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 Ascensionist", Olga - "Your faithful Elisavetgradets", and Anastasia did 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 the Romanovs were not allowed to live a private life. 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 by 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 Fedorovna'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 dressing room, a dining room next to it with windows to 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 he will be replaced Yakov Yurovsky.) The instructions for protecting the family said: "The commandant must bear 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 forbidden any physical labor. Nicholas asked permission to clean the garden - refusal. For a family that spent the past few months only chopping firewood and cultivating beds, this 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.

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

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

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

Nicholas II at that time was going to Tsarskoe Selo, because of the riots, he was forced to make a detour through the Dno station and Pskov. It is in Pskov that the tsar receives telegrams with requests from the commanders-in-chief to abdicate and signs two manifestos that legitimize his abdication. After this turning point for the empire and his own event, Nikolai lives for some time under the protection of the Provisional Government, then falls into the hands of the Bolsheviks and dies in the basement of the Ipatiev house in July 1918 ... Or not? Let's look at the facts.

Fact number 1. Contradictory, and in some places simply fabulous testimonies of the participants in the execution.

For example, the commandant of the Ipatiev house and the leader of the execution, Ya.M. Yurovsky, in his note compiled for the historian Pokrovsky, claims that during the execution, the bullets ricocheted off the victims and flew around the room in a hail, as the women sewed up gems in your corsages. How many stones are needed for the corsage to provide the same protection as cast chain mail ?!

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

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

The same room in the Ipatiev house, where, according to both the Bolsheviks and the chief White Guard investigators, the family of Nikolai Aleksandrovich Romanov was shot. It is quite possible that completely different people were shot here. More on this in future articles.

Fact number 2. There is a lot of evidence that the whole family of Nicholas II or one of its members were alive after the day of execution.

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

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

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

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

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

Fact number 3. The king's life was more profitable than death.

On the one hand, the masses demanded the execution of the tsar and, as you know, the Bolsheviks did not hesitate much with executions. But the execution of the royal family is not an execution, it is necessary to sentence to execution, to hold a trial. Here there was a murder without trial (at least formal, indicative) and investigation. And even if the former autocrat was still killed, why didn’t they show the corpse, didn’t prove to the people that they fulfilled his desire.

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

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

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

I do not know if this article was able to convince anyone that the latter Russian emperor was not killed in July 1918. But, I hope that many had doubts about this, which prompted them to dig deeper, to consider other evidence that contradicts the official version. You can find much more facts indicating that the official version of the death of Nicholas II is false, for example, in the book of L.M. Sonin "The mystery of the death of the royal family". Most of the material for this article I took from this book.

Historically, Russia is a monarchical state. First there were princes, then kings. The history of our state is old and diverse. Russia knew many monarchs with different characters, human and managerial qualities. However, it was the Romanov family that became the brightest representative of the Russian throne. The history of their reign has about three centuries. And the end Russian Empire also inextricably linked with this surname.

Romanov family: history

The Romanovs, an old noble family, did not immediately have such a surname. For centuries, they were first called Kobylins, a little bit later Koshkins, then Zakharyin. And only after more than 6 generations they acquired the name of the Romanovs.

For the first time, this noble family was allowed to approach the Russian throne by the marriage of Tsar Ivan the Terrible with Anastasia Zakharyina.

There is no direct connection between the Rurikoviches and the Romanovs. It has been established that Ivan III is the great-great-grandson of one of the sons of Andrei Kobyla - Fedor on the maternal side. Whereas the Romanov family became a continuation of another grandson of Fedor - Zacharias.

However, this fact played a key role when, in 1613, on Zemsky Cathedral the grandson of Anastasia Zakharyina's brother, Mikhail, was elected to reign. So the throne passed from the Ruriks to the Romanovs. After that, the rulers of this kind succeeded each other for three centuries. During this time, our country changed the form of power and became the Russian Empire.

Peter I became the first emperor. And the last Nicholas II, who abdicated as a result February Revolution 1917 and was shot with his family in July of the following year.

Biography of Nicholas II

In order to understand the reasons for the deplorable end of the imperial reign, it is necessary to take a closer look at the biography of Nikolai Romanov and his family:

1. Nicholas II was born in 1868. From childhood he was brought up in best traditions royal court. From a young age he became interested in military affairs. From the age of 5, he took part in military training, parades and processions. Even before taking the oath, he had various ranks, including being a Cossack chieftain. As a result, the rank of colonel became the highest military rank of Nicholas. Nicholas came to power at the age of 27. Nicholas was an educated, intelligent monarch;
2. To the bride of Nicholas, a German princess who received Russian name- Alexandra Fedorovna, at the time of the marriage she was 22 years old. The couple loved each other very much and reverently treated each other all their lives. However, the environment treated the empress negatively, suspecting that the autocrat was too dependent on his wife;
3. There were four daughters in the family of Nicholas - Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and the youngest son Alexei was born - a possible heir to the throne. Unlike strong and healthy sisters, Alexei was diagnosed with hemophilia. This meant that the boy could die from any scratch.

Why was the Romanov family shot?

Nikolai made several fatal mistakes, which as a result led to a tragic end:

• The first ill-conceived oversight of Nikolai is considered a crush on the Khodynka field. In the first days of his reign, people went to Khodynskaya Square for gifts promised by the new emperor. As a result, pandemonium began, more than 1200 people died. Nicholas remained indifferent to this event until the end of all the events dedicated to his coronation, which lasted for several more days. The people did not forgive him for such behavior and called him Bloody;
• During his reign, there were many strife and contradictions in the country. The emperor understood that it was necessary to urgently take measures in order to raise the patriotism of the Russians and unite them. Many believe that it was for this purpose that the Russo-Japanese War was unleashed, which as a result was lost, and Russia lost part of its territory;
• After graduation Russo-Japanese War in 1905, on the square in front of the Winter Palace, without the knowledge of Nicholas, the military shot people who had gathered for a rally. This event was called in history - "Bloody Sunday";
• First world war The Russian state also entered carelessly. The conflict began in 1914 between Serbia and Austria-Hungary. The sovereign considered it necessary to stand up for the Balkan state, as a result of which, Germany stood up to defend Austria-Hungary. The war dragged on, which ceased to suit the military.

As a result, a provisional government was created in Petrograd. Nicholas knew about the mood of the people, but could not take any decisive action and signed a paper about his abdication.

The Provisional Government placed the family under arrest, first in Tsarskoe Selo, and then they were exiled to Tobolsk. After the Bolsheviks came to power in October 1917, the whole family was moved to Yekaterinburg and, by decision of the Bolshevik Council executed to prevent a return to royal power.

The remains of the royal family in our time

After the execution, all the remains were collected and transported to the mines of Ganina Yama. It was not possible to burn the bodies, so they were thrown into the mine shafts. The next day, the villagers found the bodies floating at the bottom of the flooded mines and it became clear that a reburial was necessary.

The remains were again loaded into the car. However, having driven off a little, she fell into the mud in the area of ​​the Porosenkov Log. There they buried the dead, dividing the ashes into two parts.

The first part of the bodies was discovered in 1978. However, due to the long obtaining of permission for excavations, it was possible to get to them only in 1991. Two bodies, presumably Maria and Alexei, were found in 2007 a little further from the road.

Over the years, many modern, high-tech examinations have been carried out by different groups of scientists to determine the involvement of the remains in the royal family. As a result, genetic similarity was proven, but some historians and the Russian Orthodox Church still do not agree with these results.

Now the relics are reburied in the Peter and Paul Cathedral.

Living members of the genus

The Bolsheviks sought to exterminate as many representatives of the royal family as possible so that no one would even have the thought of returning to their former power. However, many managed to escape abroad.

In the male line, living descendants descend from the sons of Nicholas I - Alexander and Mikhail. There are also descendants in the female line, which originate from Ekaterina Ioannovna. Most of them do not live on the territory of our state. However, representatives of the genus have created and are developing public and charitable organizations that carry out their activities, including in Russia.

Thus, the Romanov family is a symbol of the bygone empire for our country. Many are still arguing about whether it is possible to revive imperial power in the country and whether it is worth it. Obviously, this page of our history has been turned over, and its representatives are buried with appropriate honors.

Video: the execution of the Romanov family

This video recreates the moment of the capture of the Romanov family and their further execution:

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

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

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

Historian Simon Sebag Montefiore recounts these events in detail in his book 'The Romanovs, 1613-1618', published this year. El Confidential has already written about her. In the Town & Country magazine, the author recalls that the official investigation into the murder of the royal family was resumed last fall, and the remains of the king and queen were exhumed. This gave rise to conflicting statements from the government and representatives of the Church, again putting this issue in the public eye.

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

Wounds

In 1998, the reburial of the remains of the Romanovs took place in a solemn official ceremony designed to heal the wounds of Russia's past.

President Yeltsin said that political change should never again be forced. Many Orthodox again expressed their disagreement and perceived this event as an attempt by the president to impose a liberal agenda in the former USSR.

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

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

Putin is a political realist, and he is moving along the path outlined by the leaders of a strong Russia: from Peter I to Stalin. These were bright personalities who opposed the international threat.

The position of Putin, who questioned the results scientific research(faint echo cold war: there were many Americans among the researchers), calmed the Church and created a breeding ground for conspiracy, nationalist and anti-Semitic hypotheses regarding the remains of the Romanovs. One of them was that Lenin and his followers, many of whom were Jews, moved the bodies to Moscow with orders to mutilate them. Was it really the king and his family? Or did someone manage to escape?

Context

How did the kings return to Russian history

Atlantico 19.08.2015

304 years of Romanov rule

Le Figaro 05/30/2016

Why both Lenin and Nicholas II are “good”

Radio Prague 14.10.2015

What did Nicholas II give the Finns?

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

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

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

scars

Having completed their work, drunken executioners robbed the corpses, loaded them onto a truck that stalled along the way. In addition, at the last moment it turned out that all the bodies did not fit in the graves dug in advance for them. The dead were stripped of their clothes and burned. Then the frightened Yurovsky came up with another plan. He left the bodies in the forest and went to Yekaterinburg for acid and gasoline. For three days and nights, he brought containers of sulfuric acid and gasoline into the forest to destroy the bodies, which he decided to bury in different places in order to confuse those who set out to find them. No one was supposed to know about what happened. The bodies were doused with acid and gasoline, they were burned, and then buried.

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

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

In Russian textbooks, many Russian tsars are still presented as heroes covered in glory. Gorbachev and the last Romanov tsar abdicated, Putin said he would never do so.

The historian claims that in his book he did not omit anything from the materials he studied on the execution of the Romanov family ... with the exception of the most disgusting details of the murder. When the bodies were taken to the forest, the two princesses groaned, and they had to be finished off. Whatever the future of the country, it will be impossible to erase this terrible episode from memory.

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 this why most of the documents and testimonies that tell about the last days of the Romanovs appeared and continue 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 fall into the eyes of his predecessor: a miniature pin that the prince used as fishing hook, precious stones that 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 on the execution of the former emperor, made on July 19. 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 told 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 Menshld got acquainted with the official documents of the Sokolov investigation. 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 dear grandmother on the maternal side was the sister of the grandmother of the Empress. 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 Orthodox Church was so cautious, 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. royal family they could also settle 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?

Most recently, in the fall of 2010, during work in the vicinity of the Old Koptyakovskaya road in the 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 ladies' fan, a ring, several buttons. different size... 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 Chekists, 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, 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