That the royal family was shot. The execution of the royal family did not actually happen

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The text of the resolution of the Presidium of the Ural Regional Council of Workers, Peasants and Red Army Deputies, published a week after the execution, stated: “In view of the fact that Czechoslovak gangs threaten the capital of the Red Urals, Yekaterinburg; in view of the fact that the crowned executioner can avoid the trial of the people (a White Guard conspiracy aimed at kidnapping the entire Romanov family has just been discovered), the Presidium of the regional committee, in fulfillment of the will of the people, decided: to shoot former Tsar Nicholas Romanov, guilty before the people of countless bloody crimes.”

The civil war gained momentum, and Yekaterinburg soon truly came under the control of the whites. The resolution did not report the execution of the entire family, but the members of the Urals Council were guided by the formula “You cannot leave them the banner.” According to the revolutionaries, any of the Romanovs freed by the Whites could subsequently be used for the project of restoring the monarchy in Russia.

If we look at the question more broadly, then Nikolai and Alexandra Romanov were considered by the masses as the main culprits of the troubles that occurred in the country at the beginning of the 20th century - the lost Russian-Japanese War, “Bloody Resurrection” and the subsequent first Russian revolution, “Rasputinism”, the First World War, low living standards, etc.

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

The execution of all the Romanovs, including children, is perceived as a terrible crime from a peacetime point of view. But in the conditions of the Civil War, both sides fought with increasing brutality, in which not only ideological opponents, but also members of their families were increasingly killed.

As for the execution of the entourage who accompanied the royal family, members of the Urals Council subsequently explained their actions as follows: they decided to share the fate of the Romanovs, so let them share it to the end.

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

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

This council was not exclusively Bolshevik and also consisted of anarchists and left Socialist Revolutionaries who were family-friendly last emperor even more radical.

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

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

The highest Soviet leadership represented by Vladimir Lenin And Yakova Sverdlova The Ural comrades were confronted with a fact - the Romanovs were executed. During the Civil War, central control over the regions was often formal.

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

Why were the children of the last emperor executed?

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

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

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

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

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

Is it true that the murder of Nikolai Romanov’s family was ritual in nature?

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

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

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

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

Ilya Belous

Today, the tragic events of July 1918, when the Royal Family died as martyrdom, are increasingly becoming a tool for various political manipulations and indoctrination of public opinion.

Many people think management Soviet Russia, namely V.I. Lenin and Ya.M. Sverdlov, the direct organizers of the execution. It is very important to understand the truth about who conceived and committed this brutal crime, and why. Let's look into everything in detail, objectively using verified facts and documents.

On August 19, 1993, in connection with the discovery of the alleged burial of the royal family on the old Koptyakovskaya road near Sverdlovsk, on the instructions of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, criminal case No. 18/123666-93 was opened.

Investigator for particularly important cases of the Main Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee under the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation V.N. Solovyov, who led the criminal case into the death of the royal family, testified that not a single piece of evidence was found that the execution was sanctioned by Lenin or Sverdlov, or of any involvement in the murder.

But first things first.

In August 1917 The provisional government sent the royal family to Tobolsk.

Kerensky initially intended to send Nicholas II to England via Murmansk, but this initiative did not meet with support from either the British or the Provisional Government.

It is not clear what made Kerensky send the Romanovs to peasant-revolutionary Siberia, which was then under the rule of the Socialist Revolutionaries.

According to Karabchevsky’s lawyer, Kerensky did not rule out a bloody outcome:

“Kerensky leaned back in his chair, thought for a second and, after spending index finger left hand on the neck, made an energetic upward gesture with it. I and everyone understood that this was a hint of hanging. - Two, three victims are probably necessary! - said Kerensky, looking around us with his either mysterious or half-blind gaze thanks to the upper eyelids hanging heavily over his eyes.” //Karabchevsky N.P. Revolution and Russia. Berlin, 1921. T. 2. What my eyes saw. Ch. 39.

After October revolution the Soviet government took a position on the organization of Nicholas II open court over the former emperor.

February 20, 1918 At a meeting of the commission under the Council of People's Commissars, the issue of “preparing investigative material on Nikolai Romanov” was considered. Lenin spoke out for the trial of the former tsar.

April 1, 1918 The Soviet government decided to transfer the royal family from Tobolsk to Moscow. This was categorically opposed by local authorities, who believed that the royal family should remain in the Urals. They offered to transfer her to Yekaterinburg. // Kovalchenko I.D. Age-old problem Russian history// Magazine Russian Academy Sciences, No. 10, 1994. P.916.

At the same time, Soviet leaders, including Yakov Sverdlov, the issue of the security of the Romanovs was studied. In particular, April 1, 1918 The All-Russian Central Executive Committee issued the following resolution:

“...Instruct the Commissioner for Military Affairs to immediately form a detachment of 200 people. (of which 30 people were from the Partisan detachment of the Central Executive Committee, 20 people from the detachment of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries) and send them to Tobolsk to reinforce the guard and, if possible, immediately transport all those arrested to Moscow. This resolution is not subject to publication in the press. Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee Ya. Sverdlov. Secretary of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee V. Avanesov.”

Academician-Secretary of the Department of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences Ivan Dmitrievich Kovalchenko in 1994 gives information similar to the testimony of investigator Solovyov:

“Judging by the documents we found, the fate of the royal family as a whole was not discussed in Moscow at any level. It was only about the fate of Nicholas II. It was proposed to hold a trial against him; Trotsky volunteered to be the prosecutor. The fate of Nicholas II was actually predetermined: the court could only sentence him to death. Representatives of the Urals took a different position.

They believed that it was urgent to deal with Nicholas II. A plan was even developed to kill him on the road from Tobolsk to Moscow. The Chairman of the Ural Regional Council Beloborodov wrote in his memoirs in 1920: “We believed that, perhaps, there was not even a need to deliver Nikolai to Yekaterinburg, that if provided favorable conditions during his transfer, he was to be shot on the road. Zaslavsky (commander of the Yekaterinburg detachment sent to Tobolsk - I.K.) had such an order and all the time tried to take steps to implement it, although to no avail." // Kovalchenko I.D. The age-old problem of Russian history // Journal of the Russian Academy of Sciences, No. 10, 1994.

April 6, 1918 The All-Russian Central Executive Committee made a new decision - to transfer Nicholas II and his family to Yekaterinburg. Such a quick change of decision is the result of confrontation between Moscow and the Urals, says academician Kovalchenko.

In a letter from the Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee Sverdlov Ya.M. The Ural Regional Council says:

“Yakovlev’s task is to deliver |Nicholas II| to Yekaterinburg alive and hand it over to either Chairman Beloborodov or Goloshchekin.” // Resolution to terminate criminal case No. 18/123666-93 “On clarifying the circumstances of the death of members of the Russian Imperial House and persons from their entourage in the period 1918-1919”, paragraphs 5-6.

Yakovlev Vasily Vasilyevich is a professional Bolshevik with many years of experience, a former Ural militant. Real name- Myachin Konstantin Alekseevich, pseudonyms - Stoyanovich Konstantin Alekseevich, Krylov. Yakovlev was provided with 100 revolutionary soldiers in his detachment, and he himself was endowed with emergency powers.

By this time, the leadership of the Council in Yekaterinburg decided the fate of the Romanovs in their own way - they made an unspoken decision on the need to secretly exterminate all members of the family of Nicholas II without trial or investigation during their move from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg.

Chairman of the Urals Council A.G. Beloborodov recalled:

“...it is necessary to dwell on one extremely important circumstance in the line of conduct of the Regional Council. We believed that, perhaps, there was not even a need to deliver Nikolai to Yekaterinburg, that if favorable conditions were provided during his transfer, he should be shot on the road. This was the order given by the |commander of the Yekaterinburg detachment| Zaslavsky tried all the time to take steps towards its implementation, although to no avail. In addition, Zaslavsky obviously behaved in such a way that his intentions were guessed by Yakovlev, which to some extent explains the rather large-scale misunderstandings that later arose between Zaslavsky and Yakovlev.” // Resolution to terminate criminal case No. 18/123666-93 “On clarifying the circumstances of the death of members of the Russian Imperial House and persons from their entourage in the period 1918-1919”, paragraphs 5-6.

At the same time, the Ural leadership was ready to enter into direct conflict with Moscow. An ambush was being prepared to kill Yakovlev's entire detachment.

Here is a statement from the statement of the Red Guardsman of the Ural detachment A.I. Nevolin to Commissioner Yakovlev V.V.

“... In Yekaterinburg he was a member of the Red Army in the 4th hundred... Gusyatsky... says that Commissar Yakovlev is traveling with the Moscow detachment, we need to wait for him... assistant instructor Ponomarev and instructor Bogdanov begin: “We... now decided this: on the way to Tyumen We'll make an ambush. When Yakovlev goes with Romanov, as soon as they catch up with us, you must use machine guns and rifles to cut Yakovlev’s entire detachment to the ground. And don't say anything to anyone. If they ask what kind of detachment you are, then say that you are from Moscow, and don’t say who your boss is, because this needs to be done in addition to the regional one and all the Soviets in general.” I then asked the question: “Do you mean to be robbers?” I personally don’t agree with your plans. If you need to kill Romanov, then let someone decide on his own, but I don’t allow such a thought in my head, bearing in mind that our entire armed force stands guard over the defense of Soviet power, and not for individual benefits, and people, if Commissar Yakovlev, sent after him, from the Council People's Commissars, so he must present it to where he was told. But we were not and cannot be robbers, so that because of Romanov alone we would shoot fellow Red Army soldiers like us. ... After this, Gusyatsky became even more angry with me. I see that this is starting to affect my life. Looking for exits, I finally decided to escape with Yakovlev’s detachment.” // Resolution to terminate criminal case No. 18/123666-93 “On clarifying the circumstances of the death of members of the Russian Imperial House and persons from their entourage in the period 1918-1919”, paragraphs 5-6.

There was also a secretly approved plan by the Urals Council to liquidate the royal family by means of a train crash on the way from Tyumen to Yekaterinburg.

A set of documents related to the move of the royal family from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg indicates that the Urals Council was in sharp confrontation with the central authorities on issues related to the security of the royal family.

A telegram from the Chairman of the Urals Council A.G. Beloborodov, sent to V.I., has been preserved. Lenin, in which he complains in an ultimatum form about the actions of the Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee Ya.M. Sverdlov, in connection with his support for the actions of Commissioner V.V. Yakovlev (Myachin), aimed at the safe passage of the royal family from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg.

Correspondence of Yakovlev V.V. with the Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee Sverdlov Ya.M. shows the true intentions of the Bolsheviks of the Urals towards the royal family. Despite the clearly expressed position of Lenin V.I. and Sverdlova Y.M. about bringing the royal family to Yekaterinburg alive, the Bolsheviks of Yekaterinburg went against the Kremlin leadership in this matter and made an official decision to arrest V.V. Yakovlev. and even the use of armed force against his squad.

On April 27, 1918, Yakovlev sends a telegram to Sverdlov, in which he testifies to the attempts of his soldiers to repulse the assassination of the Royal Family by local Bolsheviks (referring to it with the code word “baggage”):

“I just brought some luggage. I want to change the route due to the following extremely important circumstances. Special people arrived from Yekaterinburg to Tobolsk before me to destroy the luggage. Squad special purpose fought back - it almost led to bloodshed. When I arrived, the Yekaterinburg residents gave me a hint that there was no need to carry my luggage to the place. ...They asked me not to sit next to the luggage (Petrov). This was a direct warning that I could also be destroyed. ...Having failed to achieve their goal either in Tobolsk, or on the road, or in Tyumen, the Yekaterinburg detachments decided to ambush me near Yekaterinburg. They decided that if I didn’t give them my luggage back without a fight, they decided to kill us too. ...Ekaterinburg, with the exception of Goloshchekin, has one desire: to do away with the luggage at all costs. The fourth, fifth and sixth companies of the Red Army are preparing an ambush for us. If this is at odds with the central opinion, then it is madness to carry luggage to Yekaterinburg.” // Resolution to terminate criminal case No. 18/123666-93 “On clarifying the circumstances of the death of members of the Russian Imperial House and persons from their entourage in the period 1918-1919”, paragraphs 5-6.

When Nicholas II arrived in Yekaterinburg, local authorities provoked a crowd at the Yekaterinburg I station, which tried to carry out lynching of the family of the former emperor. Commissioner Yakovlev acted decisively, threatening those who attempted to assassinate the Tsar with machine guns. Only this made it possible to avoid the death of the royal family.

April 30, 1918 Yakovlev handed over to the representatives of the Ural Regional Council of Nicholas II, Alexandra Fedorovna, Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna, Court Marshal V.A. Dolgorukov and life physician prof. Botkin, valet T.I. Chemodurov, footman I.L. Sednev and room girl A.S. Demidov. Dolgorukov and Sednev were arrested upon arrival and placed in prison in Yekaterinburg. The rest were sent to the house of industrialist and engineer N.N. Ipatiev.

May 23, 1918 Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich, Grand Duchesses Olga Nikolaevna, Tatyana Nikolaevna and Anastasia Nikolaevna were transported from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg. A large group of servants and people from the entourage arrived with them. In Yekaterinburg, immediately after their arrival, Tatishchev, Gendrikova, Schneider, Nagornov, and Volkov were arrested and placed in prison. The following were placed in Ipatiev's house: Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich, Grand Duchesses Olga Nikolaevna, Tatyana Nikolaevna and Anastasia Nikolaevna, the boy Sednev and footman Trupp A.E. Lackey Chemodurov was transferred from Ipatiev’s house to the Yekaterinburg prison.

June 4, 1918 At a meeting of the board of the People's Commissariat of Justice of the RSFSR, the order of the Council of People's Commissars was considered, on which a decision was made: to delegate to the disposal of the Council of People's Commissars a representative from the People's Commissariat of Justice "as an investigator, Comrade Bogrov." Materials concerning Nicholas II were systematically collected. Such a trial could only take place in the capitals. In addition, V.I. Lenin and L.D. Trotsky received messages from the Urals and Siberia about the unreliability of the security of the royal family. // Resolution to terminate criminal case No. 18/123666-93 “On clarifying the circumstances of the death of members of the Russian Imperial House and persons from their entourage in the period 1918-1919”, paragraphs 5-6. 5.4. The situation of the family and people from the circle of the former Emperor Nicholas II after the Bolsheviks came to power

Sentiment towards Nicholas II in the Urals

Archival, newspaper and memoir sources emanating from the Bolsheviks have preserved a lot of evidence that the “working masses” of Yekaterinburg and the Urals in general constantly expressed concern about the reliability of the security of the royal family, the possibility of the release of Nicholas II, and even demanded his immediate execution. If you believe the editor of the Ural Worker V. Vorobyov, “they wrote about this in letters that came to the newspaper, they talked about it at meetings and rallies.” This was probably true, and not only in the Urals. Among the archival documents there is, for example, this one.

July 3, 1918 The Council of People's Commissars received a telegram from the Kolomna district party committee. It reported that the Kolomna Bolshevik organization

“unanimously decided to demand from the Council of People’s Commissars the immediate destruction of the entire family and relatives of the former tsar, because the German bourgeoisie, together with the Russian, are restoring the tsarist regime in the captured cities.” “In case of refusal,” the Kolomna Bolsheviks threatened, “it has been decided on our own carry out this decree." //Ioffe, G.Z. Revolution and the fate of the Romanovs / M.: Republic, 1992. P.302—303

The Ural elite was all “leftist”. This was manifested in the issue of the Brest Peace, and in the separatist aspirations of the Ural Regional Council, and in the attitude towards the deposed tsar, whom the Urals did not trust in Moscow. The Ural security officer I. Radzinsky recalled:

“The dominance in the leadership was leftist, left-communist... Beloborodov, Safarov, Nikolai Tolmachev, Evgeny Preobrazhensky - all of these were leftists.”

The party line, according to Radzinsky, was led by Goloshchekin, also a “leftist” at that time.

In their “leftism,” the Ural Bolsheviks were forced to compete with the left Socialist Revolutionaries and anarchists, whose influence had always been noticeable, and by the summer of 1918 had even increased. A member of the Ural Regional Party Committee, I. Akulov, wrote to Moscow back in the winter of 1918 that the Left Socialist Revolutionaries were simply “baffling” with “their unexpected radicalism.”

The Ural Bolsheviks could not and did not want to give political competitors the opportunity to reproach them for “sliding to the right.” The Social Revolutionaries presented similar advertisements. Maria Spiridonova reproached the Bolshevik Central Committee for disbanding “tsars and sub-tsars” in “the Ukraine, Crimea and abroad” and raising its hand against the Romanovs “only at the insistence of the revolutionaries,” meaning the left Socialist Revolutionaries and anarchists.

Commandant of the Ipatiev House (until July 4, 1918) A.D. Avdeev testified in his memoirs that a group of anarchists tried to pass a resolution “to former king was immediately executed." Extremist groups were not limited to just demands and resolutions. // Avdeev A. Nicholas II in Tobolsk and Yekaterinburg // Red news. 1928. No. 5. P. 201.

Chairman of the Yekaterinburg City Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies P.M. Bykov in his memoirs points to attempts to organize an attack on Ipatiev’s house and eliminate the Romanovs. // Bykov P. The last days of the Romanovs. Uralbook. 1926. P. 113

“In the morning they waited a long time, but in vain, for the priest to come to perform the service; everyone was busy with churches. For some reason we were not allowed into the garden during the day. Avdeev came and talked with Evg for a long time. Serg. According to him, he and the Regional Council are afraid of anarchist protests and therefore, perhaps, we will have to leave soon, probably to Moscow! He asked to prepare for departure. They immediately began to pack up, but quietly, so as not to attract the attention of the guard officials, at the special request of Avdeev.” Around 11 o'clock. In the evening he returned and said that we would stay a few more days. Therefore, on June 1, we remained in a bivouac style, without laying out anything. The weather was fine; The walk took place, as always, in two turns. Finally, after dinner, Avdeev, slightly tipsy, announced to Botkin that the anarchists had been captured and that the danger had passed and our departure was cancelled! After all the preparations it even became boring! In the evening we played bezique. // Diary of Nikolai Romanov // Red Archive. 1928. No. 2 (27). pp. 134-135

The next day, Alexandra Feodorovna wrote in her diary:

“Now they say that we are staying here, because they managed to capture the leader of the anarchists, their printing house and the entire group.” //TsGAOR. F. 640. Op.1. D.332. L.18.

Rumors of lynching of the Romanovs swept the Urals in June 1918. Moscow began sending alarming requests to Yekaterinburg. On June 20 the following telegram arrived:

“In Moscow, information spread that former Emperor Nicholas II had allegedly been killed. Provide the information you have. Manager of the Council of People's Commissars V. Bonch-Bruevich.” // TsGAOR. F. 130. Op.2. D.1109. L.34

In accordance with this request, the commander of the Severouralsk group Soviet troops R. Berzin together with the military commissar of the Ural Military District Goloshchekin and others officials checked the Ipatiev House. In telegrams to the Council of People's Commissars, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the People's Commissariat of Military Affairs, he reported that

“All family members and Nicholas II himself are alive. All information about his murder is a provocation.” // TsGAOR. F.1235. op.93. D.558.L.79; F.130.Op.2.D.1109.L.38

June 20, 1918 in the premises of the Postal and Telegraph Office of Yekaterinburg a conversation took place on straight wire between Lenin and Berzin.

According to three former officials of this office (Sibirev, Borodin and Lenkovsky), Lenin ordered Berzin:

“... to take under your protection the entire Royal Family, and to prevent any violence against it, responding in this case with your (i.e. Berzin’s) own life.” // Summary of information on the Royal Family of the Department of Military Field Control under the Commissioner for Security public order and public peace in the Perm province from 11/III/1919. Published: The Death of the Royal Family. Materials of the investigation into the murder of the Royal Family, (August 1918 - February 1920), p. 240.

Newspaper "Izvestia" June 25 and 28, 1918 published refutations of rumors and reports from some newspapers about the execution of the Romanovs in Yekaterinburg. //Ioffe, G.Z. Revolution and the fate of the Romanovs / M.: Respublika, 1992. P.303—304

Meanwhile, the White Czechs and Siberian troops were already bypassing Yekaterinburg from the south, trying to cut it off from the European part of Russia, capturing Kyshtym, Miass, Zlatoust and Shadrinsk.

As it appears, the Ural authorities made a fundamental decision to execute by July 4, 1918: on this day, commandant Avdeev, loyal to Nicholas II, was replaced by security officer Ya.M. Yurovsky. There was a change in the security of the royal family.

Security guard V.N. Netrebin wrote in his memoirs:

“Soon [after joining the internal guard on July 4, 1918 - S.V.] it was explained to us that... we might have to execute the b/ts [former tsar. - S.V.], and that we must strictly keep everything secret, everything that could happen in the house... Having received explanations from Comrade. Yurovsky that we needed to think about how best to carry out the execution, we began to discuss the issue... The day when the execution would have to be carried out was unknown to us. But we still felt that it would come soon.”

“The All-Russian Central Executive Committee does not give permission for execution!”

At the beginning of July 1918, the Ural Regional Council tried to convince Moscow to shoot the Romanovs. At this time, a member of the Presidium of the Regional Council, Philip Isaevich Goloshchekin, who knew Yakov Sverdlov well from his underground work, went there. He was in Moscow during the Fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets from July 4 to July 10, 1918. The congress ended with the adoption of the Constitution of the RSFSR.

According to some reports, Goloshchekin stopped at Sverdlov’s apartment. Among the main issues then could be: the defense of the Urals from the troops of the Siberian Army and the White Czechs, the possible surrender of Yekaterinburg, the fate of the gold reserves, the fate of the former tsar. It is possible that Goloshchekin tried to coordinate the imposition of a death sentence on Romanov.

Probably, Goloshchekin did not receive permission to execute Goloshchekin from Sverdlov, and the central Soviet government, represented by Sverdlov, insisted on the trial for which it was preparing. M.A. Medvedev (Kudrin), a participant in the execution of the royal family, writes:

“...When I entered [the premises of the Ural Cheka on the evening of July 16, 1918], those present were deciding what to do with the former Tsar Nicholas II Romanov and his family. Report about a trip to Moscow to Ya.M. Sverdlov was made by Philip Goloshchekin. Goloshchekin failed to obtain sanctions from the All-Russian Central Executive Committee to execute the Romanov family. Sverdlov consulted with V.I. Lenin, who spoke out for bringing the royal family to Moscow and an open trial of Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra Fedorovna, whose betrayal during the First World War cost Russia dearly... Y.M. Sverdlov tried to give [Lenin] Goloshchekin’s arguments about the dangers of transporting a train of the royal family through Russia, where counter-revolutionary uprisings broke out in cities every now and then, about the difficult situation on the fronts near Yekaterinburg, but Lenin stood his ground: “Well, so what if the front is withdrawing ? Moscow is now in the deep rear! And here we will arrange a trial for them for the whole world.” At parting, Sverdlov said to Goloshchekin: “So tell it, Philip, to your comrades: the All-Russian Central Executive Committee does not give official sanction for execution.” // Resolution to terminate criminal case No. 18/123666-93 “On clarifying the circumstances of the death of members of the Russian Imperial House and persons from their entourage in the period 1918-1919”, paragraphs 5-6

This position of the Moscow leadership must be considered in the context of the events taking place at that time on the fronts. For several months by July 1918, the situation had become increasingly critical.

Historical context

At the end of 1917, the Soviet government was strenuously trying to get out of the First World War. Great Britain sought to resume the conflict between Russia and Germany. On December 22, 1917, peace negotiations began in Brest-Litovsk. On February 10, 1918, the German coalition, in an ultimatum, demanded that the Soviet delegation accept extremely difficult peace conditions (Russia’s renunciation of Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, parts of Latvia, Estonia and Belarus). Contrary to Lenin’s instructions, the head of the delegation, Trotsky, arbitrarily interrupted the peace negotiations, although the ultimatum had not yet been officially received, and declared that Soviet Russia was not signing peace, but was ending the war and demobilizing the army. The negotiations were interrupted, and soon the Austro-German troops (over 50 divisions) went on the offensive from the Baltic to the Black Sea. In Transcaucasia, on February 12, 1918, the offensive of Turkish troops began.

Trying to provoke Soviet Russia into continuing the war with Germany, the Entente governments offered it “help,” and on March 6, an English landing force occupied Murmansk under the false pretext of the need to protect the Murmansk region from the powers of the German coalition.

An open military intervention by the Entente began. // Ilya Belous / “Red” terror arose in response to international and “white” terror

Not having sufficient forces to repel Germany, the Soviet Republic was forced to sign the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty on March 3, 1918. On March 15, the Entente declared non-recognition of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty and accelerated the deployment of military intervention. On April 5, Japanese troops landed in Vladivostok.

Despite its severity, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk temporarily stopped the advance of German troops in the central directions and gave the Soviet Republic a short respite.

In March - April 1918, an armed struggle unfolded in Ukraine against the occupying Austro-German troops and the Central Rada, which on February 9 concluded a “peace treaty” with Germany and its allies. Small Ukrainian Soviet units fought back to the borders of the RSFSR in the direction of Belgorod, Kursk and the Don region.

In mid-April 1918, German troops, violating the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, occupied Crimea and eliminated Soviet power there. Part of the Black Sea Fleet went to Novorossiysk, where, due to the threat of the ships being captured by the German occupiers, they were scuttled on June 18 by order of the Soviet government. German troops also landed in Finland, where they helped the Finnish bourgeoisie eliminate the revolutionary power of the working people.

Located in Helsingfors Baltic Fleet made the transition to Kronstadt under difficult conditions. On April 29, the German invaders in Ukraine eliminated the Central Rada, placing the puppet hetman P. P. Skoropadsky in power.

The Don Cossack counter-revolution also adopted a German orientation, which again started a civil war on the Don in mid-April.

On May 8, 1918, German units occupied Rostov, and then helped the kulak-Cossack “state” - the “Great Don Army” led by Ataman Krasnov - to take shape.

Türkiye, taking advantage of the fact that the Transcaucasian Commissariat declared its independence from Soviet Russia, launched a broad intervention in Transcaucasia.

On May 25, 1918, a rebellion of the Czechoslovak Corps, prepared and provoked by the Entente, began, the echelons of which were located between Penza and Vladivostok in view of the upcoming evacuation to Europe. At the same time, German troops, at the request of the Georgian Mensheviks, landed in Georgia. The rebellion caused a sharp revival of the counter-revolution. Massive counter-revolutionary uprisings unfolded in the Volga region, the Southern Urals, the Northern Caucasus, and the Trans-Caspian and Semirechensk regions. and other areas. The Civil War began to unfold with renewed vigor in the Don, North Caucasus and Transcaucasia.

Soviet power and the Soviet state were under threat of complete occupation and liquidation. Central Committee Communist Party directed all efforts to organize defense. Volunteer units of the Red Army were being formed throughout the country.

At the same time, the Entente allocated significant funds and agents for the creation of military-conspiratorial organizations within the country: the right-wing Socialist Revolutionary Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom led by Boris Savinkov, the right-wing Cadet monarchist National Center, the coalition Union for the Revival of Russia. The Social Revolutionaries and Mensheviks supported the petty-bourgeois counter-revolution, ideologically and organizationally. Work was carried out to destabilize the internal political life in the country.

On July 5, 1918, the left Socialist Revolutionary Yakov Blumkin killed the German ambassador to Moscow under the government of the RSFSR, Count Wilhelm Mirbach, in Moscow. The terrorist attack was designed to break the Brest Peace Treaty and a possible resumption of the war with Germany. Simultaneously with the terrorist attack on July 6, 1918, in Moscow and a number of large Russian cities There was an uprising of the Left Social Revolutionaries.

The Entente began landing large troops in Vladivostok, the bulk of which were Japanese (about 75 thousand people) and American (about 12 thousand people) troops. The intervention troops in the North, consisting of British, American, French and Italian units, were strengthened. In July, the Right Socialist Revolutionary Yaroslavl rebellion of 1918, prepared with the support of the Entente, and smaller revolts in Murom, Rybinsk, Kovrov and others took place. A Left Socialist Revolutionary rebellion broke out in Moscow, and on July 10, the commander of the Eastern Front, the Left Socialist Revolutionary Muravyov, raised a rebellion, who tried to capture Simbirsk, so that, having concluded agreement with the White Czechs, together with them to move towards Moscow.

The efforts of the interventionists and the internal counter-revolution united.

“Their war with the civil war merges into one single whole, and this constitutes the main source of the difficulties of the present moment, when the military question, military events, have again come onto the scene as the main, fundamental question of the revolution” // Lenin V.I. Full collection cit., 5th ed., vol. 37, p. 14.

English trace

Western services, based on Socialist-Revolutionary-Anarchist elements, posed a serious threat to Russia, fanning chaos and banditry in the country in opposition to the policies of the new government.

The former Minister of War of the Provisional Government and Kolchakite A.I. Verkhovsky joined the Red Army in 1919. //Verkhovsky Alexander Ivanovich. On a difficult pass.

In his memoirs, Verkhovsky wrote that he was an activist in the “Union for the Revival of Russia,” which had a military organization that trained personnel for anti-Soviet armed protests, which was financed by the “allies.”

“In March 1918, I was personally invited by the Union for the Revival of Russia to join the military headquarters of the Union. The military headquarters was an organization that had the goal of organizing an uprising against Soviet power... The military headquarters had connections with the allied missions in Petrograd. General Suvorov was in charge of relations with the allied missions... Representatives of the allied missions were interested in my assessment of the situation from the point of view the possibility of restoring... the front against Germany. I had conversations about this with General Nissel, a representative of the French mission. Military headquarters through the cashier of the headquarters Suvorov was getting cash from allied missions». //Golinkov D. L. Secret operations of the Cheka

The testimony of A. I. Verkhovsky is fully consistent with the memoirs of another figure in the Union for the Revival of Russia, V. I. Ignatiev (1874-1959, died in Chile).

In the first part of his memoirs, “Some facts and results of four years of the civil war (1917-1921),” published in Moscow in 1922, Ignatiev confirms that the organization’s source of funds was “exclusively allied”. First amount from foreign sources Ignatiev received from General A.V. Gerua, to whom General M.N. Suvorov sent him. From a conversation with Gerua, he learned that the general was instructed to send officers to the Murmansk region at the disposal of the English General F. Poole, and that funds were allocated to him for this task. Ignatiev received a certain amount from Gerua, then received money from one agent of the French mission - 30 thousand rubles.

A spy group was operating in Petrograd, headed by sanitary doctor V.P. Kovalevsky. She also sent officers, mainly guards, to the English General Bullet in Arkhangelsk via Vologda. The group advocated the establishment of a military dictatorship in Russia and was supported by British funds. The representative of this group, English agent Captain G. E. Chaplin, worked in Arkhangelsk under the name Thomson. On December 13, 1918, Kovalevsky was shot on charges of creating a military organization associated with the British mission.

On January 5, 1918, the Union for the Defense of the Constituent Assembly was preparing a coup d'etat, which was prevented by the Cheka. The English plan failed. The Constituent Assembly was dispersed.

Dzerzhinsky was aware of the counter-revolutionary activities of the socialists, mainly the Socialist Revolutionaries; their connections with British services, about the flow of their funding from the Allies.

Detailed information about the activities of the Socialist Revolutionaries in various committees “Saving the Motherland and Revolution”, “Defense of the Constituent Assembly” and others, disclosed by the Cheka, was given already in 1927 by Vera Vladimirova in her book “The Year of Service of the “Socialists” to the Capitalists. Essays on history, counter-revolution in 1918"

Russian historian and politician V. A. Myakotin, one of the founders and leaders of the Union for the Revival of Russia, also published his memoirs in 1923 in Prague “From the Recent Past. On the wrong side." According to his story, relations with diplomatic representatives of the allies were carried out by members of the Union for the Revival of Russia specially authorized for this purpose. These connections were carried out through the French ambassador Noulens. Later, when the ambassadors left for Vologda, through the French consul Grenard. The French financed the “Union”, but Nulans directly stated that “the allies, in fact, do not need the assistance of Russian political organizations” and could well land their troops in Russia themselves. //Golinkov D.L. Secret operations of the Cheka.

The Russian Civil War was actively supported by British Prime Minister Lloyd George and US President Woodrow Wilson.

The US President personally supervised the work of agents to discredit Soviet power, and above all, the young government led by Lenin, both in the West and in Russia.

In October 1918, on the direct orders of Woodrow Wilson, a publication was published in Washington "German-Bolshevik conspiracy" better known as "Sisson papers", supposedly proving that the Bolshevik leadership consisted of direct agents of Germany, controlled by directives of the German General Staff. // The German-Bolshevik conspiracy / by United States. Committee on Public Information; Sisson, Edgar Grant, 1875-1948; National Board for Historical Service

The “documents” were purchased at the end of 1917 by the US Presidential Special Envoy to Russia Edgar Sisson for $25,000. The publication was published by CPI - the US Government Committee on Public Information. This committee was created by US President Woodrow Wilson and had the task of “influencing public opinion on issues of US participation in the First World War,” that is, CPI was a propaganda structure serving the US military department. The committee existed from April 14, 1917 to June 30, 1919.

The “documents” were fabricated by Polish journalist and traveler Ferdinand Ossendowski. They allowed the myth to spread throughout Europe about the leader of the Soviet state, Lenin, who allegedly “made a revolution with German money.”

Sisson's mission was "brilliant." He “obtained” 68 documents, some of which allegedly confirmed Lenin’s connection with the Germans and even the direct dependence of the Council of People’s Commissars on the Government of Kaiser Germany until the spring of 1918. More details about the forged documents can be found on the website of Academician Yu. K. Begunov.

Counterfeits continue to be spread in modern Russia. Thus, in 2005, the documentary film “Secrets of Intelligence. Revolution in a suitcase."

Murder

In July, the White Czechs and White Guards captured Simbirsk, Ufa and Yekaterinburg, where the “regional government of the Urals” was created. Germany demanded that the Kremlin give permission to send a battalion of German troops to Moscow to protect its subjects.

Under these conditions, the execution of the royal family could have a negative impact on the development of relations with Germany, since the former Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and the Grand Duchesses were German princesses. Given the current situation, under certain conditions, the extradition of one or more members of the royal family to Germany was not excluded in order to mitigate the serious conflict caused by the murder of the German ambassador Mirbach.

On July 16, 1918, a telegram arrived from Petrograd to Moscow with a quote from another telegram, from a member of the presidium of the Ural Regional Council F.I. Goloshchekin to Moscow:

“July 16, 1918. Submitted 16.VII.1918 [at] 5:50 p.m. Accepted 16.VII.1918 [at] 9:22 p.m. From Petrograd. Smolny. HP 142.28 Moscow, Kremlin, copy to Lenin.
From Yekaterinburg the following is transmitted via direct wire: “Inform Moscow that the [trial] agreed upon with Filippov due to military circumstances cannot be delayed, we cannot wait. If your opinions are contrary, please tell us right now, out of turn. Goloshchekin, Safarov”
Contact Yekaterinburg about this yourself
Zinoviev."

At that time, there was no direct connection between Yekaterinburg and Moscow, so the telegram went to Petrograd, and from Petrograd Zinoviev sent it to Moscow, to the Kremlin. The telegram arrived in Moscow on July 16, 1818 at 21:22. In Yekaterinburg it was already 23 hours 22 minutes.

“At this time, the Romanovs were already offered to go down to the execution room. We don’t know whether Lenin and Sverdlov read the telegram before the first shots were fired, but we know that the telegram did not say anything about family and servants, so blaming the Kremlin leaders for the murder of children is at least unfair,” says the investigator Solovyov in an interview with Pravda

On July 17, at 12 noon, a telegram with the following content was received in Moscow addressed to Lenin from Yekaterinburg:

“In view of the approach of the enemy to Yekaterinburg and the disclosure by the Extraordinary Commission of a large White Guard conspiracy aimed at kidnapping the former Tsar and his family... by decision of the Presidium of the Regional Council, Nikolai Romanov was shot on the night of July 16th-17th. His family was evacuated to a safe place.” // Heinrich Ioffe. Revolution and the Romanov family

Thus, Yekaterinburg lied to Moscow: The whole family was killed.

Lenin did not immediately learn about the murder. On July 16, the editors of the Danish newspaper National Tidende sent Lenin the following request:

“There are rumors here that the former king has been killed. Please report the actual state of affairs." // IN AND. Lenin. Unknown documents. 1891-1922 M., Russian Political Encyclopedia (ROSSPEN). 2000. p. 243

Lenin sent a reply by telegraph:

"National Tidende. Copenhagen. The rumor is incorrect, the former Tsar is unharmed, all rumors are just lies of the capitalist press.” //IN AND. Lenin. Unknown documents. 1981-1922 M., Russian Political Encyclopedia (ROSSPEN). 2000. p. 243

Here is the conclusion of the ICR investigator on particularly important cases of Solovyov:

“The investigation has reliably established that Yakov Mikhailovich (Yankel Khaimovich) Yurovsky, his deputy Grigory Petrovich Nikulin, security officer Mikhail Aleksandrovich Medvedev (Kudrin), head of the 2nd Ural squad Pyotr Zakharovich Ermakov, his assistant Stepan Petrovich Vaganov, security guard Pavel took part in the execution Spiridonovich Medvedev, security officer Alexey Georgievich Kabanov. The participation of security guard Viktor Nikiforovich Netrebin, Yan Martynovich Tselms and Red Guard Andrei Andreevich Strekotin in the execution is not excluded. There is no reliable information about the remaining participants in the execution.

According to the national composition, the “firing” team included Russians, Latvians, one Jew (Yurovsky), possibly one Austrian or Hungarian.

The indicated persons, as well as other participants in the execution after Yurovsky’s speech by Ya.M. the verdict began indiscriminate shooting, and the shooting was carried out not only in the room where the execution was carried out, but also from the adjacent room. After the first salvo, it turned out that Tsarevich Alexei, the Tsar’s daughters, the maid A.S. Demidova and Dr. E.S. Botkin is showing signs of life. Screamed Grand Duchess Anastasia, the maid Demidova A.S. has risen to her feet, long time Tsarevich Alexei remained alive. They were shot with pistols and revolvers, Ermakov P.Z. finished off the survivors with a rifle bayonet. After death was confirmed, all the corpses began to be transferred to the truck.

As the investigation established, on the night of July 16-17, 1918, in Ipatiev’s house in Yekaterinburg, the following were shot: former Emperor Nicholas II (Romanov), former Empress Alexandra Fedorovna Romanova, their children - Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich Romanov, Grand Duchesses Olga Nikolaevna Romanova, Tatyana Nikolaevna Romanova, Maria Nikolaevna Romanova and Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova, physician Evgeniy Sergeevich Botkin, maid Anna Stepanovna Demidova, cook Ivan Mikhailovich Kharitonov and footman Aloisy Egorovich Trupp.”

The version that the murder was “ritual” is often discussed, that the heads of the corpses of members of the royal family were cut off after death. This version is not confirmed by the results of forensic examination.

“To investigate the possible post-mortem decapitation, the necessary forensic medical studies were carried out on all sets of skeletons. According to the categorical conclusion of the forensic medical examination on cervical vertebrae skeletons No. 1-9 there are no traces that could indicate post-mortem decapitation. At the same time, the version about the possible opening of the burial in 1919-1946 was checked. Investigative and expert data indicate that the burial was not opened until 1979, and during this opening the remains of Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna were not touched. An inspection of the FSB Directorate for Yekaterinburg and the Sverdlovsk Region showed that the FSB does not have data on the possible opening of a burial place in the period from 1919 to 1978.” // Resolution to terminate criminal case No. 18/123666-93 “On clarifying the circumstances of the death of members of the Russian Imperial House and persons from their entourage in the period 1918-1919”, paragraphs 7-9.

The All-Russian Central Executive Committee did not punish the Ural Regional Council for arbitrariness. Some consider this evidence that the sanction for murder still existed. Others say that the central government did not enter into conflict with the Ural government, since in the conditions of the successful offensive of the Whites, the loyalty of the local Bolsheviks and the propaganda of the Socialist Revolutionaries about Lenin’s slide “to the right” were more important factors than the disobedience and execution of the Romanovs. The Bolsheviks may have feared a split under difficult conditions.

People's Commissar of Agriculture in the first Soviet government, Chairman of the Supreme Economic Council of the RSFSR V.P. Milyutin recalled:

“I returned late from the Council of People's Commissars. There were “current” matters. During the discussion of the health care project, Semashko’s report, Sverdlov entered and sat down in his place on the chair behind Ilyich. Semashko finished. Sverdlov came up, leaned towards Ilyich and said something.
- Comrades, Sverdlov asks for the floor for a message.
“I must say,” Sverdlov began in his usual tone, “a message has been received that in Yekaterinburg, by order of the regional Council, Nikolai was shot... Nikolai wanted to escape.” The Czechoslovaks were approaching. The Presidium of the Central Election Commission decided to approve...
“Let’s now move on to an article-by-article reading of the draft,” suggested Ilyich...” // Sverdlova K. T. Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov. - 4th. - M.: Young Guard, 1985.

“On July 8, the first meeting of the Presidium of the Central I.K. of the 5th convocation took place. Comrade presided. Sverdlov. Members of the Presidium were present: Avanesov, Sosnovsky, Teodorovich, Vladimirsky, Maksimov, Smidovich, Rosengoltz, Mitrofanov and Rozin.
Chairman Comrade Sverdlov announces a message just received via direct wire from the Regional Ural Council about the execution of the former Tsar Nikolai Romanov.
In recent days, the capital of the Red Urals, Yekaterinburg, was seriously threatened by the approach of Czech-Slovak gangs. At the same time, a new conspiracy of counter-revolutionaries was uncovered, with the goal of wresting the crowned executioner from the hands of Soviet power. In view of this, the Presidium of the Ural Regional Council decided to shoot Nikolai Romanov, which was carried out on July 16th.
The wife and son of Nikolai Romanov were sent to a safe place. Documents about the uncovered conspiracy were sent to Moscow by special courier.
Having made this message, Comrade. Sverdlov recalls the story of the transfer of Nikolai Romanov from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg after the discovery of the same organization of White Guards, which was preparing the escape of Nikolai Romanov. Recently it was intended to bring the former Tsar to trial for all his crimes against the people, and only recent events prevented this from being carried out.
The Presidium of the Central I.K., having discussed all the circumstances that forced the Ural Regional Council to decide to shoot Nikolai Romanov, decided:
The All-Russian Central I.K., represented by its Presidium, recognizes the decision of the Ural Regional Council as correct.”

The historian Ioffe believes that specific people played a fatal role in the fate of the royal family: the head of the Ural party organization and military commissar of the Ural region F.I. Goloshchekin, Chairman of the Presidium of the Executive Committee of the Ural Regional Council A. Beloborodov, and member of the board of the Ural Cheka, commandant of the “special purpose house” Ya.M. Yurovsky. //Ioffe, G.Z. Revolution and the fate of the Romanovs / M.: Republic, 1992. P.311—312 Golo

It should be noted that in the summer of 1918, an entire “campaign” was carried out in the Urals to exterminate the Romanovs.

At night from 12 to 13 June 1918 to a hotel in Perm, where they lived in exile Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich and his personal secretary and friend Brian Johnson, several armed people appeared. They took their victims into the forest and killed them. The remains have not yet been found. The murder was presented to Moscow as the abduction of Mikhail Alexandrovich by his supporters or a secret escape, which was used by local authorities as a pretext to tighten the regime of detention of all exiled Romanovs: the royal family in Yekaterinburg and the grand dukes in Alapaevsk and Vologda.

At night from 17 to 18 July 1918, simultaneously with the execution of the royal family in the Ipatiev House, the murder of six grand dukes who were in Alapaevsk was committed. The victims were taken to an abandoned mine and dumped into it.

The corpses were discovered only on October 3, 1918, after policeman T.P. Malshikov. excavations in an abandoned coal mine located 12 versts from the city of Alapaevsk at the fork in the roads leading from the city of Alapaevsk to the Verkhotursky tract and to the Verkhne-Sinyachikhinsky plant. The doctor of the military hospital train No. 604 Klyachkin, on the instructions of the chief of police of Alapaevsk, opened the corpses and found the following:

“Based on the data of the forensic autopsy of a citizen of Petrograd, doctor Fedor Semenovich REMEZ, I conclude:
Death occurred from hemorrhage of the pleural cavity and hemorrhages under the dura mater due to a bruise.
I consider the injuries from the bruise to be fatal...
1. Death b. Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich suffered from hemorrhage under the dura mater and disruption of the integrity of the brain substance as a result of a gunshot wound.
The indicated damage is classified as fatal.
2. Death b. Prince John Konstantinovich's death occurred from hemorrhage under the dura mater and into both pleural cavities. The indicated injuries could have occurred from blows with a blunt hard object or from bruises when falling from a height onto some hard object.
3. Death b. Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich's death occurred from hemorrhage under the dura mater and in the area of the pleural sacs. The indicated injuries occurred either as a result of blows to the head and chest with some hard blunt object, or from a bruise when falling from a height. The damage is classified as fatal.
4. Death b. Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna suffered from a hemorrhage under the dura mater. This damage could have occurred from a blow to the head with some blunt force. heavy object or when falling from a height. The damage is classified as fatal.
5. The death of Prince Vladimir Paley occurred from hemorrhages under the dura mater and into the substance of the brain and into the pleura. These injuries could occur from a fall from a height or from blows to the head and chest with a blunt, hard instrument. The damage is classified as fatal.
6. Death b. Prince Igor Konstantinovich's death occurred from hemorrhage under the dura mater and disruption of the integrity of the cranial bones and base of the skull and from hemorrhages into the pleural cavity and into the peritoneal cavity. These injuries occurred from blows from any blunt hard object or from a fall from a height. The damage is classified as fatal.
7. The death of nun Varvara Yakovleva occurred from hemorrhage under the dura mater. This damage could have occurred from blows from a blunt hard object or from a fall from a height.
This entire act was drawn up according to the most fundamental justice and conscience, in accordance with the rules medical science and out of duty, that we certify with our signatures...”

Investigator Sokolov, Judicial Investigator for Particularly Important Cases of the Omsk District Court N.A. Sokolov, whom Kolchak instructed in February 1919 to continue conducting the case of the murder of the Romanovs, testified:

“Both the Yekaterinburg and Alapaevsk murders are the product of the same will of the same individuals.” // Sokolov N. Murder of the royal family. P. 329.

Obviously: incitement of the Ural Bolshevik elite to the murder of the royal family, and the Socialist Revolutionaries inciting such public demands in the Urals; material and advisory support for the White movement; sabotage activities of the counter-revolution inside Russia; attempts to incite a conflict between Russia and Germany; accusing the Soviet leadership of “involvement in German intelligence,” which was allegedly the reason for its reluctance to continue the war with Germany - all links in one chain that stretches to the British and American intelligence agencies. We should not forget: such a policy of confrontation between Russia and Germany was supported by British and American bankers literally just a few years after the events we are considering, taking up the financing of the Nazi war machine and fanning the fire of a new World War. // .

At the same time, even during World War II, the Third Reich, with all its sophisticated propaganda, did not release any German intelligence documents that would indicate connections with Lenin. But what a moral blow it would be to Leninism, to the system of ideological coordinates of the Red Army soldiers who went into battle under Lenin’s banners, and in general to all Soviet citizens! Obviously: such documents simply did not exist, just as Lenin’s connection with German intelligence did not exist.

Let us note: the version that the execution of the Royal Family was initiated by the Soviet leadership does not find a single scientific confirmation, just like the myth of “ritual murder”, which today has become the core of monarchist propaganda, through which Western intelligence services incite Black Hundred, anti-Semitic extremism in Russia.

“The world will never know what we did to them,” boasted one of the executioners, Peter Voikov. But it turned out differently. Over the next 100 years, the truth has found its way, and today a majestic temple has been built at the site of the murder.

About the reasons and main ones characters tells about the murders of the royal family Doctor of Historical Sciences Vladimir Lavrov.

Maria Pozdnyakova,« AiF“: It is known that the Bolsheviks were going to hold a trial of Nicholas II, but then abandoned this idea. Why?

Vladimir Lavrov: Indeed, the Soviet government, led by Lenin in January 1918 announced that the trial of the former emperor Nicholas II will. It was assumed that the main accusation would be Bloody Sunday - January 9, 1905. However, Lenin in the end could not help but realize that that tragedy did not guarantee a death sentence. Firstly, Nicholas II did not give the order to shoot the workers; he was not in St. Petersburg at all that day. And secondly, by that time the Bolsheviks themselves had soiled themselves with “Bloody Friday”: on January 5, 1918, a peaceful demonstration of many thousands in support of the Constituent Assembly was shot in Petrograd. Moreover, they were shot in the same places where people died on Bloody Sunday. How can one then throw it in the king’s face that he is bloody? And Lenin with Dzerzhinsky then which ones?

But let’s assume that you can find fault with any head of state. But what is my fault? Alexandra Fedorovna? Is that the wife? Why should the sovereign’s children be judged? The women and the teenager would have to be released from custody right there in the courtroom, admitting that the Soviet government repressed the innocent.

In March 1918, the Bolsheviks concluded a separate Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the German aggressors. The Bolsheviks gave up Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic states, and pledged to demobilize the army and navy and pay indemnity in gold. Nicholas II, at a public trial after such a peace, could turn from an accused into an accuser, qualifying the actions of the Bolsheviks themselves as treason. In a word, Lenin did not dare to sue Nicholas II.

Izvestia of July 19, 1918 opened with this publication. Photo: Public Domain

— In Soviet times, the execution of the royal family was presented as an initiative of the Yekaterinburg Bolsheviks. But who is really responsible for this crime?

— In the 1960s. former security guard of Lenin Akimov said that he personally sent a telegram from Vladimir Ilyich to Yekaterinburg with a direct order to shoot the Tsar. This evidence confirmed the memories Yurovsky, commandant of the Ipatiev House, and the head of his security Ermakova, who previously admitted that they had received an execution telegram from Moscow.

Also revealed was the decision of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) dated May 19, 1918 with instructions Yakov Sverdlov deal with the case of Nicholas II. Therefore, the tsar and his family were sent precisely to Yekaterinburg - Sverdlov’s patrimony, where all his friends from underground work in pre-revolutionary Russia. On the eve of the massacre, one of the leaders of the Yekaterinburg communists Goloshchekin came to Moscow, lived in Sverdlov’s apartment, received instructions from him.

The day after the massacre, July 18, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee announced that Nicholas II had been shot, and his wife and children were evacuated to a safe place. That is, Sverdlov and Lenin deceived Soviet people, stating that his wife and children were alive. They deceived us because they understood perfectly well: in the eyes of the public, killing innocent women and a 13-year-old boy is a terrible crime.

— There is a version that the family was killed because of the advance of the whites. They say that the White Guards could return the Romanovs to the throne.

— None of the leaders of the white movement intended to restore the monarchy in Russia. In addition, White's offensive was not lightning fast. The Bolsheviks themselves evacuated themselves perfectly and seized their property. So it was not difficult to take out the royal family.

The real reason for the destruction of the family of Nicholas II is different: they were a living symbol of the great millennium Orthodox Russia, which Lenin hated. In addition, in June-July 1918, a large-scale Civil War broke out in the country. Lenin needed to unite his party. The murder of the royal family was a demonstration that the Rubicon had been passed: either we win at any cost, or we will have to answer for everything.

— Did the royal family have a chance of salvation?

- Yes, if their English relatives had not betrayed them. In March 1917, when the family of Nicholas II was under arrest in Tsarskoe Selo, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Provisional Government Miliukov suggested the option of her going to the UK. Nicholas II agreed to leave. A George V, English king and at the same time cousin Nicholas II, agreed to accept the Romanov family. But within a matter of days, George V took back his royal word. Although in letters George V swore to Nicholas II of his friendship until the end of days! The British betrayed not just the Tsar of a foreign power - they betrayed their close relatives, Alexandra Feodorovna is the beloved granddaughter of the English Queen Victoria. But George V, also Victoria's grandson, obviously did not want Nicholas II to remain a living center of gravity for Russian patriotic forces. The revival of a strong Russia was not in Britain's interests. And the family of Nicholas II had no other options to save themselves.

— Did the royal family understand that its days were numbered?

- Yes. Even the children understood that death was approaching. Alexei once said: “If they kill, at least they don’t torture.” As if he had a presentiment that death at the hands of the Bolsheviks would be painful. But even the killers’ revelations do not tell the whole truth. No wonder the regicide Voikov said: “The world will never know what we did to them.”

Exactly one hundred years have passed since the death of the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II and his family. In 1918, on the night of July 16-17, the royal family was shot. We talk about life in exile and the death of the Romanovs, disputes about the authenticity of their remains, the version of the “ritual” murder and why the Russian Orthodox Church canonized the royal family.

CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

What happened to Nicholas II and his family before their death?

After abdicating the throne, Nicholas II turned from a tsar into a prisoner. The last milestones in the life of the royal family are house arrest in Tsarskoe Selo, exile in Tobolsk, imprisonment in Yekaterinburg, writes TASS. The Romanovs were subjected to many humiliations: the guard soldiers were often rude, they imposed restrictions on everyday life, and prisoners’ correspondence was viewed.

While living in Tsarskoe Selo, Alexander Kerensky forbade Nicholas and Alexandra from sleeping together: the spouses were allowed to see each other only at the table and speak to each other exclusively in Russian. True, this measure did not last long.

In Ipatiev’s house, Nicholas II wrote in his diary that he was only allowed to walk for an hour a day. When asked to explain the reason, they answered: “To make it look like a prison regime.”

Where, how and who killed the royal family?

The royal family and their entourage were shot in Yekaterinburg in the basement of the house of mining engineer Nikolai Ipatiev, RIA Novosti reports. Together with Emperor Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, their children - Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, Tsarevich Alexei, as well as physician Evgeny Botkin, valet Alexei Trupp, room girl Anna Demidova and cook Ivan Kharitonov died.

The commandant of the Special Purpose House, Yakov Yurovsky, was assigned to organize the execution. After the execution, all the bodies were transferred to a truck and taken out of Ipatiev’s house.

Why was the royal family canonized?

In 1998, in response to a request from the Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, the senior prosecutor-criminologist of the Main Investigation Department of the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation, who led the investigation, Vladimir Solovyov, replied that “the circumstances of the death of the family indicate that the actions of those involved in the direct execution of the sentence (choice of the place of execution, command, murder weapons, burial places, manipulations with corpses) were determined by random circumstances,” quotes “” refers to the assumption that doubles of the royal family could have been shot in Ipatiev’s house. In a publication by Meduza, Ksenia Luchenko refutes this version:

This is out of the question. On January 23, 1998, the Prosecutor General's Office presented the government commission led by Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov with a detailed report on the results of the study into the circumstances of the death of the royal family and people from its circle.<…>And the general conclusion was clear: everyone died, the remains were correctly identified.

Bolsheviks and the execution of the royal family

Behind last decade The topic of the execution of the royal family became relevant due to the discovery of many new facts. Documents and materials reflecting this tragic event began to be actively published, causing various comments, questions, and doubts. This is why it is important to analyze the available written sources.

Emperor Nicholas II

Perhaps the earliest historical source is the materials of the investigator for particularly important cases of the Omsk District Court during the period of the Kolchak army’s activities in Siberia and the Urals N.A. Sokolov, who, hot on the heels, conducted the first investigation of this crime.

Nikolai Alekseevich Sokolov

He found traces of fireplaces, fragments of bones, pieces of clothing, jewelry, and other fragments, but did not find the remains of the royal family.

According to the modern investigator, V.N. Solovyov, manipulations with the corpses of the royal family due to the sloppiness of the Red Army soldiers would not fit into any schemes of the smartest investigator in especially important cases. The subsequent advance of the Red Army shortened the search time. Version N.A. Sokolov was that the corpses were dismembered and burned. This version is relied upon by those who deny the authenticity of the royal remains.

Another group of written sources are the memoirs of participants in the execution of the royal family. They often contradict each other. They clearly show a desire to exaggerate the role of the authors in this atrocity. Among them is “a note from Ya.M. Yurovsky,” which was dictated by Yurovsky to the chief keeper of party secrets, Academician M.N. Pokrovsky back in 1920, when information about the investigation of N.A. Sokolov has not yet appeared in print.

Yakov Mikhailovich Yurovsky

In the 60s, the son of Ya.M. Yurovsky donated copies of his father’s memoirs to the museum and archive so that his “feat” would not be lost in the documents.
The memoirs of the head of the Ural Workers' Squad, a member of the Bolshevik Party since 1906, and an employee of the NKVD since 1920, P.Z., have also been preserved. Ermakov, who was entrusted with organizing the burial, for he, as a local resident, knew the surrounding area well. Ermakov reported that the corpses were burned to ashes, and the ashes were buried. His memoirs contain many factual errors, which are refuted by the testimony of other witnesses. The memories go back to 1947. It was important for the author to prove that the order of the Yekaterinburg Executive Committee: “to shoot and bury so that no one would ever find their corpses” was fulfilled, the grave does not exist.

The Bolshevik leadership also created significant confusion, trying to cover up the traces of the crime.

Initially, it was assumed that the Romanovs would await trial in the Urals. Materials were collected in Moscow, L.D. was preparing to become the prosecutor. Trotsky. But Civil War aggravated the situation.
At the beginning of the summer of 1918, it was decided to take the royal family out of Tobolsk, since the local council was headed by the Socialist Revolutionaries.

transfer of the Romanov family to Yekaterinburg security officers

This was done on behalf of Ya.M. Sverdlova, Extraordinary Commissioner of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee Myachin (aka Yakovlev, Stoyanovich).

Nicholas II with his daughters in Tobolsk

In 1905, he became famous as a member of one of the most daring train robbing gangs. Subsequently, all the militants - Myachin's comrades-in-arms - were arrested, imprisoned or shot. He manages to escape abroad with gold and jewelry. Until 1917, he lived in Capri, where he knew Lunacharsky and Gorky, and sponsored underground schools and printing houses of the Bolsheviks in Russia.

Myachin tried to direct the royal train from Tobolsk to Omsk, but a detachment of Yekaterinburg Bolsheviks accompanying the train, having learned about the change in route, blocked the road with machine guns. The Ural Council repeatedly demanded that the royal family be placed at its disposal. Myachin, with the approval of Sverdlov, was forced to concede.

Konstantin Alekseevich Myachin

Nicholas II and his family were taken to Yekaterinburg.

This fact reflects the confrontation in the Bolshevik environment over the question of who and how will decide the fate of the royal family. In any balance of power, one could hardly hope for a humane outcome, given the mood and track record of the people who made the decisions.
Another memoir appeared in 1956 in Germany. They belong to I.P. Meyer, who was sent to Siberia as a captured soldier of the Austrian army, was released by the Bolsheviks and joined the Red Guard. Since Meyer knew foreign languages, he became a confidant of the international brigade in the Ural Military District and worked in the mobilization department of the Soviet Ural Directorate.

I.P. Meyer was an eyewitness to the execution of the royal family. His memoirs complement the picture of the execution with significant details, details, including the names of the participants, their role in this atrocity, but do not resolve the contradictions that arose in previous sources.

Later, written sources began to be supplemented by material ones. So, in 1978, geologist A. Avdonin found a burial place. In 1989, he and M. Kochurov, as well as film playwright G. Ryabov, spoke about their discovery. In 1991, the ashes were removed. On August 19, 1993, the prosecutor's office of the Russian Federation opened a criminal case in connection with the discovery of the Yekaterinburg remains. The investigation began to be conducted by prosecutor-criminologist of the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation V.N. Solovyov.

In 1995 V.N. Solovyov managed to obtain 75 negatives in Germany, which were made in hot pursuit in the Ipatiev House by investigator Sokolov and were considered lost forever: the toys of Tsarevich Alexei, the bedroom of the Grand Duchesses, the execution room and other details. Unknown originals of N.A.’s materials were also delivered to Russia. Sokolova.

Material sources made it possible to answer the question of whether there was a burial place for the royal family, and whose remains were discovered near Yekaterinburg. For this purpose, numerous scientific studies were carried out, in which more than one hundred of the most authoritative Russian and foreign scientists took part.

To identify the remains, the latest methods were used, including DNA examination, in which some of the current reigning persons and other genetic relatives of the Russian emperor provided assistance. To eliminate any doubts about the conclusions of numerous examinations, the remains of Georgy Alexandrovich, the brother of Nicholas II, were exhumed.

Georgy Alexandrovich Romanov

Modern advances in science have helped restore the picture of events, despite some discrepancies in written sources. This made it possible for the government commission to confirm the identity of the remains and adequately bury Nicholas II, the Empress, three Grand Duchesses and courtiers.

There is another controversial issue related to the tragedy of July 1918. For a long time it was believed that the decision to execute the royal family was made in Yekaterinburg by the local authorities at their own peril and risk, and Moscow learned about it after the fact. This needs to be clarified.

According to the memoirs of I.P. Meyer, on July 7, 1918, a meeting of the Revolutionary Committee was held, chaired by A.G. Beloborodov. He proposed sending F. Goloshchekin to Moscow and obtaining a decision from the Central Committee of the RCP (b) and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, since the Ural Council cannot independently decide the fate of the Romanovs.

It was also proposed to give Goloshchekin an accompanying paper outlining the position of the Ural authorities. However, a majority vote adopted F. Goloshchekin’s resolution that the Romanovs deserved death. Goloshchekin as an old friend Ya.M. Sverdlov, was nevertheless sent to Moscow for consultations with the Central Committee of the RCP (b) and the Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee Sverdlov.

Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov

On July 14, F. Goloshchekin, at a meeting of the revolutionary tribunal, made a report on his trip and negotiations with Ya.M. Sverdlov about the Romanovs. The All-Russian Central Executive Committee did not want the Tsar and his family to be brought to Moscow. The Ural Council and the local revolutionary headquarters must decide for themselves what to do with them. But the decision of the Ural Revolutionary Committee had already been made in advance. This means that Moscow did not object to Goloshchekin.

E.S. Radzinsky published a telegram from Yekaterinburg, in which, a few hours before the murder of the royal family, V.I. was informed about the upcoming action. Lenin, Ya.M. Sverdlov, G.E. Zinoviev. G. Safarov and F. Goloshchekin, who sent this telegram, asked to urgently inform me if there were any objections. Judging by subsequent events, there were no objections.

The answer to the question, but whose decision was the royal family put to death, was also given by L.D. Trotsky in his memoirs dating back to 1935: “The liberals seemed inclined to believe that the Ural executive committee, cut off from Moscow, acted independently. This is not true. The decision was made in Moscow.” Trotsky reported that he proposed an open trial in order to achieve a wide propaganda effect. The progress of the process was to be broadcast throughout the country and commented on every day.

IN AND. Lenin reacted positively to this idea, but expressed doubts about its feasibility. There might not be enough time. Later, Trotsky learned from Sverdlov about the execution of the royal family. To the question: “Who decided?” Ya.M. Sverdlov replied: “We decided here. Ilyich believed that we should not leave them a living banner, especially in the current difficult conditions.” These diary entries by L.D. Trotsky were not intended for publication, did not respond “to the topic of the day,” and were not expressed in polemics. The degree of reliability of the presentation in them is great.

Lev Davydovich Trotsky

There is another clarification by L.D. Trotsky regarding the authorship of the idea of regicide. In the drafts of unfinished chapters of the biography of I.V. Stalin, he wrote about Sverdlov’s meeting with Stalin, where the latter spoke out in favor of a death sentence for the Tsar. At the same time, Trotsky did not rely on his own memories, but quoted the memoirs of the Soviet functionary Besedovsky, who defected to the West. This data needs to be verified.

Message by Ya.M. Sverdlov at a meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on July 18 about the execution of the Romanov family was met with applause and recognition that in the current situation the Ural Regional Council acted correctly. And at a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars, Sverdlov announced this incidentally, without causing any discussion.

The most complete ideological justification for the shooting of the royal family by the Bolsheviks with elements of pathos was outlined by Trotsky: “In essence, the decision was not only expedient, but also necessary. The severity of the reprisal showed everyone that we would fight mercilessly, stopping at nothing. The execution of the royal family was needed not just to confuse, terrify, and deprive the enemy of hope, but also to shake up one’s own ranks, to show that there was no retreat, that complete victory or complete destruction lay ahead. In the intelligent circles of the party there were probably doubts and shakes of heads. But the masses of workers and soldiers did not doubt for a minute: they would not have understood or accepted any other decision. Lenin felt this well: the ability to think and feel for the masses and with the masses was extremely characteristic of him, especially at great political turns...”

For some time the Bolsheviks tried to hide the fact of the execution of not only the Tsar, but also his wife and children, even from their own people. Thus, one of the prominent diplomats of the USSR, A.A. Joffe, only the execution of Nicholas II was officially reported. He knew nothing about the king’s wife and children and thought that they were alive. His inquiries to Moscow yielded no results, and only from an informal conversation with F.E. Dzerzhinsky managed to find out the truth.

“Let Joffe know nothing,” Vladimir Ilyich said, according to Dzerzhinsky, “it will be easier for him to lie there in Berlin...” The text of the telegram about the execution of the royal family was intercepted by the White Guards who entered Yekaterinburg. Investigator Sokolov deciphered and published it.

The royal family from left to right: Olga, Alexandra Feodorovna, Alexei, Maria, Nicholas II, Tatiana, Anastasia

The fate of the people involved in the liquidation of the Romanovs is of interest.

F.I. Goloshchekin (Isai Goloshchekin), (1876-1941), secretary of the Ural Regional Committee and member of the Siberian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), military commissar of the Ural Military District, was arrested on October 15, 1939 at the direction of L.P. Beria and was shot as an enemy of the people on October 28, 1941.

A.G. Beloborodoye (1891-1938), chairman of the executive committee of the Ural Regional Council, participated in the internal party struggle on the side of L.D. in the twenties. Trotsky. Beloborodoye provided Trotsky with his housing when the latter was evicted from his Kremlin apartment. In 1927, he was expelled from the CPSU (b) for factional activities. Later, in 1930, Beloborodov was reinstated in the party as a repentant oppositionist, but this did not save him. In 1938 he was repressed.

As for the direct participant in the execution, Ya.M. Yurovsky (1878-1938), a member of the board of the regional Cheka, it is known that his daughter Rimma suffered from repression.

Yurovsky’s assistant for the “House of Special Purpose” P.L. Voikov (1888-1927), People's Commissar of Supply in the government of the Urals, when appointed USSR Ambassador to Poland in 1924, could not obtain an agrement from the Polish government for a long time, since his personality was associated with the execution of the royal family.

Pyotr Lazarevich Voikov

G.V. Chicherin gave the Polish authorities a characteristic explanation on this matter: “...Hundreds and thousands of fighters for the freedom of the Polish people, who died over the course of a century on the royal gallows and in Siberian prisons, would have reacted differently to the fact of the destruction of the Romanovs than could be concluded from Your messages." In 1927 P.L. Voikov was killed in Poland by one of the monarchists for participating in the massacre of the royal family.

Another name on the list of people who took part in the execution of the royal family is of interest. This is Imre Nagy. The leader of the Hungarian events of 1956 was in Russia, where in 1918 he joined the RCP (b), then served in the Special Department of the Cheka, and later collaborated with the NKVD. However, his autobiography speaks of his stay not in the Urals, but in Siberia, in the region of Verkhneudinsk (Ulan-Ude).

Until March 1918, he was in a prisoner of war camp in Berezovka; in March he joined the Red Guard and took part in the battles on Lake Baikal. In September 1918, his detachment, located on the Soviet-Mongolian border, in Troitskosavsk, was then disarmed and arrested by the Czechoslovaks in Berezovka. Then he ended up in a military town near Irkutsk. From curriculum vitae It’s clear what an active lifestyle he led on the territory of Russia future leader of the Hungarian Communist Party during the execution of the royal family.

In addition, the information he provided in his autobiography did not always correspond to his personal data. However, direct evidence of the involvement of Imre Nagy, and not his probable namesake, in the execution of the royal family, on this moment are not traceable.

Imprisonment in Ipatiev's house

Ipatiev's house

The Romanovs and their servants in Ipatiev's house

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

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

The royal family spent 78 days in their last home.

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

Execution

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

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

Evgeny Botkin, physician
Ivan Kharitonov, cook
Alexey Trupp, valet
Anna Demidova, maid

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

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

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

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

after the execution

The basement of the Ipatiev house in Yekaterinburg, where the royal family was shot. Civil Aviation of the Russian Federation

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mikhail Aleksandrovich Medvedev-Kudrin

- Nikolai Alexandrovich! The attempts of your like-minded people to save you were unsuccessful! And now, in a difficult time for Soviet republic... - Yakov Mikhailovich raises his voice and chops the air with his hand: - ... we have been entrusted with the mission of ending the house of the Romanovs!

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

“Your friends are advancing on Yekaterinburg, and therefore you are sentenced to death.”

Yurovsky himself could not remember the exact text: “...I immediately, as far as I remember, told Nikolai approximately the following, that his royal relatives and loved ones both in the country and abroad tried to free him, and that the Council of Workers' Deputies decided to shoot them "

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

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

Destruction and burial of remains

Ganinsky ravines - burial place of the Romanovs

Yurovsky's version

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

From Yurovsky’s memoirs (spelling preserved):

The daughters wore bodices, so well made of solid diamonds and other valuable stones, which were not only containers for valuables, but also protective armor.

That is why neither the bullets nor the bayonet produced results when fired and struck by the bayonet. By the way, no one is to blame for these death throes of theirs except themselves. These valuables turned out to be only about (half) a pound. The greed was so great that Alexandra Fedorovna, by the way, was wearing just a huge piece of round gold wire, bent into the shape of a bracelet, weighing about a pound... Those parts of the valuables that were discovered during the excavations undoubtedly belonged to things sewn up separately and remained when burned in the ashes of fires.

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

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

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

...everyone was so damn tired that they didn’t want to dig a new grave, but, as always happens in such cases, two or three got down to business, then others started, immediately lit a fire, and while the grave was being prepared, we burned two corpses: Alexei and by mistake they apparently burned Demidova instead of Alexandra Fedorovna. They dug a hole at the burning site, stacked the bones, leveled it, and lit it again. big fire and covered all traces with ash.

Before putting the rest of the corpses in the pit, we doused them with sulfuric acid, filled the pit, covered it with sleepers, drove an empty truck, compacted some of the sleepers and called it a day.

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

The place where the remains of the supposed bodies of the Romanovs were found

We have now dug out this quagmire. She's deep God knows where. Well, then they decomposed some of these same little darlings and began pouring sulfuric acid into them, disfigured everything, and then it all turned into a quagmire. Was nearby Railway. We brought rotten sleepers and laid a pendulum through the very quagmire. They laid out these sleepers in the form of an abandoned bridge across the quagmire, and began to burn the rest at some distance.

But, I remember, Nikolai was burned, it was this same Botkin, I can’t tell you for sure now, it’s already a memory. We burned as many as four, or five, or six people. I don’t remember exactly who. I definitely remember Nikolai. Botkin and, in my opinion, Alexey.

The execution without trial of the tsar, his wife, children, including minors, was another step along the path of lawlessness, disregard for human life, and terror. Many problems of the Soviet state began to be solved with the help of violence. The Bolsheviks who unleashed terror often became its victims themselves.
The burial of the last Russian emperor eighty years after the execution of the royal family is another indicator of the contradictory and unpredictability of Russian history.

“Church on the Blood” on the site of Ipatiev’s house