What happened to the Romanov family? Execution of the Romanov royal family

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

Romanov family: history

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

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

There is no direct connection between the Rurikovichs and the Romanovs. It has been established that Ivan III is the great-great-grandson of one of Andrei Kobyla’s sons, Fedor, on his mother’s side. While the Romanov family became a continuation of Fyodor’s other grandson, Zakhary.

However, this fact played a key role when, in 1613, Zemsky Sobor The grandson of Anastasia Zakharyina’s brother, Mikhail, was chosen to reign. So the throne passed from the Rurikovichs to the Romanovs. After this, rulers of this family succeeded each other for three centuries. During this time, our country changed its form of power and became the Russian Empire.

Peter I became the first emperor. A last Nikolay II, who abdicated power as a result of the February Revolution of 1917 and was shot with his family the following July.

Biography of Nicholas II

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

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

Why was the Romanov family shot?

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

• The stampede on the Khodynka field is considered the first ill-considered mistake of Nikolai. In the first days of his reign, people went to Khodynska Square to buy gifts promised by the new emperor. The result was pandemonium and more than 1,200 people died. Nicholas remained indifferent to this event until the end of all the events dedicated to his coronation, which lasted for several more days. The people did not forgive him for such behavior and called him Bloody;
• During his reign, there were many strife and contradictions in the country. The Emperor understood that it was necessary to urgently take measures in order to raise the patriotism of Russians and unite them. Many believe that it was for this purpose that the Russo-Japanese War was launched, which as a result was lost, and Russia lost part of its territory;
• After graduation Russo-Japanese War in 1905, on the square in front of the Winter Palace, without the knowledge of Nicholas, the military shot people who had gathered for a rally. This event was called in history - “Bloody Sunday”;
• During the First World War Russian state entered also carelessly. The conflict began in 1914 between Serbia and Austria-Hungary. The Emperor considered it necessary to stand up for the Balkan state, as a result of which Germany came to the defense of Austria-Hungary. The war dragged on, which no longer suited the military.

As a result, a provisional government was created in Petrograd. Nicholas knew about the mood of the people, but was unable to take any decisive action and signed a paper about his abdication.

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

Remains of the royal family in modern times

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

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

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

Over the years, various groups of scientists have carried out many modern, high-tech examinations to determine the involvement of the remains in the royal family. As a result, the genetic similarity was proven, but some historians and the Russian Orthodox Church still disagree with these results.

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

Living representatives of the genus

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

In the male line, living descendants descend from the sons of Nicholas I - Alexander and Mikhail. There are also descendants female line, which originate from Ekaterina Ioannovna. For the most part, they all do not live on the territory of our state. However, representatives of the clan have created and are developing public and charitable organizations that operate in Russia as well.

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

Video: execution of the Romanov family

This video recreates the moment the Romanov family was captured and their subsequent execution:

(TO THE 94TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE SHOOTING)

Since the day the members were shot royal family 94 years have passed since the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II, but in Russian press still continue to repeat the old lies about the participants historical event. The time has long come to establish the number and names of those who were directly involved in the execution of members of the royal family and service personnel. Below are the main research materials taken from the chapter “Pure Russian Murder” (Two Hundred Years of Protracted Pogrom, Vol. 3, Book 2, 2009). Based on a critical analysis of historical evidence - the diaries of Nicholas II and the courtiers, A. Kerensky, investigator N. Sokolov, archival materials collected in the books of E. Radzinsky “Nicholas II”, M. Kasvinov “Twenty-three steps down” and other authors - to the attention readers are offered absolutely a new version the circumstances of the murder of the royal family and the composition of its immediate perpetrators. This version refutes yet another blood libel by Russian nationalists, who have come up with absurd versions of Jewish participation in the murder of the Tsar and his relatives.

In one of his messages to the mythical conspirators, who were allegedly preparing the release of members of the royal family, Nicholas II wrote: “The room is occupied by the commandant and his assistants, who are currently making up the internal security. There are 13 of them, armed with guns, revolvers, and bombs. Opposite our windows on the other side of the street there are guards stationed in small house. It consists of 50 people." The composition of the guards is very impressive, but the inquisitive Nikolai does not mention either Latvians or Magyars, because they weren't there. Why bring Latvians and Magyars to Yekaterinburg if the guard of 63 Red Army soldiers was already recruited “from the Zlokazov workers brought by Avdeev,” that is, those who worked at the factory of the manufacturer Zlokazov. A. D. Avdeev, who was for more than three months commandant of the house in Tobolsk and Yekaterinburg, was replaced by Yurovsky on July 4, 1918, that is, 12 days before the execution. What would Russian nationalists come up with if Avdeev had turned out to be the commandant of the house on July 16? They would have turned him into the insignificant person he really was, or they would have tried not to mention his existence at all. In fact, Avdeev was replaced by Yurovsky because he was involved in systematic drunkenness.

WHO WAS THE SENIOR OF THE IPATEV HOUSE

On the same day, July 4, 1918, an entry appeared in the tsar’s diary: “During lunch, Beloborodov and others came and announced that instead of Avdeev, the one we took for a doctor, Yurovsky, was being appointed.” Before dealing with the number of direct killers, it is equally important to determine the name of the person who was senior boss in the House of Special Purpose. From the tsar's diary entry it is possible to clarify who former emperor considered the elders: “For a long time they could not arrange their things, because commissioner, commandant and guard officer everyone did not have time to begin examining the chests. And then the inspection was similar to customs, so strict, right down to the last bottle of Alex’s first aid kit.” From this seemingly innocent entry it follows that the tsar quite reasonably considered Commissar Ermakov to be the main authority in the house, and therefore put him in first place. Commissioner P. Ermakov, really, was the most senior military commander, to which 63 armed Red Army soldiers were subordinate. His deputy was the head of the guard service M. Medvedev, who daily and in shifts placed each of the guards at the place of duty. Ermakov was previously subordinate to Commandant Ageev, who was responsible for organizing the life of members of the royal family. It was Ermakov who received orders from the Ural Regional Executive Committee and, just before the execution, together with M. Medvedev, brought the Council Resolution on the execution to Ipatiev’s house. The commandant mentioned by the tsar is Avdeev.

However, Russian nationalists created a version that the eldest in Ipatiev’s house was Commandant Yurovsky, but they never mentioned Avdeev’s name in this role. Radzinsky is clearly inventing that the implementation of the Resolution is entrusted to the commandant of the House of Special Purpose. It is impossible to imagine that the execution was entrusted to a photographer and watchmaker by profession, who for 12 days only became familiar with the situation in the house. Commissioner Pyotr Ermakov, under whose command all the armed riflemen were, could not transfer his powers to watchmaker Yurovsky, who accidentally found himself in the role of commandant. Ermakov was senior in position and responsibilities in the house when Avdeev played the role of commandant; he remained senior when this role passed to Yurovsky. It means that only Ermakov, and no one else, could direct the execution of the royal family and give the command. That evening, it was Ermakov who gathered the riflemen, together with Medvedev, placed them in their places, ordered Yurovsky to read the text of the Urals Council Resolution and gave the command “Fire!” as soon as Yurovsky completed reading the Resolution for the first time. This is exactly what Ermakov himself told the pioneers about this event and wrote in his “Memoirs”. Strengthening the role of Yurovsky is the main nonsense invention of Sokolov and Radzinsky, which is still widely circulated among evil but illiterate Russian anti-Semites. None of the military will transfer command of soldiers to a civilian in the presence of their immediate superior.

Historian M. Kasvinov reports that the decision of the Ural Council to execute the royal family was conveyed to Yurovsky by two Special Representatives at half past twelve on July 16, that is, half an hour before the execution. Radzinsky names the names of the Commissioners: this is the head of the security of the House of Special Purpose P. Ermakov and member of the board of the Ural Cheka, former sailor, M. Mikhailov-Kudrin, chief of the guard service. Both Commissioners of the Ural Regional Council take personal part in the execution of the royal family.

NAMES OF THE SHOOTERS

The next most important issue is to clarify the number and names of the firing squad in order to eliminate any fantasies on this topic. According to the version of investigator Sokolov, supported by Radzinsky, 12 people took part in the execution, including six to seven foreigners, that is, five Latvians, Magyars and a Lutheran. Chekista Petra Ermakova, originally from the Verkh-Isetsky plant, Radzinsky calls “one of the most sinister participants in the Ipatiev Night.” Ermakov himself, who “by agreement belonged to the tsar,” confirmed: “I fired a shot at him point-blank, he fell immediately...”. The Sverdlovsk Regional Museum of the Revolution contains an act: “On December 10, 1927, they accepted from comrade P.Z. Ermakov a revolver 161474 of the Mauser system, with which, according to P.Z. Ermakov, the Tsar was shot.” For twenty years, Ermakov spoke in detail about his role in lectures about how he personally killed the Tsar. On August 3, 1932, Ermakov published his biography, in which he said without undue modesty: “On July 16, 1918... I carried out the decree - The tsar himself, as well as his family, were shot by me. And I personally burned the corpses myself.” In 1947, the same Ermakov completed “Memoirs” and, along with his biography, submitted it to the Sverdlovsk party activist. In Ermakov’s book there is the following phrase: “I honorably fulfilled my duty to the people and the country, took part in the execution of the entire reigning family. I took Nikolai himself, Alexandra, my daughter, Alexei, because I had a Mauser and could work with it. The rest had revolvers.” Enough uh that confession of Ermakov, in order to forever forget all the falsifiers’ versions about the participation of Jews. I recommend that all anti-Semites read and re-read Pyotr Ermakov’s “Memoirs” before going to bed and after waking up, and it would be useful for Solzhenitsyn and Radzinsky to memorize the text of this book as “Our Father.”

The son of security officer M. Medvedev stated from his father’s words: “The Tsar was killed by his father. And immediately, as soon as Yurovsky repeated the last words, his father was already waiting for them and was ready and immediately fired. And he killed the king. He made his shot faster than anyone else... Only he had a Browning. According to Radzinsky, real name professional revolutionary and one of the king's assassins - Mikhail Medvedev was Kudrin. At first, this son stated that Ermakov killed the king, and a little later - his father. So figure out where the truth is.

Another “chief of security” of the Ipatiev House participated in the murder of the royal family on a voluntary basis. Pavel Medvedev, “a non-commissioned officer of the tsarist army, a participant in the battles during the defeat of Dukhovshchina,” captured by the White Guards in Yekaterinburg, who allegedly told Sokolov that “he himself fired 2-3 bullets at the sovereign and at other people whom they shot.” P. Medvedev is the third participant who claimed that he personally killed the Tsar. In fact, P. Medvedev was not the head of security; investigator Sokolov did not interrogate him, because even before Sokolov’s “work” began, he managed to “die” in prison. Another killer took part in the execution - A. Strekotin. On the night of the execution, Alexander Strekotin “was appointed as a machine gunner on the ground floor. The machine gun stood on the window. This post is very close to the hallway and that room.” As Strekotin himself wrote. Pavel Medvedev approached him and “silently handed me the revolver.” “Why do I need him?” — I asked Medvedev. “There will be an execution soon,” he told me and quickly left.” Strekotin is clearly being modest and concealing his real participation in the execution, although he is constantly in the basement with a revolver in his hands. When the arrested were brought in, the taciturn Strekotin said that “he followed them, leaving his post, they and I stopped at the door of the room.” From these words it follows that A. Strekotin, in whose hands there was a revolver, also participated in the execution of the family, since watching the execution through the only door in the basement room, which was closed at the time of the execution, it was physically impossible.“It was no longer possible to shoot with the doors open; shots could be heard on the street,” reports A. Lavrin, quoting Strekotin. “Ermakov took my rifle with a bayonet and killed everyone who was alive.” From this phrase it follows that the execution in the basement took place with the door closed. This is a very important detail.

“The rest of the princesses and servants went Pavel Medvedev, the head of security, and another security officer - Alexey Kabanov and six Latvians from the Cheka." These words belong to the dreamer Radzinsky, who mentions nameless Latvians and Magyars taken from the dossier of investigator Sokolov, but for some reason forgets to name them. Later, Radzinsky, “according to legend,” deciphered the name of the Hungarian - Imre Nagy, the future leader of the Hungarian revolution of 1956, although without Latvians and Magyars, six volunteers had already been recruited to shoot six adult family members, a cook and servants (Nicholas, Alexandra, Grand Duchesses Anastasia, Tatiana , Olga, Maria, Tsarevich Alexei, Doctor Botkin, cook Kharitonov, footman Trupp, housekeeper Demidova).

According to bibliographic data, Imre Nagy, Born in 1896, participated in the First World War as part of the Austro-Hungarian army. He was captured by Russians and was kept in a camp near the village of Verkhneudinsk until March 1918, then he joined the Red Army and fought on Lake Baikal. There is a lot of autobiographical information about Imre Nadi on the Internet, but none of them mentions participation in the murder of the royal family.

WERE THERE LATTIANS?

The nameless Latvians are mentioned only in the investigative documents of Sokolov, who clearly included mentions of them in the testimony of those whom he interrogated. None of the security officers who wrote their memoirs or biographies voluntarily - Ermakov, the son of M. Medvedev, G. Nikulin - mention the Latvians and Hungarians. There are no Latvians in the photographs of the participants in the execution, which Radzinsky cites in the book. This means that the mythical Latvians and Magyars were invented by investigator Sokolov and later turned invisible by Radzinsky. According to the testimony of A. Lavrin and Strekotin, the case mentions Latvians who allegedly appear at the last moment before the execution of “a group of people unknown to me, about six or seven people.” After these words, Radzinsky adds: “So, the team of Latvians - the executioners (that was them) is already waiting. That room is already ready, already empty, all the things have already been taken out of it.” Radzinsky is clearly fantasizing, because the basement was prepared in advance for execution - its walls were lined with planks to the full height. It is this circumstance that explains the reason why the execution took place four days later after the decision of the Ural Regional Council. Let me quote another phrase from M. Medvedev’s son, related to the legend “about the Latvian riflemen”: “They often met in our apartment. All former regicides, moved to Moscow". Naturally, no one remembered the Latvians, who were not in Moscow.

ROOM SIZE AND NUMBER OF SHOOTERS

It remains to explain how all the executioners, together with the victims, were placed in small room during the murder of members of the royal family. Radzinsky claims that 12 executioners stood in the open doorway double door in three rows. In an opening one and a half meters wide, no more than two or three armed shooters could fit. I propose to conduct an experiment and arrange 12 armed people in three or four rows to make sure that at the very first shot, the third row should shoot in the back of the head of those standing in the first row. The Red Army soldiers standing in the second row could only shoot directly, between the heads of those standing in the first row. Family members and household members were only partially located opposite the door, and most of them were in the middle of the room, away from doorway, which in the photo is located in the left corner of the room. Therefore, we can definitely say that there were no more than six real killers, all of them were inside the room at behind closed doors, and Radzinsky tells tales about Latvians in order to dilute the Russian riflemen with them. In reality, all six killers lined up along the wall in one row inside the room and shot point-blank from a distance of two and a half to three meters. This number of armed people is quite enough to within two to three seconds shoot 11 unarmed people.

It is necessary to pay special attention to the size of the basement and the fact that the only door of the room in which the execution took place was closed during the action. M. Kasvinov reports the dimensions of the basement - 6 by 5 meters. This means that along the wall, in the left corner of which there was an entrance door one and a half meters wide, only six armed people could accommodate. The size of the room does not allow a larger number of armed people and victims to be accommodated in a closed room, and Radzinsky’s statement that all twelve shooters allegedly shot through the open doors of the basement is a nonsense invention of a person who does not understand what he is writing about.

Radzinsky repeatedly emphasized that the execution was carried out after a truck drove up to the House of Special Purpose, the engine of which was deliberately not turned off in order to muffle the sounds of shots and not disturb the sleep of the city residents. In this truck, half an hour before the execution, both representatives of the Urals Council arrived at Ipatiev’s house. This means that the execution could only be carried out behind closed doors. To reduce the noise from gunfire and enhance the sound insulation of the walls, the previously mentioned plank cladding was created. With the door closed, all the executioners, along with the victims, were only inside the room. Radzinsky's version that 12 shooters fired through an open door is no longer valid. The mentioned participant in the execution, A. Strekotin, reported in his memoirs in 1947 about his actions when it was discovered that several women were wounded: “It was no longer possible to shoot at them, since all the doors inside the building were open, then Comrade Ermakov, seeing that I was holding a rifle with a bayonet in my hands, suggested that I finish off those who were still alive.”

From Kasvinov’s book it follows that the corner basement under the very ceiling there was one narrow barred window, facing the courtyard. In G. Smirnov’s book “Question Marks over the Graves” (1996) there is a photograph of the courtyard facade of Ipatiev’s house, which shows a window in the basement almost at ground level. It was impossible to see anything through this window. According to the fantasy of Sokolov and Radzinsky, the guards Kleshchev and Deryabin were at the basement window and told the investigator that they allegedly watched the execution: “Deryabin sees through the window part of the figure and mainly Yurovsky’s hand.” The same Deryabin stated: “The Latvians stood nearby and right in the door, behind them stood Medvedev (Pashka).” This phrase was clearly composed by Sokolov, naively assuming that no one would recognize the location of the windows in the Ipatiev House. Even if Deryabin, who supposedly saw something through the glass, had sprawled on the ground, he still would not have been able to notice anything. He might as well have seen the leg of Goloshchekin, who had never been in the house. This means that the testimony of Deryabin and Kleshchev is an absolute lie.

THE ROLE OF YUROVSKY

From the testimonies interrogated by investigators Sergeev and Sokolov and from the above memories of the surviving participants, it follows that Yurovsky did not participate in the execution of members of the royal family. At the time of the execution he was to the right of front door, a meter from the prince and queen sitting on the chairs, and also between those who shot. In his hands he held the Resolution of the Urals Council and did not even have time to repeat the text at Nikolai’s request, when a volley rang out on Ermakov’s order. Strekotin, who himself participated in the execution, writes: “Yurovsky stood in front of the Tsar, holding right hand in his trouser pocket, and in his left - a small piece of paper... Then he read the verdict. But didn't have time to finish the last words, as the king asked loudly... And Yurovsky read it a second time.” In fact, Yurovsky was not armed, his participation in the execution was not envisaged. “And immediately after the last words of the verdict were pronounced, shots rang out... The Urals did not want to give the Romanovs into the hands of the counter-revolution, not only alive, but also dead,” Kasvinov noted.

Radzinsky writes that Yurovsky allegedly confessed to Medvedev-Kudrin: “Oh, you didn’t let me finish reading - you started shooting!” This phrase is key, proving that Yurovsky did not shoot and did not even try to refute Ermakov’s stories, “avoided direct clashes with Ermakov,” who “fired a shot at him (Nikolai) at point-blank range, he fell immediately” - these words are taken from Radzinsky’s book. After the execution was completed, Yurovsky allegedly personally examined the corpses and found one bullet wound in Nikolai’s body. But there could not have been a second, much less a third and fourth, when shot at point-blank range from a short distance.

COMPOSITION OF THE SHOOTING TEAM

Exactly dimensions of the basement room and doorway, located in the left corner, they clearly confirm that there could be no question of placing twelve executioners in the doors, which were closed. In other words, Neither Latvians, nor Magyars, nor Lutheran Yurovsky took part in the execution, and only Russian shooters, led by their boss Ermakov, took part: Pyotr Ermakov, Grigory Nikulin, Mikhail Medvedev-Kudrin, Alexey Kabanov, Pavel Medvedev and Alexander Strekotin, who barely fit along the wall inside the room. All names are taken from the books of Radzinsky and Kasvinov.

According to Kasvinov’s information, all security officers who fell into the hands of the whites and were even remotely related to the execution of the royal family were tortured and shot by the whites on the spot. Among them, everyone who was interrogated by investigator Sergeev, a breeder Yakimov, security guards Letemin, F. Proskuryakov and Stolov(were drunk, slept all night in the bathhouse), guards Kleshchev and Deryabin, P. Samokhvalov, S. Zagoruiko, Yakimov, and others (who were on duty on the street and could not see what was happening in the house with the doors closed and through windows that did not exist in the basement) - did not participate in the execution and could not tell anything. Only Letemin testified from the words of machine gunner A. Strekotin. The White Guards shot all the former guards of the house who fell into their hands, as well as two drivers - P. Samokhvalova and S. Zagoruiko only because they transported the Tsar and his entourage after arriving in Yekaterinburg from the railway station to the Ipatiev House. Among the named persons there is no P. Medvedev, the only witness who participated in the execution, but did not testify to investigator Sergeev only because, according to some information, he died in prison from the plague. A very mysterious death of 31-year-old Medvedev!

Radzinsky claims that the illiterate Strekotin, who testified to investigator Sokolov, prepared his “Memoirs” for the anniversary of the execution of the royal family in 1928, which were published 62 years later in the magazine “Ogonyok” by Radzinsky himself. Strekotin could not write anything in 1928, because all the people who fell into the hands of the whites were shot. According to Radzinsky, this “oral story by Strekotin was the basis of the White Guard investigation of Sokolov,” which, in fact, was another fiction.

Sergey Lyukhanov, a Zlokazovsky worker, the driver of a truck standing in the yard during the execution, on which the corpses of those executed were transported outside the city for two days, was another one of the accomplices in the murder. His strange behavior after the night of the execution and until the end of his life is proof of this. Soon after this event, Lyukhanov’s wife left her husband and cursed him. Lyukhanov constantly changed living place, was hiding from people. He hid so much that he was even afraid to receive his old-age pension, and he lived until he was eighty. This is how people who have committed a crime behave and are afraid of exposure. Radzinsky suggests that Lyukhanov allegedly saw how the Red Army soldiers “pulled two half-shot men from a truck” when he was transporting corpses for burial to the mines, and was afraid of responsibility for their shortage. Radzinsky does not insist on this assumption, but it does not stand up to criticism. For some reason, the Red Army soldiers, who allegedly stole two corpses from the truck, which were later missing, were not afraid of what they had done, and the driver Lyukhanov died of fear until the end of his days. Most likely, this Lyukhanov either personally finished off the “corpses” that had come to life in the back, or participated in the robbery of the bodies of already dead princesses. It was this kind of crime that could cause the driver a mortal fear that haunted him all his life. Security Guard Letemin It seems that he did not personally participate in the execution, but he was honored to steal a red spaniel named Joy that belonged to the royal family, the prince’s diary, “the reliquaries with incorruptible relics from Alexei’s bed and the image that he wore...”. He paid with his life for the royal puppy. “Many royal things were found in Ekaterinburg apartments. They found the Empress's black silk umbrella, and a white linen umbrella, and her purple dress, and even a pencil - the same one with her initials, which she used to write in her diary, and the princesses' silver rings. The valet Chemodumov walked through the apartments like a bloodhound.” “Andrei Strekotin, as he himself said, took jewelry from them (from the executed). But Yurovsky immediately took them away.” “When removing the corpses, some of our comrades began to remove various things that were with the corpses, such as watches, rings, bracelets, cigarette cases and other things. This was reported to comrade. Yurovsky. Comrade Yurovsky stopped us and offered to voluntarily hand over various things taken from the corpses. Some passed in full, some passed partly, and some didn’t pass anything at all...” Yurovsky: “Under the threat of execution, everything stolen was returned (gold watch, cigarette case with diamonds, etc.).” From the above phrases only one conclusion follows: As soon as the killers finished their job, they began looting. If not for the intervention of “Comrade Yurovsky,” the unfortunate victims would have been stripped naked by Russian marauders and robbed.

BURYING CORDS

When the truck with the corpses left the city, it was met by an outpost of Red Army soldiers. “Meanwhile... they began to load the corpses onto carriages. Now they started emptying their pockets - and then they had to threaten with shooting...”“Yurovsky guesses a savage trick: they hope that he is tired and will leave, they want to be left alone with the corpses, they long to look into the “special corsets,” Radzinsky clearly comes up with, as if he himself were among the Red Army soldiers. Radzinsky composes a version that, in addition to Ermakov, Yurovsky also took part in the burial of the corpses. Apparently this is another one of his fantasies.

Commissioner P. Ermakov, before the murder of members of the royal family, suggested that the Russian participants “rape the grand duchesses.” When a truck with corpses passed the Verkh-Isetsky plant, they met “a whole camp - 25 horsemen, in carriages. These were workers (members of the executive committee of the council), which Ermakov prepared. The first thing they shouted was: “Why did you bring them to us dead?” A bloody, drunken crowd was waiting for the Grand Duchesses promised by Ermakov... And so they were not allowed to take part in a just cause - to decide the girls, the child and the Tsar-Father. And they were sad." The prosecutor of the Kazan Judicial Chamber N. Mirolyubov, in a report to the Minister of Justice of the Kolchak government, reported some of the names of the dissatisfied “rapists”. Among them are “military commissar Ermakov and prominent members of the Bolshevik party, Alexander Kostousov, Vasily Levatnykh, Nikolai Partin, Sergei Krivtsov.” “Levatny said: “I myself touched the queen, and she was warm... Now it’s not a sin to die, I touched the queen... (in the document the last phrase is crossed out in ink. - Author). And they began to decide. They decided to burn the clothes and throw the corpses into an unnamed mine - to the bottom.” Nobody mentions Yurovsky’s name because he did not participate in the burial of the corpses.

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

You can't help but notice this one right away high temple and a number of other temple buildings. This is the "Holy Quarter". By the will of fate, three streets named after revolutionaries are limited. Let's head towards it.

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

The Church on the Blood was built in 2000-2003. on the site where on the night of July 16 to July 17, 1918, the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II and his family were shot. There are photographs of them at the entrance to the temple.

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

After the Bolsheviks came to power and the outbreak of the civil war, in April 1918, permission was received from the Presidium (All-Russian Central Executive Committee) of the fourth convocation to transfer the Romanovs to Yekaterinburg in order to take them from there to Moscow for the purpose of their trial.

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

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

When designing, the plan of the future temple was superimposed on the plan of the demolished Ipatiev house in such a way as to create an analogue of the room where the Royal Family was shot. At the lower level of the temple, a symbolic place for this execution was provided. In fact, the place where the royal family was executed is located outside the temple in the area of ​​​​the roadway on Karl Liebknecht Street.

The temple is a five-domed structure 60 meters high and with total area 3000 m². The architecture of the building is designed in the Russian-Byzantine style. The vast majority of churches were built in this style during the reign of Nicholas II.

The cross in the center is part of a monument to the royal family going down to the basement before being shot.

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

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

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

What else is located in the surrounding area? This is the Gazprom tower, which was built in 1976 as the Tourist Hotel.

The former office of the now defunct Transaero airline.

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

Residential building-monument from 1935. Built for railway workers. Very beautiful! Fizkulturnikov Street, on which the building is located, was gradually built up since the 1960s, and as a result, by 2010 it was completely lost. This residential building is the only building listed on a virtually non-existent street; the house is number 30.

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

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

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

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

Nicholas II at this time was traveling to Tsarskoe Selo; due to the riots, he was forced to make a detour through the Dno station and Pskov. It was in Pskov that the tsar received telegrams asking the commanders-in-chief to abdicate and signed two manifestos that legitimized his abdication. After this turning point for the empire and the event itself, Nikolai lives for some time under the protection of the Provisional Government, then falls into the hands of the Bolsheviks and dies in the basement of Ipatiev’s house in July 1918... Or not? Let's look at the facts.

Fact No. 1. Contradictory, and in some places simply fabulous, testimonies from the participants in the execution.

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

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

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

The same room in Ipatiev’s house where, according to both the Bolsheviks and the main White Guard investigators, the execution of the family of Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov took place. It is quite possible that completely different people were shot here. More on this in future articles.

Fact No. 2. There is a lot of evidence that the entire family of Nicholas II or some of its members were alive after the day of the execution.

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

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

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

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

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

Fact No. 3. The king's life was more profitable than death.

On the one hand, the masses demanded the execution of the Tsar and, as you know, the Bolsheviks did not hesitate much with executions. But the execution of the royal family is not an execution; one must be sentenced to death and have a trial. Here there was a murder without a trial (at least a formal, demonstrative one) and investigation. And even if the former autocrat was killed, why didn’t they present the corpse and prove to the people that they had fulfilled their wish?

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

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

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

I don’t know if this article was able to convince anyone that the last Russian emperor was not killed in July 1918. But I hope that many have doubts about this, which prompted them to dig deeper and consider other evidence that contradicts the official version. Much more evidence suggests that official version You can find false information about the death of Nicholas II, for example, in the book by L.M. Sonin “The Mystery of the Death of the Royal Family.” I took most of the material for this article from this book.

Bolsheviks and the execution of the royal family

Over the past decade, the topic of the execution of the royal family has become 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- these are the materials of the investigator for special important matters Omsk District Court during the period of activity of the Kolchak army 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 local, knew the 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 the civil war aggravated the situation.
At the beginning of the summer of 1918, it was decided to take out royal family from Tobolsk, since the local council was headed by the Social 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, then 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. August 19, 1993 prosecutor's office Russian Federation opened a criminal case in connection with the discovery of 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 research, in which more than one hundred of the most authoritative Russian and foreign scientists took part.

To identify the remains they used latest methods, including DNA examination, in which some currently 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 to be 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 broad 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 in him to the highest degree characteristic, 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 area 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 is clear how active the future leader of the Hungarian Communist Party led on Russian territory during the period of 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 has not been traced at the moment.

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' 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. from July 16 to July 17, a truck for transporting corpses arrived at Ipatiev’s house, one and a half hours late. After this, doctor Botkin was awakened and informed of the need for everyone to urgently move downstairs due to the alarming situation in the city and the danger of staying on the 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 so, in a difficult time for the Soviet Republic... - Yakov Mikhailovich raises his voice and chops the air with his hand: - ... we have been entrusted with the mission of putting an end to 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 place. 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 the clay road. Thus, there were three options for action. Yurovsky went to the Commissar of Supply of the Urals, 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 them, lit a large fire again and hid 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 and neglect human life, 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