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

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

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

She was prudent and stingy, but humble and very pious. She knew how to do a lot: she was engaged in needlework, painted, and during the First World War she looked after the wounded - and taught her daughters how to dress. The simplicity of the royal upbringing can be judged by the letters of the Grand Duchesses to their father: they easily wrote to him about the "idiotic photographer", "nasty handwriting" or that "the stomach wants to eat, it is already cracking." Tatyana in letters to Nikolai signed "Your faithful Ascension", Olga - "Your faithful Elisavetgradets", and Anastasia did it like this: "Your daughter Nastasya, who loves You. Shvybzik. ANRPZSG Artichokes, etc."

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

"The thought that we are all together pleases and comforts..."Arrest in Tsarskoye Selo

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

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

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

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

"You can't go there, Colonel"

On March 9, Nicholas arrived in Tsarskoye Selo, where he was first greeted not as an emperor. "The officer on duty shouted: 'Open the gates to the former tsar.' (...) When the sovereign passed the officers gathered in the vestibule, no one greeted him. The sovereign did it first. Only then did everyone give him greetings," wrote valet Alexei Volkov.

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

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

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

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

Alexei's mentor Pierre Gilliard (he was called Zhilik in the family) recalled that Alexandra was furious. "To do this to the sovereign, to do this disgusting thing to him after he sacrificed himself and abdicated in order to avoid a civil war - how low, how petty!" she said. But in her diary there is only one discreet entry about this: "N<иколаю>and I'm only allowed to meet at mealtimes, not to sleep together."

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

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

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

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

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

Despite everything, the royal family remembered life in Tobolsk as "quiet and calm"

In correspondence, the family was not limited, but all messages were viewed. Alexandra corresponded a lot with Anna Vyrubova, who was either released or arrested again. They sent parcels to each other: the former maid of honor once sent "a wonderful blue blouse and delicious marshmallow", and also her perfume. Alexandra answered with a shawl, which she also perfumed - with vervain. She tried to help her friend: "I send pasta, sausages, coffee - although fasting is now. I always pull greens out of the soup so that I don’t eat the broth, and I don’t smoke." She hardly complained, except for the cold.

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

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

Life occupied the spouses more than politics. Only the Treaty of Brest really shook them both. "A humiliating world. (...) Being under the yoke of the Germans is worse Tatar yoke", Alexandra wrote. In her letters, she thought about Russia, but not about politics, but about people.

Nikolai loved to do physical labor: cut firewood, work in the garden, clean the ice. After moving to Yekaterinburg, all this turned out to be banned.

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

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

Food card. “Before the October coup, everything was plentiful, although they lived modestly,” recalled the valet Alexei Volkov. “Dinner consisted of only two courses, but sweet things happened only on holidays.”

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

Last days.In "house of special purpose"

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

Telegram from the Chairman of the Ural Regional Council to Vladimir Lenin and Yakov Sverdlov, April 30, 1918

“The house is good, clean,” Nikolai wrote in his diary. “We were given four large rooms: a corner bedroom, a bathroom, a dining room next to it with windows overlooking the garden and overlooking the low-lying part of the city, and, finally, a spacious hall with an arch without doors.” The commandant was Alexander Avdeev - as they said about him, "a real Bolshevik" (later Yakov Yurovsky would replace him). The instructions for protecting the family said: "The commandant must keep in mind that Nikolai Romanov and his family are Soviet prisoners, therefore, an appropriate regime is being established in the place of his detention."

The instruction ordered the commandant to be polite. But during the first search, a reticule was snatched from Alexandra's hands, which she did not want to show. “Until now, I have dealt with honest and decent people,” Nikolai remarked. But I received an answer: "Please do not forget that you are under investigation and arrest." The tsar's entourage was required to call family members by their first and patronymic names instead of "Your Majesty" or "Your Highness". Alexandra was truly pissed off.

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

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

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

House of Ipatiev. “A fence was built around the outer walls of the house, facing the street, quite high, covering the windows of the house,” wrote its first commandant Alexander Avdeev about the house.

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

There were not enough beds, the sisters slept on the floor. They all dined together, and not only with the servants, but also with the Red Army soldiers. They were rude: they could put a spoon into a bowl of soup and say: "You still get nothing to eat."

Vermicelli, potatoes, beet salad and compote - such food was on the table of the prisoners. Meat was a problem. “They brought meat for six days, but so little that it was only enough for soup,” “Kharitonov cooked a macaroni pie ... because they didn’t bring meat at all,” Alexandra notes in her diary.

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

"I took a sitz bath because hot water could only be brought from our kitchen,” writes Alexandra about minor domestic inconveniences. Her notes show how gradually for the former empress, who once ruled over “a sixth of the earth”, everyday trifles become important: “great pleasure, a cup of coffee "," good nuns are now sending milk and eggs for Alexei and us, and cream.

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

Like a prisoner

Soon the commandant changed in the house. They became Yakov Yurovsky. At first, the family even liked him, but very soon the harassment became more and more. "You need to get used to living not like a king, but how you have to live: like a prisoner," he said, limiting the amount of meat that came to prisoners.

Of the monastery transfers, he allowed to leave only milk. Alexandra once wrote that the commandant "had breakfast and ate cheese; he won't let us eat cream anymore." Yurovsky also forbade frequent baths, saying that they did not have enough water. He confiscated jewelry from family members, leaving only a watch for Alexei (at the request of Nikolai, who said that the boy would be bored without them) and a gold bracelet for Alexandra - she wore it for 20 years, and it was possible to remove it only with tools.

Every morning at 10:00 the commandant checked whether everything was in place. Most of all, the former empress did not like this.

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

Alexandra, it seems, was the hardest in the family to experience the loss of the throne. Yurovsky recalled that if she went for a walk, she would certainly dress up and always put on a hat. "It must be said that she, unlike the rest, with all her exits, tried to maintain all her importance and the former," he wrote.

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

Everyone who in one way or another approached the case of the execution royal family, killed? Why is it impossible to trust the books of Sokolov (the seventh! investigator in this case), published after his murder? These questions are answered by the historian of the royal family, Sergei Ivanovich.

The royal family was not shot!

The last Russian tsar was not shot, but possibly left as a hostage.

Agree: it would be foolish to shoot the tsar without first squeezing honestly earned money from him from the capsules. So they didn't shoot him. However, it was not immediately possible to get money, because it was too turbulent time ...

Regularly, by the middle of summer of each year, loud lamentation for the tsar, who was killed for nothing, resumes. NicholasII, whom Christians also “canonized as saints” in 2000. Here is Comrade. Starikov, exactly on July 17, once again threw "firewood" into the furnace of emotional lamentations about nothing. I was not interested in this issue before, and would not pay attention to another dummy, BUT... At the last meeting with readers in his life, Academician Nikolai Levashov just mentioned that in the 30s Stalin met with NikolaiII and asked him for money to prepare for a future war. Here is how Nikolai Goryushin writes about this in his report “There are prophets in our fatherland too!” about this meeting with readers:

“... In this regard, information related to tragic fate last Emperor Russian Empire Nikolai Aleksandrovich Romanov and his family ... In August 1917, he and his family were sent to the last capital of the Slavic-Aryan Empire, the city of Tobolsk. The choice of this city was not accidental, since the highest degrees of Freemasonry are aware of the great past of the Russian people. The exile to Tobolsk was a kind of mockery of the Romanov dynasty, which in 1775 defeated the troops of the Slavic-Aryan Empire (Great Tartary), and later this event was called the suppression of the peasant revolt of Emelyan Pugachev ... In July 1918 Jacob Schiff gives command to one of his confidants in the leadership of the Bolsheviks Yakov Sverdlov for the ritual murder of the royal family. Sverdlov, after consulting with Lenin, orders the commandant of the Ipatiev house, a Chekist Yakov Yurovsky bring the plan to fruition. According to 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 NikolaiII and his family were not shot! This statement immediately raises many questions. I decided to look into them. Many works have been written on this topic, and the picture of the execution, the testimony of witnesses, look plausible at first glance. The facts obtained by the investigator A.F. do not fit into the logical chain. Kirsta, 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 care. The victim was a young girl, presumably 22 years old, with a cut lip and a tumor under her eye. To the question "who is she?" the girl replied that she was daughter of the Sovereign Anastasia". During the investigative actions Investigator Kirsta did not find the corpses of the royal family in Ganina Yama. Soon, Kirsta found numerous witnesses who told him during interrogations that in September 1918, the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and the Grand Duchesses were kept in Perm. And the witness Samoilov stated from the words of his neighbor, the guard of the house of Ipatiev Varakushev, that there was no execution, the royal family was loaded into a wagon and taken away.

After receiving these data, A.F. Kirsta is removed from the case and ordered to hand over all 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 wealth of the dynasty Romanovs, about the location of which Nikolai Aleksandrovich certainly knew. Soon the organizers of the execution in 1919, Sverdlov, die in 1924, Lenin. Nikolai Viktorovich clarified that Nikolai Aleksandrovich Romanov communicated with I.V. Stalin, and the wealth of the Russian Empire was used to strengthen the power of the USSR ... "

Speech by Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Veniamin Alekseev.
Yekaterinburg remains - more questions than answers:

If this were the first lie of comrade. Starikov, it would be quite possible to think that a person knows little yet and was simply mistaken. But Starikov is the author of several very good books and is very savvy in matters of recent Russian history. From this follows the obvious conclusion that he is lying on purpose. I won’t write about the reasons for this lie here, although they lie right on the surface ... I’d rather give a few more evidence that the royal family was not shot in July 1918, and the rumor about the execution was most likely launched for the “report” to customers - Schiff and other comrades who financed the coup d'état in Russia in February 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 then worked as a photojournalist for a French agency and was sent to the summit of heads of state and government in Venice. There I accidentally met an Italian colleague who, having learned that I was Russian, showed me a newspaper (I think it was La Repubblica) dated the day of our meeting. In the article, which the Italian drew my attention to, it was about the fact that in Rome, at a very old age, a certain nun, Sister Pascalina, died. I later 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 Pascalina, who earned the honorary nickname of the “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, but lived long life and was buried in a cemetery in the village of Marcotte in northern Italy.

After the summit, I went to this village with an Italian friend, who was both a driver and an interpreter for me. We found the cemetery and this grave. On the plate was written in German:

« Olga Nikolaevna, eldest daughter of the Russian Tsar Nikolai Romanov"- and dates of life: "1895-1976".

We talked with the cemetery watchman and his wife: they, like all the villagers, perfectly remembered Olga Nikolaevna, knew who she was, and were sure that the Russian Grand Duchess was under the protection of the Vatican.

This strange find interested me greatly, and I decided to find out for myself all the circumstances of the execution. And in general, was he?

I have every reason to believe that there was no shooting. On the night of July 16-17, all the Bolsheviks and their sympathizers left by rail for Perm. The next morning, leaflets were pasted around Yekaterinburg with the message that the royal family was taken away from the city, and so it was. Soon the whites occupied the city. 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 execution.

Investigator Sergeev in 1919 he said in an interview with an American newspaper:

“I don’t think that everyone was executed here - both the king and his family. In my opinion, the Empress, the Tsarevich and the Grand Duchesses were not executed in the Ipatiev House. This conclusion did not suit Admiral Kolchak, who by that time had already proclaimed himself "the supreme ruler of Russia." And really, why does the “supreme” need some kind of emperor? Kolchak ordered a second investigative team to be assembled, 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 more understanding and issued a well-known conclusion that the whole family had been shot, the corpses dismembered and burned on fires. “The parts that did not succumb to the action of fire,” Sokolov wrote, “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 the Piglet Log near Yekaterinburg. In 1998, they were solemnly reburied in the family tomb of the Romanovs, after numerous genetic examinations had been carried out before that. Moreover, the secular power of Russia in the person of President Boris Yeltsin acted as a guarantor of the authenticity of the royal remains. But the Russian Orthodox Church refused to recognize the bones as the remains of the royal family.

But back in time civil war. According to my information, the royal family was divided in Perm. The path of the female part lay in Germany, while the men - Nikolai Romanov himself and Tsarevich Alexei - were left in Russia. Father and son were kept near Serpukhov for a long time 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 can't say anything about the fate of the last Russian emperor. Except one: in the 30s "Object No. 17" twice visited Stalin. Does this mean that in those years Nicholas II was still alive?

The men were held hostage

To understand why such incredible events from the point of view of a person of the 21st century became possible and to find out who needed them, you will have to go back to 1918 again. Do you remember from the school history course about the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk? 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 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk “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 that because of the secret conditions in it. Probably the Kaiser, who was a relative of Empress Maria Feodorovna, demanded that all the women of the royal family be handed over to Germany. The girls had no right to the Russian throne and, therefore, could not threaten the Bolsheviks in any way. The men, on the other hand, remained hostages - as guarantors that the German army would not go further east than it was written in the peace treaty.

What happened next? How was the fate of women exported to the West? Was their silence a necessary condition for their immunity? Unfortunately, I have more questions than answers.

Interview with Vladimir Sychev on the Romanov case

An interesting interview with Vladimir Sychev, who refutes the official version of the execution of the royal family. He talks about the grave of Olga Romanova in northern Italy, about the investigation of two British journalists, about the conditions of the Brest Peace of 1918, according to which all the women of the royal family were transferred to the Germans in Kyiv ...

Author - Vladimir Sychev

In June 1987 I was in Venice with the French press accompanying François Mitterrand to the G7 summit. During the breaks between pools, an Italian journalist approached me and asked me something in French. Realizing from my accent that I was not French, he looked at my French accreditation and asked where I was from. “Russian,” I replied. – Is that how? my interlocutor was surprised. Under his arm, he held an Italian newspaper, from where he translated a huge, half-page article.

Sister Pascalina dies in a private clinic in Switzerland. She was known throughout the Catholic world, because. passed 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 large article, the meaning of which was that we had to believe the phrase uttered at the end and not by a mere mortal. Sister Pascalina asked to invite a lawyer and witnesses, as she did not want to take her to the grave the secret of your life. When they arrived, she only said that the woman buried in the village Morcote, not far from Lake Maggiore - indeed daughter of the Russian Tsar - Olga!!

I convinced my Italian colleague that this was a gift from Fate and that it was useless to resist it. Having learned that he was from Milan, I told him that I would not fly back to Paris on the presidential press plane, but 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 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 dates of life - 1985-1976 !!!

The Italian journalist was an excellent translator for me, but he clearly did not want to stay there for the whole day. I had to ask questions.

When did she move in here? - In 1948.

- She said that she was the daughter of the Russian Tsar? “Of course, and 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 lost.

In this case, she had to pay the opposing party's legal costs. - She paid.

- She worked? - Not.

Where does she get the money from? “Yes, the whole village knew that the Vatican was keeping her!”

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.

II

Tom Mangold and Anthony Summers published a book in 1979 "Dossier on the king"(“The Case of the Romanovs, or the execution that never happened”). They began with the fact that if the secrecy stamp is removed from state archives after 60 years, then in 1978 60 years from the date of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles expire, and you can “dig up” something there by looking into the declassified archives. That is, at first there was an idea just to look ... And they very quickly got on telegrams English ambassador to his Foreign Office that the royal family was taken from Yekaterinburg to Perm. There is no need to explain to professionals from the BBC 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 the authorities? 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 the Whites were advancing and had no doubts about their victory at that time - i.e. all the time is yours, don’t rush, work!), puts a report on the table that there was no shooting, but there was a staged execution. Kolchak this report - under the cloth and appoints a second investigator by the name of Sergeev. He also works for three months and at the end of February gives Kolchak the same report with the same words (“I am a professional, it’s a simple matter, no extra time is needed,” there was no shooting- there was a staged execution).

Here it is necessary to explain and remind that it was the Whites who overthrew the tsar, and not the Reds, and they sent him into exile in Siberia! Lenin in these February days was in Zurich. Whatever ordinary soldiers say, the white elite are not monarchists, but republicans. And Kolchak did not need a living tsar. I advise those who have doubts to read Trotsky's diaries, where he writes that "if the whites put up any tsar - even a peasant one - we would not have lasted even two weeks"! These are the words Supreme Commander Red Army and the ideologist of the red terror!! Please believe.

Therefore, Kolchak already puts "his" investigator Nikolai Sokolov and gives him a task. 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 the archives, but what did he write?

1. He did not find the bodies, and for the police of any country in any system “no bodies - no murder” is a disappearance! After all, when arrested serial killers the police demand to show where the corpses are hidden!! You can say whatever you want, even at yourself, and the investigator needs material evidence!

And Nikolai Sokolov "hangs the first noodles on his ears":

“thrown into a mine, filled 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 flood the mine with acid? But acid is not enough! In the local history museum of Yekaterinburg, where the director Avdonin (the same, one of the three who “accidentally” found bones on the Starokotlyakovskaya road, cleared to them by three investigators in 1918-19), hangs a certificate about 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 went back and forth, first they threw it into the mine, poured it with acid, and then they took it out and hid it under the sleepers ...

By the way, on the night of the "execution" from July 16 to July 17, 1918, a huge train with the entire local Red Army, the local Central Committee and the local Cheka left Yekaterinburg for Perm. The Whites entered on the eighth day, and Yurovsky, Beloborodov and his comrades shifted the responsibility to two soldiers? The inconsistency, - tea, they did not deal with a peasant revolt. And if they shot at their own discretion, they could have done it a month earlier.

2. The second "noodle" of Nikolai Sokolov - he describes the basement of the Ipatievsky house, publishes photographs where it is clear that bullets are in the walls and in the ceiling (apparently, they do this when staging an execution). Conclusion - women's corsets were stuffed with diamonds, and the bullets ricocheted! So, like this: the king 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. In the same book by Nikolai Sokolov, the same basement in the same Ipatiev house is described, where in the fireplace lies clothes from each member of the imperial family and hair from each head. Were they sheared and changed (undressed??) before being shot? Not at all - they were taken out by the same train on that very “night of execution”, but they cut their hair and changed clothes so that no one would recognize them there.

III

Tom Magold and Anthony Summers intuitively realized that the clue to this intriguing detective story must be sought in Brest Peace Treaty. And they began to look for the original text. And what?? With all the removal of secrets after 60 years of such an official document nowhere! It is not in the declassified archives of London or Berlin. They searched everywhere - and everywhere they found only quotes, but nowhere could they find the full text! And they came to the conclusion that the Kaiser demanded the extradition of women from Lenin. The tsar's wife is a relative of the Kaiser, the 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 are Lenin's words that "the world is humiliating and obscene, but it must be signed", and the July coup attempt of the Socialist-Revolutionaries with Dzerzhinsky, who joined them at 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 it is necessary to hand over all the women of the royal family, and even to the Germans, and even during the First World War, then ideologically everything is in its place, and the words are read correctly. What Lenin did, and the entire ladies' section was handed over to the Germans in Kyiv. And immediately the murder of the German ambassador Mirbach in Moscow and the German consul in Kyiv makes sense.

"Dossier on the Tsar" is a fascinating investigation into one cunningly tangled intrigue of world history. The book was published in 1979, so the words of Sister Pascalina in 1983 about Olga's grave could not get into it. And if there were no new facts, then simply retelling someone else's book here would not make sense.

10 years have passed. In November 1997, in Moscow, I met the former political prisoner Geliy Donskoy from St. Petersburg. The conversation over tea in the kitchen also touched the king and his family. When I said that there was no execution, he answered me calmly:

- I know it wasn't.

- Well, you are the first in 10 years,

I answered him, almost falling off my chair.

Then I asked him to tell me his sequence of events, wanting to find out up to what point our versions agree and at what point they start to diverge. He did not know about the extradition of women, believing that they died somewhere in different places. There was no doubt that they were all taken out of Yekaterinburg. I told him about the "Dossier on the Tsar", and he told me about one seemingly insignificant find, which he and his friends drew attention to in the 80s.

They came across the memoirs of the participants in the "execution", published in the 30s. In addition to the well-known facts that two weeks before the “execution” a new guard arrived, they said that a high fence had been built around the Ipatievsky house. For execution in the basement, he would be useless, but if the family needs to be taken out unnoticed, then he is just the way. The most important thing - which no one had ever paid attention to before them - the head of the new guard spoke with Yurovsky on foreign language! They checked the lists - the head of the new guard was Lisitsyn (all participants in the "execution" are known). It seems nothing special. And here they were really lucky: at the beginning of perestroika, Gorbachev opened hitherto closed archives (my fellow Sovietologists confirmed that this had been the case for two years), and then they started searching in declassified documents. And found! It turned out that Lisitsyn was not Lisitsyn at all, but the American Fox !!! I have been ready for this for a long time. I already knew from books and from life that Trotsky came to make a revolution from New York on a steamer full of Americans (everyone knows about Lenin and two carriages with Germans and Austrians). The Kremlin was full of foreigners who did not speak Russian (there was even Petin, but an Austrian!) Therefore, the guards were from Latvian riflemen, so that the people would not even think that foreigners had seized power.

And then my new friend Helium Donskoy completely captivated me. He asked himself one very important question. Fox-Lisitsyn arrived as the head of the new guard (in fact, the head of the royal family) on July 2. On the night of the "execution" on July 16-17, 1918, he left by the same train. And where did he get a new appointment? He became the first head of the new secret facility No. 17 near Serpukhov (on the estate of the former merchant Konshin), which Stalin visited twice! (why?! More on that below.)

I have been telling this whole story with a new continuation to all my friends since 1997.

On one of my visits to Moscow, my friend Yura Feklistov asked me to visit his school friend, and now a candidate of historical sciences, so that I could tell him everything myself. That historian named Sergei was the press secretary of the Kremlin commandant's office (scientists were not paid salaries in those days). At the appointed hour, Yura and I climbed the wide Kremlin stairs and entered the office. Just like now in this article, I started with Sister Pascalina, and when I got to her phrase that “the woman buried in the village of Morcote is indeed the daughter of the Russian Tsar Olga,” Sergei almost jumped: “Now it’s clear why The patriarch did not go to the funeral! he exclaimed.

It was also obvious to me - after all, despite the strained relations between different confessions, when it comes to persons of this rank, information is exchanged. I just didn’t understand and still have the position of the “working people”, who suddenly turned from faithful Marxist-Leninists into orthodox Christians, do not value a few statements of His Holiness himself. After all, even I, visiting Moscow only on short visits, even twice heard the Patriarch say on central television that the examination of royal bones cannot be trusted! I heard it twice, but what, no one else?? Well, he could not say more and announce publicly that there was no execution. This is the prerogative of the highest state officials, not the church.

Further, when I told at the very end that the tsar and the tsarevich were settled near Serpukhov on the estate of Konshin, Sergey shouted: - Vasya! You have all the movements of Stalin in the computer. Well, tell me, was he in the Serpukhov area? - Vasya turned on the computer and answered: - There were two times. Once at the dacha of a foreign writer, and another time at the dacha of Ordzhonikidze.

I was prepared for this turn of events. The fact is that not only John Reed (a journalist-writer of one book) is buried in the Kremlin wall, but 117 foreigners are buried there! And this is from November 1917 to January 1919!! These are the same German, Austrian and American communists from the Kremlin offices. The likes of Fox-Lisitsyn, John Reed, and other Americans who left their mark on Soviet history after the fall of Trotsky were legalized as journalists by official Soviet historians. (An interesting parallel: the expedition of the artist Roerich to Tibet from Moscow was paid for in 1920 by the Americans! So there were a lot of them). Others fled - they are not children and knew what awaited them. By the way, apparently, this Fox was the founder of the XX Century Fox movie empire in 1934 after Trotsky was expelled.

But back to Stalin. I think few people will believe that Stalin traveled 100 km from Moscow to meet a "foreign writer" or even Sergo Ordzhonikidze! He received them in the Kremlin.

He met the King there! With the man in the iron mask!!!

And that was in the 30s. That's where the fantasy of writers could unfold!

These two meetings are very intriguing to me. I'm sure they seriously discussed at least one topic. And Stalin did not discuss this topic with anyone. He believed the king, not his marshals! it Finnish war- the Finnish campaign, as it is shyly called in Soviet history. Why the campaign - after all, there was a war? Yes, because there was no preparation - a campaign! And only the tsar could give such advice to Stalin. He has been in prison for 20 years. The tsar knew the past - Finland has never been a state. The Finns really defended themselves to the last. When the order for a truce came, several thousand soldiers came out of the Soviet trenches, and only four from the Finnish ones.

Instead of an afterword

About 10 years ago I told this story to my Moscow colleague Sergey. When he reached Konshin's estate, where the tsar and the prince were settled, he got excited, stopped the car and said:

Let my wife speak.

I dialed a number on my mobile and asked:

- Dear, do you remember how we were students in 1972 in Serpukhov in the Konshin estate, where is the local history museum? Tell me, why were we shocked then?

And my dear wife answered me on the phone:

“We were completely horrified. All graves were opened. We were told that they were looted by bandits.

I think that not the bandits, but that even then they decided to deal with the bones at the right moment. By the way, in the Konshin estate there was the grave of Colonel Romanov. The king was a colonel.

June 2012, Paris - Berlin

The Romanov case, or the execution that never happened

A. Summers T. Mangold

translation: Yuri Ivanovich Senin

The case of the Romanovs, or the Execution, which was not

The story described in this book can be called a detective, although it is the result of a serious journalistic investigation. Dozens of books told with great persuasiveness how the Bolsheviks shot the Tsar's family in the basement of the Ipatiev House.

It would seem that the version of the execution of the Royal Family has been unambiguously proven. However, in most of these works, in the "bibliography" section, the book of American journalists A.Summers, T.Mangold "The file on the tsar", published in London in 1976, is mentioned. Mentioned, and nothing more. No comments, no links. And no translations. Even the original of this book is hard to find.

Royal family. Was there a shooting?

THE ROYAL FAMILY - LIFE AFTER THE "SHOOTING"

History, like a corrupt girl, falls under any new "tsar". That's recent history our country corresponded many times. "Responsible" and "unbiased" historians rewrote biographies and changed the fate of people in the Soviet and post-Soviet period.

But today access to many archives is open. Conscience is the only key. What bit by bit gets to people does not leave indifferent those who live in Russia. Those who want to be proud of their country and raise their children as patriots of their native land.

In Russia, historians are a dime a dozen. If you throw a stone, you will almost always hit one of them. But only 14 years have passed, and real story the last century no one can establish.

Modern henchmen of Miller and Baer rob Russians in all directions. Either, mocking Russian traditions, they will start a carnival in February, or they will bring an outright criminal under the Nobel Prize.

And then we wonder: why is it in a country with the richest resources and cultural heritage, such poor people?

Abdication of Nicholas II

Emperor Nicholas II did not abdicate the Throne. This act is a "fake". It was compiled and printed on a typewriter by the Quartermaster General of the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief A.S. Lukomsky and the representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the General Staff N.I. Basili.

This printed text was signed on March 2, 1917, not by Emperor Nicholas II Alexandrovich Romanov, but by the Minister of the Imperial Court, Adjutant General, Baron Boris Frederiks.

After 4 days, the Orthodox Tsar Nicholas II was betrayed by the top of the Russian Orthodox Church, misleading the whole of Russia by the fact that, seeing this fake act, the clergy passed it off as a real one. And they transmitted by telegraph to the entire Empire and beyond its borders that the Sovereign supposedly abdicated the Throne!

On March 6, 1917, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church heard two reports. The first is the act on March 2, 1917, on the "renunciation" of the Sovereign Emperor Nicholas II for himself and for his son from the Throne of the State of Russia and on the resignation of the Supreme Power. The second is the act on March 3, 1917 on the refusal of Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich of the perception of the Supreme Power.

After the hearings, until the establishment in the Constituent Assembly of the form of government and the new fundamental laws of the Russian State, it was ORDERED:

“The aforementioned acts shall be taken into account and executed and declared in all Orthodox churches, in urban areas - on the first day after receiving the text of these acts, and in rural areas - on the first Sunday or holiday, after Divine Liturgy, with the performance of a prayer to the Lord God for the pacification of passions, with the proclamation of many years to the God-protected Power of the Russian and its Blessed Provisional Government.

And although the top of the generals of the Russian Army for the most part consisted of Jews, but the middle officer corps and several higher ranks of the generals, such as Fyodor Arturovich Keller, did not believe this fake and decided to go to the rescue of the Sovereign.

From that moment, the division of the Army began, which turned into a Civil War!

The priesthood and the whole of Russian society split.

But the Rothschilds achieved the main thing - they removed Her Legitimate Sovereign from governing the country, and began to finish off Russia.

After the revolution, all the bishops and priests who betrayed the Tsar suffered death or dispersion around the world for perjury before the Orthodox Tsar.

Chairman of the V. Ch. K. No. 13666/2 comrade. Dzerzhinsky F. E. INSTRUCTION: “In accordance with the decision of V. Ts. I. K. and the Council of People's Commissars, it is necessary to put an end to priests and religion as soon as possible. Priests must be arrested as counter-revolutionaries and saboteurs, shot mercilessly and everywhere. And as much as possible. Churches are to be closed. Temple premises to be sealed and turned into warehouses.

Chairman V. Ts. I. K. Kalinin, Chairman of the Sov. nar. Komissarov Ulyanov /Lenin/.

Kill simulation

There is a lot of information about the Sovereign's stay with his family in prison and exile, about his stay in Tobolsk and Yekaterinburg, and it is quite truthful.

Was there a shooting? Or perhaps it was staged? Was it possible to escape or be taken out of the Ipatiev house?

It turns out yes!

There was a factory nearby. In 1905, the owner, in case of capture by revolutionaries, dug an underground passage to it. During the destruction of the house by Yeltsin, after the decision of the Politburo, the bulldozer fell into a tunnel that no one knew about.

Thanks to Stalin and the intelligence officers of the General Staff, the Royal Family was taken to various Russian provinces, with the blessing of Metropolitan Macarius (Nevsky).

On July 22, 1918, Evgenia Popel received the keys to the empty house and sent a telegram to her husband, N. N. Ipatiev, to the village of Nikolskoye about the possibility of returning to the city.

In connection with the offensive of the White Guard Army, Soviet institutions were evacuated in Yekaterinburg. Documents, property and valuables were taken out, including those of the Romanov family (!).

Strong excitement spread among the officers when it became known in what condition the Ipatiev house was, where the Tsar's Family lived. Who was free from service, went to the house, everyone wanted to take an active part in clarifying the question: “where are They?”.

Some were inspecting the house, breaking down the boarded-up doors; others sorted things and papers that were lying around; the third, raked the ashes from the furnaces. Fourth, scoured the yard and garden, looking into all cellars and cellars. Everyone acted independently, not trusting each other and trying to find an answer to the question that worried everyone.

While the officers were inspecting the rooms, people who came to profit, took away a lot of abandoned property, which was then found in the market and flea markets.

The head of the garrison, Major General Golitsin, appointed a special commission of officers, mostly cadets of the Academy of the General Staff, chaired by Colonel Sherekhovsky. Which was instructed to deal with the finds in the Ganina Yama area: local peasants, raking up recent fires, found charred items from the Tsar's wardrobe, including a cross with precious stones.

Captain Malinovsky received an order to explore the Ganina Yama area. On July 30, taking with him Sheremetevsky, the investigator for the most important cases of the Yekaterinburg District Court A.P. Nametkin, several officers, the doctor of the Heir - V.N. Derevenko and the servant of the Sovereign - T.I. Chemodurov, went there.

Thus began the investigation into the disappearance of Tsar Nicholas II, the Empress, the Tsesarevich and the Grand Duchesses.

The Malinovsky Commission lasted about a week. But it was she who determined the area of ​​all subsequent investigative actions in Yekaterinburg and its environs. It was she who found witnesses to the cordon of the Koptyakovskaya road around Ganina Yama by the Red Army. I found those who saw a suspicious convoy that passed from Yekaterinburg into the cordon and back. I got evidence of destruction there, in the fires near the mines of the Royal things.

After the entire staff of the officers went to Koptyaki, Sherekhovsky divided the team into two parts. One, headed by Malinovsky, examined the Ipatiev house, the other, led by Lieutenant Sheremetevsky, took up the inspection of Ganina Yama.

When inspecting the Ipatiev house, the officers of the Malinovsky group managed to establish almost all the main facts in a week, on which the investigation then relied.

A year after the investigations, Malinovsky, in June 1919, showed Sokolov: “As a result of my work on the case, I became convinced that the August family is alive ... all the facts that I observed during the investigation are a simulation of a murder.”

At the scene

On July 28, A.P. Nametkin was invited to the headquarters, and he was invited by the military authorities, since civil authority not yet formed, it was proposed to investigate the case of the Royal Family. After that, they began to inspect the Ipatiev House. Doctor Derevenko and old man Chemodurov were invited to participate in the identification of things; Professor of the Academy of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Medvedev, took part as an expert.

On July 30, Aleksey Pavlovich Nametkin participated in the inspection of the mine and fires near Ganina Yama. After inspection, the Koptyakovsky peasant handed over to Captain Politkovsky a huge diamond, which was recognized by Chemodurov as a jewel belonging to Tsaritsa Alexandra Feodorovna.

Nametkin, inspecting the Ipatiev house from August 2 to 8, had publications of the decisions of the Ural Council and the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, which reported on the execution of Nicholas II.

Inspection of the building, traces of shots and signs of spilled blood confirmed the well-known fact - the possible death of people in this house.

As for the other results of the inspection of the Ipatiev house, they left the impression of an unexpected disappearance of its inhabitants.

On August 5, 6, 7, 8, Nametkin continued to inspect the Ipatiev house, described the state of the rooms where Nikolai Alexandrovich, Alexandra Fedorovna, the Tsarevich and the Grand Duchesses were kept. During the inspection, I found many small things that belonged, according to the valet T. I. Chemodurov and the doctor of the Heir V. N. Derevenko, to members of the Royal Family.

Being an experienced investigator, Nametkin, after examining the scene of the incident, stated that an imitation of an execution took place in the Ipatiev House, and that not a single member of the Royal Family was shot there.

He repeated his data officially in Omsk, where he gave an interview on this topic to foreign, mainly American correspondents. Declaring that he had evidence that the Royal Family was not killed on the night of July 16-17, and was going to make these documents public soon.

But he was forced to hand over the investigation.

War with investigators

On August 7, 1918, a meeting of the branches of the Yekaterinburg District Court was held, where, unexpectedly for the prosecutor Kutuzov, contrary to agreements with the chairman of the court, Glasson, the Yekaterinburg District Court, by a majority of votes, decided to transfer the “case of the murder of the former Sovereign Emperor Nicholas II”, to a member of the court Ivan Alexandrovich Sergeev .

After the transfer of the case, the house where he rented a room was burned down, which led to the death of Nametkin's investigative archive.

The main difference in the work of a detective at the scene lies in what is not in the laws and textbooks, in order to plan further activities for each of the significant circumstances discovered. That is why their replacement is harmful, because with the departure of the former investigator, his plan to unravel the tangle of riddles disappears.

On August 13, A.P. Nametkin handed over the case to I.A. Sergeev on 26 numbered sheets. And after the capture of Yekaterinburg by the Bolsheviks, Nametkin was shot.

Sergeev was aware of the complexity of the upcoming investigation.

He understood that the main thing was to find the bodies of the dead. Indeed, in forensic science there is a rigid setting: "no corpse - no murder." He had great expectations for the expedition to Ganina Yama, where they searched the area very carefully and pumped out water from the mines. But ... they found only a severed finger and a prosthesis of the upper jaw. True, the “corpse” was also removed, but it was the corpse of the dog Grand Duchess Anastasia.

In addition, there are witnesses who saw the former Empress and her children in Perm.

The doctor Derevenko, who treated the Heir, as well as Botkin, who accompanied the Royal Family in Tobolsk and Yekaterinburg, testifies over and over again that the unidentified corpses delivered to him are not the Tsar and not the Heir, since the Tsar on his head / skull / should have a trace from the blow of the Japanese sabers in 1891

The clergy also knew about the release of the Royal Family: Patriarch St. Tikhon.

The life of the royal family after the "death"

In the KGB of the USSR, on the basis of the 2nd Main Directorate, there was a special. department that monitored all the movements of the Royal Family and their descendants across the territory of the USSR. Whether someone likes it or not, this will have to be taken into account, and, consequently, Russia's future policy should be reconsidered.

Daughters Olga (she lived under the name Natalia) and Tatyana were in the Diveevsky Monastery, disguised as nuns, and sang in the kliros of the Trinity Church. From there, Tatyana moved to Krasnodar region, got married and lived in the Apsheron and Mostovsky districts. She was buried on September 21, 1992 in the village of Solyonoye, Mostovsky District.

Olga, through Uzbekistan, went to Afghanistan with the emir of Bukhara, Seyid Alim-Khan (1880 - 1944). From there - to Finland to Vyrubova. Since 1956, she lived in Vyritsa under the name of Natalya Mikhailovna Evstigneeva, where she rested in Bose on 01/16/1976 (11/15/2011 from the grave of V.K. Olga, Her fragrant relics were partially stolen by one possessed, but were returned to Kazan temple).

On October 6, 2012, her remaining relics were removed from the grave in the cemetery, added to the stolen ones and reburied near the Kazan Church.

The daughters of Nicholas II Maria and Anastasia (who lived as Alexandra Nikolaevna Tugareva) were for some time in the Glinskaya Hermitage. Then Anastasia moved to the Volgograd (Stalingrad) region and got married on the Tugarev farm in the Novoanninsky district. From there she moved to St. Panfilovo, where she was buried on 06/27/1980. And her husband Vasily Evlampievich Peregudov died defending Stalingrad in January 1943. Maria moved to the Nizhny Novgorod region in the village of Arefino there and was buried on 05/27/1954.

Metropolitan John of Ladoga (Snychev, d. 1995) took care of Anastasia's daughter Yulia in Samara, and together with Archimandrite John (Maslov, d. 1991) took care of Tsarevich Alexei. Archpriest Vasily (Shvets, d. 2011) took care of his daughter Olga (Natalia). Son youngest daughter Nicholas II - Anastasia - Mikhail Vasilyevich Peregudov (1924 - 2001), having come from the front, he worked as an architect, according to his project was built Train Station in Stalingrad-Volgograd!

The brother of Tsar Nicholas II, Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich, was also able to escape from Perm right under the noses of the Cheka. At first he lived in Belogorye, and then moved to Vyritsa, where he rested in Bose in 1948.

Until 1927, Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna was at the Tsar's Dacha (Vvedensky Skete of Seraphim of the Ponetaevsky Monastery Nizhny Novgorod region). And at the same time she visited Kyiv, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sukhumi. Alexandra Feodorovna took the name Xenia (in honor of St. Xenia Grigoryevna of Petersburg /Petrova 1732 - 1803/).

In 1899, Tsaritsa Alexandra Feodorovna wrote a prophetic poem:

"In the solitude and silence of the monastery,

Where guardian angels fly,

Far from temptation and sin

She lives, whom everyone considers dead.

Everyone thinks she already lives

In the Divine heavenly realm.

She steps outside the walls of the monastery,

Submissive to your increased faith!”

The Empress met with Stalin, who told her the following: "Live in peace in the city of Starobelsk, but there is no need to interfere in politics."

Stalin's patronage saved the Tsaritsa when local Chekists opened criminal cases against her.

Money transfers were regularly received in the name of the Queen from France and Japan. The Empress received them and donated them to four kindergartens. This was confirmed by the former manager of the Starobelsky branch of the State Bank Ruf Leontievich Shpilyov and the chief accountant Klokolov.

The Empress did needlework, making blouses, scarves, and straws were sent to her from Japan to make hats. All this was done by order of local fashionistas.

Empress Alexandra Feodorovna

In 1931, the Tsaritsa appeared at the Starobelsk regional department of the GPU and stated that she had 185,000 marks in the Berlin Reichsbank, and 300,000 dollars in the Chicago bank. She supposedly wants to transfer all these funds to the disposal of the Soviet government, provided that it provides for her old age.

The statement of the Empress was forwarded to the GPU of the Ukrainian SSR, which instructed the so-called "Credit Bureau" to negotiate with foreign countries about receiving these deposits!

In 1942, Starobelsk was occupied, the Empress on the same day was invited to breakfast with Colonel General Kleist, who suggested that she move to Berlin, to which the Empress replied with dignity: “I am Russian and I want to die in my homeland.” Then she was offered to choose any house in the city that she wished: it would not be good, they say, for such a person to huddle in a cramped dugout. But she refused that too.

The only thing the Tsaritsa agreed to was to use the services of German doctors. True, the commandant of the city nevertheless ordered a sign to be installed near the Empress's dwelling with an inscription in Russian and German: "Do not disturb Her Majesty."

What she was very happy about, because in her dugout behind the screen were ... wounded Soviet tankers.

The German medicine was very useful. The tankers managed to get out, and they safely crossed the front line. Taking advantage of the favor of the authorities, Tsaritsa Alexandra Feodorovna saved many prisoners of war and local residents who were threatened with reprisal.

From 1927 until her death in 1948, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, under the name of Xenia, lived in the city of Starobelsk, Lugansk region. She took monastic vows with the name of Alexandra at the Starobelsk Holy Trinity Monastery.

Kosygin - Tsarevich Alexei

Tsarevich Alexei - became Alexei Nikolaevich Kosygin (1904 - 1980). Twice Hero of the Socialist Labor (1964, 1974). Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Sun of Peru. In 1935, he graduated from the Leningrad Textile Institute. In 1938, head. department of the Leningrad regional party committee, chairman of the executive committee of the Leningrad City Council.

Wife Claudia Andreevna Krivosheina (1908 - 1967) - niece of A. A. Kuznetsov. Daughter Lyudmila (1928 - 1990) was married to Jermen Mikhailovich Gvishiani (1928 - 2003). The son of Mikhail Maksimovich Gvishiani (1905 - 1966) since 1928 in the State Pedagogical Department of Internal Affairs of Georgia. In 1937-38. deputy Chairman of the Tbilisi City Executive Committee. In 1938, the 1st deputy. People's Commissar of the NKVD of Georgia. In 1938 - 1950. early UNKVDUNKGBUMGB Primorsky Krai. In 1950 - 1953 early UMGB of the Kuibyshev region. Grandchildren Tatyana and Alexey.

The Kosygin family was friends with the families of the writer Sholokhov, the composer Khachaturian, and the rocket designer Chelomey.

In 1940 - 1960. - Deputy prev. Council of People's Commissars - Council of Ministers of the USSR. In 1941 - Deputy. prev. Council for the evacuation of industry in eastern regions USSR. From January to July 1942 - authorized by the State Defense Committee in the besieged Leningrad. Participated in the evacuation of the population and industrial enterprises and property of Tsarskoye Selo. The prince walked along Ladoga on the Shtandart yacht and knew the surroundings of the Lake well, therefore he organized the "Road of Life" through the Lake to supply the city.

Aleksey Nikolaevich created an electronics center in Zelenograd, but enemies in the Politburo did not allow him to bring this idea to fruition. And today Russia is forced to buy household appliances and computers around the world.

The Sverdlovsk Region produced everything from strategic missiles to bacteriological weapons, and was filled with underground cities hiding under the indices "Sverdlovsk-42", and there were more than two hundred such "Sverdlovsk".

He helped Palestine, as Israel expanded its borders at the expense of the lands of the Arabs.

He brought to life projects for the development of gas and oil fields in Siberia.

But the Jews, members of the Politburo, made the export of crude oil and gas the main line of the budget - instead of the export of processed products, as Kosygin (Romanov) wanted.

In 1949, during the promotion of the "Leningrad case" by G. M. Malenkov, Kosygin miraculously survived. During the investigation, Mikoyan, deputy. Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, "organized Kosygin's long trip to Siberia, in connection with the need to strengthen the activities of cooperation, improve matters with the procurement of agricultural products." Stalin coordinated this business trip with Mikoyan in time, because he was poisoned and from the beginning of August until the end of December 1950 lay in the country, miraculously remaining alive!

In his treatment of Alexei, Stalin affectionately called him "Kosyga", since he was his nephew. Sometimes Stalin called him Tsarevich in front of everyone.

In the 60s. Tsarevich Alexei, realizing the inefficiency of the existing system, proposed a transition from a social economy to a real one. Keep records of sold, not manufactured products as the main indicator of the efficiency of enterprises, etc. Alexei Nikolaevich Romanov normalized relations between the USSR and China during the conflict on about. Damansky, having met in Beijing at the airport with Premier of the State Council of the People's Republic of China Zhou Enlai.

Alexei Nikolaevich visited the Venevsky Monastery in the Tula region and talked with the nun Anna, who was in touch with the entire royal family. He even gave her a diamond ring once, for clear predictions. And shortly before his death, he came to her, and she told him that He would die on December 18!

The death of Tsarevich Alexei coincided with the birthday of Leonid Brezhnev on December 18, 1980, and these days the country did not know that Kosygin had died.

The ashes of the Tsesarevich have been resting in the Kremlin wall since December 24, 1980!

There was no memorial service for the August Family

Royal Family: real life after the imaginary execution
Until 1927, the Royal Family met on the stones of St. Seraphim of Sarov, next to the Tsar's dacha, on the territory of the Vvedensky Skete of the Seraphim-Ponetaevsky Monastery. Now only the former baptismal remained from the Skit. It was closed in 1927 by the NKVD forces. This was preceded by general searches, after which all the nuns were moved to different monasteries in Arzamas and Ponetaevka. And icons, jewelry, bells and other property were taken to Moscow.

In the 20 - 30s. Nicholas II stayed in Diveevo at st. Arzamasskaya, 16, in the house of Alexandra Ivanovna Grashkina - schema nun Dominica (1906 - 2009).

Stalin built a dacha in Sukhumi next to the dacha of the Royal Family and came there to meet with the Emperor and his cousin Nicholas II.

In the form of an officer, Nicholas II visited the Kremlin with Stalin, as confirmed by General Vatov (d. 2004), who served in Stalin's guard.

Marshal Mannerheim, having become the President of Finland, immediately left the war, as he secretly communicated with the Emperor. And in the office of Mannerheim hung a portrait of Nicholas II. Confessor of the Royal Family since 1912 Fr. Aleksey (Kibardin, 1882 - 1964), living in Vyritsa, took care of a woman who arrived there from Finland in 1956 on a post-maternity basis. the eldest daughter of the Tsar - Olga.

In Sofia after the revolution, in the building of the Holy Synod on St. Alexander Nevsky Square, the confessor of the Highest Family Vladyka Feofan (Bystrov) lived.

Vladyka never served a memorial service for the August Family and told his cell-attendant that the Royal Family was alive! And even in April 1931, he traveled to Paris to meet with Sovereign Nicholas II and with the people who freed the Royal Family from imprisonment. Vladyka Feofan also said that over time the Romanov family would be restored, but through the female line.

Expertise

Head Department of Biology, Ural medical academy Oleg Makeev said: “Genetic examination after 90 years is not only difficult due to the changes that have occurred in the bone tissue, but also cannot give an absolute result even if it is carefully performed. The methodology used in the studies already conducted is still not recognized as evidence by any court in the world.”

A foreign expert commission to investigate the fate of the Royal Family, established in 1989, chaired by Pyotr Nikolaevich Koltypin-Vallovsky, commissioned a study by scientists from Stanford University and received data on the inconsistency of the DNA of the “Ekaterinburg remains”.

The Commission provided for DNA analysis a fragment of the finger of V. K. St. Elizabeth Feodorovna Romanova, whose relics are stored in the Jerusalem Church of Mary Magdalene.

“The sisters and their children should have identical mitochondrial DNA, but the results of the analysis of the remains of Elizaveta Feodorovna do not correspond to the previously published DNA of the alleged remains of Alexandra Feodorovna and her daughters,” was the conclusion of the scientists.

The experiment was conducted by an international team of scientists led by Dr. Alec Knight, a molecular systematist at Stanford University, with the participation of geneticists from Eastern Michigan University, Los Alamos National Laboratory, with the participation of Dr. Lev Zhivotovsky, an employee of the Institute of General Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

After the death of an organism, DNA begins to rapidly decompose, (cut) into parts, and the more time passes, the more these parts are shortened. After 80 years, without creating special conditions, DNA segments longer than 200-300 nucleotides are not preserved. And in 1994, during the analysis, a segment of 1.223 nucleotides was isolated.”

Thus, Pyotr Koltypin-Vallovskoy emphasized: “Geneticists again refuted the results of the examination conducted in 1994 in the British laboratory, on the basis of which it was concluded that the Yekaterinburg remains belonged to Tsar Nicholas II and his Family.”

Japanese scientists presented to the Moscow Patriarchate the results of their research regarding the "Ekaterinburg remains".

On December 7, 2004, Bishop Alexander of Dmitrov, vicar of the Moscow Diocese, met with Dr. Tatsuo Nagai in the MP building. Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor, Director of the Department of Forensic and Scientific Medicine, Kitazato University (Japan). Since 1987 he has been working at Kitazato University, he is Vice Dean of the Joint School of Medical Sciences, Director and Professor of the Department of Clinical Hematology and the Department of Forensic Medicine. Published 372 scientific work and made 150 presentations at international medical conferences in various countries. Member of the Royal Society of Medicine in London.

He carried out the identification of the mitochondrial DNA of the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II. During the assassination attempt on Tsarevich Nicholas II in Japan in 1891, his handkerchief was left there, which was applied to the wound. It turned out that the structures of DNA from the cuts in 1998 in the first case differ from the structure of DNA in both the second and third cases. A research team led by Dr. Nagai took a sample of dried sweat from the clothes of Nicholas II, stored in the Catherine Palace of Tsarskoye Selo, and performed a mitochondrial analysis of it.

In addition, a mitochondrial DNA analysis of the hair, bone of the lower jaw and thumbnail of V.K. Georgy Alexandrovich, younger brother of Nicholas II, buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral, was performed. I compared DNA from the cuts of bones buried in 1998 in Peter and Paul Fortress, with blood samples of the native nephew of Emperor Nicholas II Tikhon Nikolaevich, as well as with sweat and blood samples of Tsar Nicholas II himself.

Dr. Nagai's conclusions: "We got results different from those obtained by Drs. Peter Gill and Pavel Ivanov on five points."

Glorification of the King

Sobchak (Finkelstein, d. 2000), being the mayor of St. Petersburg, committed a monstrous crime - he issued death certificates for Nicholas II and members of his family to Leonida Georgievna. He issued certificates in 1996 without even waiting for the conclusions of Nemtsov's "official commission."

The “protection of the rights and legitimate interests” of the “Imperial House” in Russia began in 1995 by the late Leonida Georgievna, who, on behalf of her daughter, the “Head of the Russian Imperial House”, applied for state registration of the death of members of the Imperial House killed in 1918-1919. and the issuance of death certificates.

On December 1, 2005, an application was submitted to the Prosecutor General's Office for the "rehabilitation of Emperor Nicholas II and members of his family." This application was submitted on behalf of "Princess" Maria Vladimirovna by her lawyer G. Yu. Lukyanov, who replaced Sobchak in this post.

The glorification of the Royal Family, although it took place under Ridiger (Alexius II) at the Bishops' Council, was just a cover for the "consecration" of Solomon's temple.

After all, only the Local Council can glorify the king in the face of the Saints. Because the Tsar is the spokesman of the Spirit of the whole people, and not just of the Priesthood. That is why the decision of the Bishops' Council of 2000 must be approved by the Local Council.

According to ancient canons, it is possible to glorify God's saints after healing from various ailments occurs at their graves. After that, it is checked how this or that ascetic lived. If he lived righteous life This means healing comes from God. If not, then such healings are done by the Bes, and then they will turn into new diseases.

In order to be convinced from your own experience, you need to go to the grave of Emperor Nicholas II, in Nizhny Novgorod, at the Krasnaya Etna cemetery, where he was buried on December 26, 1958.

The famous Nizhny Novgorod elder and priest Grigory (Dolbunov, d. 1996) buried and buried the Sovereign Emperor Nicholas II.

Whoever the Lord vouchsafes to go to the grave and be healed, he can be convinced by his own experience.

The transfer of His relics is yet to be done at the federal level.

Sergey Zhelenkov

The Romanovs were not shot (Levashov N.V.)

Dec 16 2012 Private video in which a Russian journalist in the past talks about an Italian who wrote an article about witnesses that the Romanovs were alive... There is a photograph of the grave in the video eldest daughter Nicholas II, who died in 1976...
Interview with Vladimir Sychev on the Romanov case
An interesting interview with Vladimir Sychev, who refutes the official version of the execution of the royal family. He talks about the grave of Olga Romanova in northern Italy, about the investigation of two British journalists, about the conditions of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1918, according to which all the women of the royal family were handed over to the Germans in Kyiv...

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

What 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 peace. Nikolai Alexandrovich, who came to power, turned out to be a meek and noble man. In spirit, he was not an autocrat, but an officer. Therefore, with his views on life, it was difficult to manage a crumbling state.

The revolution of 1905 showed the failure of power and its 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 destroyed the once great power with their greed, licentiousness and short-sightedness.

Strikes and rallies, demonstrations and bread riots, famine. All this was indicative of a decline. The only way out could be the accession to the throne of a powerful and tough ruler who could take control of the country completely under his control.

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

After joining Russian Empire to the First world war only increased the discontent of the people. The execution of the royal family became the apotheosis of general insanity. Next, we will look into this crime in more detail.

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

The petty local commissars wanted to curry favor with the higher ranks. Ordinary and junior officers simply mindlessly carried out orders. The time of troubles that came in these turbulent years brought unfavorable elements to the surface.

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

Course of events

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

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

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

But in April, 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.

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

The main reason for the transfer to the east was family ties Nicholas Alexandrovich with the German Emperor Wilhelm, as well as the proximity of the Entente to Petrograd. The revolutionaries were afraid of the release of the king and the restoration of the monarchy.

The role of Yakovlev, who was instructed to transport the emperor and his family from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg, is interesting. He knew about the assassination attempt on the tsar being prepared by the Siberian Bolsheviks.

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 king and his family to Moscow." The latter are inclined to believe that Yakovlev was a European spy who intended to save the emperor by taking him to Japan through Omsk and Vladivostok.

After arriving in Yekaterinburg, all prisoners were placed in the Ipatiev mansion. A photo of the royal family of the Romanovs has been preserved when they were transferred to the Yakovlev Ural Council. The place of detention among the revolutionaries was called the "house of special purpose."

Here they were kept for seventy-eight days. More details about the relationship of the convoy to the emperor and his family will be discussed later. In the meantime, it is important to focus on the fact that it was rude and boorish. They were robbed, psychologically and morally crushed, mocked in such a way that it was 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 night. Life physician Botkin, on the orders of the revolutionaries, woke up all the captives and went down with them to the basement.

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

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

Government disinformation

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

Nevertheless, immediately after the atrocity, the government launched a campaign to whitewash its reputation. Among researchers dealing with this period, the latest actions are called the "disinformation campaign."

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

The second point, which was furiously hidden for many years, was that eleven people were shot. 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 outlined the results of Sokolov's investigation. At the same time, Bykov was instructed to write about the "real course of events." This pamphlet 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 common people shook faith in power. and its consequences, according to Lykova, caused people to distrust 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. A similar "warm-up" was the liquidation of the Emperor's brother Mikhail Alexandrovich with his personal secretary.
On the night of June 12-13, 1918, they were forcibly taken out of the Perm hotel outside the city. They were shot in the forest, and their remains have not yet been found.

A statement was made to the international press that Grand Duke was kidnapped by intruders and disappeared without a trace. For Russia, the official version was the escape of Mikhail Alexandrovich.

The main purpose of such a statement was to speed up the trial of the emperor and his family. They started a rumor that the escapee could contribute to the release of the "bloody tyrant" from "fair punishment."

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

All of them were thrown into the Nizhnyaya Selimskaya mine, not far from the city of Alapaevsk. They only resisted and were shot dead. The rest were stunned and thrown down alive. In 2009, they were all canonized as martyrs.

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

Memoirs of contemporaries

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

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

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

The most complete history of the royal family in the last days of his life was restored according to the protocols of interrogations of participants in these events. People from the guard, punitive and funeral squads testified several times.

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

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

According to the participants, this was the only solution. In addition, many of them boasted during interrogations that they personally killed the emperor. Who with one, and who with three shots. Judging by the diaries of Nikolai and his wife, the workers guarding them were often drunk. That's why real events certainly cannot be recovered.

What happened to the remains

The murder of the royal family took place in secret, and they planned to keep it a secret. But those responsible for the liquidation 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 were busy with the task for several days. At first, it was planned to burn the clothes, and throw the naked bodies into the mine and cover them with earth. But the crash didn't work. I had to remove the remains of the royal family and come up with another way.

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

Presumably, the body of Alexei and one girl from the servant 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 forbid leaving the neighboring village. But the secrecy of the operation was hopelessly failed.

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

Kirsta investigation

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

He began to study the testimony of witnesses who pointed to the murder of the royal Romanov family. 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 to interrogate witnesses who gave contradictory testimonies. But on their basis, Kirsta concluded that perhaps only the emperor and his 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 Romanov royal family was killed. Even after he explicitly 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 treated Princess Anastasia. Then another witness spoke of the transfer of the emperor's wife and some of the children to Perm, which she knew about from rumors.

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

Sokolov's investigation

Kolchak, who came to power in 1919, ordered Dieterichs to figure out how the Romanov royal family was killed. The latter entrusted 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 he was given all the paperwork, he did not trust Kirsta's confusing protocols.

Sokolov again visited the mine, as well as the Ipatiev mansion. Inspection of the house was hampered by the presence of the headquarters of the Czech army there. Nevertheless, a German inscription on the wall was discovered, a quotation from Heine's verse that the monarch was killed by subjects. The words were clearly scratched out after the loss of the city by the Reds.

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

After the Bolsheviks recapture this region, Sokolov takes out all the paperwork to Harbin, and then to Western Europe. Photos of the royal family, diaries, evidence, and so on 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, he was delivered the archives of his family, taken out during the Second World War.

Modern Investigation

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

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

The study of the burial was carried out by the senior prosecutor-criminalist Solovyov. On the whole, he confirmed all of Sokolov's materials. His message to Patriarch Alexei II states that "under the conditions of that time, it was impossible to completely destroy the corpses."

In addition, a consequence of the end of XX - early XXI century completely refuted alternative versions events, which we will discuss next.
The canonization of the royal family was carried out in 1981 by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, and in Russia in 2000.

Since the Bolsheviks tried to classify this crime, rumors spread that contributed to the formation of alternative versions.

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

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

Rumors spread by the Bolsheviks and false testimonies of "eyewitnesses" gave rise to a series of versions about people who escaped. But 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 held 19 years later than abroad.

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

It would seem difficult to find new evidence of the terrible events that took place on the night of July 16-17, 1918. Even people far from the ideas of monarchism remember that it became fatal for the Romanov family. That night, Nicholas II, who abdicated the throne, the former Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and their children - 14-year-old Alexei, Olga, Tatyana, Maria and Anastasia, were killed. The fate of the sovereign was shared by the doctor E. S. Botkin, the maid A. Demidova, the cook Kharitonov and the footman. However, from time to time, witnesses are discovered who, after many years of silence, report new details of the execution of the royal family.

Many books have been written about the death of the Romanovs. There are still discussions about whether the murder of the Romanovs was a pre-planned operation and whether it was part of Lenin's plans. Until now, there are people who believe that at least the children of the emperor managed to escape from the basement of the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg. The accusation of the murder of the emperor and his family was an excellent trump card against the Bolsheviks, gave grounds to accuse them of inhumanity. Is it because most of the documents and testimonies that tell about last days Romanovs, appeared and continues to appear precisely in Western countries? But some researchers suggest that the crime that Bolshevik Russia was accused of was not committed at all ...

From the very beginning, there were many mysteries in the investigation into the circumstances of the murder of the Romanovs. In relatively hot pursuit, two investigators were engaged in it. The first investigation began a week after the alleged execution. The investigator came to the conclusion that Nikolai was indeed executed on the night of July 16-17, but the former queen, her son and four daughters were saved.

In early 1919, a new investigation was carried out. It was headed by Nikolai Sokolov. Did he find indisputable evidence that the entire family of Nicholas 11 was killed in Yekaterinburg? It's hard to say... When examining the mine where the bodies of the royal family were dumped, he discovered several things that for some reason did not catch the eye of his predecessor: a miniature pin that the prince used as a fishing hook, gems, which were sewn into the belts of the Grand Duchesses, and the skeleton of a tiny dog, obviously, the favorite of Princess Tatyana. If we recall the circumstances of the death of the Romanovs, it is difficult to imagine that the corpse of a dog was also transported from place to place, trying to hide ... Sokolov did not find human remains, except for several fragments of bones and a severed finger of a middle-aged woman, presumably the empress.

In 1919 Sokolov fled abroad to Europe. However, the results of his investigation were published only in 1924. Quite a long time, especially considering the huge number of emigrants who were interested in the Romanov family. According to Sokolov, all members of the royal family were killed on the fateful night. True, he was not the first to suggest that the Empress and her children could not escape. Back in 1921, Pavel Bykov, chairman of the Yekaterinburg Soviet, published this version. It would seem that one could forget about the hopes that one of the Romanovs survived. However, both in Europe and in Russia, numerous impostors and impostors constantly appeared, declaring themselves the children of Nicholas. So, were there any doubts?

The first argument of the supporters of the revision of the version of the death of the entire royal family was the announcement of the Bolsheviks about the execution former emperor taken July 19th. It said that only the tsar was executed, and Alexandra Feodorovna and her children were sent to a safe place. The second is that it was more profitable for the Bolsheviks at that moment to exchange Alexandra Fedorovna for political prisoners held captive in Germany. There were rumors about negotiations on this subject. Shortly after the death of the emperor, Sir Charles Eliot, the British consul in Siberia, visited Yekaterinburg. He met with the first investigator in the Romanov case, after which he informed his superiors that, in his opinion, the former tsarina and her children left Yekaterinburg by train on 17 July.

Almost at the same time, Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig of Hesse, Alexandra's brother, allegedly informed his second sister, the Marchioness of Milford Haven, that Alexandra was safe. Of course, he could simply comfort his sister, who could not help but hear rumors about the massacre of the royal family. If Alexandra and her children had really been exchanged for political prisoners (Germany would have willingly taken this step in order to save her princess), all the newspapers of both the Old and New Worlds would have trumpeted about this. This would mean that the dynasty, connected by blood ties with many of the oldest monarchies in Europe, did not break off. But no articles followed, so the version that the entire family of Nikolai was killed was recognized as official.

In the early 1970s, British journalists Anthony Summers and Tom Menschld got acquainted with official documents Sokolov's investigations. And they found in them many inaccuracies and shortcomings that cast doubt on this version. Firstly, the encrypted telegram about the murder of the entire Romanov family, sent to Moscow on July 17, appeared in the case only in January 1919, after the removal of the first investigator. Secondly, the bodies still have not been found. And to judge the death of the Empress by a single fragment of the body - a severed finger - was not entirely correct.

In 1988, it would seem that there was irrefutable evidence of the death of Nikolai, his wife and children. The former investigator of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, screenwriter Geliy Ryabov, received a secret report from his son Yakov Yurovsky (one of the main participants in the execution). It contained detailed information about where the remains of members of the imperial family were hidden. Ryabov began to search. He managed to find greenish-black bones with traces of burns left by acid. In 1988, he published an account of his find.

In July 1991, professional Russian archaeologists arrived at the site where the remains, presumably belonging to the royal family, were discovered. 9 skeletons were taken out of the ground. Four of them belonged to Nikolai's servants and their family doctor. Five more - to the emperor, his wife and children. Establishing the identity of the remains was not easy. Initially, the skulls were compared with surviving photographs of members of the Romanov family. One of them was identified as the skull of Nicholas II. Later, a comparative analysis of DNA fingerprints was carried out. This required the blood of a person who was related to the deceased. The blood sample was provided by Britain's Prince Philip.

His maternal grandmother was the sister of the Empress's grandmother. The results of the analysis showed a complete match of DNA in four skeletons, which gave grounds to officially recognize the remains of Alexandra and her three daughters in them. The bodies of the Tsarevich and Anastasia were not found. On this occasion, two hypotheses were put forward: either two descendants of the Romanov family still managed to stay alive, or their bodies were burned. It seems that Sokolov was right after all, and his report turned out to be not a provocation, but real coverage of facts ... In 1998, the remains of the royal family were transferred with honors to St. Petersburg and buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral. True, there were immediately skeptics who were convinced that the remains of completely different people were in the cathedral.

In 2006, another DNA test was carried out. This time, samples of skeletons found in the Urals were compared with fragments of relics Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna. A series of studies was carried out by L. Zhivotovsky, Doctor of Science, an employee of the Institute of General Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He was assisted by colleagues from the United States. The results of this analysis were a complete surprise: the DNA of Elizabeth and the alleged empress did not match. The first thought that came to the mind of the researchers was that the relics stored in the cathedral did not actually belong to Elizabeth, but to someone else. But this version had to be excluded: the body of Elizabeth was discovered in a mine near Alapaevsky in the autumn of 1918, she was identified by people who were closely acquainted with her, including the confessor of the Grand Duchess, Father Seraphim.

This priest subsequently accompanied the coffin with the body of his spiritual daughter to Jerusalem and would not allow any substitution. This meant that at least one body did not belong to members of the royal family. Later, doubts arose about the identity of the rest of the remains. On the skull, which was previously identified as the skull of Nicholas II, there was no callus, which could not disappear even after so many years after death. This mark appeared on the skull of the emperor after the assassination attempt on him in Japan.

Yurovsky's protocol stated that the emperor was shot at point-blank range, and the executioner shot him in the head. Even if we take into account the imperfection of the weapon, at least one bullet hole must have remained in the skull. But it lacks both inlet and outlet holes.

It is possible that the 1993 reports were fake. Need to find the remains of the royal family? Please, here they are. Conduct an examination to prove their authenticity? Here are the test results! In the 90s of the last century, there were all conditions for myth-making. No wonder the Russian was so cautious Orthodox Church, not wanting to recognize the bones found and rank Nicholas and his family among the martyrs ...
Again, talk began that the Romanovs were not killed, but hidden in order to be used in some political game in the future. Could the emperor live in the USSR under a false name with his family?

On the one hand, this possibility cannot be ruled out. The country is huge, there are many corners in it in which no one would recognize Nicholas. The royal family could also be settled in some kind of shelter, where they would be completely isolated from contacts with the outside world, and therefore not dangerous. On the other hand, even if the remains found near Yekaterinburg are the result of falsification, this does not mean at all that there was no execution. They knew how to destroy the bodies of dead enemies and scatter their ashes in ancient times. To burn a human body, you need 300-400 kilograms of wood - in India, thousands of the dead are buried every day using the burning method. So would the killers, who had an unlimited supply of firewood and a fair amount of acid, not be able to hide all traces?

More recently, in the fall of 2010, during work in the vicinity of the Old Koptyakovskaya road in Sverdlovsk region places were discovered where the killers hid jugs of acid. If there was no execution, where did they come from in the Ural wilderness?
Attempts to restore the events that preceded the execution were carried out repeatedly. As you know, after the abdication, the imperial family was settled in the Alexander Palace, in August they were transferred to Tobolsk, and later to Yekaterinburg, to the infamous Ipatiev House.
Aviation engineer Pyotr Duz was sent to Sverdlovsk in the fall of 1941. One of his duties in the rear was the publication of textbooks and manuals to supply the country's military universities.

Getting acquainted with the property of the publishing house, Duz ended up in the Ipatiev House, which at that time was inhabited by several nuns and two elderly female archivists. While inspecting the premises, Duz, accompanied by one of the women, went down to the basement and drew attention to the strange furrows on the ceiling, which ended in deep depressions ...

At work, Peter often visited the Ipatiev House. Apparently, the elderly employees felt trust in him, because one evening they showed him a small closet in which, right on the wall, on rusty nails, hung a white glove, a lady's fan, a ring, several buttons of various sizes ... On a chair lay a small Bible on French and a couple of old-fashioned books. According to one of the women, all these things once belonged to members of the imperial family.

She also spoke about the last days of the life of the Romanovs, which, according to her, were unbearable. The Chekists guarding the captives behaved incredibly rudely. All the windows in the house were boarded up. The Chekists explained that these measures were taken for security purposes, but Duzya's interlocutor was convinced that this was one of a thousand ways to humiliate the "former". It must be said that the Chekists had grounds for concern. According to the memoirs of the archivist, the Ipatiev House was besieged every morning (!) by local residents and monks who tried to pass notes to the tsar and his relatives and offered to help with household chores.

Of course, this cannot justify the behavior of the security officers, but any intelligence officer who is entrusted with the protection of an important person is simply obliged to limit his contacts with the outside world. But the behavior of the guards was not limited only to "not allowing" sympathizers to members of the imperial family. Many of their antics were simply outrageous. They took particular delight in shocking Nikolai's daughters. They wrote obscene words on the fence and the toilet located in the yard, they tried to watch for the girls in the dark corridors. No one has mentioned such details yet. Therefore, Duz listened attentively to the story of the interlocutor. She also told a lot about the last minutes of the Romanovs' life.

The Romanovs were ordered to go down to the basement. Nikolay asked to bring a chair for his wife. Then one of the guards left the room, and Yurovsky took out a revolver and began to line everyone up in one line. Most versions say that the executioners fired in volleys. But the inhabitants of the Ipatiev House recalled that the shots were chaotic.

Nicholas was killed immediately. But his wife and princesses were destined for a more difficult death. The fact is that diamonds were sewn into their corsets. In some places they were located in several layers. The bullets ricocheted off this layer and went into the ceiling. The execution dragged on. When the Grand Duchesses were already lying on the floor, they were considered dead. But when they began to lift one of them to load the body into the car, the princess groaned and stirred. Therefore, the Chekists finished off her and her sisters with bayonets.

After the execution, no one was allowed into the Ipatiev House for several days - apparently, attempts to destroy the bodies took a lot of time. A week later, the Chekists allowed several nuns to enter the house - the premises had to be put in order. Among them was Duzya's interlocutor. According to him, she recalled with horror the picture that had opened in the basement of the Ipatiev House. There were many bullet holes on the walls, and the floor and walls in the room where the execution was carried out were covered in blood.

Later, experts from the Main State Center for Forensic and Forensic Expertise of the Russian Ministry of Defense restored the picture of the execution to the nearest minute and to the millimeter. Using a computer, based on the testimony of Grigory Nikulin and Anatoly Yakimov, they established where and at what moment the executioners and their victims were. Computer reconstruction showed that the Empress and the Grand Duchesses tried to shield Nikolai from bullets.

Ballistic examination established many details: from which weapons the members of the royal family were liquidated, how many shots were approximately fired. It took Chekists at least 30 times to pull the trigger...
Every year, the chances of discovering the real remains of the Romanov family (if the Yekaterinburg skeletons are recognized as fake) are fading. So, the hope is melting someday to find an exact answer to the questions: who died in the basement of the Ipatiev House, did any of the Romanovs manage to escape, and what was the fate of the heirs to the Russian throne...

V. M. Sklyarenko, I. A. Rudycheva, V. V. Syadro. 50 famous mysteries of the history of the XX century