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 limit three streets bearing the names of revolutionaries. Let's head towards it.
On the way - a monument to the Saints Peter and Fevronia of Murom. Installed in 2012.
Church on the Blood was built in 2000-2003. at the place where on the night of July 16 to July 17, 1918, the last Russian emperor Nicholas II and his family were shot. 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. At 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 located outside the church in the area of the carriageway of Karl Liebknecht Street.
The temple is a five-domed structure with a height of 60 meters and a total area of 3000 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 him 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 of 1935. Built for railroad workers. Very 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, the building has number 30.
Well, now we go to the Gazprom tower - an interesting street begins from there.
The main condition for the existence of immortality is death itself.
Stanislav Jerzy Lec
The execution of the royal family of the Romanovs on the night of July 17, 1918 is one of the most important events of the era of the civil war, the formation of Soviet power, as well as the exit of Russia from the First World War. The murder of Nicholas II and his family was largely predetermined by the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks. But in this story, not everything is as unambiguous as it is customary to say about it. In this article I will present all the facts that are known in this case in order to assess the events of those days.
Background of events
To begin with, Nicholas II was not the last Russian emperor, as many believe today. He abdicated the throne (for himself and for his son Alexei) in favor of his brother, Mikhail Romanov. So he is the last emperor. It is important to remember this, later we will return to this fact. Also, in most textbooks, the execution of the royal family is equated with the murder of the family of Nicholas 2. But these were not all Romanovs. To understand how many people we are talking about, I will give only data on the last Russian emperors:
- Nikolay 1 - 4 sons and 4 daughters.
- Alexander 2 - 6 sons and 2 daughters.
- Alexander 3 - 4 sons and 2 daughters.
- Nikolai 2 - son and 4 daughters.
That is, the family is very large, and any of the list above is a direct descendant of the imperial branch, which means a direct contender for the throne. But most of them also had their own children ...
Arrest of members of the royal family
Nicholas II, having abdicated the throne, put forward rather simple requirements, the fulfillment of which was guaranteed by the Provisional Government. The requirements were as follows:
- Safe transfer of the emperor to Tsarskoe Selo to his family, where at that time Tsarevich Alexei was present.
- The safety of the whole family at the time of stay in Tsarskoye Selo until the full recovery of Tsarevich Alexei.
- Safety of the road to the northern ports of Russia, from where Nicholas II and his family must cross to England.
- After the end of the Civil War, the royal family will return to Russia and live in Livadia (Crimea).
It is important to understand these points in order to see the intentions of Nicholas II and the Bolsheviks in the future. The emperor abdicated the throne so that the current government would provide him with a safe exit to England.
What is the role of the British government?
The Provisional Government of Russia, after receiving the demands of Nicholas II, turned to England with the question of the latter's consent to host the Russian monarch. A positive response was received. But here it is important to understand that the request itself was a formality. The fact is that at that time there was an investigation into the royal family, for the period of which it was impossible to leave Russia. Therefore, England, giving consent, did not risk anything at all. Another thing is much more interesting. After the complete acquittal of Nicholas II, the Provisional Government again makes a request to England, but this time more specific. This time, the question was no longer abstract, but concrete, because everything was ready for the move to the island. But then England refused.
Therefore, when today Western countries and people shouting at every corner about the innocent murdered talk about the shooting of Nicholas II, this only evokes a reaction of disgust at their hypocrisy. One word from the British government that they agree to accept Nicholas II with his family, and in principle there would be no execution. But they refused ...
In the photo on the left is Nicholas 2, on the right is George 4, King of England. They were distant relatives and had obvious similarities in appearance.
When was the royal family of the Romanovs executed?
The murder of Mikhail
After the October Revolution, Mikhail Romanov asked the Bolsheviks to stay in Russia as an ordinary citizen. This request was granted. But the last Russian emperor was not destined to live “in peace” for long. Already in March 1918 he was arrested. There is no reason for the arrest. Until now, no historian has been able to find a single historical document explaining the reason for the arrest of Mikhail Romanov.
After his arrest, on March 17 he was sent to Perm, where he lived for several months in a hotel. On the night of July 13, 1918, he was taken away from the hotel and shot. This was the first victim of the Romanov family by the Bolsheviks. The official reaction of the USSR to this event was ambivalent:
- For his citizens, it was announced that Mikhail disgracefully fled from Russia abroad. Thus, the authorities got rid of unnecessary questions, and, most importantly, received a legitimate reason to toughen the maintenance of the rest of the royal family.
- For foreign states, through the media, it was announced that Mikhail was missing. They say he went for a walk at night on July 13 and did not return.
The shooting of Nikolai's family 2
The background here is very curious. Immediately after the October Revolution, the imperial Romanov family was arrested. The investigation carried out did not reveal the guilt of Nicholas II, so the charges were dropped. At the same time, it was impossible to let the family go to England (the British refused), and the Bolsheviks really didn’t want to send them to the Crimea, because there were “whites” very close. And throughout almost the entire Civil War, the Crimea was under the control of the white movement, and all the Romanovs who were on the peninsula were saved by moving to Europe. Therefore, it was decided to send them to Tobolsk. The fact of the secrecy of sending is also noted in his diaries by Nicholas 2, who writes that they were being taken to ONE from cities in the interior of the country.
Until March, the royal family lived in Tobolsk relatively calmly, but on March 24 an investigator arrived here, and on March 26 a reinforced detachment of Red Army soldiers. In fact, from this time, increased security measures began. The basis is the imaginary flight of Michael.
Later the family was transported to Yekaterinburg, where she settled in the Ipatiev house. On the night of July 17, 1918, the royal Romanov family was shot. Together with them, their servants were shot. In total that day died:
- Nikolay 2,
- His wife, Alexandra
- The emperor's children are Tsarevich Alexei, Maria, Tatiana and Anastasia.
- Family doctor - Botkin
- Maid - Demidova
- Personal chef - Kharitonov
- Lackey - Troupe.
In total, 10 people were shot. The corpses, according to the official version, were dumped into the mine and filled with acid.
Who killed the family of Nicholas 2?
I have already said above that since March, the protection of the royal family has been significantly increased. After moving to Yekaterinburg, this was already a full-fledged arrest. The family was settled in the house of Ipatiev, and a guard was presented to them, the head of the garrison of which was Avdeev. On July 4, almost the entire composition of the guard was replaced, as was its chief. In the future, it was these people who were accused of the murder of the royal family:
- Yakov Yurovsky. Supervised the execution.
- Grigory Nikulin. Assistant to Yurovsky.
- Peter Ermakov. Chief of the Emperor's Guard.
- Mikhail Medvedev-Kudrin. The representative of the Cheka.
These are the main persons, but there were also ordinary performers. It is noteworthy that they all significantly survived this event. Most later took part in the Second World War, received a pension from the USSR.
Massacre of the rest of the family
Since March 1918, other members of the royal family have been gathering in Alapaevsk (Perm province). In particular, Princess Elizabeth Feodorovna, princes John, Konstantin and Igor, as well as Vladimir Paley find themselves in captivity here. The latter was the grandson of Alexander II, but had a different surname. Subsequently, all of them were transported to Vologda, where on July 19, 1918, they were thrown alive into a mine.
The latest events in the destruction of the Romanov dynastic family date back to January 19, 1919, when princes Nikolai and Georgy Mikhailovich, Pavel Alexandrovich and Dmitry Konstantinovich were shot in the Peter and Paul Fortress.
Reaction to the assassination of the Romanov imperial family
The murder of the family of Nicholas II had the greatest resonance, so it needs to be studied. There are many sources indicating that when Lenin was informed about the murder of Nicholas 2, he did not even seem to react to it. It is impossible to verify such judgments, but you can refer to archival documents. In particular, we are interested in Protocol No. 159 of the meeting of the Council of People's Commissars dated July 18, 1918. The protocol is very short. We heard the question of the murder of Nicholas 2. Decided - take note. That's right, just take note. There are no other documents regarding this case! This is completely absurd. It is the 20th century, but not a single document regarding such an important historical event has been preserved, except for one note "Take note" ...
However, the based response to the murder is an investigation. They started
Investigations into the murder of Nikolai's family 2
The leadership of the Bolsheviks, as expected, began an investigation into the murder of the family. The official investigation began on 21 July. She carried out the investigation quickly enough, since Kolchak's troops were approaching Yekaterinburg. The main conclusion of this official investigation is that there was no murder. Only Nicholas II was shot on the verdict of the Yekaterinburg Soviet. But there are a number of very weak points that still cast doubt on the veracity of the investigation:
- The investigation began a week later. In Russia, the former emperor is being killed, and the government reacts to it a week later! Why was this week of pause?
- Why investigate if there was an execution by order of the Soviets? In this case, on July 17, the Bolsheviks had to report that “the execution of the royal family of the Romanovs took place on the orders of the Yekaterinburg Soviet. Nikolai 2 was shot, but his family was not touched. "
- There are no supporting documents. Even today, all references to the decision of the Yekaterinburg Council are oral. Even in Stalin's times, when they were shot by millions, there were documents, they say, "by the decision of the troika and so on" ...
In the 20th of July 1918, Kolchak's army entered Yekaterinburg, and one of the first orders was to start an investigation of the tragedy. Today everyone is talking about investigator Sokolov, but before him there were 2 more investigators with the names Nametkin and Sergeev. Nobody has officially seen their reports. And Sokolov's report was published only in 1924. According to the investigator, the entire royal family was shot. By this time (back in 1921), the same data was announced by the Soviet leadership.
The sequence of the destruction of the Romanov dynasty
In the story of the execution of the royal family, it is very important to observe the chronology, otherwise it is very easy to get confused. And the chronology here is as follows - the dynasty was destroyed in the order of the applicants for the succession to the throne.
Who was the first contender for the throne? That's right, Mikhail Romanov. I remind you once again - back in 1917, Nicholas II abdicated the throne for himself and for his son in favor of Mikhail. Therefore, he was the last emperor, and he was the first contender for the throne, if the Empire was restored. Mikhail Romanov was killed on July 13, 1918.
Who was next in the line of inheritance? Nicholas 2 and his son, Tsarevich Alexei. The candidacy of Nicholas II is controversial here, in the end he renounced power on his own. Although in his regard, everyone could have played the other way, because in those days, almost all laws were violated. But Tsarevich Alexei was an unambiguous contender. The father had no legal right to relinquish the throne for his son. As a result, the entire family of Nicholas II was shot on July 17, 1918.
Further in line were all the other princes, of whom there were quite a few. Most of them were collected in Alapaevsk and killed on July 9, 1918. As they say, rate the speed: 13, 17, 19. If we were talking about random murders that are not related to each other, then there would be no such similarity. In less than 1 week, almost all pretenders to the throne were killed, and in order of inheritance, but history today considers these events divorced from each other, and absolutely not paying attention to controversial places.
Alternative versions of the tragedy
A key alternative version of this historical event is set forth in the book Murder That Didn't Happen by Tom Mangold and Anthony Summers. It hypothesizes that there was no execution. In general terms, the situation is as follows ...
- The reasons for the events of those days should be sought in the Brest Peace Treaty of Russia and Germany. The argument is that despite the fact that the secrecy label has long been removed from the documents (it was 60 years old, that is, in 1978 it should have been published) there is not a single complete version of this document. An indirect confirmation of this - the "executions" began precisely after the signing of the peace treaty.
- It is a well-known fact that the wife of Nicholas 2, Alexandra, was a relative of the German Kaiser Wilhelm 2. It is assumed that Wilhelm 2 introduced a clause in the Brest Peace, according to which Russia undertakes to ensure safe travel to Germany for Alexandra and her daughters.
- As a result, the Bolsheviks extradited women to Germany, and left Nicholas II and his son Alexei hostage. Subsequently, Tsarevich Alexei grew up in Alexei Kosygin.
Stalin gave a new round to this version. It is a well-known fact that one of his favorites was Alexei Kosygin. There is no great reason to believe this theory, but there is one detail. It is known that Stalin always referred to Kosygin as "tsarevich".
Canonization of the royal family
In 1981, the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad canonized Nicholas II and his family as great martyrs. In 2000, this happened in Russia as well. Today Nicholas II and his family are great martyrs and innocent victims, therefore they are saints.
A few words about the Ipatiev house
The Ipatiev house is the place where the family of Nicholas 2 was imprisoned. There is a very reasoned hypothesis that it was possible to escape from this house. Moreover, in contrast to the unfounded alternative version, there is one essential fact. So, the general version is that there was an underground passage from the basement of the Ipatiev house, which no one knew about, and which led to a factory located nearby. Proof of this has already been provided in our day. Boris Yeltsin gave the order to demolish the house and build a church in its place. This was done, but one of the bulldozers fell into this very underground passage during the work. There is no other evidence of the possible escape of the royal family, but the fact itself is curious. At the very least, leaving room for thought.
To date, the house has been demolished, and the Temple on Blood was not erected in its place.
Summarizing
In 2008, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation recognized the family of Nikolai 2 as a victim of repression. Case is closed.
Exactly 100 years ago, on July 17, 1918, the Chekists shot the royal family in Yekaterinburg. The remains were found more than 50 years later. Many rumors and myths revolve around the execution. At the request of her colleagues from Meduza, journalist and associate professor of the RANEPA Ksenia Luchenko, author of numerous publications on this topic, answered key questions about the murder and burial of the Romanovs.
How many people were shot?
The royal family with their entourage was shot in Yekaterinburg on the night of July 17, 1918. In total, 11 people were killed - Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Empress Alexandra Fedorovna, their four daughters - Anastasia, Olga, Maria and Tatiana, Alexei's son, the doctor of the Yevgeny Botkin family, cook Ivan Kharitonov and two servants - the valet Aloisy Trupp and the maid Anna Demidova.
The execution order has not yet been found. Historians found a telegram from Yekaterinburg, in which it is written that the tsar was shot because of the approach of the enemy to the city and the disclosure of the White Guard conspiracy. The decision on the execution was taken by the local authority Uralsovet. However, historians believe that the order was given by the party leadership, not the Uralsovet. The commandant of the Ipatiev House, Yakov Yurovsky, was appointed the main person of the execution.
Is it true that some members of the royal family did not die immediately?
Yes, if you believe the testimony of witnesses to the execution, Tsarevich Alexei survived after a burst of automatic weapons. Yakov Yurovsky shot him with a revolver. This was told by the guard Pavel Medvedev. He wrote that Yurovsky sent him out into the street to check if the shots were heard. When he returned, the whole room was covered in blood, and Tsarevich Alexei was still moaning.
Photo: Grand Duchess Olga and Tsarevich Alexei on the ship "Rus" on the way from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg. May 1918, last known photograph Yurovsky himself wrote that it was necessary to "finish shooting" not only Alexei, but also his three sisters, the "maid of honor" (Demidov's maid) and Dr. Botkin. There is also the testimony of another eyewitness - Alexander Strekotin.
“The arrested persons were already lying on the floor, bleeding, and the heir was still sitting on the chair. For some reason he did not fall from the chair for a long time and remained alive. "
They say that the bullets bounced off the diamonds on the princesses' belts. This is true?
Yurovsky wrote in his note that the bullets bounced off something with a ricochet and jumped around the room like hailstones. Immediately after the execution, the Chekists tried to appropriate the property of the royal family, but Yurovsky threatened them with death so that they would return the stolen goods. Jewelry was also found in Ganina Yama, where Yurovsky's team burned the personal belongings of those killed (the inventory includes diamonds, platinum earrings, thirteen large pearls, and so on).
Is it true that their animals were killed along with the royal family?
Photo: Grand Duchess Maria, Olga, Anastasia and Tatiana in Tsarskoe Selo, where they were detained. Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Jemmy and French Bulldog Ortino are with them. Spring 1917 The royal children had three dogs. After the night of the shooting, only one survived - the spaniel of Tsarevich Alexei, nicknamed Joy. He was taken to England, where he died of old age in the palace of King George, a cousin of Nicholas II. A year after the shooting, the body of a dog was found at the bottom of a mine in Ganina Yama, which was well preserved in the cold. Her right leg was broken and her head was punctured. The English teacher of the royal children, Charles Gibbs, who helped Nikolai Sokolov in the investigation, identified her as Jemmy, the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel of the Grand Duchess Anastasia. The third dog, the French bulldog Tatiana, was also found dead.
How was the remains of the royal family found?
After the execution, Yekaterinburg was occupied by the army of Alexander Kolchak. He ordered to start an investigation into the murder and find the remains of the royal family. Investigator Nikolai Sokolov studied the area, found fragments of burnt clothes of members of the royal family and even described a "bridge made of sleepers", under which a burial was found several decades later, but came to the conclusion that the remains were completely destroyed in Ganina Yama.
The remains of the royal family were found only in the late 1970s. Screenwriter Geliy Ryabov was obsessed with the idea of finding the remains, and in this he was helped by the poem "The Emperor" by Vladimir Mayakovsky. Thanks to the poet's lines, Ryabov got an idea of the tsar's burial place, which the Bolsheviks showed to Mayakovsky. Ryabov often wrote about the exploits of the Soviet militia, so he had access to classified documents of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Photo: Photo 70. Opened mine at the time of its development. Yekaterinburg, spring 1919 In 1976, Ryabov came to Sverdlovsk, where he met the local historian and geologist Alexander Avdonin. It is clear that even the scriptwriters treated kindly by the ministers in those years could not openly search for the remains of the royal family. Therefore, Ryabov, Avdonin and their assistants secretly searched for burial for several years.
The son of Yakov Yurovsky gave Ryabov a "note" from his father, where he described not only the murder of the royal family, but also the subsequent throwing of the Chekists in attempts to hide the bodies. The description of the final burial site under the flooring of sleepers near the truck stuck in the road coincided with Mayakovsky's "instructions" about the road. It was the old Koptyakovskaya road, and the place itself was called Porosenkov Log. Ryabov and Avdonin with probes explored the space, which they outlined by comparing maps and different documents.
In the summer of 1979, they found a burial and opened it for the first time, taking out three skulls. They realized that it would not be possible to carry out any examinations in Moscow, and it was dangerous to keep the skulls, so the researchers put them in a box and returned them back to the grave a year later. They kept a secret until 1989. And in 1991, the remains of nine people were officially found. Two more badly burnt bodies (by that time it was already clear that these were the remains of Tsarevich Alexei and Grand Duchess Mary) were found in 2007 a little further away.
Is it true that the murder of the royal family is ritual?
There is a typical anti-Semitic myth that Jews supposedly kill people for ritual purposes. And the execution of the royal family also has its own "ritual" version.
Having found themselves in exile in the 1920s, three participants in the first investigation into the murder of the royal family - investigator Nikolai Sokolov, journalist Robert Wilton and General Mikhail Dieterichs - wrote books about this.
Sokolov quotes the inscription he saw on the wall in the basement of the Ipatiev house, where the murder took place: “Belsazar ward in selbiger Nacht Von seinen Knechten umgebracht”. This is a quote from Heinrich Heine and translates as "That very night Belshazzar was killed by his servants." He also mentions that he saw in the same place a certain "designation of four characters." Wilton in his book concludes that the signs were "kabbalistic", adds that there were Jews among the members of the firing squad (out of those who directly participated in the execution, only one Jew was Yakov Yurovsky, and he was baptized into Lutheranism) and comes to the version of the ritual the murder of the royal family. Dieterichs also adheres to the anti-Semitic version.
Wilton also writes that during the investigation, Dieterichs assumed that the heads of those killed were cut off and taken to Moscow as trophies. Most likely, this assumption was born in attempts to prove that the bodies were burned in Ganina Yama: teeth were not found in the fire, which should have remained after the burning, therefore, there were no heads in it.
The version of ritual murder circulated in emigrant monarchist circles. The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia canonized the royal family in 1981 - almost 20 years earlier than the Russian Orthodox Church, so many of the myths that the cult of the martyr tsar managed to acquire in Europe were exported to Russia.
In 1998, the patriarchate asked the investigation ten questions, which were fully answered by Vladimir Soloviev, the senior prosecutor-criminalist of the Main Investigation Department of the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation, who led the investigation. Question # 9 was about the ritual nature of the murder, question # 10 was about the severing of the heads. Soloviev replied that in Russian legal practice there are no criteria for "ritual murder", but "the circumstances of the death of the family indicate that the actions of persons involved in the direct execution of the sentence (choice of the place of execution, command, murder weapon, burial place, manipulation of corpses) , were determined by random circumstances. People of various nationalities (Russians, Jews, Magyars, Latvians and others) took part in these actions. The so-called "Kabbalistic writings have no analogues in the world, and their writing is interpreted arbitrarily, and essential details are discarded." All the skulls of those killed are intact and relatively intact, additional anthropological studies have confirmed the presence of all cervical vertebrae and their correspondence to each of the skulls and bones of the skeleton.
Agree: it would be stupid to shoot the tsar, without first knocking out his honestly earned money from his boxes. So they didn't shoot him. The money, however, was not immediately received, because it was too stormy time ...
Regularly, by the middle of the summer of each year, loud crying resumes for Tsar Nicholas II, who was killed for nothing, whom Christians also “canonized” in 2000. Here is Comrade. On the 17th of July, the old men once again threw the "firewood" into the furnace of emotional lamentations about nothing. I had not been interested in this issue before, and would not have paid attention to another empty shell, BUT ... At the last meeting with readers in his life, Academician Nikolai Levashov just mentioned that in the 30s Stalin met with Nicholas II and asked him money to prepare for a future war. This is how Nikolai Goryushin writes about it in his reportage "There are prophets in our country too!" about this meeting with readers:
“... In this regard, the information related to the tragic fate of the last Emperor of the Russian Empire, Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov and his family, turned out to be amazing ... In August 1917, he and his family were exiled to the last capital of the Slavic-Aryan Empire, the city of Tobolsk. The choice of this city was not accidental, since the highest degrees of Freemasonry are aware of the great past of the Russian people. The link to Tobolsk was a kind of mockery of the Romanov dynasty, which in 1775 defeated the troops of the Slavic-Aryan Empire (Great Tartary), and later this event was called the suppression of the peasant revolt of Yemelyan Pugachev ... In July 1918, Jacob Schiff gives the command to one of his confidants persons in the leadership of the Bolsheviks to Yakov Sverdlov for the ritual murder of the royal family. Sverdlov, after consulting with Lenin, orders the commandant of the Ipatiev house, the Chekist Yakov Yurovsky, to carry out the plan. According to the official history, on the night of July 16-17, 1918, Nikolai Romanov, along with his wife and children, was shot.
At the meeting, Nikolai Levashov said that in fact, Nikolai II and his family were not shot! This statement immediately raises many questions. I decided to sort them out. Many works have been written on this topic, and the picture of the execution, the testimony of witnesses look plausible at first glance. The logical chain does not fit the facts obtained by the investigator A.F. Kirstoy, who joined the investigation in August 1918. During the investigation, he interviewed Dr. P.I. Utkin, who said that at the end of October 1918 he was invited to the building occupied by the Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution to provide medical assistance. The victim was a young girl, presumably 22 years old, with a split lip and a swelling under her eye. To the question "who is she?" the girl replied that she was "the daughter of the Emperor Anastasia." During the investigation, investigator Kirsta did not find the bodies of the royal family in Ganina's pit. Soon, Kirsta found numerous witnesses who told him during interrogations that in September 1918 the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and the Grand Duchesses were being held in Perm. And witness Samoilov said from the words of his neighbor, the guard of the Ipatiev house Varakushev, that there was no execution, the royal family was loaded into a carriage and taken away.
After receiving these data, A.F. Kirst is removed from the case and ordered to hand over all the materials to investigator A.S. Sokolov. Nikolai Levashov said that the motive for saving the life of the Tsar and his family was the desire of the Bolsheviks, contrary to the orders of their masters, to take possession of the hidden riches of the Romanov dynasty, the location of which Nikolai Alexandrovich certainly knew. Soon the organizers of the execution in 1919, Sverdlov, in 1924, Lenin, die. Nikolai Viktorovich clarified that Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov communicated with I.V. Stalin, and the wealth of the Russian Empire was used to strengthen the power of the USSR ... "
If this were Comrade's first lie. Starikov, one might well think that a person knows a little so far and is simply mistaken. But Starikov is the author of several very good books and is very knowledgeable about the recent history of Russia. Hence the obvious conclusion that he is being cunning on purpose. I will not write about the reasons for this lie, although they lie right on the surface ... I would rather give some more evidence that the royal family was not shot in July 1918, and the rumor about the shooting was most likely allowed for a "report." before the customers - Schiff and other comrades who financed the coup d'etat in Russia in 1917 ...
Nicholas II met with Stalin?
There are suggestions that Nicholas II was not shot, and the entire female half of the royal family was taken to Germany. But the documents are still classified ...
For me, this story began in November 1983. I was then working as a photojournalist for a French agency and was sent to a summit of heads of state and government in Venice. There I accidentally met an Italian colleague who, upon learning that I was Russian, showed me a newspaper (I think it was La Repubblica) dated the day of our meeting. In the article to which the Italian drew my attention, it was said that in Rome, at a very old age, a certain nun, Pascalina's sister, had died. Later, I learned that this woman held an important position in the Vatican hierarchy under Pope Pius XII (1939-1958), but that is not the point.
The secret of the "iron lady" of the Vatican
This sister of Pascalina, who earned the honorary nickname "Iron Lady" of the Vatican, before her death called a notary with two witnesses and in their presence dictated information that she did not want to take with her to the grave: one of the daughters of the last Russian Tsar Nicholas II - Olga - was not shot by the Bolsheviks on the night of July 16-17, 1918, and lived a long life and was buried in the cemetery in the village of Marcotte in northern Italy.
After the summit, my Italian friend, who was my driver and translator, went to this village. We found a cemetery and this grave. On the slab it was written in German: "Olga Nikolaevna, the eldest daughter of the Russian Tsar Nikolai Romanov" - and the dates of life: "1895-1976". We talked with the cemetery watchman and his wife: they, like all the villagers, remembered Olga Nikolaevna very well, knew who she was, and were sure that the Russian Grand Duchess was under the protection of the Vatican.
This strange find interested me extremely, and I decided to figure out all the circumstances of the execution myself. And in general, was he?
I have every reason to believe that there was no execution. On the night of July 16-17, all the Bolsheviks and their sympathizers left by rail to Perm. The next morning in Yekaterinburg, leaflets were pasted up with the message that the royal family had been taken away from the city - and so it was. Soon the city was occupied by whites. Naturally, a commission of inquiry was formed "on the case of the disappearance of Tsar Nicholas II, the Empress, the Tsarevich and the Grand Duchesses," which did not find any convincing traces of the execution.
In 1919, investigator Sergeev said in an interview with an American newspaper: “I don’t think that everyone was executed here - both the tsar and his family. In my opinion, the Empress, the Tsarevich and the Grand Duchesses were not executed in the Ipatiev house. " Such a conclusion did not suit Admiral Kolchak, who by that time had already proclaimed himself "the supreme ruler of Russia." Indeed, why does the "supreme" need some kind of emperor? Kolchak ordered to assemble a second investigation team, which got to the bottom of the fact that in September 1918 the empress and the grand duchesses were kept in Perm. Only the third investigator, Nikolai Sokolov (conducted the case from February to May 1919), turned out to be clearer and issued the well-known conclusion that the whole family was shot, the corpses were dismembered and burned at the stake. "The units that did not succumb to the action of fire," wrote Sokolov, "were destroyed with the help of sulfuric acid."
What, then, was buried in 1998 in the Peter and Paul Cathedral? Let me remind you that soon after the start of perestroika, some skeletons were found on Porosyonkovy Log near Yekaterinburg. In 1998, in the ancestral tomb of the Romanovs, they were solemnly reburied, before that they had carried out numerous genetic examinations. Moreover, the guarantor of the authenticity of the royal remains was the secular power of Russia in the person of President Boris Yeltsin. But the Russian Orthodox Church refused to recognize the bones as the remains of the royal family.
But back to the time of the Civil War. According to my information, the royal family was divided into Perm. The path of the female part lay in Germany, while the men - Nikolai Romanov himself and Tsarevich Alexei - were left in Russia. Father and son were kept for a long time near Serpukhov at the former dacha of the merchant Konshin. Later, in the reports of the NKVD, this place was known as "Object No. 17". Most likely, the prince died in 1920 from hemophilia. I cannot say anything about the fate of the last Russian emperor. Except for one thing: in the 30s "Object No. 17" was visited by Stalin twice. Does this mean that in those years Nicholas II was still alive?
The men were left hostage
To understand why such incredible events from the point of view of a person of the XXI century became possible and to find out who needed them, you will have to return to 1918. Remember from the school history course about the Brest Peace? Yes, on March 3, in Brest-Litovsk, a peace treaty was concluded between Soviet Russia on the one hand and Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey on the other. Russia lost Poland, Finland, the Baltic states and part of Belarus. But it was not because of this that Lenin called the Brest Peace "humiliating" and "obscene". By the way, the full text of the treaty has not yet been published either in the East or in the West. I believe it is because of the secret conditions it has. Probably, the Kaiser, who was a relative of Empress Maria Feodorovna, demanded that all the women of the royal family be transferred to Germany. The girls did not have the right to the Russian throne and, therefore, could not threaten the Bolsheviks in any way. The men remained hostage - as guarantors of the fact that the German army would not thrust further east than it was prescribed in the peace treaty.
What happened next? What was the fate of the women exported to the West? Was their silence a prerequisite for their immunity? Unfortunately, I have more questions than answers.
Interview with Vladimir Sychev on the Romanov case
In June 1987, I was in Venice with the French press accompanying François Mitterrand at the G7 summit. During the breaks between the pools, an Italian journalist approached me and asked me something in French. Realizing from my accent that I was not French, he glanced at my French accreditation and asked where I was from. “Russian,” I replied. - How is it? - my interlocutor was surprised. He held an Italian newspaper under his arm, from which he translated a huge, half-page article.
Pascalina's sister dies in a private clinic in Switzerland. She was known throughout the Catholic world, because was held with the future Pope Pius XXII from 1917, when he was still Cardinal Pacelli in Munich (Bavaria), until his death in the Vatican in 1958. She had such a strong influence on him that he entrusted the entire administration of the Vatican to her, and when the cardinals asked for an audience with the Pope, she decided who was worthy of such an audience and who was not. This is a short retelling of a long article, the meaning of which was that the phrase uttered at the end and not a mere mortal, we had to believe. Sister Pascalina asked to invite a lawyer and witnesses, as she did not want to take the secret of her life to the grave. When they appeared, she only said that the woman buried in the village of Morcote, not far from Lake Maggiore, was indeed the daughter of the Russian tsar - Olga!
I convinced my Italian colleague that this is a gift from Destiny and that it is useless to resist it. Having learned that he was from Milan, I told him that I would not fly back to Paris on the plane of the presidential press, and we would go to this village for half a day. We went there after the summit. It turned out that this was no longer Italy, but Switzerland, but we quickly found a village, a cemetery and a cemetery watchman who led us to the grave. On the gravestone there is a photograph of an elderly woman and an inscription in German: Olga Nikolaevna (without a surname), the eldest daughter of Nikolai Romanov, Tsar of Russia, and the dates of life - 1885-1976 !!!
The Italian journalist was an excellent translator for me, but clearly did not want to stay there for the whole day. I had to ask questions.
- When did she settle here? - In 1948.
- She said that she is the daughter of the Russian tsar? - Of course, the whole village knew about it.
- Did it get into the press? - Yes.
- How did the other Romanovs react to this? Did they sue? - Served.
- And she lost? - Yes, I did.
- In this case, she had to pay the legal costs of the opposing party. - She paid.
- She worked? - No.
- Where did she get the money? - Yes, the whole village knew that it was supported by the Vatican !!
The ring is closed. I went to Paris and began to look for what is known on this issue ... And quickly came across a book by two English journalists.
Tom Mangold and Anthony Summers published in 1979 the book "The Dossier on the Tsar" ("The Case of the Romanovs, or the Shooting That Didn't Happen"). They started with the fact that if the secrecy label is removed from the state archives after 60 years, then in 1978 60 years will expire from the date of signing the Versailles Treaty, and you can "dig" something there by looking into the declassified archives. That is, at first there was an idea to just look ... And they very quickly got on the telegrams of the British ambassador to their Foreign Ministry that the royal family had been taken from Yekaterinburg to Perm. There is no need to explain to the BBC professionals that this is a sensation. They rushed to Berlin.
It quickly became clear that the Whites, having entered Yekaterinburg on July 25, immediately appointed an investigator to investigate the execution of the royal family. Nikolai Sokolov, whose book everyone still refers to, is the third investigator who received the case only at the end of February 1919! Then a simple question arises: who were the first two and what did they report to their superiors? So, the first investigator named Nametkin, appointed by Kolchak, having worked for three months and declaring that he is a professional, is a simple matter, and he does not need additional time (and White was advancing and did not doubt their victory at that time - i.e. all your time, do not rush, work!), puts on the table a report that there was no shooting, but there was a mock execution. Kolchak, this report is on the shelf and appoints a second investigator by the name of Sergeev. He also works for three months and at the end of February presents Kolchak with the same report with the same words (“I am a professional, this is a simple matter, no additional time is needed - there was no execution - there was a staged execution).
Here it is necessary to clarify and recall that it was the Whites who overthrew the Tsar, not the Reds, and they also sent him into exile in Siberia! Lenin was in Zurich during those February days. No matter what ordinary soldiers say, the white elite are not monarchists, but republicans. And Kolchak did not need a living tsar. I advise those in doubt to read Trotsky's diaries, where he writes that "if the whites had put up any tsar - even a peasant one - we would not have lasted even two weeks"! These are the words of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Red Army and the ideologist of the Red Terror !!! Please believe.
Therefore, Kolchak is already putting "his" investigator Nikolai Sokolov and gives him an assignment. And Nikolai Sokolov also works for only three months - but for a different reason. The Reds entered Yekaterinburg in May, and he retreated along with the Whites. He took away the archives, but what did he write?
1. He did not find any corpses, but for the police of any country in any system “no bodies - no murder” is disappearance! After all, when arresting serial killers, the police demand to show where the corpses are hidden !!! You can say anything, even to yourself, and the investigator needs material evidence!
And Nikolai Sokolov "hangs the first noodles on the ears": "thrown into the mine, doused with acid." Now they prefer to forget this phrase, but we heard it until 1998! And for some reason no one ever doubted. Is it possible to fill the mine with acid? But there won't be enough acid! In the local history museum of Yekaterinburg, where the director Avdonin (the same one, one of the three who "accidentally" found bones on the Starokotlyakovskaya road, cleaned to them by three investigators in 1918-19), there is a certificate of those soldiers on the truck that they had 78 liters of gasoline (not acid). In July, in the Siberian taiga, having 78 liters of gasoline, you can burn the entire Moscow zoo! No, they drove back and forth, at first they threw it into the mine, poured it with acid, and then took it out and hid it under the sleepers ...
By the way, on the night of the "shooting" from July 16 to July 17, 1918, a huge train left Yekaterinburg for Perm with the entire local Red Army, the local Central Committee and the local Cheka. White entered on the eighth day, and Yurovsky, Beloborodov and his comrades shifted the responsibility to two soldiers? A discrepancy - tea, they were not dealing with a peasant revolt. And if they were shot at their own discretion, they could have done it a month earlier.
2. The second "noodles" of Nikolai Sokolov - he describes the basement of the Ipatievsky house, publishes photographs where it can be seen that the bullets are in the walls and in the ceiling (they apparently do this when staging an execution). Conclusion - the women's corsets were stuffed with diamonds, and the bullets ricocheted! So, so: the tsar from the throne and into exile in Siberia. Money in England and Switzerland, and they sew diamonds into corsets to sell to peasants in the market? Well well!
3. The same book by Nikolai Sokolov describes the same basement in the same Ipatiev house, where clothes from each member of the imperial family and hair from each head lie in the fireplace. Did they cut and change their clothes (undressed ??) before being shot? Not at all - they were taken out by the same train on that very “night of the shooting,” but they had their hair cut and changed so that no one would recognize them there.
Tom Magold and Anthony Summers intuitively understood that the solution to this intriguing detective must be sought in the Treaty of the Brest Peace. And they started looking for the original text. And what?? With all the removal of secrets after 60 years, there is no such official document anywhere! It is not in the declassified archives of London or Berlin. They looked everywhere - and everywhere they found only quotes, but nowhere they could find the full text! And they came to the conclusion that the Kaiser demanded the extradition of the women from Lenin. The king's wife is a relative of the Kaiser, his daughters are German citizens and did not have the right to the throne, and besides, the Kaiser at that moment could crush Lenin like a bug! And here Lenin's words that "the peace is humiliating and obscene, but it must be signed," and the July attempt at a coup d'etat by the Socialist-Revolutionaries with Dzerzhinsky, who joined them in the Bolshoi Theater, take on a completely different look.
Officially, we were taught that the Trotsky Treaty was signed only on the second attempt and only after the start of the offensive of the German army, when it became clear to everyone that the Republic of Soviets could not resist. If there is simply no army, what is “humiliating and obscene” here? Nothing. But if all the women of the royal family need to be handed over, and even to the Germans, and even during the First World War, then ideologically everything is in place, and the words are read correctly. That Lenin did, and the entire ladies' section was transferred to the Germans in Kiev. And immediately the murder of the German ambassador Mirbach in Moscow and the German consul in Kiev make sense.
"The Dossier on the Tsar" is a fascinating investigation of one cunningly tangled intrigue of world history. The book was published in 1979, so the words of Sister Pascalina of 1983 about Olga's grave could not get into it. And if there were no new facts, there would be no point in simply retelling someone else's book here ...
The family of the last emperor of Russia, Nikolai Romanov, was killed in 1918. In view of the concealment of the facts by the Bolsheviks, a number of alternative versions appear. For a long time there were rumors that turned the murder of the royal family into a legend. There were theories that some of his children were saved.
What actually happened in the summer of 1918 near Yekaterinburg? You will find the answer to this question in our article.
Background
Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century was one of the most economically developed countries in the world. Nikolai Alexandrovich, who came to power, turned out to be a meek and noble man. In spirit, he was not an autocrat, but an officer. Therefore, with his outlook on life, it was difficult to manage the crumbling state.
The revolution of 1905 showed the bankruptcy of the authorities and their isolation from the people. In fact, there were two authorities in the country. The official one is the emperor, and the real one is officials, nobles and landowners. It was the latter who, by their greed, licentiousness and shortsightedness, destroyed the once great power.
Strikes and rallies, demonstrations and grain riots, famine. All of this testified to the decline. The only way out could be the accession to the throne of an imperious and tough ruler who could take control of the country completely under his control.
Nicholas II was not like that. It was focused on the construction of railways, churches, improving the economy and culture in society. He has made progress in these areas. But positive changes mainly affected only the top of society, while the majority of ordinary residents remained at the level of the Middle Ages. Luchins, wells, carts and peasant-craft everyday life.
After the entry of the Russian Empire into the First World War, the discontent of the people only increased. The shooting of the royal family became the apotheosis of general insanity. Next, we will take a closer look at this crime.
For now, it is important to note the following. After the abdication of Emperor Nicholas II and his brother from the throne in the state, soldiers, workers and peasants began to take the lead. People who previously had no dealings with management, who have a minimal level of culture and superficial judgments, gain power.
Petty local commissars wanted to curry favor with the higher ranks. Ordinary and junior officers simply thoughtlessly followed orders. The time of troubles that came in these turbulent years threw unfavorable elements to the surface.
Next, you will see another photo of the royal family of the Romanovs. If you look at them carefully, you will notice that the clothes of the emperor, his wife and children are by no means pompous. They are no different from the peasants and guards who surrounded them in exile.
Let's see what actually happened in Yekaterinburg in July 1918.
Course of events
The execution of the royal family was planned and prepared for a long time. While the power was still in the hands of the Provisional Government, they tried to protect them. Therefore, after the events of 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.
He tried to protect the emperor's family, so the exile to Tobolsk became a respite for Nicholas II before the ensuing nightmare. The king, queen, their children and retinue stayed there for more than six months.
But in April, the Bolsheviks, after a fierce struggle for power, recall the "unfinished business." A decision is made to deliver the entire imperial family to Yekaterinburg, which at that time was a stronghold of the red movement.
The first to be transferred to Perm from Petrograd was Prince Mikhail, the brother of the tsar. At the end of March, son Mikhail and three children of Konstantin Konstantinovich are sent to Vyatka. Later, the last four are transferred to Yekaterinburg.
The main reason for the transfer to the east was the family ties of Nikolai Alexandrovich with the German emperor Wilhelm, as well as the closeness of the Entente to Petrograd. The revolutionaries feared the liberation of the tsar and the restoration of the monarchy.
An interesting role is played by Yakovlev, who was instructed to transport the emperor and his family from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg. He knew about the attempted assassination of the tsar that the Siberian Bolsheviks were preparing.
Judging by the archives, there are two opinions of experts. The first say that in reality it is Konstantin Myachin. And he received a directive from the Center "to 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 the prisoners were placed in the Ipatiev mansion. A photo of the royal family of the Romanovs has survived when they were handed over by the Yakovlevs to the Ural Council. The place of confinement among the revolutionaries was called a "special purpose house".
They were kept here for seventy-eight days. More details about the attitude of the convoy to the emperor and his family will be described later. In the meantime, it is important to focus on the fact that it was rude and boorish. They were robbed, crushed psychologically and morally, mocked so that they were not noticeable outside the walls of the mansion.
Considering the results of the investigations, we will dwell in more detail on the night when the monarch with his family and retinue was shot. Now we note that the execution took place at about half past three in the morning. Life-doctor Botkin, by order of the revolutionaries, woke up all the prisoners and went down to the basement with them.
It was there that a terrible crime took place. The commander was Yurovsky. He blurted out a prepared phrase that they "are trying to save, and the matter is urgent." None of the prisoners understood anything. Nicholas II only had time to ask to repeat what was said, but the soldiers, frightened by the horror of the situation, began indiscriminate shooting. Moreover, several punishers fired from another room through the doorway. According to eyewitnesses, not everyone was killed the first time. Some were finished off with a bayonet.
Thus, this indicates the haste and unpreparedness of the operation. The execution became lynching, to which the Bolsheviks who lost their heads went.
Government misinformation
The shooting of the royal family still remains an unsolved mystery of Russian history. The responsibility for this atrocity may lie both with Lenin and Sverdlov, for whom the Ural Soviet simply provided an alibi, and directly with the Siberian revolutionaries, who succumbed to general panic and lost their heads in wartime.
Nevertheless, immediately after the atrocity committed, the government launched a campaign to whitewash its reputation. Among the researchers involved in this period, the latest actions are called a "disinformation campaign."
The death of the royal family was proclaimed the only necessary measure. Since, judging by the ordered Bolshevik articles, a counter-revolutionary conspiracy was revealed. Some white officers planned to attack the Ipatiev mansion and free the emperor and his family.
The second moment, which was furiously hidden for many years, was that eleven people were shot. The emperor, his wife, five children and four servants.
The events of the crime were not disclosed for several years. Official recognition was given only in 1925. This decision was prompted by the publication in Western Europe of a book that contained the results of Sokolov's investigation. At the same time, Bykov was instructed to write about the "real course of events." This brochure was published in Sverdlovsk in 1926.
Nevertheless, the lies of the Bolsheviks at the international level, as well as the concealment of the truth from the common people, shook the belief in power. and its consequences, according to Lykova, became the reason for people's distrust of the government, which has not changed even in the post-Soviet era.
The fate of the rest of the Romanovs
The execution of the royal family had to be prepared. The liquidation of the brother of the Emperor Mikhail Alexandrovich with his personal secretary became a similar "warm-up".
On the night of the twelfth to the thirteenth of June 1918, they were forcibly taken out of the Perm hotel outside the city. They were shot in the forest, and their remains have not yet been found.
A statement was made to the international press that the Grand Duke had been kidnapped by malefactors and gone missing. For Russia, the official version was the escape of Mikhail Alexandrovich.
The main purpose of such a statement was to expedite the trial of the emperor and his family. There was a rumor that a runaway might help free the "bloody tyrant" from "just punishment."
It was not only the last royal family that suffered. In Vologda, eight people related to the Romanovs were also killed. Among the victims are the princes of the imperial blood Igor, Ivan and Konstantin Konstantinovich, the Grand Duchess Elizabeth, the Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich, Prince Paley, the manager and the cell attendant.
All of them were thrown into the Nizhnyaya Selimskaya mine, near the town of Alapaevsk. He resisted and was shot. The rest were stunned and thrown down alive. In 2009 they were all canonized as martyrs.
But this lust for blood did not subside. In January 1919, four more Romanovs were also shot in the Peter and Paul Fortress. Nikolai and Georgy Mikhailovich, Dmitry Konstantinovich and Pavel Alexandrovich. The official version of the revolutionary committee was as follows: the elimination of hostages in response to the murders of Liebknecht and Luxembourg in Germany.
Memories of contemporaries
Researchers have tried to reconstruct how members of the royal family were killed. The testimonies of the people who were there help to cope with this best.
The first such source is notes from Trotsky's personal diary. He noted that the fault lies with the local authorities. He especially emphasized the names of Stalin and Sverdlov as the people who made this decision. Lev Davidovich writes that in the conditions of the approach of the Czechoslovak detachments, Stalin's phrase that "the Tsar cannot be extradited to the White Guards" became a death sentence.
But scholars doubt the exact reflection of events in the notes. They were taken in the late thirties, when he was working on a biography of Stalin. A number of mistakes were made there, indicating that Trotsky forgot much 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 subject and continued the meeting, as if the previous phrase had not been there.
The most complete history of the royal family in the last days of life was restored according to the protocols of interrogations of the participants in these events. People from the guard, punitive and funeral detachments gave testimony several times.
Although they are often confused, the main idea remains the same. All the Bolsheviks who were next to the tsar in recent months had complaints against him. Someone in the past was in prison himself, someone has relatives. In general, a contingent of former prisoners was collected.
In Yekaterinburg, the Bolsheviks were pressured by anarchists and Socialist-Revolutionaries. In order not to lose credibility, the local council decided to quickly end this case. Moreover, there was a rumor that Lenin wanted to exchange the royal family for a reduction in the amount of indemnity.
According to the participants, this was the only solution. In addition, many of them boasted during interrogations that they had personally killed the emperor. Some with one, and some with three shots. Judging by the diaries of Nikolai and his wife, the workers guarding them were often drunk. Therefore, real events cannot be reconstructed for certain.
What happened to the remains
The murder of the royal family took place in secret, and it was planned to keep it secret. But those responsible for the elimination of the remains did not cope with their task.
A very large funeral team was assembled. Yurovsky had to send many back to the city "as unnecessary."
According to the testimonies of the participants in the process, they took the task for several days. Initially, it was planned to burn the clothes, and throw the naked bodies into the mine and fill them with earth. But the collapse did not work out. I had to extract the remains of the royal family and come up with another method.
It was decided to burn them or bury them along the road that was just being built. Previously, it was thought to disfigure bodies with sulfuric acid beyond recognition. From the protocols it is clear that two corpses were burned, and the rest were buried.
Presumably, the bodies of Alexei and one of the servants burned down.
The second difficulty was that the team was busy all night, and in the morning travelers began to appear. An order was given to cordon off the place and prohibit leaving the neighboring village. But the secrecy of the operation was hopelessly destroyed.
The investigation showed that attempts to bury the bodies were near mine # 7 and crossing # 184. In particular, they were discovered near the latter in 1991.
Kirsta's investigation
On July 26-27, 1918, peasants discovered a gold cross with precious stones in a fireplace near the Isetsky mine. The find was immediately delivered to Lieutenant Sheremetyev, who was hiding from the Bolsheviks in the village of Koptyaki. It was carried out but later the case was entrusted to Kirste.
He began to study the testimony of witnesses who pointed to the murder of the royal family of the Romanovs. The information confused and frightened him. The investigator did not expect that these were not the consequences of a military court, but a criminal case.
He began questioning witnesses who gave conflicting testimony. But on their basis, Kirsta concluded that perhaps only the emperor and the heir were shot. The rest of the family was taken to Perm.
One gets the impression that this investigator set himself the goal of proving that not the entire royal family of the Romanovs was killed. Even after he clearly confirmed the fact of the crime, Kirsta continued to interrogate new people.
So, over time, he finds a certain doctor Utochkin, who proved that he had treated Princess Anastasia. Then another witness spoke about the transfer of the emperor's wife and some of the children of the emperor to Perm, about which she knows from rumors.
After Kirsta finally confused the case, it was transferred to another investigator.
Sokolov's investigation
Kolchak, who came to power in 1919, ordered Dieterichs to figure out how the royal Romanov family was killed. The latter delegated this case to the investigator for especially important cases of the Omsk District.
His last name was Sokolov. This man began to investigate the murder of the royal family from scratch. Although all the paperwork was transferred to him, he did not trust Kirsta's confusing protocols.
Sokolov again visited the mine, as well as the Ipatiev mansion. Inspection of the house was made difficult by the presence of the headquarters of the Czech army there. Nevertheless, a German inscription was found on the wall, a quote from Heine's verse that the monarch was killed by his subjects. The words had clearly been carved in red after the loss of the city.
In addition to documents on Yekaterinburg, the investigator was sent cases on the Perm murder of Prince Mikhail and on a crime against the princes in Alapaevsk.
After the Bolsheviks re-seize this region, Sokolov exported all office work to Harbin, and then to Western Europe. Photos of the royal family, diaries, evidence and more were evacuated.
He published the results of the investigation in 1924 in Paris. In 1997, Hans-Adam II, Prince of Liechtenstein, transferred all office work to the Russian government. In return, the archives of his family, taken out during the Second World War, were delivered to him.
Contemporary investigation
In 1979, a group of enthusiasts led by Ryabov and Avdonin discovered a burial site near the 184 km station using archival documents. In 1991, the latter 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 Western European countries and the United States.
The investigation of the burial was carried out by the senior prosecutor-criminalist Soloviev. In general, he confirmed all of Sokolov's materials. His message to Patriarch Alexei II says that "under the conditions of that time, it was impossible to completely destroy the corpses."
In addition, the consequence of the late XX - early XXI century completely refuted the alternative versions of events, which we will talk about below.
The canonization of the royal family was carried out in 1981 by the Russian Orthodox Church abroad, and in Russia in 2000.
As the Bolsheviks tried to classify this crime, rumors spread, contributing to the formation of alternative versions.
So, according to one of them, it was a ritual murder due to a conspiracy of Jewish Masons. One of the assistant investigators testified that he had seen "kabbalistic symbols" on the walls of the basement. When checked, it turned out to be traces of bullets and bayonets.
According to the theory of Dieterichs, the head of the emperor was cut off and alcoholized. The remains have also refuted this crazy idea.
Rumors spread by the Bolsheviks and false testimonies of "eyewitnesses" gave rise to a series of versions about the survivors. But the photographs of the royal family in the last days of their lives do not confirm them. As well as 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 carried out 19 years later than abroad.
So, in this article we got acquainted with the circumstances and investigation of one of the most terrible atrocities in the history of Russia in the twentieth century.