested (according to the historian R. Pipes - except for those that the women secretly sewed into their underwear); They place the jewelry in a sealed box, which Yurovsky gives to them for safekeeping. Indeed, in the tsar’s diary there is an entry dated June 23 (July 6), 1918:

At the same time, Yurovsky’s unceremoniousness soon began to irritate the tsar, who noted in his diary that “we like this type less and less.” Alexandra Fedorovna described Yurovsky in her diary as a “vulgar and unpleasant” person. However, Richard Pipes notes:

Last days

Bolshevik sources preserve evidence that the “working masses” of the Urals expressed concern about the possibility of the release of Nicholas II and even demanded his immediate execution. Doctor of Historical Sciences G. Z. Ioffe believes that this evidence is probably true, and characterizes the situation that was then not only in the Urals. As an example, he cites the text of a telegram from the Kolomna district committee of the Bolshevik Party, received by the Council of People's Commissars on July 3, 1918, with the message that the local party organization “unanimously decided to demand from the Council of People’s Commissars the immediate destruction of the entire family and relatives of the former tsar, because the German bourgeoisie, together with Russians are restoring the tsarist regime in the captured cities.” “In case of refusal,” it said, “it was decided to carry out this resolution on our own.” Joffe suggests that such resolutions coming from below were either organized at meetings and rallies, or were the result of general propaganda, an atmosphere filled with calls for class struggle and class revenge. The “lower classes” readily picked up slogans emanating from Bolshevik speakers, especially those representing the left wing of Bolshevism. Almost the entire Bolshevik elite in the Urals was leftist. According to the memoirs of the security officer I. Rodzinsky, among the leaders of the Ural Regional Council, the left communists were A. Beloborodov, G. Safarov and N. Tolmachev.

At the same time, the left Bolsheviks in the Urals had to compete in radicalism with the left Socialist Revolutionaries and anarchists, whose influence was significant. As Joffe writes, the Bolsheviks could not afford to give their political rivals a reason to accuse them of “sliding to the right.” And there were such accusations. Later, Spiridonova reproached the Bolshevik Central Committee for “dissolving the tsars and sub-tsars throughout... Ukraine, Crimea and abroad” and “only at the insistence of the revolutionaries,” that is, the left Socialist Revolutionaries and anarchists, raised his hand against Nikolai Romanov. According to A. Avdeev, in Yekaterinburg a group of anarchists tried to pass a resolution on the immediate execution of the former tsar. According to the recollections of Ural residents, extremists tried to organize an attack on Ipatiev’s house in order to destroy the Romanovs. Echoes of this were preserved in the diary entries of Nicholas II for May 31 (June 13) and Alexandra Fedorovna for June 1 (14).

On June 13, the murder of Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich was committed in Perm. Immediately after the murder, the Perm authorities announced that Mikhail Romanov had fled and put him on the wanted list. On June 17, a message about the “escape” of Mikhail Alexandrovich was reprinted in newspapers in Moscow and Petrograd. At the same time, rumors appeared that Nicholas II was killed by a Red Army soldier who arbitrarily broke into Ipatiev’s house. In fact, Nikolai was still alive at that time.

Rumors about lynching of Nicholas II and the Romanovs in general spread beyond the Urals.

On June 18, before the Council of People's Commissars, Lenin, in an interview with the liberal newspaper Nashe Slovo, opposition to Bolshevism, stated that Mikhail, according to his information, allegedly really fled, and Lenin knew nothing about the fate of Nikolai.

On June 20, the manager of the affairs of the Council of People's Commissars, V. Bonch-Bruevich, asked Yekaterinburg: “Information has spread in Moscow that the former Emperor Nicholas II was allegedly killed. Please provide the information you have."

Moscow sends Latvian R.I. Berzin, commander of the North Ural Group of Soviet Forces, to Yekaterinburg for inspection, who visited Ipatiev’s house on June 22. Nikolai, in his diary, in an entry dated June 9 (22), 1918, reports the arrival of “6 people,” and the next day an entry appears that they turned out to be “commissars from Petrograd.” On June 23, representatives of the Council of People's Commissars again reported that they still had no information about whether Nicholas II was alive or not.

R. Berzin, in telegrams to the Council of People's Commissars, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the People's Commissariat of Military Affairs, reported that “all family members and Nicholas II himself are alive. All information about his murder is a provocation.” Based on the responses received, the Soviet press several times refuted rumors and reports that appeared in some newspapers about the execution of the Romanovs in Yekaterinburg.

According to the testimony of three telegraph operators from the Yekaterinburg post office, later received by the Sokolov commission, Lenin, in a conversation with Berzin over a direct wire, ordered “to take the entire royal family under his protection and not allow any violence against it, responding in this case with his own life.” . According to historian A.G. Latyshev, the telegraph communication that Lenin maintained with Berzin is one of the proofs of Lenin’s desire to save the life of the Romanovs.

According to official Soviet historiography, the decision to execute the Romanovs was made by the executive committee of the Ural Regional Council, while the central Soviet leadership was notified after the fact. During the period of perestroika, this version began to be criticized, and by the beginning of the 1990s, an alternative version had emerged, according to which the Ural authorities could not make such a decision without a directive from Moscow and took on this responsibility in order to create a political alibi for the Moscow leadership. In the post-perestroika period, the Russian historian A.G. Latyshev, who was investigating the circumstances surrounding the execution of the royal family, expressed the opinion that Lenin could indeed have secretly organized the murder in such a way as to shift responsibility to the local authorities - approximately the same as, according to Latyshev is convinced that this was done a year and a half later in relation to Kolchak. And yet in this case, the historian believes, the situation was different. In his opinion, Lenin, not wanting to spoil relations with the German Emperor Wilhelm II, a close relative of the Romanovs, did not authorize the execution.

At the beginning of July 1918, the Ural military commissar F.I. Goloshchekin went to Moscow to resolve the issue of the future fate of the royal family. According to the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation, he was in Moscow from July 4 to July 10; On July 14, Goloshchekin returned to Yekaterinburg.

Based on the available documents, the fate of the royal family as a whole was not discussed at any level in Moscow. Only the fate of Nicholas II, who was supposed to be tried, was discussed. According to a number of historians, there was also a fundamental decision according to which the former king should have been sentenced to death. According to investigator V.N. Solovyov, Goloshchekin, citing the complexity of the military situation in the Yekaterinburg region and the possibility of the capture of the royal family by the White Guards, proposed to shoot Nicholas II without waiting for trial, but received a categorical refusal.

According to a number of historians, the decision to destroy the royal family was made upon Goloshchekin’s return to Yekaterinburg. S. D. Alekseev and I. F. Plotnikov believe that it was adopted on the evening of July 14 “by a narrow circle of the Bolshevik part of the executive committee of the Urals Council.” The collection of the Council of People's Commissars of the State Archive of the Russian Federation preserved a telegram sent on July 16, 1918 to Moscow from Yekaterinburg via Petrograd:

Thus, the telegram was received in Moscow on July 16 at 21:22. G. Z. Ioffe suggested that the “trial” referred to in the telegram meant the execution of Nicholas II or even the Romanov family. No response from the central leadership to this telegram was found in the archives.

Unlike Ioffe, a number of researchers understand the word “court” used in the telegram in the literal sense. In this case, the telegram refers to the trial of Nicholas II, regarding which there was an agreement between the central government and Yekaterinburg, and the meaning of the telegram is as follows: “inform Moscow that the trial agreed with Philip due to military circumstances... we cannot wait. The execution cannot be delayed.” This interpretation of the telegram allows us to believe that the issue of the trial of Nicholas II had not yet been resolved on July 16. The investigation believes that the brevity of the question posed in the telegram indicates that the central authorities were familiar with this issue; At the same time, there is reason “to believe that the issue of shooting members of the royal family and servants, with the exception of Nicholas II, was not agreed upon with either V.I. Lenin or Ya.M. Sverdlov.”

A few hours before the execution of the royal family, on July 16, Lenin prepared a telegram as a response to the editors of the Danish newspaper National Tidende, who addressed him with a question about the fate of Nicholas II, which denied rumors of his death. At 16 o'clock the text was sent to the telegraph, but the telegram was never sent. According to A.G. Latyshev, the text of this telegram “ means that Lenin did not even imagine the possibility of shooting Nicholas II (not to mention the entire family) the following night».

Unlike Latyshev, according to whom the decision to execute the royal family was made by the local authorities, a number of historians believe that the execution was carried out on the initiative of the Center. This point of view was defended, in particular, by D. A. Volkogonov and R. Pipes. As an argument, they cited L. D. Trotsky’s diary entry, made on April 9, 1935, about his conversation with Sverdlov after the fall of Yekaterinburg. According to this recording, Trotsky at the time of this conversation knew neither about the execution of Nicholas II, nor about the execution of his family. Sverdlov informed him about what had happened, saying that the decision was made by the central government. However, the reliability of this testimony of Trotsky is criticized, since, firstly, Trotsky is listed among those present in the minutes of the meeting of the Council of People's Commissars of July 18, at which Sverdlov announced the execution of Nicholas II; secondly, Trotsky himself wrote in his book “My Life” that until August 7 he was in Moscow; but this means that he could not have been unaware of the execution of Nicholas II even if his name was in the protocol by mistake.

According to the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation, the official decision to execute Nicholas II was made on July 16, 1918 by the Presidium of the Ural Regional Council of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies. The original of this decision has not survived. However, a week after the execution, the official text of the verdict was published:

Resolution of the Presidium of the Ural Regional Council of Workers, Peasants and Red Army Deputies: Due to the fact that Czech-Slovak gangs threaten the capital of the Red Urals, Yekaterinburg; in view of the fact that the crowned executioner can avoid the trial of the people (a conspiracy of the White Guards has just been discovered, with the goal of kidnapping the entire Romanov family), the Presidium of the regional committee, in fulfillment of the will of the people, decided to shoot the former Tsar Nikolai Romanov, guilty before the people of countless bloody crimes. The Romanov family was transferred from Yekaterinburg to another, more reliable place. Presidium of the Regional Council of Workers, Peasants and Red Army Deputies of the Urals

Sending out the cook Leonid Sednev

As R. Wilton, a member of the investigative team, stated in his work “The Murder of the Royal Family,” before the execution, “the kitchen boy Leonid Sednev, the Tsarevich’s playmate, was removed from the Ipatiev House. He was placed with the Russian guards in Popov’s house, opposite Ipatievsky.” The memories of the participants in the execution confirm this fact.

Commandant Yurovsky, as stated by M.A. Medvedev (Kudrin), a participant in the execution, allegedly on his own initiative proposed to send away the cook Leonid Sednev, who was in the royal retinue, from the “House of Special Purpose”, under the pretext of a meeting with his uncle, who had allegedly arrived in Yekaterinburg. In fact, Leonid Sednev’s uncle, the footman of the Grand Duchesses I. D. Sednev, who accompanied the royal family in exile, was under arrest from May 27, 1918 and at the beginning of June (according to other sources, at the end of June or beginning of July 1918) was shot.

Yurovsky himself claims that he received an order to release the cook from Goloshchekin. After the execution, according to Yurovsky’s recollections, the cook was sent home.

It was decided to liquidate the remaining members of the retinue along with the royal family, since they “declared that they wished to share the fate of the monarch. Let them share." Thus, four people were assigned to liquidation: physician E. S. Botkin, chamberlain A. E. Trupp, cook I. M. Kharitonov and maid A. S. Demidova.

Of the members of the retinue, the valet T.I. Chemodurov managed to escape; on May 24, he fell ill and was placed in a prison hospital; During the evacuation of Yekaterinburg in the chaos, he was forgotten by the Bolsheviks in prison and released by the Czechs on July 25.

Execution

From the memoirs of the participants in the execution, it is known that they did not know in advance how the “execution” would be carried out. Various options were offered: to stab those arrested with daggers while they slept, to throw grenades into the room with them, to shoot them. According to the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation, the issue of the procedure for carrying out the “execution” was resolved with the participation of employees of the UraloblChK.

At 1:30 a.m. on July 16-17, a truck for transporting corpses arrived at Ipatiev’s house, one and a half hours late. After this, doctor Botkin was awakened and informed of the need for everyone to urgently move downstairs due to the alarming situation in the city and the danger of staying on the top floor. It took about 30 - 40 minutes to get ready.

went to the semi-basement room (Alexei, who could not walk, was carried by Nicholas II in his arms). There were no chairs in the basement; then, at Alexandra Feodorovna’s request, two chairs were brought. Alexandra Fedorovna and Alexey sat on them. The rest were located along the wall. Yurovsky brought in the firing squad and read out the verdict. Nicholas II only had time to ask: “What?” (other sources convey Nikolai’s last words as “Huh?” or “How, how? Re-read”). Yurovsky gave the command, and indiscriminate shooting began.

The executioners failed to immediately kill Alexei, the daughters of Nicholas II, the maid A.S. Demidova, and doctor E.S. Botkin. Anastasia's scream was heard, Demidova's maid rose to her feet, and Alexei remained alive for a long time. Some of them were shot; the survivors, according to the investigation, were finished off with a bayonet by P.Z. Ermakov.

According to Yurovsky's recollections, the shooting was indiscriminate: many probably shot from the next room, through the threshold, and the bullets ricocheted off the stone wall. At the same time, one of the shooters was slightly wounded ( “A bullet from one of the shooters from behind buzzed past my head, and I don’t remember, it hit one of his arms, palms, or fingers and shot me through.”).

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

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

The younger generation may not understand us. They may blame us for killing the girls and killing the boy heir. But by today, girls-boys would have grown into... what?

In order to muffle the shots, a truck was driven near the Ipatiev House, but shots were still heard in the city. In Sokolov’s materials there are, in particular, testimonies about this from two random witnesses, the peasant Buivid and the night watchman Tsetsegov.

According to Richard Pipes, immediately after this, Yurovsky harshly suppresses the security guards’ attempts to steal the jewelry they discovered, threatening to shoot him. After that, he instructed P.S. Medvedev to organize the cleaning of the premises, and he himself went to destroy the corpses.

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

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

In the memoirs of Yurovsky’s assistant G.P. Nikulin, this episode is described as follows:

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

On the afternoon of July 17, several members of the executive committee of the Ural Regional Council contacted Moscow by telegraph (the telegram was marked that it was received at 12 o’clock) and reported that Nicholas II had been shot and his family had been evacuated. The editor of the Ural Worker, a member of the executive committee of the Ural Regional Council, V. Vorobyov, later claimed that they “felt very uneasy when they approached the apparatus: the former tsar was shot by a resolution of the Presidium of the Regional Council, and it was unknown how they would react to this “arbitrariness” central government..." The reliability of this evidence, wrote G. Z. Ioffe, cannot be verified.

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

On July 18, the first meeting of the Presidium of the Central I.K. of the 5th convocation took place. Comrade presided. Sverdlov. Members of the Presidium were present: Avanesov, Sosnovsky, Teodorovich, Vladimirsky, Maksimov, Smidovich, Rosengoltz, Mitrofanov and Rozin. Chairman Comrade Sverdlov announces a message just received via direct wire from the Regional Ural Council about the execution of the former Tsar Nikolai Romanov. In recent days, the capital of the Red Urals, Yekaterinburg, was seriously threatened by the approach of Czech-Slovak gangs. At the same time, a new conspiracy of counter-revolutionaries was uncovered, with the goal of wresting the crowned executioner from the hands of Soviet power. In view of this, the Presidium of the Ural Regional Council decided to shoot Nikolai Romanov, which was carried out on July 16th. The wife and son of Nikolai Romanov were sent to a safe place. Documents about the uncovered conspiracy were sent to Moscow by special courier. Having made this message, Comrade. Sverdlov recalls the story of the transfer of Nikolai Romanov from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg after the discovery of the same organization of White Guards, which was preparing the escape of Nikolai Romanov. Recently, it was intended to bring the former king to trial for all his crimes against the people, and only recent events prevented this from happening. The Presidium of the Central I.K., having discussed all the circumstances that forced the Ural Regional Council to decide to shoot Nikolai Romanov, decided: The All-Russian Central I.K., represented by its Presidium, recognizes the decision of the Ural Regional Council as correct.

On the eve of this official press release, on July 18 (possibly on the night from the 18th to the 19th), a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars was held, at which this resolution of the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee was “taken into account.”

The telegram that Sokolov writes about is not in the files of the Council of People's Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. “Some foreign authors,” writes historian G. Z. Ioffe, “even cautiously expressed doubt about its authenticity.” I. D. Kovalchenko and G. Z. Ioffe left open the question of whether this telegram was received in Moscow. According to a number of other historians, including Yu. A. Buranov and V. M. Khrustalev, L. A. Lykov, this telegram is genuine and was received in Moscow before the meeting of the Council of People's Commissars.

On July 19, Yurovsky took “conspiracy documents” to Moscow. The time of Yurovsky’s arrival in Moscow is not known exactly, but it is known that the diaries of Nicholas II that he brought on July 26 were already in the possession of the historian M. N. Pokrovsky. On August 6, with the participation of Yurovsky, the entire Romanov archive was delivered to Moscow from Perm.

Question about the composition of the firing squad

Memoirs of G.P. Nikulin, a participant in the execution.

... comrade Ermakov, who behaved rather indecently, subsequently assuming the leading role for himself, that he did it all, so to speak, single-handedly, without any help... In fact, there were 8 of us who performed it: Yurovsky, Nikulin, Mikhail Medvedev, Pavel Medvedev four, Ermakov Petr five, but I’m not sure that Kabanov Ivan is six. And I don’t remember the names of two more.

When we went down to the basement, we also didn’t even think of putting chairs there at first to sit down, because this one was... didn’t walk, you know, Alexey, we had to sit him down. Well, then they brought it up instantly. When they went down to the basement, they began to look at each other in bewilderment, they immediately brought in chairs, sat down, which means Alexandra Fedorovna, the heir, was imprisoned, and Comrade Yurovsky uttered the following phrase: “Your friends are advancing on Yekaterinburg , and therefore you are condemned to death." They didn’t even realize what was going on, because Nikolai just said immediately: “Ah!”, and at that time our salvo was already one, two, three. Well, there’s someone else there, which means, so to speak, well, or something, they weren’t quite completely killed yet. Well, then I had to shoot someone else...

Soviet researcher M. Kasvinov, in his book “23 Steps Down,” first published in the magazine “Zvezda” (1972-1973), actually attributed the leadership of the execution not to Yurovsky, but to Ermakov:

However, later the text was changed, and in subsequent editions of the book, published after the author’s death, Yurovsky and Nikulin were named as the leaders of the execution:

The materials of the investigation by N. A. Sokolov in the case of the murder of Emperor Nicholas II and his family contain numerous testimony that the direct perpetrators of the murder were “Latvians” led by a Jew (Yurovsky). However, as Sokolov notes, the Russian Red Army soldiers called all non-Russian Bolsheviks “Latvians.” Therefore, opinions differ about who these “Latvians” were.

Sokolov further writes that an inscription in Hungarian “Verhas Andras 1918 VII/15 e örsegen” and a fragment of a letter in Hungarian written in the spring of 1918 were discovered in the house. The inscription on the wall in Hungarian translates as “Andreas Vergázy 1918 VII/15 stood on guard” and is partially duplicated in Russian: “No. 6. Vergás Karau 1918 VII/15.” The name varies in different sources as “Verhas Andreas”, “Verhas Andras”, etc. (according to the rules of Hungarian-Russian practical transcription, it should be translated into Russian as “Verhas Andras”). Sokolov classified this person as one of the “chekist executioners”; researcher I. Plotnikov believes that this was done “rashly”: post No. 6 belonged to external security, and the unknown Vergazi Andras could not have participated in the execution.

General Dieterichs, “by analogy,” also included the Austro-Hungarian prisoner of war Rudolf Lasher among the participants in the execution; according to researcher I. Plotnikov, Lasher was in fact not involved in security at all, doing only household work.

In the light of Plotnikov’s research, the list of those executed may look like this: Yurovsky, Nikulin, member of the board of the regional Cheka M. A. Medvedev (Kudrin), P. Z. Ermakov, S. P. Vaganov, A. G. Kabanov, P. S. Medvedev, V. N. Netrebin, possibly J. M. Tselms and, under a very big question, an unknown mining student. Plotnikov believes that the latter was used in Ipatiev’s house within only a few days after the execution and only as a jewelry specialist. Thus, according to Plotnikov, the execution of the royal family was carried out by a group whose ethnic composition was almost entirely Russian, with the participation of one Jew (Ya. M. Yurovsky) and, probably, one Latvian (Ya. M. Tselms). According to surviving information, two or three Latvians refused to participate in the execution.

There is another list of the alleged firing squad, compiled by the Tobolsk Bolshevik, who transported the royal children remaining in Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg, the Latvian J. M. Svikke (Rodionov) and consisting almost entirely of Latvians. All the Latvians mentioned in the list actually served with Svikke in 1918, but apparently did not participate in the execution (with the exception of Celms).

In 1956, the German media published documents and testimonies of a certain I.P. Meyer, a former Austrian prisoner of war, a member of the Ural Regional Council in 1918, which stated that seven former Hungarian prisoners of war participated in the execution, including a man whom some authors have identified as Imre Nagy, a future Hungarian political and statesman. This evidence, however, was later found to be falsified.

Disinformation campaign

The official report of the Soviet leadership on the execution of Nicholas II, published in the newspapers Izvestia and Pravda on July 19, stated that the decision to shoot Nicholas II (“Nikolai Romanov”) was made in connection with the extremely difficult military situation in the Yekaterinburg region , and the discovery of a counter-revolutionary conspiracy aimed at freeing the former tsar; that the decision to execute was made independently by the presidium of the Ural Regional Council; that only Nicholas II was killed, and his wife and son were transported to a “safe place.” The fate of other children and people close to the royal family was not mentioned at all. For a number of years, the authorities stubbornly defended the official version that the family of Nicholas II was alive. This misinformation fueled rumors that some family members managed to escape and escape with their lives.

Although the central authorities should have learned from a telegram from Yekaterinburg on the evening of July 17, “...that the whole family suffered the same fate as the head”, in the official resolutions of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of July 18, 1918, only the execution of Nicholas II was mentioned. On July 20, negotiations between Ya. M. Sverdlov and A. G. Beloborodov took place, during which Beloborodov was asked the question: “ ...can we notify the population with a known text?" After this (according to L.A. Lykova, July 23; according to other sources, July 21 or 22) a message about the execution of Nicholas II was published in Yekaterinburg, repeating the official version of the Soviet leadership.

On July 22, 1918, information about the execution of Nicholas II was published by the London Times, and on July 21 (due to the difference in time zones) by the New York Times. The basis for these publications was official information from the Soviet government.

Disinformation to the world and Russian public continued both in the official press and through diplomatic channels. Materials have been preserved about negotiations between the Soviet authorities and representatives of the German embassy: on July 24, 1918, Advisor K. Riezler received information from the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs G.V. Chicherin that Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and her daughters had been transported to Perm and were not in danger. Denial of the death of the royal family continued further. Negotiations between the Soviet and German governments on the exchange of the royal family continued until September 15, 1918. The Ambassador of Soviet Russia to Germany A. A. Ioffe was not informed about what happened in Yekaterinburg on the advice of V. I. Lenin, who gave instructions: “...don’t tell A. A. Ioffe anything, so that it would be easier for him to lie”.

Subsequently, official representatives of the Soviet leadership continued to misinform the world community: diplomat M. M. Litvinov stated that the royal family was alive in December 1918; G. Z. Zinoviev in an interview with a newspaper San Francisco Chronicle July 11, 1921 also claimed that the family was alive; People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs G.V. Chicherin continued to give false information about the fate of the royal family - for example, already in April 1922, during the Genoa Conference, to a question from a newspaper correspondent Chicago Tribune about the fate of the grand duchesses, he replied: “The fate of the king’s daughters is unknown to me. I read in the newspapers that they are in America.". A prominent Bolshevik, one of the participants in the decision to execute the royal family, P.L. Voikov, allegedly declared in a ladies’ society in Yekaterinburg, “that the world will never know what they did to the royal family.”

The truth about the fate of the entire royal family was reported in the article “The Last Days of the Last Tsar” by P. M. Bykov; the article was published in the collection “Workers' Revolution in the Urals,” published in Yekaterinburg in 1921 in a circulation of 10,000; shortly after its release, the collection was “withdrawn from circulation.” Bykov's article was reprinted in the Moscow newspaper Kommunisticheskiy Trud (future Moskovskaya Pravda). In 1922, the same newspaper published a review of the collection “Workers' Revolution in the Urals. Episodes and facts"; in it, in particular, it was said about P.Z. Ermakov as the main executor of the execution of the royal family on July 17, 1918.

The Soviet authorities admitted that Nicholas II was shot not alone, but together with his family, when materials from Sokolov’s investigation began to spread in the West. After Sokolov’s book was published in Paris, Bykov received from the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks the task of presenting the history of the Yekaterinburg events. This is how his book “The Last Days of the Romanovs” appeared, published in Sverdlovsk in 1926. In 1930, the book was republished.

According to historian L.A. Lykova, lies and disinformation about the murder in the basement of Ipatiev’s house, its official formulation in the relevant decisions of the Bolshevik Party in the first days after the events and silence for more than seventy years gave rise to distrust of the authorities in society, which continued to affect and in post-Soviet Russia.

The fate of the Romanovs

In addition to the family of the former emperor, in 1918-1919, “a whole group of Romanovs” were destroyed, who, for one reason or another, remained in Russia by this time. The Romanovs who were in Crimea survived, whose lives were protected by Commissar F.L. Zadorozhny (the Yalta Council was going to execute them so that they would not end up with the Germans, who occupied Simferopol in mid-April 1918 and continued the occupation of Crimea). After the occupation of Yalta by the Germans, the Romanovs found themselves outside the power of the Soviets, and after the arrival of the Whites they were able to emigrate.

Also surviving were two grandchildren of Nikolai Konstantinovich, who died in 1918 in Tashkent from pneumonia (some sources mistakenly say he was executed) - the children of his son Alexander Iskander: Natalya Androsova (1917-1999) and Kirill Androsov (1915-1992) who lived in Moscow.

Thanks to the intervention of M. Gorky, Prince Gabriel Konstantinovich, who later emigrated to Germany, also managed to escape. On November 20, 1918, Maxim Gorky addressed V.I. Lenin with a letter that said:

The prince was released.

Murder of Mikhail Alexandrovich in Perm

The first of the Romanovs to die was Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich. He and his secretary Brian Johnson were killed in Perm, where they were serving exile. According to available evidence, on the night of June 12-13, 1918, several armed men appeared at the hotel where Mikhail lived, took Mikhail Alexandrovich and Brian Johnson into the forest and shot them. The remains of those killed have not yet been found.

The murder was presented as the abduction of Mikhail Alexandrovich by his supporters or a secret escape, which was used by the authorities as a pretext to tighten the regime of detention of all exiled Romanovs: the royal family in Yekaterinburg and the grand dukes in Alapaevsk and Vologda.

Alapaevsk murder

Almost simultaneously with the execution of the royal family, the murder of the Grand Dukes, who were in the city of Alapaevsk, 140 kilometers from Yekaterinburg, was committed. On the night of July 5 (18), 1918, the arrested were taken to an abandoned mine 12 km from the city and thrown into it.

At 3:15 a.m. the executive committee of the Alapaevsk Council telegraphed to Yekaterinburg that the princes were allegedly kidnapped by an unknown gang who raided the school where they were kept. On the same day, the chairman of the Ural Regional Council, Beloborodov, conveyed the corresponding message to Sverdlov in Moscow and Zinoviev and Uritsky in Petrograd:

The style of the Alapaevsk murder was similar to that in Yekaterinburg: in both cases, the victims were thrown into an abandoned mine in the forest, and in both cases attempts were made to collapse this mine with grenades. At the same time, the Alapaevsk murder differed significantly b O greater cruelty: the victims, with the exception of Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich, who resisted and was shot, were thrown into the mine, presumably after being hit on the head with a blunt object, while some of them were still alive; according to R. Pipes, they died of thirst and lack of air, probably a few days later. However, an investigation carried out by the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation came to the conclusion that their death occurred immediately.

G.Z. Ioffe agreed with the opinion of investigator N. Sokolov, who wrote: “Both the Yekaterinburg and Alapaevsk murders are the product of the same will of the same individuals.”

Execution of the Grand Dukes in Petrograd

After the “escape” of Mikhail Romanov, the Grand Dukes Nikolai Mikhailovich, Georgiy Mikhailovich and Dmitry Konstantinovich, who were in exile in Vologda, were arrested. The Grand Dukes Pavel Alexandrovich and Gabriel Konstantinovich, who remained in Petrograd, were also transferred to the position of prisoners.

After the announcement of the Red Terror, four of them ended up in the Peter and Paul Fortress as hostages. On January 24, 1919 (according to other sources - January 27, 29 or 30) Grand Dukes Pavel Alexandrovich, Dmitry Konstantinovich, Nikolai Mikhailovich and Georgy Mikhailovich were shot. On January 31, Petrograd newspapers briefly reported that the grand dukes were shot “by order of the Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Profiteering of the Union of Communes of the Northern O[region].”

It was announced that they had been shot as hostages in response to the murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht in Germany. February 6, 1919 Moscow newspaper “Always Forward!” published an article by Yu. Martov “Shame!” with a sharp condemnation of this extrajudicial execution of the “four Romanovs.”

Evidence from contemporaries

Memoirs of Trotsky

According to the historian Yu. Felshtinsky, Trotsky, already abroad, adhered to the version according to which the decision to execute the royal family was made by the local authorities. Later, using the memoirs of the Soviet diplomat Besedovsky, who defected to the West, Trotsky tried, in the words of Yu. Felshtinsky, to “shift the blame for the regicide” onto Sverdlov and Stalin. In the drafts of unfinished chapters of the biography of Stalin, which Trotsky was working on in the late 1930s, there is the following entry:

In the mid-1930s, entries appeared in Trotsky's diary about events related to the execution of the royal family. According to Trotsky, back in June 1918 he suggested that the Politburo still organize a show trial of the deposed tsar, and Trotsky was interested in broad propaganda coverage of this process. However, the proposal did not meet with much enthusiasm, since all the Bolshevik leaders, including Trotsky himself, were too busy with current affairs. With the Czech uprising, the physical survival of Bolshevism was in question, and it would have been difficult to organize a trial of the Tsar under such conditions.

In his diary, Trotsky claimed that the decision to execute was made by Lenin and Sverdlov:

The White press once very hotly debated the question of whose decision the royal family was put to death... Liberals seemed to be inclined to believe that the Ural executive committee, cut off from Moscow, acted independently. This is not true. The decision was made in Moscow. (...) My next visit to Moscow came after the fall of Yekaterinburg. In a conversation with Sverdlov, I asked in passing: Yes, where is the king? “It’s over,” he answered, “he was shot.” Where is the family? And his family is with him. All? - I asked, apparently with a tinge of surprise. That’s it,” Sverdlov answered, “but what?” He was waiting for my reaction. I didn't answer. Who decided? - I asked. We decided here. Ilyich believed that we should not leave them a living banner, especially in the current difficult conditions.

Historian Felshtinsky, commenting on Trotsky’s memoirs, believes that the diary entry of 1935 is much more credible, since the entries in the diary were not intended for publicity and publication.

Senior investigator for especially important cases of the General Prosecutor's Office of Russia V.N. Solovyov, who led the investigation of the criminal case into the death of the royal family, drew attention to the fact that in the minutes of the meeting of the Council of People's Commissars, at which Sverdlov reported on the execution of Nicholas II, the name of those present appears Trotsky. This contradicts his recollections of a conversation “after arriving from the front” with Sverdlov about Lenin. Indeed, Trotsky, according to the minutes of the meeting of the Council of People's Commissars No. 159, was present on July 18 at Sverdlov's announcement of the execution. According to some sources, he, as the People's Commissar for Military Affairs, was at the front near Kazan on July 18. At the same time, Trotsky himself writes in his work “My Life” that he left for Sviyazhsk only on August 7. It should also be noted that Trotsky’s statement refers to 1935, when neither Lenin nor Sverdlov were already alive. Even if Trotsky’s name was entered into the minutes of the meeting of the Council of People’s Commissars by mistake, automatically, information about the execution of Nicholas II was published in the newspapers, and he could only have not known about the execution of the entire royal family.

Historians critically evaluate Trotsky's evidence. Thus, historian V.P. Buldakov wrote that Trotsky had a tendency to simplify the description of events for the sake of beauty of presentation, and historian-archivist V.M. Khrustalev, pointing out that Trotsky, according to the protocols preserved in the archives, was among the participants in that very meeting Council of People's Commissars, suggested that Trotsky in his mentioned memoirs was only trying to distance himself from the decision made in Moscow.

From the diary of V. P. Milyutin

V.P. Milyutin wrote:

“I returned late from the Council of People's Commissars. There were “current” matters. During the discussion of the health care project, Semashko's report, Sverdlov entered and sat down in his place on the chair behind Ilyich. Semashko finished. Sverdlov came up, leaned towards Ilyich and said something. - Comrades, Sverdlov asks for the floor for a message. “I must say,” Sverdlov began in his usual tone, “a message has been received that in Yekaterinburg, by order of the regional Council, Nikolai was shot... Nikolai wanted to escape. The Czechoslovaks were approaching. The Presidium of the Central Election Commission decided to approve... “Let’s now move on to an article-by-article reading of the draft,” Ilyich suggested...” Quoted from: Sverdlova K. Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov

Memoirs of participants in the execution

The memories of direct participants in the events of Ya. M. Yurovsky, M. A. Medvedev (Kudrina), G. P. Nikulin, P. Z. Ermakov, and also A. A. Strekotin (during the execution, apparently, provided external security) have been preserved home), V.N. Netrebin, P.M. Bykov (apparently, did not personally participate in the execution), I. Rodzinsky (personally did not participate in the execution, participated in the destruction of corpses), Kabanov, P.L. Voikov, G.I. Sukhorukov (participated only in the destruction of corpses), Chairman of the Ural Regional Council A.G. Beloborodov (personally did not participate in the execution).

One of the most detailed sources is the work of the Bolshevik leader of the Urals P. M. Bykov, who until March 1918 was the chairman of the Yekaterinburg Council and a member of the executive committee of the Ural Regional Council. In 1921, Bykov published the article “The Last Days of the Last Tsar”, and in 1926 - the book “The Last Days of the Romanovs”; ​​in 1930 the book was republished in Moscow and Leningrad.

Other detailed sources are the memoirs of M.A. Medvedev (Kudrin), who personally participated in the execution, and, in relation to the execution, the memoirs of Ya.M. Yurovsky and his assistant G.P. Nikulin. The memoirs of Medvedev (Kudrin) were written in 1963 and addressed to N. S. Khrushchev More brief are the memoirs of I. Rodzinsky, an employee of the Cheka Kabanov and others.

Many participants in the events had their own personal grievances against the tsar: M. A. Medvedev (Kudrin), judging by his memoirs, was in prison under the tsar, P. L. Voikov participated in the revolutionary terror in 1907, P. Z. Ermakov for his participation in expropriations and the murder of a provocateur he was exiled; Yurovsky’s father was exiled on charges of theft. In his autobiography, Yurovsky claims that in 1912 he himself was exiled to Yekaterinburg with a ban on settling “in 64 places in Russia and Siberia.” In addition, among the Bolshevik leaders in Yekaterinburg was Sergei Mrachkovsky, who was actually born in prison, where his mother was imprisoned for revolutionary activities. The phrase uttered by Mrachkovsky, “by the grace of tsarism, I was born in prison,” was subsequently erroneously attributed to Yurovsky by investigator Sokolov. During the events, Mrachkovsky was engaged in selecting the guards of the Ipatiev House from among the workers of the Sysert plant. Before the revolution, the Chairman of the Ural Regional Council, A.G. Beloborodov, was in prison for issuing a proclamation.

The recollections of the participants in the execution, while mostly coinciding with each other, differ in a number of details. Judging by them, Yurovsky personally finished off the heir with two (according to other sources - three) shots. Yurovsky’s assistant G.P. Nikulin, P.Z. Ermakov, M.A. Medvedev (Kudrin) and others also took part in the execution. According to Medvedev’s recollections, Yurovsky, Ermakov and Medvedev personally shot at Nikolai. In addition, Ermakov and Medvedev are finishing off the Grand Duchesses Tatiana and Anastasia. The “honor” of the liquidation of Nikolai is actually being challenged by Yurovsky, M.A. Medvedev (Kudrin) (not to be confused with another participant in the events P.S. Medvedev) and Ermakov; Yurovsky and Medvedev (Kudrin) seem to be the most likely, in Yekaterinburg itself During the events, it was believed that the Tsar was shot by Ermakov.

Yurovsky, in his memoirs, claimed that he personally killed the tsar, while Medvedev (Kudrin) attributes this to himself. Medvedev’s version was also partially confirmed by another participant in the events, an employee of the Cheka Kabanov. At the same time, M.A. Medvedev (Kudrin) in his memoirs claims that Nikolai “fell with my fifth shot,” and Yurovsky - that he killed him with one shot.

Ermakov himself in his memoirs describes his role in the execution as follows (spelling preserved):

...they told me that it was your fate to be shot and buried... I accepted the order and said that it would be carried out precisely, prepared a place where to lead and how to hide, taking into account all the circumstances of the importance of the political moment. When I reported to Beloborodov that I could do it, he said to make sure that everyone was shot, we decided that, I didn’t enter into further discussions, I began to do it the way it was necessary... ...When everything was in order, then I gave the commandant of the house in the office a resolution from the regional executive committee to Yurovsky, he doubted why everyone, but I told him over everyone and there’s nothing for us to talk for a long time, time is short, it’s time to get started.... ...I took Nikalai himself, Alexandra, daughters, Alexey, because I had a Mauser, they could work faithfully, the rest were revolvers. After descending, we waited a little on the ground floor, then the commandant waited for everyone to get up, everyone stood up, but Alexey was sitting on a chair, then he began to read the verdict of the resolution, which said, by decision of the Executive Committee, to shoot. Then a phrase escaped Nikolai: how they won’t take us anywhere, there was no way to wait any longer, I fired a shot at him point-blank, he fell immediately, but so did the others, at that time crying arose between them, one threw a brasalis on the other’s neck, then they fired several shots, and everyone fell.

As you can see, Ermakov contradicts all the other participants in the execution, completely attributing to himself the entire leadership of the execution, and the liquidation of Nikolai personally. According to some sources, at the time of the execution Ermakov was drunk and armed himself with a total of three (according to other sources, even four) pistols. At the same time, investigator Sokolov believed that Ermakov did not actively participate in the execution and supervised the destruction of the corpses. In general, Ermakov’s memories stand apart from the memories of other participants in the events; the information reported by Ermakov is not confirmed by most other sources.

Participants in the events also disagree on the issue of Moscow coordinating the execution. According to the version set out in “Yurovsky’s note,” the order “to exterminate the Romanovs” came from Perm. “Why from Perm? - asks the historian G. Z. Ioffe. - Was there no direct connection with Yekaterinburg then? Or was Yurovsky, in writing this phrase, guided by some considerations known only to him?” Back in 1919, investigator N. Sokolov established that shortly before the execution, due to the deterioration of the military situation in the Urals, a member of the Presidium of the Council, Goloshchekin, traveled to Moscow, where he tried to coordinate this issue. However, M. A. Medvedev (Kudrin), a participant in the execution, claims in his memoirs that the decision was made by Yekaterinburg and was approved by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee retroactively, on July 18, as Beloborodov told him, and during Goloshchekin’s trip to Moscow Lenin did not approve execution, demanding that Nikolai be taken to Moscow for trial. At the same time, Medvedev (Kudrin) notes that the Ural Regional Council was under powerful pressure from both embittered revolutionary workers, who demanded that Nicholas be immediately shot, and fanatical left Socialist Revolutionaries and anarchists, who began to accuse the Bolsheviks of inconsistency. There is similar information in Yurovsky’s memoirs.

According to the story of P. L. Voikov, known as presented by the former adviser to the Soviet embassy in France G. Z. Besedovsky, the decision was made by Moscow, but only under persistent pressure from Yekaterinburg; according to Voikov, Moscow was going to “cede the Romanovs to Germany,” “...they especially hoped for the opportunity to bargain for a reduction in the indemnity of three hundred million rubles in gold imposed on Russia under the Brest-Litovsk Treaty. This indemnity was one of the most unpleasant points of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, and Moscow would very much like to change this point”; in addition, “some of the members of the Central Committee, in particular Lenin, also objected for reasons of principle to the shooting of children,” while Lenin cited the Great French Revolution as an example.

According to P. M. Bykov, when shooting the Romanovs, the local authorities acted “at their own peril and risk.”

G. P. Nikulin testified:

The question often arises: “Was Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov or our other leading central workers aware of the execution of the royal family in advance?” Well, it’s hard for me to say whether they knew in advance, but I think that since... Goloshchekin... went to Moscow twice to negotiate the fate of the Romanovs, then, of course, one should conclude that this is exactly what was discussed. ...it was supposed to organize a trial of the Romanovs, first... in such a broad manner, like a nationwide trial, and then, when all sorts of counter-revolutionary elements were constantly grouping around Yekaterinburg, the question arose about organizing such a narrow, revolutionary court. But this was not carried out either. The trial as such did not take place, and, in essence, the execution of the Romanovs was carried out by decision of the Ural Executive Committee of the Ural Regional Council...

Memoirs of Yurovsky

Yurovsky's memoirs are known in three versions:

• a brief “note by Yurovsky” dating from 1920;
• a detailed version dating from April - May 1922, signed by Yurovsky;
• an abridged version of the memoirs, which appeared in 1934, created on the instructions of Uralistpart, includes a transcript of Yurovsky’s speech and a text prepared on its basis, differing in some details from it.

The reliability of the first source is questioned by some researchers; Investigator Solovyov considers it authentic. In the “Note” Yurovsky writes about himself in the third person ( "commandant"), which is apparently explained by the insertions of the historian M.N. Pokrovsky, recorded by him from the words of Yurovsky. There is also an expanded second edition of the Note, dated 1922.

The Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, Yu. I. Skuratov, believed that “Yurovsky’s note” “represents an official report on the execution of the royal family, prepared by Ya. M. Yurovsky for the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.”

Diaries of Nicholas and Alexandra

The diaries of the Tsar and Tsarina themselves have also survived to this day, including those kept directly in the Ipatiev House. The last entry in the diary of Nicholas II is dated Saturday, June 30 (July 13 - Nicholas kept a diary according to the old style), 1918. “Alexey took his first bath after Tobolsk; his knee is getting better, but he cannot straighten it completely. The weather is warm and pleasant. We have no news from outside.". Alexandra Feodorovna’s diary reaches the last day - Tuesday, July 16, 1918 with the entry: “...Every morning the Commandant comes to our rooms. Finally, after a week, eggs were brought again for Baby [the heir]. ...Suddenly they sent for Lyonka Sednev to go and see his uncle, and he hastily ran away, we wonder if all this is true and whether we will see the boy again..."

The tsar in his diary describes a number of everyday details: the arrival of the tsar’s children from Tobolsk, changes in the composition of the retinue (“ I decided to let my old man Chemodurov go for a rest and instead take the Troupe for a while"), the weather, books read, features of the regime, your impressions of the guards and the conditions of detention ( “It’s intolerable to sit cooped up like this and not be able to go out into the garden when you want and spend a nice evening outdoors! Prison regime!!”). The Tsar inadvertently mentioned correspondence with an anonymous “Russian officer” (“the other day we received two letters, one after the other, telling us that we should prepare to be kidnapped by some loyal people!”).

From the diary you can find out Nikolai’s opinion about both commandants: he called Avdeev a “bastard” (entry dated April 30, Monday), who was once “a little tipsy.” The king also expressed dissatisfaction with the theft of things (entry dated May 28 / June 10):

However, the opinion about Yurovsky was not the best: “We like this guy less and less!”; about Avdeev: “It’s a pity for Avdeev, but he is to blame for not keeping his people from stealing from the chests in the barn”; “According to rumors, some of the Avdeevites are already under arrest!”

In the entry dated May 28 / June 10, as historian Melgunov writes, echoes of events that took place outside the Ipatiev House were reflected:

In Alexandra Feodorovna’s diary there is an entry regarding the change of commandants:

Destruction and burial of remains

Death of the Romanovs (1918-1919)

• Murder of Mikhail Alexandrovich
• Execution of the royal family
• Alapaevsk martyrs
• Execution in the Peter and Paul Fortress

Yurovsky's version

According to Yurovsky’s recollections, he went to the mine at about three in the morning on July 17. Yurovsky reports that Goloshchekin must have ordered the burial of P.Z. Ermakov. However, things did not go as smoothly as we would like: Ermakov brought too many people as the funeral team ( “Why there are so many of them, I still don’t know, I only heard isolated cries - we thought that they would be given to us here alive, but here, it turns out, they are dead.”); the truck got stuck; Jewels were discovered sewn into the clothes of the Grand Duchesses, and some of Ermakov’s people began to appropriate them. Yurovsky ordered guards to be assigned to the truck. The bodies were loaded onto carriages. On the way and near the mine designated for burial, strangers were encountered. Yurovsky allocated people to cordon off the area, as well as to inform the village that Czechoslovaks were operating in the area and that leaving the village was prohibited under threat of execution. In an effort to get rid of the presence of an overly large funeral team, he sends some of the people to the city “as unnecessary.” Orders fires to be built to burn clothing as possible evidence.

From Yurovsky’s memoirs (spelling preserved):

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

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

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

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

Analysis of investigator Solovyov

Senior prosecutor-criminologist of the Main Investigation Department of the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation V.N. Solovyov conducted a comparative analysis of Soviet sources (memories of participants in the events) and Sokolov’s investigation materials.

Based on these materials, investigator Solovyov made the following conclusion:

A comparison of materials from participants in the burial and destruction of corpses and documents from N. A. Sokolov’s investigative file on travel routes and manipulations with corpses gives grounds for the assertion that the same places are being described, near mine # 7, at crossing # 184. Indeed , Yurovsky and others burned clothes and shoes at the site explored by Magnitsky and Sokolov, sulfuric acid was used during burial, two corpses, but not all, were burned. A detailed comparison of these and other case materials gives grounds for the assertion that there are no significant, mutually exclusive contradictions in the “Soviet materials” and the materials of N. A. Sokolov, there are only different interpretations of the same events. Solovyov also indicated that, according to the study, “... under the conditions in which the destruction of corpses was carried out, it was impossible to completely destroy the remains using sulfuric acid and flammable materials indicated in the investigative file of N. A. Sokolov and the memoirs of participants in the events.”

Reaction to the shooting

The collection “The Revolution Defends itself” (1989) states that the execution of Nicholas II complicated the situation in the Urals, and mentions the riots that broke out in a number of areas of the Perm, Ufa and Vyatka provinces. It is argued that under the influence of the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries, the petty bourgeoisie, a significant part of the middle peasantry and certain layers of workers rebelled. The rebels brutally killed communists, government officials and their families. Thus, in the Kizbangashevsky volost of the Ufa province, 300 people died at the hands of the rebels. Some rebellions were suppressed quickly, but more often the rebels put up long-term resistance.

Meanwhile, historian G. Z. Ioffe in the monograph “Revolution and the Fate of the Romanovs” (1992) writes that, according to reports of many contemporaries, including those from the anti-Bolshevik environment, the news of the execution of Nicholas II “in general went unnoticed, without any manifestations protest." Ioffe quotes the memoirs of V.N. Kokovtsov: “...On the day the news was published, I was on the street twice, rode a tram, and nowhere did I see the slightest glimmer of pity or compassion. The news was read loudly, with grins, mockery and the most merciless comments... Some kind of senseless callousness, some kind of boasting of bloodthirstiness..."

A similar opinion is expressed by historian V.P. Buldakov. In his opinion, at that time few people were interested in the fate of the Romanovs, and long before their death there were rumors that none of the members of the imperial family were alive. According to Buldakov, the townspeople received the news of the tsar’s murder “with stupid indifference,” and the wealthy peasants with amazement, but without any protest. Buldakov cites a fragment from the diaries of Z. Gippius as a typical example of a similar reaction of the non-monarchist intelligentsia: “I don’t feel sorry for the puny officer, of course...he was with a carrion for a long time, but the disgusting ugliness of all this is unbearable.”

Investigation

On July 25, 1918, eight days after the execution of the royal family, Yekaterinburg was occupied by units of the White Army and detachments of the Czechoslovak Corps. The military authorities began a search for the missing royal family.

On July 30, an investigation into the circumstances of her death began. For the investigation, by decision of the Yekaterinburg District Court, an investigator for the most important cases, A.P. Nametkin, was appointed. On August 12, 1918, the investigation was entrusted to a member of the Yekaterinburg District Court, I. A. Sergeev, who examined Ipatiev’s house, including the semi-basement room where the royal family was shot, collected and described the material evidence found in the “House of Special Purpose” and at the mine. Since August 1918, A.F. Kirsta, appointed head of the criminal investigation department of Yekaterinburg, joined the investigation.

On January 17, 1919, to oversee the investigation into the murder of the royal family, the Supreme Ruler of Russia, Admiral A.V. Kolchak, appointed Lieutenant General M.K. Diterichs, Commander-in-Chief of the Western Front. On January 26, Diterikhs received the original materials of the investigation conducted by Nametkin and Sergeev. By order of February 6, 1919, the investigation was entrusted to the investigator for especially important cases of the Omsk District Court N. A. Sokolov (1882-1924). It was thanks to his painstaking work that the details of the execution and burial of the royal family became known for the first time. Sokolov continued his investigation even in exile, until his sudden death. Based on the investigation materials, he wrote the book “The Murder of the Royal Family,” which was published in French in Paris during the author’s lifetime, and after his death, in 1925, published in Russian.

Investigation of the late 20th and early 21st centuries

The circumstances of the death of the royal family were investigated as part of a criminal case initiated on August 19, 1993 at the direction of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation. Materials of the government Commission to study issues related to the research and reburial of the remains of Russian Emperor Nicholas II and members of his family have been published. In 1994, criminologist Sergei Nikitin reconstructed the appearance of the owners of the found skulls using Gerasimov’s method.

The investigator for particularly important cases of the Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee under the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation, V.N. Solovyov, who led the criminal case into the death of the royal family, having examined the memoirs of those personally involved in the execution, as well as the testimony of other former guards of the Ipatiev House, came to conclusion that in the description of the execution they do not contradict each other, differing only in small details.

Solovyov stated that he had not found any documents that would directly prove the initiative of Lenin and Sverdlov. At the same time, when asked whether Lenin and Sverdlov were to blame for the execution of the royal family, he answered:

Meanwhile, historian A.G. Latyshev notes that if the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, chaired by Sverdlov, approved (recognized as correct) the decision of the Ural Regional Council to execute Nicholas II, then the Council of People's Commissars, headed by Lenin, only “took note” of this decision.

Solovyov completely rejected the “ritual version”, pointing out that most of the participants in the discussion of the method of murder were Russians, only one Jew (Yurovsky) took part in the murder itself, and the rest were Russians and Latvians. The investigation also refuted the version promoted by M. K. Diterkhis about “cutting off heads” for ritual purposes. According to the conclusion of the forensic medical examination, there are no traces of post-mortem decapitation on the cervical vertebrae of all skeletons.

In October 2011, Solovyov handed over to representatives of the House of Romanov a resolution to terminate the investigation of the case. The official conclusion of the Investigative Committee of Russia, announced in October 2011, indicated that the investigation did not have documentary evidence of the involvement of Lenin or anyone else from the top leadership of the Bolsheviks in the execution of the royal family. Modern Russian historians point out the inconsistency of conclusions about the alleged non-involvement of the Bolshevik leaders in the murder based on the absence of documents of direct action in modern archives: Lenin practiced personally accepting and issuing the most drastic orders to the localities secretly and in the highest degree conspiratorially. According to A.N. Bokhanov, neither Lenin nor his entourage gave and would never have given written orders on an issue related to the murder of the royal family. In addition, A. N. Bokhanov noted that “many events in history are not reflected in documents of direct action,” which is not surprising. Historian-archivist V. M. Khrustalev, having analyzed the correspondence available to historians between various government departments of that period concerning representatives of the House of Romanov, wrote that it is quite logical to assume the conduct of “double office work” in the Bolshevik government, similar to the conduct of “double bookkeeping.” The director of the office of the House of Romanov, Alexander Zakatov, on behalf of the Romanovs, also commented on this resolution in such a way that the Bolshevik leaders could give verbal orders rather than written orders.

Having analyzed the attitude of the leadership of the Bolshevik Party and the Soviet government to resolving the issue of the fate of the royal family, the investigation noted the extreme aggravation of the political situation in July 1918 in connection with a number of events, including the murder on July 6 by the left Socialist Revolutionary Ya. G. Blumkin of the German ambassador V. Mirbach with the aim of leading to the rupture of the Brest Peace Treaty and the uprising of the Left Social Revolutionaries. Under these conditions, the execution of the royal family could have a negative impact on further relations between the RSFSR and Germany, since Alexandra Feodorovna and her daughters were German princesses. The possibility of extraditing one or more members of the royal family to Germany was not excluded in order to soften the severity of the conflict that arose as a result of the assassination of the ambassador. According to the investigation, the leaders of the Urals had a different position on this issue, the Presidium of the regional council of which was ready to destroy the Romanovs back in April 1918 during their transfer from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg.

V. M. Khrustalev wrote that putting a definitive end to the investigation into the circumstances of the murder of the royal family is hampered by the fact that historians and researchers still do not have the opportunity to study archival materials relating to the death of representatives of the Romanov dynasty, contained in the special storage facilities of the FSB, both central and regional level. The historian suggested that someone’s experienced hand purposefully “cleaned out” the archives of the Central Committee of the RCP(b), the board of the Cheka, the Ural Regional Executive Committee and the Yekaternburg Cheka for the summer and autumn of 1918. Looking through the scattered agendas of the Cheka meetings available to historians, Khrustalev came to the conclusion that documents were seized that mentioned the names of representatives of the Romanov dynasty. The archivist wrote that these documents could not be destroyed - they were probably transferred for storage to the Central Party Archive or “special storage facilities.” The funds of these archives were not available to researchers at the time the historian wrote his book.

The further fate of those involved in the shooting

Members of the Presidium of the Ural Regional Council:

• Beloborodov, Alexander Georgievich - in 1927 expelled from the CPSU (b) for participation in the Trotskyist opposition, reinstated in May 1930, expelled again in 1936. In August 1936 he was arrested, on February 8, 1938, by the military collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR he was sentenced to death, and executed the next day. In 1919, Beloborodov wrote: “...The basic rule when dealing with counter-revolutionaries is: those captured are not tried, but they are subject to mass reprisals.” G. Z. Ioffe notes that after some time Beloborodov’s rule regarding counter-revolutionaries began to be applied by some Bolsheviks against others; Beloborodov “apparently could no longer understand this. In the 30s, Beloborodov was repressed and executed. The circle is closed."
• Goloshchekin, Philip Isaevich - in 1925-1933 - secretary of the Kazakh regional committee of the CPSU (b); carried out violent measures aimed at changing the lifestyle of nomads and collectivization, which led to huge casualties. On October 15, 1939 he was arrested and executed on October 28, 1941.
• Didkovsky, Boris Vladimirovich - worked at the Ural State University, the Ural Geological Trust. On August 3, 1937, he was sentenced to death by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR as an active participant in the anti-Soviet right-wing terrorist organization in the Urals. Shot. In 1956 he was rehabilitated. A mountain peak in the Urals is named after Didkovsky.
• Safarov, Georgy Ivanovich - in 1927, at the XV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, he was expelled from the party “as an active participant in the Trotskyist opposition” and exiled to the city of Achinsk. After announcing a break with the opposition, by decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, he was reinstated in the party. In the 1930s he was again expelled from the party and was arrested several times. In 1942 he was shot. Posthumously rehabilitated.
• Tolmachev, Nikolai Guryevich - in 1919, in a battle with the troops of General N.N. Yudenich near Luga, he fought while surrounded; To avoid being captured, he shot himself. He was buried on the Champ de Mars.

Direct executors:

• Yurovsky, Yakov Mikhailovich - died in 1938 in the Kremlin hospital. Yurovsky's daughter Rimma Yakovlevna Yurovskaya was repressed on false charges and was imprisoned from 1938 to 1956. Rehabilitated. Yurovsky's son, Alexander Yakovlevich Yurovsky, was arrested in 1952.
• Nikulin, Grigory Petrovich (Yurovsky’s assistant) - survived the purge, left memories (recording of the Radio Committee on May 12, 1964).
• Ermakov, Pyotr Zakharovich - retired in 1934, survived the purge.
• Medvedev (Kudrin), Mikhail Alexandrovich - survived the purge, before his death he left detailed memories of the events (December 1963). He died on January 13, 1964, and was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery.
• Medvedev, Pavel Spiridonovich - on February 11, 1919 he was arrested by an agent of the White Guard criminal investigation department S.I. Alekseev. He died in prison on March 12, 1919, according to some sources, from typhus, according to others, from torture.

• Voikov, Pyotr Lazarevich - killed on June 7, 1927 in Warsaw by the white emigrant Boris Koverda. The Voikovskaya metro station in Moscow and a number of streets in cities of the USSR were named in honor of Voikov.

Perm murder:

• Myasnikov, Gavriil Ilyich - in the 1920s he joined the “worker opposition”, was repressed in 1923, fled from the USSR in 1928. Shot in 1945; according to other sources, he died in custody in 1946.

Canonization and church veneration of the royal family

In 1981, the royal family was glorified (canonized) by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, and in 2000 by the Russian Orthodox Church.

Alternative theories

There are alternative versions regarding the death of the royal family. These include versions about the rescue of someone from the royal family and conspiracy theories. According to one of these theories, the murder of the royal family was ritual, carried out by “Jew-Masons,” as allegedly evidenced by “Kabbalistic signs” in the room where the execution took place. Some versions of this theory say that after the execution, the head of Nicholas II was separated from the body and preserved in alcohol. According to another, the execution was carried out on the orders of the German government after Nicholas’s refusal to create a pro-German monarchy in Russia led by Alexei (this theory is given in R. Wilton’s book).

The Bolsheviks announced to everyone immediately after the execution that Nicholas II had been killed, but at first the Soviet authorities were silent about the fact that his wife and children had also been shot. The secrecy of the murder and burial sites led to the fact that a number of people subsequently declared that they were one of the “miraculously escaped” family members. One of the most famous impostors was Anna Anderson, who pretended to be the miraculously surviving Anastasia. Several feature films have been made based on the story of Anna Anderson.

Rumors about the “miraculous salvation” of all or part of the royal family, or even the king himself, began to spread almost immediately after the execution. Thus, the adventurer B. N. Solovyov, who was the husband of Rasputin’s daughter Matryona, claimed that allegedly “the Emperor was saved by flying by plane to Tibet to visit the Dalai Lama,” and the witness Samoilov, with reference to the guard of the Ipatiev House, A. S. Varakushev, claimed, that supposedly the royal family was not shot, but “loaded into a carriage.”

American journalists A. Summers and T. Mangold in the 1970s. studied a previously unknown part of the investigation archives of 1918-1919, found in the 1930s. in the USA, and published the results of their investigation in 1976. In their opinion, N. A. Sokolov’s conclusions about the death of the entire royal family were made under pressure from A. V. Kolchak, who for some reasons found it beneficial to declare all family members dead. They consider the investigations and conclusions of other White Army investigators (A.P. Nametkin, I.A. Sergeev and A.F. Kirsta) more objective. In their (Summers and Mangold's) opinion, it is most likely that only Nicholas II and his heir were shot in Yekaterinburg, and Alexandra Fedorovna and her daughters were transported to Perm and their further fate is unknown. A. Summers and T. Mangold are inclined to believe that Anna Anderson really was Grand Duchess Anastasia.

Exhibitions

• Exhibition “The Death of the Family of Emperor Nicholas II. A century-long investigation." (May 25 - July 29, 2012, Exhibition Hall of the Federal Archives (Moscow); from July 10, 2013, Center for Traditional Folk Culture of the Middle Urals (Ekaterinburg)).

In art

The theme, unlike other revolutionary subjects (for example, “The Taking of Winter Palace” or “Lenin’s Arrival in Petrograd”) was of little demand in Soviet fine art of the twentieth century. However, there is an early Soviet painting by V. N. Pchelin, “The Transfer of the Romanov Family to the Urals Council,” painted in 1927.

It is much more common in cinema, including in the films: “Nicholas and Alexandra” (1971), “The Regicide” (1991), “Rasputin” (1996), “The Romanovs. The Crowned Family" (2000), the television series "The White Horse" (1993). The film "Rasputin" begins with the scene of the execution of the royal family.

The play “House of Special Purpose” by Edward Radzinsky is dedicated to the same topic.

One of the most interesting historical topics for me is the high-profile murders of famous personalities. In almost all of these murders and investigations that were subsequently carried out, there are many incomprehensible, contradictory facts. Often the murderer was not found, or only the perpetrator, the scapegoat, was found. The main characters, motives and circumstances of these crimes remained behind the scenes and gave historians the opportunity to put forward hundreds of different hypotheses, constantly interpret well-known evidence in new and different ways and write interesting books that I love so much.

In the execution of the royal family in Yekaterinburg on the night of July 16-17, 1918, there are more secrets and inconsistencies in the regime that approved this execution and then carefully hid its details. In this article I will just give a few facts that prove that Nicholas II was not killed on that summer day. Although, I assure you, there are many more of them, and many professional historians still do not agree with the official statement that the remains of the entire crowned family have been found, identified and buried.

Let me very briefly recall the circumstances as a result of which Nicholas II and his family found themselves under the rule of the Bolsheviks and under the threat of execution. For the third year in a row, Russia was drawn into war, the economy was in decline, and popular anger was fueled by scandals related to Rasputin's antics and the German origin of the emperor's wife. Unrest begins in Petrograd.

Nicholas II at this time was traveling to Tsarskoe Selo; due to the riots, he was forced to make a detour through the Dno station and Pskov. It was in Pskov that the tsar received telegrams asking the commanders-in-chief to abdicate and signed two manifestos that legitimized his abdication. After this turning point for the empire and the event itself, Nikolai lives for some time under the protection of the Provisional Government, then falls into the hands of the Bolsheviks and dies in the basement of Ipatiev’s house in July 1918... Or not? Let's look at the facts.

Fact No. 1. Contradictory, and in some places simply fabulous, testimonies from the participants in the execution.

For example, the commandant of the Ipatiev house and the leader of the execution Ya.M. Yurovsky, in his note compiled for the historian Pokrovsky, claims that during the execution, bullets ricocheted from the victims and flew like hail around the room, as the women had sewn precious stones into their bodices. How many stones are needed for the corsage to provide the same protection as cast chain mail?!

Another alleged participant in the execution, M.A. Medvedev, recalled not only a hail of ricochets, but also stone pillars that came from nowhere in the room in the basement, as well as powder fog, because of which the executioners almost shot each other! And this, considering that smokeless gunpowder was invented more than thirty years before the events described.

Another killer, Pyotr Ermakov, argued that he single-handedly shot all the Romanovs and their servants.

The same room in Ipatiev’s house where, according to both the Bolsheviks and the main White Guard investigators, the execution of the family of Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov took place. It is quite possible that completely different people were shot here. More on this in future articles.

Fact No. 2. There is a lot of evidence that the entire family of Nicholas II or some of its members were alive after the day of the execution.

The railway conductor Samoilov, who lived in the apartment of one of the Tsar's guards, Alexander Varakushev, assured the White Guards interrogating him that Nicholas II and his wife were alive on the morning of July 17. Varakushev convinced Samoilov that he saw them after the “execution” at the railway station. Samoilov himself saw only a mysterious carriage, the windows of which were painted over with black paint.

There are documented testimonies of Captain Malinovsky, and several other witnesses who heard from the Bolsheviks themselves (in particular from Commissar Goloshchekin) that only the Tsar was shot, the rest of the family was simply taken out (most likely to Perm).

The same “Anastasia” who had a striking resemblance to one of the daughters of Nicholas II. It is worth noting, however, that there were many facts indicating that she was an impostor, for example, she knew almost no Russian.

There is a lot of evidence that Anastasia, one of the Grand Duchesses, escaped execution, was able to escape from prison and ended up in Germany. For example, she was recognized by the children of the court physician Botkin. She knew many details from the life of the imperial family, which were later confirmed. And the most important thing: an examination was carried out and the similarity of the structure of her auricle with Anastasia’s shell was established (after all, photographs and even videotapes of this daughter of Nikolai were preserved) according to 17 parameters (according to German law, only 12 are sufficient).

The whole world (at least the world of historians) knows about the notes of the grandmother of the Prince of Anjou, which were made public only after her death. In it, she claimed that she was Maria, the daughter of the last Russian emperor, and that the death of the royal family was an invention of the Bolsheviks. Nicholas II accepted certain conditions of his enemies and saved his family (even though it was later separated). The story of the grandmother of the Prince of Anjou is confirmed by documents from the archives of the Vatican and Germany.

Fact No. 3. The king's life was more profitable than death.

On the one hand, the masses demanded the execution of the Tsar and, as you know, the Bolsheviks did not hesitate much with executions. But the execution of the royal family is not an execution; one must be sentenced to death and have a trial. Here there was a murder without a trial (at least a formal, demonstrative one) and investigation. And even if the former autocrat was killed, why didn’t they present the corpse and prove to the people that they had fulfilled their wish?

On the one hand, why should the Reds leave Nicholas II alive? He could become the banner of the counter-revolution. On the other hand, being dead is also of little use. And he could, for example, be exchanged alive for freedom for the German communist Karl Liebknecht (according to one version, the Bolsheviks did just that). There is also a version that the Germans, without whom the communists would have had a very hard time at that time, needed the signature of the former tsar on the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and his life as a guarantee of the fulfillment of the treaty. They wanted to protect themselves in case the Bolsheviks did not remain in power.

Also, do not forget that Wilhelm II was Nicholas's cousin. It is difficult to imagine that after almost four years of war, the German Kaiser experienced any warm feelings towards the Russian Tsar. But some researchers believe that it was the Kaiser who saved the crowned family, since he did not want the death of his relatives, even yesterday’s enemies.

Nicholas II with his children. I would like to believe that they all survived that terrible summer night.

I don’t know if this article was able to convince anyone that the last Russian emperor was not killed in July 1918. But I hope that many have doubts about this, which prompted them to dig deeper and consider other evidence that contradicts the official version. You can find much more facts indicating that the official version of the death of Nicholas II is false, for example, in the book by L.M. Sonin “The Mystery of the Death of the Royal Family.” I took most of the material for this article from this book.