23.10.202027.05.2017

Ekaterinburg. At the place of execution of the royal family. Holy Quarter June 16th, 2016

Immediately beyond, one cannot fail to notice this high temple and a number of other temple buildings. This is the "Holy Quarter". By the will of fate, they restrict three streets named after revolutionaries. Let's head towards it.

On the way there is a monument to the Saints Peter and Fevronia of Murom. Installed in 2012.

The Church on the Blood was built in 2000-2003. at the place where the last Russian emperor Nicholas II and his family were shot on the night of July 16 to July 17, 1918. At the entrance to the temple, their photographs.

In 1917, after the February Revolution and the abdication of the throne, the former Russian Emperor Nicholas II and his family were exiled to Tobolsk by the decision of the Provisional Government.

After the Bolsheviks came to power and the beginning of the civil war, in April 1918, permission was obtained from the Presidium (All-Russian Central Executive Committee) of the fourth convocation to transfer the Romanovs to Yekaterinburg, in order to deliver them from there to Moscow in order to conduct a trial over them.

In Yekaterinburg, a large stone mansion confiscated from the engineer Nikolai Ipatiev was chosen as the place of imprisonment of Nicholas II and his family. On the night of July 17, 1918, in the basement of this house, Emperor Nicholas II, together with his wife Alexandra Feodorovna, children and close persons were shot, and after that their bodies were taken to the abandoned mine of Ganina Yama.

September 22, 1977 on the recommendation of the chairman of the KGB Yu.V. Andropov and the instructions of B.N. Yeltsin's house Ipatiev was destroyed. Later, Yeltsin would write in his memoirs: "... sooner or later we will all be ashamed of this barbarism. It will be a shame, but nothing can be corrected ...".

When designing, the plan of the future temple was superimposed on the plan of the demolished house of Ipatiev in such a way as to create an analogue of the room where the Tsar's family was shot. On the lower level of the temple, a symbolic place for this execution was envisaged. In fact, the place of execution of the royal family is outside the church in the area of \u200b\u200bthe carriageway of Karl Liebknecht Street.

The temple is a five-domed structure 60 meters high and with a total area of \u200b\u200b3000 m². The architecture of the building is designed in the Russian-Byzantine style. The vast majority of churches were built in this style during the reign of Nicholas II.

The cross in the center is part of the monument to the royal family descending into the basement before being shot.

Adjacent to the Church on the Blood is the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker with the Patriarchal Compound spiritual and educational center and the museum of the royal family.

Behind them you can see the Temple of the Ascension of the Lord (1782-1818).

And in front of it is the Kharitonov-Rastorguev estate of the early 19th century (architect Malakhov), which became the Palace of Pioneers in Soviet times. Nowadays - the City Palace of Children and Youth Creativity "Giftedness and Technology".

What else is located in the vicinity. This is the Gazprom tower, which has been built since 1976 as the Tourist hotel.

Former office of the defunct airline Transaero.

Between them are buildings from the middle of the last century.

Residential building-monument in 1935. Built for railroad workers. Quite beautiful! Fizkulturnikov Street, on which the building is located, has been gradually built up since the 1960s, as a result, by 2010 it was completely lost. This residential building is the only building on a virtually non-existent street, number 30.

Well, now we go to the Gazprom tower - an interesting street begins from there.

At 1 a.m. on July 17, 1918, the former Russian Tsar Nicholas II, Tsarina Alexandra Fedorovna, their five children and four servants, including a doctor, were taken to the basement of a house in Yekaterinburg, where they were kept in custody, where they were brutally shot by the Bolsheviks, and subsequently burned body.

The eerie scene continues to haunt us to this day, and their remains, which have lain for most of a century in unmarked graves, the location of which was known only to the Soviet leadership, are still surrounded by an aura of mystery. In 1979, enthusiastic historians discovered the remains of some members of the royal family, and in 1991, after the collapse of the USSR, DNA analysis was used to confirm their belonging.

The remains of two more royal children - Alexei and Maria - were discovered in 2007 and subjected to a similar analysis. However, the Russian Orthodox Church has questioned the results of the DNA tests. The remains of Alexei and Maria were not buried, but transferred to a scientific institution. In 2015, they were analyzed again.

Historian Simon Sebag Montefiore recounts these events in detail in his book “The Romanovs, 1613-1618”, published this year. El Confidencial already wrote about her. In Town & Country magazine, the author recalls that last fall, the official investigation into the murder of the royal family was resumed, the remains of the king and queen were exhumed. This has generated controversial statements from government and Church officials, bringing the issue back to the public eye.

According to Sebag, Nikolai was good-looking, and his apparent weakness hid a powerful man who despised the ruling class, a fierce anti-Semite who did not doubt his sacred right to power. He and Alexandra married for love, which was then a rare occurrence. She brought paranoid thinking, mystical fanaticism (suffice it to recall Rasputin) and one more danger - hemophilia, which was passed on to her son, the heir to the throne, into family life.

Wounds

In 1998, the reburial of the remains of the Romanovs took place during an official ceremony to heal the wounds of Russia's past.

President Yeltsin said that political change should never again be violent. Many Orthodox Christians reiterated their opposition and took the event as an attempt by the president to impose a liberal agenda in the former USSR.

In 2000, the Orthodox Church canonized the royal family, as a result of which the relics of its members became a shrine, and according to the statements of its representatives, it was necessary to carry out their reliable identification.

When Yeltsin left his post and nominated the unknown Vladimir Putin, a KGB lieutenant colonel who considered the collapse of the USSR "the biggest catastrophe of the 20th century," the young leader began to concentrate power in his hands, put barriers to foreign influence, help strengthen the Orthodox faith and conduct an aggressive foreign policy ... It seemed — Sebag ponders with irony — he decided to continue the political line of the Romanovs.

Putin is a political realist, and he is following the path outlined by the leaders of a strong Russia: from Peter the Great to Stalin. They were bright personalities who faced the international threat.

Putin's position, which questioned the results of scientific research (a faint echo of the Cold War: there were many Americans among the researchers), calmed the Church and created a breeding ground for conspiracy, nationalist and anti-Semitic hypotheses about the remains of the Romanovs. One of them was that Lenin and his followers, many of whom were Jews, transported the bodies to Moscow, ordering them to be mutilated. Was it really the king and his family? Or did someone manage to escape?

Context

How the tsars returned to Russian history

Atlantico 08/19/2015

304 years of Romanov rule

Le Figaro 05/30/2016

Why Lenin and Nicholas II are both "good"

Radio Praha 10/14/2015

What did Nicholas II give the Finns?

Helsingin Sanomat 25.07.2016 During the Civil War, the Bolsheviks declared the Red Terror. They drove the family away from Moscow. It was a terrible journey by train and horse-drawn carts. Tsarevich Alexei suffered from hemophilia, and some of his sisters were sexually assaulted on the train. Finally, they ended up in the house where their life path ended. It, in fact, was turned into a fortified prison and machine guns were installed around the perimeter. Whatever it was, but the royal family tried to adapt to the new conditions. The eldest daughter Olga was depressed, and those that were younger played, not really understanding what was happening. Maria had an affair with one of the guards, and then the Bolsheviks replaced all the guards, tightening the internal regulations.

When it became obvious that the White Guards were about to take Yekaterinburg, Lenin issued an unspoken decree on the execution of the entire royal family, entrusting the execution to Yakov Yurovsky. At first, it was supposed to secretly bury everyone in the nearby forests. But the murder was poorly planned and even worse executed. Each of the members of the firing squad had to kill one of the victims. But when the basement of the house was filled with smoke from shots and the screams of people being shot, many of the Romanovs were still alive. They were wounded and cried in horror.

The fact is that diamonds were sewn into the princesses' clothes, and the bullets bounced off them, which confused the killers. The wounded were finished off with bayonets and shots to the head. One of the executioners later said that the floor was slippery with blood and brains.

Scars

Having completed their business, the drunken executioners robbed the corpses, loaded them onto a truck, which stalled along the way. In addition, at the last moment it became clear that all the bodies did not fit into the graves previously dug for them. The clothes were removed from the dead and burned. Then the frightened Yurovsky came up with another plan. He left the bodies in the forest and went to Yekaterinburg to get acid and gasoline. For three days and nights, he brought containers of sulfuric acid and gasoline into the forest to destroy the bodies, which he decided to bury in various places in order to confuse those who intend to find them. Nobody was supposed to know anything about what happened. They doused the bodies with acid and gasoline, burned them, and then buried them.

Sebag wonders how 2017 will mark the 100th anniversary of the October Revolution. What will happen to the royal remains? The country does not want to lose its former glory. The past is always perceived in a positive light, but the legitimacy of autocracy continues to generate controversy. New investigations, initiated by the Russian Orthodox Church and carried out by the Investigative Committee, led to the repeated exhumation of bodies. A comparative DNA analysis was carried out with living relatives, in particular, with the British Prince Philip, one of whose grandmothers was the Grand Duchess Olga Konstantinovna Romanova. Thus, he is the great-great-grandson of Tsar Nicholas II.

The fact that the Church is still making decisions on such important issues has attracted attention in the rest of Europe, as well as a lack of openness and a disorderly sequence of burials, exhumations, and DNA tests of certain members of the royal family. Most political observers believe that the final decision on what to do with the remains on the 100th anniversary of the revolution will be made by Putin. Will he finally be able to reconcile the image of the 1917 revolution with the barbaric massacre of 1918? Will he have to run two separate events to suit each side? Will the Romanovs receive royal honors or church honors as saints?

In Russian textbooks, many Russian tsars are still represented as heroes, fanned with glory. Gorbachev and the last Tsar Romanov abdicated, Putin said he would never do it.

The historian claims that in his book he omitted nothing from the materials he examined on the execution of the Romanov family ... except for the most disgusting details of the murder. When the bodies were taken to the forest, the two princesses groaned and had to be finished off. Whatever the future of the country, it will be impossible to erase this terrible episode from memory.

Who refused to shoot the king and his family? What did Nicholas II say when he heard the death sentence? Who wanted to kidnap the Romanovs from the Ipatiev House? On the anniversary of the execution of the royal family, we remind you of the most important facts about this tragedy.

Photo: RIA Novosti / Maya Shelkovnikova

Moscow. July 17 .. in Yekaterinburg, the last Russian emperor Nicholas II and all members of his family were shot. Almost a hundred years later, the tragedy has been studied far and wide by Russian and foreign researchers. Below are 10 of the most important facts about what happened in July 1917 in the Ipatiev House.

1. The Romanov family and retinue were placed in Yekaterinburg on April 30, in the house of a retired military engineer N.N. Ipatieva. Doctor E.S.Botkin, chamberlaine A.E. Trup, maid of Empress A.S.Demidov, cook I.M.Kharitonov and cook Leonid Sednev lived in the house with the royal family. All except the cook were killed along with the Romanovs.

2. In June 1917 Nicholas II received several letters allegedly from a white Russian officer.An anonymous author of letters told the Tsar that the Crown supporters intended to kidnap the prisoners of the Ipatiev House and asked Nicholas for help - to draw room plans, inform the sleep schedule of family members, etc. The Tsar, however, in his reply stated: “We do not want and cannot escape. We can only be abducted by force, as they brought us from Tobolsk by force. Therefore, do not count on any of our active help, "thereby refusing to assist the" kidnappers ", but not giving up the very idea of \u200b\u200bbeing abducted.

Subsequently, it turned out that the letters were written by the Bolsheviks in order to check the readiness of the royal family to escape. The author of the letters was P. Voikov.

3. Rumors about the murder of Nicholas II appeared back in June 1917 after the assassination of Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich. The official version of the disappearance of Mikhail Alexandrovich was the escape; at the same time, the tsar was allegedly killed by a Red Army soldier who broke into the Ipatiev House.

4. The exact text of the sentence, which the Bolsheviks took and read to the tsar and his family, is unknown. At about 2 am on July 16-17, the guards woke up doctor Botkin so that he woke up the royal family, ordered them to pack up and go down to the basement. The collection took, according to various sources, from half an hour to an hour. After the Romanovs with the servants went down, the Chekist Yankel Yurovsky informed them that they would be killed.

According to various recollections, he said:

"Nikolai Alexandrovich, your relatives tried to save you, but they didn't have to. And we were forced to shoot you ourselves." (based on materials from investigator N. Sokolov)

"Nikolai Alexandrovich! The attempts of your associates to save you were not crowned with success! And so, in a difficult time for the Soviet Republic ..." (according to the memoirs of M. Medvedev (Kudrin))

"Your friends are attacking Yekaterinburg, and therefore you are sentenced to death" (according to the memoirs of Yurovsky's assistant G. Nikulin.)

Yurovsky himself later said that he did not remember the exact words he uttered. "... 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 were trying to free him, and that the Soviet of Workers' Deputies decided to shoot them."

5. Emperor Nicholas, having heard the verdict, asked again: "My God, what is this?" According to other sources, he only managed to say: "What?"

6. Three Latvians refused to carry out the sentence and left the basement shortly before the Romanovs went down there. The weapons of the refuseniks were distributed among the rest. According to the recollections of the participants themselves, 8 people took part in the execution. “In fact, there were 8 performers of us: Yurovsky, Nikulin, Mikhail Medvedev, Pavel Medvedev four, Peter Ermakov five, so I'm not sure that Ivan Kabanov is six. And I don’t remember two more names,” G writes in his memoirs. .Nikulin.

7. It is still unknown whether the execution of the royal family was sanctioned by the highest authorities. According to the official version, the decision on the "execution" was made by the executive committee of the Uraloblsovet, while the central Soviet leadership learned about what had happened after. By the beginning of the 90s. a version was formed according to which the Ural authorities could not make such a decision without a directive from the Kremlin and agreed to take responsibility for the unauthorized execution in order to provide the central government with a political alibi.

The fact that the Ural Regional Council was not a judicial or other body that had the authority to pass a sentence, the execution of the Romanovs for a long time was considered not as political repression, but as a murder, which prevented the posthumous rehabilitation of the royal family.

8. After the execution, the bodies of the killed were taken out of the city and burned, pre-watering with sulfuric acid to bring the remains beyond recognition. The sanction for the release of a large amount of sulfuric acid was issued by the Ural Supply Commissioner P. Voikov.

9. Information about the murder of the royal family became known to the public several years later; initially, the Soviet government announced that only Nicholas II was killed, and that Alexander Fedorovna and her children were allegedly transported to a safe place in Perm. 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 Kremlin acknowledged the fact of the execution of all members of the royal family when the results of Sokolov's investigation became known in the west in 1925.

10. The remains of five members of the imperial family and four of their servants were found in July 1991.not far from Yekaterinburg under the embankment of the Old Koptyakovskaya road. 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.

The conversation with the senior investigator for particularly important cases Vladimir SOLOVYOV is conducted by the political observer of Pravda Viktor KOZHEMYAKO

The tragedy of June 17, 1918 in Yekaterinburg, where the family of the last Russian tsar was shot, became during the years of anti-Soviet "perestroika" and bourgeois "reforms" a reason for colossal political speculation. Yeltsin tried to use it for his own purposes. She is remembered at every next outbreak of anti-communist hysteria. And if someone shouts again and again about the demolition of Lenin's Mausoleum, then, of course, the events in Yekaterinburg are put forward as one of the main points of accusation against the Bolshevik leader.

This accusation has already become so commonplace that it has firmly stuck in the heads of many. Moreover, for example, Zhirinovsky long ago built a psychological scheme, which to some may seem simply irrefutable. How! Lenin's elder brother was hanged for participating in the attempted assassination of Father Nicholas II, and the "bloodthirsty Ulyanov" avenged this by killing not only the tsar himself, but also his wife and children.

All this is repeated in different variations, repeated, repeated. For example, I watch on the TV channel "Russia" a very recent release of the so-called "Historical Chronicles" of Svanidze - and again: "Lenin killed Nikolai and his family."

I will introduce: Vladimir Nikolaevich Solovyov, Senior Investigator for Especially Important Cases of the Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee under the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation. He has been involved in the criminal case on the murder of Nicholas II and his family since 1993, when it was initiated in connection with a burial found near Yekaterinburg with the remains of nine people. Identification was required, and for this - versatile expert work, to which the investigator involved scientists and other qualified specialists, including foreign ones.

The rest is known. Some agreed with the experts' conclusion, some did not, but in 1998 a solemn funeral of these remains took place in the Peter and Paul Cathedral of St. Petersburg as the remains of the royal family.

Then the criminal case was dropped, and again resumed in 2007: not far from that burial, local search engines found fragments of two more people, supposedly the son and daughter of Nicholas II. And again, the investigation in this case with the participation of many experts, completed by a resolution of January 15, 2009, was led by Vladimir Nikolaevich Solovyov.

The details of his investigations are a huge topic. But today we are not going to talk about her. I have already noted that for a long time of this painstaking work, which absorbed him entirely, Vladimir Nikolaevich became a unique connoisseur of all the circumstances of history that happened more than 90 years ago. He studied a lot of documents, memoirs, eyewitness accounts and materials of all kinds of historical research carried out in different years.

So, one of the conclusions that he made for himself is the following: Lenin was not involved in the execution of the royal family.

In order to more fully present the reasoning of the investigator (I emphasize: in this case, he has no political bias and interest!), I bring to the attention of the readers the text of my conversation with him. The conversation turned out to be very long, and then I had to return to it for all the details, so I publish the record in an abbreviated form.

“I have reason to assert this”

Vladimir Nikolaevich, I quite by accident learned about your conclusion regarding Lenin's position in the case of the royal family. Have you come to the decision that the execution was carried out not only not on his initiative, but also without his consent?

I have reason to assert this.

What are they based on?

First of all, on the reality of the relationship that was then between the center and the province, that is, between the authorities in Moscow and the localities. By that time, not everything in these relations had stabilized, and the instructions from the center did not always work out clearly. After all, Soviet power was just being established. In general, in order to understand what happened as it happened, one must imagine the complexity of the situation in its historical concreteness. And now everything is extremely simplified.

Give an example of the complexity you mean.

You are welcome. I don’t know if you know, but the absolute majority, I’m sure, don’t know that at this time, which we are talking about, the word “Leninist” among many Ural Bolsheviks, including the local leadership, was almost a dirty word.

Why?

The Brest-Litovsk Peace became the reason. Lenin is the Brest Peace, that is, a compromise. And the radicals are against compromise. They are not at all for the beginning of peaceful construction, but for the expansion of the revolutionary conflagration. Because of the Brest Peace, remember, Lenin has a sharp clash even with Dzerzhinsky. It turns out that in the eyes of many, Lenin is now some kind of opportunist conciliator.

This is clear. It is not without reason that Lenin wrote his well-known work "The Childhood Illness of 'Leftism' in Communism."

So, the leadership of the Ural, Yekaterinburg Bolsheviks was thoroughly captured by this “leftism”. And Lenin at that moment was not an absolute authority for them. Moreover, revolutionaries with great experience worked here, mentally considering themselves (at least some of them) as leaders, maybe no less or on an equal footing with Lenin. And certainly - much more revolutionary!

Did this also determine their attitude to the problem of the royal family?

Sure. They were eager to solve it in their own spirit - radically. But for Lenin, this turned out to be unacceptable. Moreover, I came to the conclusion that the execution was even a kind of provocation against Lenin and the line he was pursuing.

Imagine that the German ambassador Mirbach was killed in early July 1918 by the Left SRs, that is, by the same radicals. This is a provocation to aggravate relations with Germany, right up to the war. And there is already a threat that German military units will be sent to Moscow. Right there - the Left SR mutiny. In short, everything is on the brink. Lenin is making tremendous efforts to somehow smooth over the imposed Soviet-German conflict, to avoid a collision. So why should he at this moment shoot the German princesses, which were considered the daughters of Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna?

No, even for such purely pragmatic, political reasons, Lenin could not want this and, I am convinced, did not strive for this in any way. On the contrary, what was done was actually directed against him.

Lenin was for the trial of the former tsar?

Yes. It was assumed that such a trial would take place, and Trotsky wanted to act as a prosecutor. However, Trotsky, who certainly considered himself not less, but more than Lenin, at this time began to play his game ...

The provisional government was literally bombarded with telegrams and letters demanding that the tsar and his family be "expended" immediately and without any trial

Since we started talking about the trial, I remembered that the Provisional Government was also going to arrange a trial over Nicholas II.

Over him and over the former empress. Soon after the February Revolution, an Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry (CSK) was established to investigate the crimes of the tsarist family and senior Russian officials. It was about high treason and much more.

I read about the work of this commission with Alexander Blok, who, it seems, took an active part in it ... But, as far as I know, there were negotiations on the expulsion of the royal family abroad?

Exactly.

Who led them and with whom?

Yes, the same people who supervised the preparation of the trial, in the midst of this preparation, were negotiating to send the tsar and his family to England. I would like to note that when developing the act of abdication from the throne, the issue of a possible tsarist departure from Russia was not officially considered. But a note of the deposed emperor of March 4, 1917, transferred to the chairman of the Provisional Government, Prince Lvov, has survived. Judging by it and by the resolution of March 6, Nikolai's request to go abroad was supported.

Did you mean England right away?

Apparently right away.

And why?

The warmest, even friendly personal relations of all foreign monarchs developed between the Russian emperor and the English king. In England, Nicholas, who in Russia bore a rather modest military rank of colonel, was awarded the highest ranks - field marshal of the army and admiral of the British fleet. The same as those worn by King George himself. By the way, an interesting detail: Nikolai and Georg looked very similar in appearance. Sometimes they, changing their form, played others.

In short, it would seem that Great Britain is the best option for the departure of a crowned family. Around March 7, Foreign Minister Miliukov met with the British Ambassador, George Buchanan, and asked to clarify the position of the British government on this issue. And already on March 10, the ambassador said that the government of his country is positive about the idea of \u200b\u200bmoving the royal family to Great Britain.

Kerensky, on whom the Provisional Government entrusted all the problems associated with this family, began to work closely with the preparation of sending it abroad.

Why didn't this happen?

The immediate departure was prevented by the work of the Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry, which, despite all these backstage negotiations, nevertheless continued. But one more serious problem arose when they practically wanted to start implementing this plan: will it be possible to ensure the safe passage of royalty to the port of Romanov, that is, to Murmansk?

The fact is that rumors about the impending departure of the tsar abroad somehow went beyond the narrow circle and caused a storm of indignation in many public organizations. This is what one should not be distracted from when considering the events of that time! I spoke about the radical wing of the Bolshevik Party. But in 1917 and later, the mood among the mass of the Russian population was extremely radical. Including in relation to the "royal question". Consider the following: a huge number of organizations from localities representing various parties (the so-called democratic, which should be emphasized!) Literally bombarded the Provisional Government with telegrams and letters with a categorical demand that the tsar and his family be "expended" immediately and without any trial.

Yes, this is really serious. Today, few people represent the real mood of a large part of society at that time. It was suggested that the absolute majority in Russia were convinced monarchists and only “a merciless gang of Bolshevik-Leninists” sought to assassinate the tsar.

There were perhaps much fewer monarchists in Russia then than now. All Democrats! Kolchak is a democrat, Krasnov is a democrat, Denikin is also ... That is why the February revolution happened so easily. Almost everyone renounced the tsar, even the church.

About a year ago, in Pravda we published statements by church leaders published after February: sheer delight over the overthrow of the autocracy!

I can add a very indicative fact. When the question of moving the royal family to Tobolsk arises, no clergyman wants to go with her. Including the Tsarskoye Selo priest and confessor of the family, Archpriest Alexander Vasiliev. He will refuse to go, like other clergymen. Therefore, in Tobolsk, the local priest will have to take care of the tsar and his family, coincidentally, also Vasiliev, father Alexei ...

But let's get back to the question of why the crowned family was not transported to England.

But because England has reconsidered its original decision. So to speak, "changed her mind." Exactly one month later, on April 10, 1917, King George V instructed his secretary, Lord Stanfordham, to propose to the Prime Minister, "given the obvious negative attitude of the public, to inform the Russian government that His Majesty's government is forced to withdraw the consent given to them earlier."

What was meant by “negative public attitudes”? What kind of public are we talking about - English or Russian?

Presumably, both. In general, the mood of the British was not at all so favorable to Russia as to save her autocrat. And I have already said about the mood in Russia itself, which the English king, of course, was well aware of.

In a word, thinking about how to continue to do business with a country, whose inhabitants for the most part are resolutely opposed to the former royal family, and also fearing that harboring this family and the tsar himself could interfere with relations with Russia in the future, George V thought it good to refuse to his longtime friend at the reception.

Well, a fact that says something about "morality and politics". In this case, English politics.

No wonder: the rulers of Great Britain have always professed extreme state selfishness. So the fate of the king as such did not bother them much.

Well, were there options for traveling to other countries?

Apparently, others were also not too eager to host the disgraced family of the former Russian emperor. Neither France, nor Denmark, nor Greece or Spain - I name the states where Nicholas II was supposedly highly valued before. Only the Germans, paradoxically, were constantly interested in the fate of the former Russian princesses and, at the same time, German princesses.

The former "master of the Russian land" was looking for a secluded place in a country swirled by revolution

So, since the options for sending the tsar abroad have disappeared, the Provisional Government makes a decision on Tobolsk?

Quite right.

However, why was it necessary to take this family somewhere and why did Tobolsk arise?

Nicholas II and his family, as you know, were under house arrest in Tsarskoe Selo. But the proximity to the seething revolutionary Petrograd was dangerous for them, and over time the danger did not diminish, but, on the contrary, increased. Despite thorough protection, lynching was also possible. Considering the massive radical sentiments we spoke about ...

That is, the king had to be hidden somewhere?

Of course. To hide from the really threatening reprisals - not the Bolsheviks, but anyone's. Kerensky was thinking about that. Siberian Tobolsk was seen at that moment as a suitable place, quiet, secluded.

Members of the royal family also wanted to go away from the boiling capital?

They wanted something, but the place of the move was completely different. Not Tobolsk, but Crimea. They were sure that they would be taken there and they would be able to live peacefully in their palace - so to speak, at the expense of the retired king. The Provisional Government would have gone for it, but by August 1917 it became quite clear that the country, especially the outskirts, it actually does not govern. And the Crimea among these outskirts turned out to be too hot a place. It was then that Tobolsk arose.

So, the Provisional Government decided to transport Nicholas II and his family from Tsarskoe Selo to Tobolsk. Was the move there calmly?

It was like a military operation. They prepared two trains, placed 45 close associates of the royal family, 330 soldiers and 6 officers in them. All the soldiers were distinguished in battles, there were many knights of St. George. And Colonel Kobylinsky headed this military force.

And the railway workers, having learned about the impending dispatch of the royal family, threatened to disrupt the trip to the last. The government was also afraid of attacks on the way, so an order was given to pass the large stations, stopping to replenish coal and water only at small ones. Actually, it was so. Sometimes they stopped in an open field so that passengers could take a walk ...

The royal train left in the early morning of August 14 (28). It was still almost night. An atmosphere of the strictest secrecy has been created. The windows in the main secret carriage are tightly curtained. And on this carriage is the inscription: "Japanese Red Cross Mission". The train was under the Japanese flag.

And why? What was this flag associated with?

For the same secrecy. Disguise. Well, Japan was considered at that time an ally of Russia ...

Did you have any excesses during the trip? Was it not noticed?

It is interesting that they were alarmed not just anywhere, but in the “fateful city” of Yekaterinburg. Although two strange trains proceeded at dawn, but here the presence of royalty on the train became known from somewhere. And a telegram was sent to the Central Executive Committee that, according to rumors, trains with the tsar and family were going to Novonikolaevsk (present-day Novosibirsk), in order to leave from there via Harbin abroad. To prevent this, telegrams were sent from Yekaterinburg to Novonikolaevsk, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk. Meanwhile, the king and his entire family were sleeping peacefully.

Then we got to Tyumen rather safely, and from there, having transferred to the steamer "Rus", along the rivers Ture and Tobol we went to their destination. They arrived in Tobolsk on August 19 according to the old style (according to the new - September 1).

And where are they located?

In the house where the last Tobolsk governor lived, Ordovsky-Tanaevsky. By this time he had already moved out; the representatives of the Provisional Government and the mayor of Shalabanov had power. They urgently prepared housing for unusual new guests. Everything there was cleaned, painted, the house was surrounded by a reliable fence.

Big house?

Eighteen rooms, and spacious, so there was enough space for everyone. At the house, according to Nicholas II, there was a "so-called garden" and a "nasty vegetable garden."

The photographs of the former tsar chopping wood are widely known. In modern terms, photographers probably saw this as a special "joke".

Yes, Nikolai was gathering firewood, sawing, chopping. First, a dry pine tree in the yard was cut down, then a birch. And then they brought round timber, which he began to "cut". He needed physical activity. Later, when the Bolshevik Myachin-Yakovlev, whom we will be talking about in front of us, tells in an interview to Izvestia about his first meeting with the Tobolsk exile, he will note his fresh appearance, and the working calluses that have appeared on his hands.

Tobolsk was not destined to remain a quiet place for long

However, how easy it is to imagine that “secluded, quiet place” - Tobolsk - did not remain so for very long?

Indeed, it is easy to imagine. Winds from the capitals flew here, and grandiose events took place there. Change of power! And this creates in the House of Freedom (as by that time the former governor's house in Tobolsk was called) a situation of certain uncertainty and increased tension.

Consider at least the following. The provisional government stopped paying salaries to the soldiers of the tsarist guard, and the Bolshevik government has not yet begun. Moreover, the revolutionization among the soldiers is growing. The soldiers' assembly, for example, decided to remove the shoulder straps. Now, in Tobolsk, you could get in trouble for wearing shoulder straps. Sometimes local residents attacked people in uniform and beat them, and tore off the shoulder straps. The soldiers' committee of the garrison on January 3, 1918 decides to remove the shoulder straps from Nicholas II.

That is, little remains of the isolation and peace desired for the royal family?

Peace, in fact, by this time has long been gone. Letters arrived in sacks to the former governor's house, especially many addressed to Alexandra Feodorovna. It was written about her relationship with Grigory Rasputin, all sorts of obscene proposals to the princesses were expressed. Surprisingly, even from America letters were getting.

And how does the new government in the capitals react to the continued presence of the royal family in Tobolsk?

At first, nothing. Not before that. And there was no reason to deal with the "former" especially. Well, they live there and live, they don't make any political gestures - and okay.

However, the Yekaterinburg Bolsheviks, with their heightened radical, as I have already said, attitudes are showing an increasing interest in Tobolsk. Moreover, rumors are beginning to creep from there: the royal family has conceived an escape. Reaching Yekaterinburg, these rumors are then not only broadcasted, but also amplified, somewhat supplemented.

Rumors are growing. They are published in newspapers, and, I stress, not only and not so much Bolshevik. There are still many different newspapers. They write, for example, that the tsar divorced the tsarina. It is reported that Nicholas took monastic vows and went to the Abalakovsky monastery. There is news that he generally escaped in an unknown direction. There is a rumor that the light schooner "Holy Mary" is standing at full readiness at the pier on the Irtysh, especially in order to rush the royal family abroad.

Sometimes refutations to such "information" are also printed, but rarely in the smallest print, on the last page of the newspaper. And rumors are running! They are perceived eagerly, like an adventure romance. They excite both quiet Tobolsk and the wary and formidable Yekaterinburg, which is more and more closely watching what is happening there, in Tobolsk, around the royal family.

On top of that, at this point a very mysterious figure appears here, which adds to the intrigue.

Who is this?

By the will of circumstances - my namesake. Named Boris Nikolaevich Solovyov. The personality is adventurous. Rasputin's son-in-law is married to his youngest daughter Matryona (Maria). And before that, he allegedly spent several years in India, where he studied hypnosis and all kinds of occult techniques. For example, murder from a distance. He told his friends about himself. And the White Guard investigator Nikolai Sokolov, who will later deal with the case of the shooting of the royal family, will consider Solovyov a freemason and a German spy.

In the February revolution, the lieutenant of the volunteers Boris Solovyov makes a career - becomes Guchkov's adjutant. With the help of the hidden Kornilovites, he gets the position of assistant to the head of the Far East department under the Ministry of War and seems to be working on the commission "for accepting especially important orders for the defense of the state." I don't know if there really was such a commission - this man could have composed anything. It is known for certain: he loved money very much.

But for what purpose did he appear in Tobolsk?

With the aim of freeing the royal family. After October, Solovyov, with incomprehensible functions, entered the service of the banker Karl Iosifovich Yaroshinsky, who was close to the famous friend of the Empress Vyrubova and, in general, to the circle of Alexandra Fedorovna. They give him 40 thousand rubles a year. At the same time, Vyrubova persuades Yaroshinsky to give Solovyov 25 thousand rubles to help the imperial family. So, having received this solid money in royal bills, Solovyov goes to Tobolsk.

How does he work there?

Frankly speaking, it's strange. He told the priest Alexei Vasiliev that he had come on behalf of the "center" to free the royal family and that he was the head of a large armed organization. It is clear that this immediately becomes known to the king, his family and all their entourage, causing joy and great hopes. Still would! The son-in-law of the beloved Grigory Efimovich Rasputin himself arrived as a liberator.

And then practically nothing. Everything turned into some kind of operetta. Solovyov walks around Tobolsk, walks under the windows of the governor's house. The Empress smiles at him from the window, the Tsar and everyone else talk about him. They lend him money, give him some of the royal jewels. The most fantastic plans are being made. For example, rafting on motor boats to the mouth of the Irtysh, and then north, ask the British for a ship and sail to London across the Arctic Ocean ...

In general, some fantasies?

No more. But on February 7, 1918, Solovyov returned to Petrograd and said that he had gathered a group of like-minded people and that the liberation of the former emperor, together with his family, was nearing a successful conclusion.

Apparently, Yaroshinsky, experienced not only in financial affairs, did not really believe Solovyov, so this time he allocated only 10 thousand rubles. However, with the help of Vyrubova, he continued to raise funds among the more naive, and when he already had several tens of thousands of rubles, he again went to Tobolsk. Again to the priest Alexei Vasiliev.

There is also another meeting, significant for the "liberator" - with a young, 19-year-old admirer of the royal family, Sergei Markov. Solovyov tells him tales about how he leads the "brotherhood of St. John of Tobolsk", created to free the tsar, and allegedly 120 people are part of this organization. And in Petrograd he announced the creation of an officer's detachment of 300 sabers.

Is it a fairy tale too?

Of course.

But, nevertheless, Markov became an associate of Solovyov in his adventure?

For a very short time. Probably, on the instructions of Solovyov, Markov goes to Rasputin's homeland, to the village of Pokrovskoye, and there he gets the news of a big trouble that happened to the "boss": Solovyov has been arrested.

Indeed, it happened in Tyumen. Boris Nikolayevich sometimes "buried himself" too much and lost his sense of danger. The Bolsheviks arrested him. And by some miracle, Rasputin's daughter, wife Maria - Mara, as he called her, helped out. In her diary, she wrote that she burst into tears when she saw Borya in an iron cage.

In order to finish the plot with this unlucky "liberator" of the royal family, I will say: after fleeing from the Bolsheviks from Tyumen, he was then arrested again - already white in Chita. And again I got out thanks to the same Mara! Her friend turned out to be the friend of the notorious ataman Semyonov. So he took action. And on the finger of the ataman's girlfriend there appeared an imperial diamond of the purest water ...

To prevent the supposedly preparing escape, the Omsk, Tyumen, Ural regions come into play ...

Vladimir Nikolaevich, it would be necessary to more specifically understand how in the beginning of 1918 the relations developed between the central and local authorities, and if geographically, between Petrograd, Moscow, Yekaterinburg and Tobolsk. Because, as I understand it, these were the main addresses, one way or another influencing the further fate of the family of Nicholas II.

If we talk about Tobolsk, where the family of the former tsar still remained, the situation there became more and more tense day by day. After the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly, the Tobolsk delegation returned from Petrograd, which brought with it instructions on the liquidation of all local institutions and organizations of the Provisional Government. At the end of January 1918, the Tobolsk provincial commissar Pignatti, a librarian and local historian, resigned from his powers, a rather soft person who, in terms of the requirements of the time, could not cope with his duties and could not cope. On January 24, Vasily Pankratov also resigned, who was appointed at one time the commissar for the protection of the former king.

Well, who headed the new government in the city and province? Who became the head of the royal guard?

It was all very difficult. And just the presence in the city of the family of the former emperor and himself became a kind of special circumstance around which different forces began to collide.

The confusion with the protection of the royal family grew, since the old soldiers from Petrograd were replaced by new ones who had gone through a revolutionary school in the capital, but the old ones did not leave either. Strife, friction between the mouths. And soon more applicants for the protection of the so-called House of Freedom appear.

At the beginning of March 1918 from Omsk to Tobolsk arrived the commissar of the Zapsibsovet V.D. Dutsman, and after him a detachment of hundreds of Omsk Red Guards, led by A.F. Demyanov. Here he is, Demyanov, and was appointed extraordinary commissar of Tobolsk and the Tobolsk district.

He took over the control of the house, where the family of the former king was?

The Omsk Red Guards really first of all decided to take control of the House of Freedom. But it was not there! The house guards objected. Then Nicholas II wrote in his diary that the soldiers of the guard detachment began to prepare machine guns for battle.

In general, the fight could turn out to be serious. It was saved by the fact that the Omsk detachment behaved quite calmly. In fact, he retreated. In general, for all the time from the side of his fighters there was not a single shot. Not a single person was arrested, not a single search was carried out.

And what were their actions?

The organs of the old government were dispersed and a new provincial council was created. Pavel Khokhryakov became its chairman. A former sailor, fireman of the battleship "Emperor Alexander II", he was secretly abandoned in Tobolsk by the Yekaterinburg Bolsheviks even earlier. He settled here, got married, and now he has come into power.

But what happened to the protection of the king?

She stayed as before. However, since rumors about the impending escape of the royal family had already spread very widely by this time, in a number of Bolshevik organizations adjacent to Tobolsk they decided to take their own measures to prevent the escape. And after the Omsk detachment, the Tyumen detachment arrives in Tobolsk. For the king!

Did they succeed?

Omsk residents of Tyumen were expelled. By the way, the royal family heard how the Tyumen detachment left Tobolsk with a whistle, a whoop and bells on fifteen troikas.

Then the residents of Tyumen were replaced by the Urals. Two groups of the Ural detachment under the command of Semyon Zaslavsky arrived in Tobolsk on March 28 and April 13. And then, in April 1918, another detachment, led by Busyatsky, arrived from Yekaterinburg.

Do Yekaterinburg residents still have the greatest interest in the royal family?

I spoke about a particularly radical attitude in the leadership of this organization. It was significantly strengthened by the influence of the Left SRs who were part of the Ural Soviet. So here even earlier they began to create combat special groups, which were sent secretly and by different routes to Tobolsk in order to block the routes of a possible royal escape. In the villages, members of these groups pretended to be peddlers to disguise themselves ...

But now the plan in Yekaterinburg has already been developed on a larger scale, and it is aimed directly at Tobolsk. With the task of capturing the Romanovs, for which the sent units were ordered, if necessary, to "open military operations." The question was posed as follows: deliver alive or dead.

That is, the second was not excluded?

That's the point! Not only was it not excluded, but was envisaged - in fact, as the main goal. They knew in Yekaterinburg that Moscow was preparing a trial against the former tsar. However, here it was considered an unnecessary "excess". It is best to capture the royal family in Tobolsk and then "lose" somewhere along the way in the confusion of the Civil War. In fact - to destroy under any pretext.

So, the Yekaterinburg plan essentially opposed Moscow, opposed Lenin?

Certainly. However, in Moscow they did not know the secret plans of the Urals. Numerous signals about the unreliability of the protection of the royal family and the organization of a possible escape forced the Kremlin to react - to decide to transport it from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg.

Why was Yekaterinburg elected?

It was required to deliver the tsar with his family to a point where, firstly, it was possible to provide more reliable protection, and secondly, from where at any time you can quickly bring to Moscow for a trial. Yekaterinburg seemed to fully meet these two requirements.

The Council of People's Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee entrust the delivery of the Romanovs from Tobolsk to their reliable person.

Who was entrusted to lead the reliable guard of the tsar and his loved ones when they moved from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg?

This is Konstantin Alekseevich Myachin, a member of the Bolshevik Party since 1904, organizer of military squads during the first Russian revolution. In October 1917, he became a member of the Military Revolutionary Committee, a delegate to the II Congress of Soviets. He was a member of the board of the Cheka and deputy of Dzerzhinsky immediately after the creation of this organization. His most important characteristic is that he is an extremely courageous and decisive person.

He selects the same for the execution of a responsible assignment to the detachment. About a hundred people whom he personally knew from military operations during the 1905 revolution. Takes only those whom he trusts unconditionally. The detachment has its own telegraph operator. In service with machine guns - as many as nine pieces.

And what is the reaction in Yekaterinburg to this detachment and its mission?

Myachin (at that time he had an underground pseudonym - Yakovlev) went to Tobolsk just through Yekaterinburg. At the station, he meets with local leaders - Goloshchekin and Didkovsky. Shows his credentials. And they are really serious! The leaders of the party and the Soviet state ordered all citizens and organizations to render all possible assistance to Yakovlev under threat of execution on the spot.

In the powers given to him, it was emphasized that the "cargo" (as the Romanovs were called for conspiracy in their correspondence) must be delivered alive. Here is Lenin's categorical instruction!

Of course, the leaders of the Urals could not like it. They sent their detachments to Tobolsk with the opposite task - by all means “liquidate” the Romanovs. And now two tasks collided.

Deliver alive? Or dead? Answers and actions are different

Well, the Myachin-Yakovlev detachment with the task of the center and the detachments sent by the Ural Soviet really collide?

I'll tell you in order. This is downright story for an adventure film. Not invented, but real.

On the way to Tobolsk, myachin first meets Avdeev's Yekaterinburg detachment and subjugates it. The same thing happens with the Busyatsky detachment, which had the task of killing the Romanovs. But with the third, who had the same task, a detachment headed by Semyon Savelyevich Zaslavsky, Myachin does not succeed.

Zaslavsky is a bright personality in his own way. Young, he is only 28 years old, but he has already been convicted twice for revolutionary activities. A locksmith by trade, he served in the Baltic Fleet and graduated from the school of midshipmen. He enjoyed exceptional authority among the workers. I say all this to the fact that both sides in the clash that took place were led by very outstanding people.

How does Myachin work upon arrival in Tobolsk? As far as I understand, he still needs to somehow resolve the issue with the royal guards ...

Well, yes, well done guardsmen of Colonel Kobylinsky. These fellows, however, have long been without money and really want to leave Tobolsk. And Myachin has money, and the train is waiting for him in Tyumen. It is on this basis that Myachin negotiates with Kobylinsky, presenting his high documents. The debt to the security detachment has been paid for several months, relations have been established. The guards agree to the Tsar's move from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg. True, there is a completely natural doubt: will the tsar be harmed when moving, that is, will he be killed on the way?

Myachin finds a way out: he offers to organize joint security. It even plays into his hands: his detachment will be strengthened by front-line soldiers.

And how does the king feel about the move?

Negatively. But more, perhaps, not because he is afraid of a possible disaster. It seems to him that they are taking him to put his signature under the peace treaty of Brest, which he considers shameful and which the allies probably will not recognize without his signature. In addition, at this time the prince is sick, lying in bed.

But Myachin insists on the need to go. And in the end, the decision is jointly made. Nikolai, Alexandra Feodorovna and daughter Maria will go, as well as Doctor Botkin and several servants. The rest with servants and guards remain for the time being (they will be transported to Yekaterinburg later).

And everything that will unfold this time on the road to the capital of the Urals was caused precisely by different tasks that were solved by the Myachin-Yakovlev detachment and the Yekaterinburg detachment of Zaslavsky. The very question is the main one: to deliver it alive or dead?

Where did you go?

First on carts. And he had to hurry: the rivers were about to open up. And when they were just loading, Zaslavsky came up to Myachin and said: they say, don't sit next to Nikolai - we'll finish him on the way. Myachin replies: I have been ordered to deliver the "cargo" alive - and I will deliver it. "Well, look," - something like this, probably, Zaslavsky answered the messenger of Lenin and Sverdlov.

His behavior, of course, did not like very much those who were carrying out the radical task of the Uralsovet?

Still would! He stood across. Zaslavsky lags behind a little with his detachment and gathers a secret meeting: what to do? He himself suggests setting up an ambush near the village of Ivleevo, where Myachin-Yakovlev will arrange the first overnight stay. “Just in case,” as some participants later wrote in their memoirs.

But in reality, everything is much more serious. A soldier from Zaslavsky's detachment, Alexander Nevolin, runs over to Myachin and reports: a secret decision has been made to shoot the royal family and your entire detachment. This fighter is sincerely amazed, shocked. And most of all, probably, the fact that their own will kill their own!

There is something to be amazed at ...

Yes, the Uralsovet decided to kill the extraordinary and plenipotentiary commissar of the Kremlin. He went on to completely destroy the entire Bolshevik detachment (more than a hundred selected comrades!), Representing Moscow, and then betray that some "green" killed them.

This is what the confrontation between the center and the Ural Soviet on the "tsarist question" has reached! The ball cost incredible ingenuity and had to drive the horses literally with all his might to avoid the intended reprisals.

But further - more. After a crazy race along the spring thaw, a quick change of horses, a crossing over unreliable ice (the Tobol River will open from the ice the next day!), They arrive in Tyumen. Here you will board the train. And here Myachin is told in secret: the wreck of this train is being prepared!

It turns out that the Ural Soviet decided to derail the train with the tsar. And after all, not only with the tsar and his family, but again with the entire Bolshevik detachment carrying out Lenin's assignments.

Well, the situation ...

Ball, along with the "cargo" and his fighters, gets on the letter train, but he has already thought out the reciprocal steps. At a time when orders of the chairman of the Uralsovet Beloborodov are going along the entire line to Yekaterinburg to organize a collision with this train and the destruction of Myachin's detachment, who allegedly turned out to be a traitor, he unexpectedly turns the train to Omsk.

I did not know that with him there was an informant from Yekaterinburg - Avdeev, who secretly informs the leadership of the Ural Soviet about the actions and plans of the Kremlin commissar. So, when they approach Omsk, there are already cannons waiting there, an armed screen.

Spirited better than any detective!

It's right. The warned Myachin, leaving the train, still breaks through to Omsk on a detached steam locomotive, where he finds his old friend Kosarev, a classmate at a party school in Capri. Now he is the chairman of the Omsk Soviet. Together they communicate by telegraph with Sverdlov, explaining the situation. And only after the direct intervention of Sverdlov, after the guarantees were given to Myachin (and before him, of course, to Lenin and Sverdlov) that the train would not be touched and it would reach Yekaterinburg, the movement continued.

Have you got there now without incident?

What was waiting?

When we arrived at the station, we saw a raging crowd on the square in front of him. And furious cries were heard that the king would now be torn apart. In short, lynching could have taken place.

How did you manage to avoid it?

There was another train standing under the steam, which Myachin managed to turn between his train and the angry crowd. And then he drives the train to the Yekaterinburg-2 station.

In short, as we see, with very great efforts, decisiveness and amazing ingenuity, the Bolshevik Konstantin Myachin, aka Yakovlev, managed to fulfill the order given to him by Lenin and Sverdlov. Those who were called "cargo" for conspiracy were delivered to their destination safe and sound.

Having made the decision to shoot the royal family and carried it out, the leaders of the Ural Council presented the Kremlin with a fact

It sounds quite convincing that at that time Lenin and Sverdlov had no intention of destroying the royal family. But maybe such intentions came to them later?

It is absolutely possible to say that by July 16, 1918, that is, on the eve of the execution, the trial of Nicholas II is still being prepared in Moscow. There are documents.

The Kremlin considered it necessary to hold a trial against the Romanovs and was against the immediate execution of the tsar. Not to mention his family. There are many confirmations of this. Both Lenin and Sverdlov did their best to restrain the obsession of the leaders of the Ural Soviet in this regard. The most interesting thing is that according to the legislation of that time, the death penalty could not be applied to the former tsar. Extrajudicial reprisals were widely practiced, but the court ruled out such an outcome. The Uralsovet was well aware of this.

Indeed, I would like to call their behavior an obsession ...

Probably, the spirit of the French Revolution with the then execution of the king and queen hovered over the heads of some of the Urals ... I must also note something else: the strong pressure in the Ural Soviet of the Left SRs, who all the time demanded the immediate execution of the Romanovs, accusing the Bolsheviks of liberalism and inconsistency. Say, they hide the tsar from the people's retribution behind the high fences of the Ipatiev house. According to one of the participants in the events, "an attack on the house of a detachment of anarchists was expected, the leader of which shouted to the Bolsheviks in the Soviets:" If you do not destroy Nicholas the Bloody, then we will do it ourselves! "

When today Lenin and Sverdlov are called the initiators of what happened in Yekaterinburg, they simply turn a blind eye to reality. This reprisal was not only unnecessary for them, but, I will say, it is directly “unprofitable”! Indeed, for the living members of the royal family it was possible to bargain for something from the "world bourgeoisie". I have already mentioned a number of great “inconveniences” that the death of the royal family entailed.

But from Yekaterinburg persistently achieved their goal?

When they sought from Moscow, they were refused. Here is an excerpt from the memoirs of an active UralChK activist and a participant in the execution of the royal family Mikhail Medvedev-Kudrin: “A message about a trip to Moscow to Ya.M. Sverdlov was done by Philip Goloshchekin. Goloshchekin failed to obtain sanctions from the All-Russian Central Executive Committee for the execution of the Romanov family. Sverdlov consulted with V.I. Lenin, who spoke in favor of bringing the royal family to Moscow and an open trial of Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra Fedorovna ... "

Everything is clear enough here.

My conclusion is this: the question of the execution on July 17, 1918 of the tsarist family, its confidants and servants was not agreed with either Lenin or Sverdlov. The fact that the decision to shoot Nicholas II was not known to Lenin until July 17 is evidenced, for example, by the fact that, when asked by a Copenhagen newspaper about rumors about the death of the royal family, Lenin replies: “The former Tsar is unharmed. All rumors are just lies of the capitalist press. "

When in June there were rumors about the death of the royal family, Moscow leaders, not trusting the Urals, sent the front commander Reingold Berzin to the Ipatiev house, who was personally convinced that the royal family was alive. The fact that the preparation for the execution of the royal family was not coordinated with the Kremlin is evidenced by the text of the telegram sent to Lenin and Sverdlov. There was no direct connection between Moscow and Yekaterinburg at that time, and the message went through Petrograd. The telegram was forwarded by Zinoviev: “Moscow, the Kremlin, Sverdlov, a copy to Lenin. From Yekaterinburg, the following is transmitted via a direct wire: inform Moscow that the court agreed with Filippov for military reasons does not tolerate delay, we cannot wait. If your opinion is the opposite, please report it now, out of turn. Goloshchekin, Safarov. Talk to Yekaterinburg about this yourself. "

The telegram was received in Moscow at 21 hours 22 minutes. By Moscow time. It took some time for the telegram to reach the addressees. Moreover, one must take into account: the telegraph was then not in the Kremlin, but on Myasnitskaya. Let's not forget the time difference - it is two hours, that is, at the time of the receipt of the telegram in Yekaterinburg it was 23 hours 22 minutes. At this time, the Romanovs were already offered to go down to the execution room. We do not know whether Lenin and Sverdlov got acquainted with the telegram before the first shots were heard, but we know that the telegram did not say anything about the family and servants, so it is at least unfair to accuse the Kremlin leaders of killing children.

Maybe someone will say: the correspondence is just a "smoke screen", and Lenin and Sverdlov at that moment deliberately concealed the Kremlin's decision to shoot the entire royal family.

No, this is not an initiative of the Kremlin. Lenin himself, in a sense, became a hostage to the radicalism and obsession of the leaders of the Ural Soviet. I think the Urals understood that the shooting of the royal family could give the Germans a reason to continue the war, for new seizures and indemnities. But we went for it! A day after the news of the shooting, the secretary of the Council of People's Commissars Gorbunov receives a telegram from Beloborodov from Yekaterinburg. I will quote literally, keeping the spelling: "Tell Sverdlov that the whole family has suffered the same fate as the head of the Official family will die during evacuation." About how this telegram was sent, there are interesting recollections of the mentioned member of the board of the UralChK Medvedev-Kudrin: “Alexander (chairman of the Uralsovet Beloborodov) feared that V.I. Lenin will bring him to justice for arbitrariness with the execution of the Romanovs without the sanction of the Central Executive Committee. " I imagine the leaders of the Urals, like naughty cats, were waiting for what awaited them for a cruel execution. And what was the Kremlin leadership to do? To make public the "feat" of the Urals - the murder of the German princesses and find ourselves between a rock and a hard place - between the White Guards and the Germans? Information about the death of the entire royal family and servants was hidden for years.

Is there a version of accidental death among the leaders of the Uralsovet again?

Yes. It is known that during the family's stay in the Ipatiev House, a correspondence between Nicholas II is organized, allegedly with some monarchist officer preparing to arrange their escape. Letters were written in French, passed through the nuns in corks of bottles of milk. Local chekists have come up with an imaginary conspiracy. And the goal is one: to lure the king, the family and kill everyone, allegedly while trying to escape. Appropriate motivation. Nikolay, however, in the end refused, fearing victims in a possible shootout ...

Well, the center from Yekaterinburg all the time continued to escalate the danger of a conspiracy around the tsar and a possible escape. Moreover, the situation had worsened by July: the White Czech uprising, the offensive of the White Guard troops on Yekaterinburg.

In a word, the Kremlin was presented with a fact. Except, as they say, an extra headache, the center did not receive anything from the Ural comrades in this case.

Were there any unexpected complications?

For example, already in September, the Soviet ambassador to Germany Joffe was negotiating with the Germans in Bern, Switzerland, including the transfer of German princesses to them, that is, the daughters of Nicholas II. He does not know that they have been dead for a long time ...

Absolutely indifferent, as abroad. There were no monarchist speeches or demonstrations. The only vivid speech with condemnation is the word uttered in the Kazan Cathedral by Patriarch Tikhon on July 21, 1918. But there was no noticeable reaction to this word.

Is there at least some indirect documentary evidence, so to speak, incriminating Lenin and Sverdlov in organizing the execution of the former Tsar and his family?

No. One “fact” could be cited, but it, as it turns out, is initially unreliable. While linking to it! We are talking about a much later, 30s, entry in Trotsky's diary. And he writes that after some time, as if he had arrived from the front, he learned about the death of the tsar and the whole family. And he asked Sverdlov: "Who decided?" And he allegedly answered: "Ilyich decided."

But such a conversation after a while could not be! It could not be for the reason that in the minutes of the meeting at which Sverdlov announced the execution of the former tsar, Trotsky's surname appears among those present. Consequently, he later composed that conversation "after his arrival from the front" with Sverdlov about Lenin.

However, I am sure and have already told you about this: Trotsky was already beginning to play his game with might and main, so nothing should be surprised ...

The text of the resolution of the Presidium of the Ural Regional Council of Workers, Peasants and Red Army Deputies, published a week after the execution, said: “In view of the fact that the Czechoslovak gangs threaten the capital of the red Urals, Yekaterinburg; in view of the fact that the crowned executioner can avoid the court of the people (a conspiracy of the White Guards has just been discovered, which had the purpose of kidnapping the entire Romanov family), the Presidium of the regional committee, in pursuance of the will of the people, decided: to shoot former Tsar Nikolai Romanovguilty before the people of countless bloody crimes. "

The civil war was gaining momentum, and Yekaterinburg soon really came under the control of the whites. The resolution did not report on the execution of the entire family, but the members of the Ural Soviet were guided by the formula "You must not leave a banner for them." In the opinion of the revolutionaries, any of the Romanovs freed by the Whites could later be used for a project for the restoration of the monarchy in Russia.

If you look at the issue more broadly, then Nikolai and Alexandra Romanovswere considered by the masses as the main culprits of the troubles that occurred in the country at the beginning of the 20th century - the lost Russian-Japanese war, the "Bloody Resurrection" and the subsequent first Russian revolution, "rasputinism", the First World War, low living standards, etc.

Contemporaries testify that among the workers of Yekaterinburg there were demands for the reprisal of the tsar, caused by rumors about the attempts to escape the Romanov family.

The execution of all the Romanovs, including children, is perceived as a terrible atrocity from the point of view of peacetime. But during the Civil War, both sides fought with increasing brutality, in which more and more often they killed not only ideological opponents, but also their families.

As for the execution of the close ones accompanying the royal family, the members of the Ural Soviet subsequently explained their actions as follows: they decided to share the fate of the Romanovs, so let them share it to the end.

Who made the decision to execute Nikolai Romanov and his family members?

The official decision to shoot Nicholas II and his relatives was made on July 16, 1918 by the Presidium of the Ural Regional Council of Workers, Peasants and Soldiers' Deputies.

This council was not exclusively Bolshevik and also consisted of anarchists and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, who were even more radical towards the family of the last emperor.

It is known that the top leadership of the Bolsheviks in Moscow considered the issue of holding the trial of Nikolai Romanov in Moscow. However, the situation in the country became sharply complicated, the Civil War began and the issue was postponed. The question of what to do with the rest of the family was not even discussed.

In the spring of 1918, rumors about the death of the Romanovs arose several times, but the Bolshevik government denied them. Lenin's directive, sent to Yekaterinburg, demanded the prevention of "any violence" against the royal family.

Top Soviet leadership represented by Vladimir Leninand Yakov Sverdlova was presented by the Ural comrades with a fact - the Romanovs were executed. During the Civil War, control over the regions by the center was often formal.

To date, there is no real evidence to assert that the government of the RSFSR in Moscow gave the order to shoot Nikolai Romanov and his family members.

Why were the children of the last emperor executed?

In the conditions of an acute political crisis, the Civil War, the four daughters and the son of Nikolai Romanov were viewed not as ordinary children, but as figures with whose help the monarchy could be revived.

Based on the known facts, we can say that such a view was not close to the Bolshevik government in Moscow, but the revolutionaries in the localities reasoned that way. Therefore, the children of the Romanovs shared the fate of their parents.

At the same time, it cannot be said that the execution of the royal children is a cruelty that has no analogues in history.

After being elected to the Russian throne the ancestor of the Romanov dynasty Mikhail Fedorovich, in Moscow, a 3-year-old was hanged at the Serpukhov Gate Ivashka Vorenok, aka Tsarevich Ivan Dmitrievich, son of Marina Mnishek and False Dmitry II... The entire fault of the unfortunate child was that the opponents of Mikhail Romanov viewed Ivan Dmitrievich as a contender for the throne. Supporters of the new dynasty removed the problem radically by strangling the baby.

At the end of 1741, as a result of a coup, she ascended to the Russian throne Elizaveta Petrovna, daughter Peter the Great... At the same time, she overthrew John VI, the infant emperor, who at the time of the overthrow was not even one and a half years old. The child was subjected to strict isolation, forbidden to portray him and even to pronounce his name in public. Having spent his childhood in exile in Kholmogory, at the age of 16 he was imprisoned in solitary confinement in the Shlisselburg fortress. After spending his entire life in captivity, the former emperor at the age of 23 was stabbed to death by guards during an unsuccessful attempt to free him.

Is it true that the murder of Nikolai Romanov's family was of a ritual nature?

All the investigative teams that have ever worked on the case of the execution of the Romanov family came to the conclusion that it was not of a ritual nature. Information about certain signs and inscriptions at the place of execution that have a symbolic meaning is a product of myth-making. This version was most widespread thanks to the book of the Nazi Helmut Schramm "Ritual murder among the Jews." Schramm himself entered it into the book at the suggestion of Russian emigrants Mikhail Skaryatin and Grigory Schwartz-Bostunich... The latter not only collaborated with the Nazis, but made a brilliant career in the Third Reich, rising to the rank of SS Standartenfuehrer.

Is it true that some members of the family of Nicholas II escaped execution?

Today it can be confidently asserted that both Nikolai and Alexandra, and all their five children, died in Yekaterinburg. In general, the vast majority of members of the Romanov clan either died during the revolution and the Civil War, or left the country. The rarest exception is the great-great-granddaughter of Emperor Nicholas I, Natalia Androsova, who in the USSR became a circus artist and master of sports in motorcycle racing.

To a certain extent, the members of the Ural Council achieved the goal they were striving for - the ground for the revival of the institution of monarchy in the country was completely and irrevocably destroyed.