Lenin
Sverdlov
Dzerzhinsky
Prisoners from the moment he abdicates his throne, surrounded by guards and kept in their quarters, Nicholas and his family are first kept captive at the Alexander Palace just outside of St. Petersburg, then moved to the former governor's mansion in the Siberian town of Tobolsk, before finally arriving at their last home, the Ipatiev House in the city of Yekaterinburg (the fourth largest city in Russia, located on the Iset River, east of the Ural Mountains) ... sinisterly designated the House of Special Purporse by the Bolshevik government. The Imperial family will occupy the House of Special Purpose for 78 days.
The Romanov Family
L to R - Olga, Maria, Nicholas II, Alexanda Fyodorovna,
Anastasia, Alexei, and Tatiana
Alexander Palace - 2010
Tobolsk - 1913
Ipatiev House - 1918
Formerly a rich merchant's house, the two story structure the Romanovs call home is a two-story building (the Romanovs occupy the upper floor, their guards, the ground floor) surrounded by a 14 foot high double wooden palisade that obscures the House of Special Purpose from the street ... and obscuring its occupants, the windows in the house are covered in newspaper, and then later, whitewashed, and anyone looking out of one may be fired on by the guards. Inside, there are rules upon rules ... the Romanovs cannot be addressed by their former titles, only Russian may be spoken, the prisoners must ring a bell each time they want to leave their rooms, recreation outside only takes place twice a day for only thirty minutes, conversation with any of the guards is banned, their brownie cameras and photographic equipment is taken by the guards, the Romanovs are not allowed to attend mass at a nearby church, and in June, newspaper information is banned, as is access to their luggage, the piano in the home is removed, their phonograph and records taken over by and for the guards entertainment, their money is confiscated, they may have no visitors and everyone is subject to regular searches, water is strictly rationed, and meals consist mostly of tea, black bread, soup, and cutlets of meat. The hellish conditions are maintained by 16 internal and 56 external guards manning 10 guard posts ... and there are four machine gun nests ... one in a bell tower of the Voznesensky Cathedral across the street that is aimed at the home, a second is aimed at the street from a basement window (less someone try to rescue the prisoners), a third gun monitors the balcony in back of the house that overlooks the garden, and a fourth weapon station is located directly above the tsar's and tsarina's bedroom. The exterior of the house is patrolled twice hourly, both day and night, and nothing is done about the guards drinking and fornicating across the street as they await their shifts (300 are employed by July of 1918, all under the command of Yakov Mikhailovich Yurovsky), or singing revolutionary songs, drawing crude graffiti on the home, or shouting sexual insults at the Romanov women. The many miseries of the family end on 7/17/2018.
Yurovsky
Unwilling to continue to move the Romanovs about Russia, and fearful that they might fall into the hands of elements of the White Army approaching Yekaterinburg (forces of the Czechoslovak Legion, the Bolshevik regime decides to rid itself of it's "royals" problem ... the Romanovs will be secretly executed and then vanished. Decision made, Yurovsky works out a plan to kill the family and the servants all at once, and then dispose of the bodies in the nearby countryside ... executioners are selected (a group of Lithuanian guards, two of whom refuse to participate in the killings), tasks assigned, a truck is acquired for body transport (it is also hoped that its running engine while muffle the sounds of the execution), and fourteen handguns are passed out to the killers, two Browning pistols, two American Colts, two 7.65 Mausers, a Smith & Wesson, and seven Nagants from Belgium. Everything in place, the family and servants (Ivan Kharitonov, former cook of the royal court, Alexei Trupp, footman to the royals, Anna Demidova, the family maid, and Dr. Eugene Botkin, the family physician) are allowed to have dinner and then retire for the evening.
Kharitonov & Trupp
Demidova & Botkin
Shortly after midnight, Yurovsky wakes Dr. Botkin, and tells him to pass the word on to the other prisoners that they are to dress and ready themselves for a move to a new location. Ready, the eleven prisoners are moved to the basement room of the home to await transportation (a space of 20 feet by 16 feet), and at Nicholas' request, two chairs are brought in for Alexandra and Alexei to sit on while they wait. A few minutes later, Yurovsky and his executioners arrive. "Nikoli Alexandrovich, in view of the fact that your relatives are continuing their attack on Soviet Russia, the Ural Executive Committee has decided to execute you," Yurovsky announces. Nicholas' last words are "What? What?' and as Alexandra and Olga are in the processing of blessing themselves, Yurovsky fires on Nicholas and the carnage begins. Though specific targets have been assigned, everyone seems to fire on Nicholas and he falls dead, riddled with bullets. A drunken Peter Emakov shoots Alexandra in the head, then wounds Maria as she attempts to flee the basement. Bullets flying everywhere (it is dumb luck that none of the killers are wounded in their own fire) and the room quickly filling with gunsmoke, murderer Alexey Kabanov goes outside and does a sound check, the dogs in the Romanos' quarters are howling, the gunfire can be heard, and nearby households have been awakened. Returning to the basement, he tells Yurovsky of his assessment, and the killers are ordered to finish off their victims with bayonets ... and their are plenty of victims yet to dispatch, targets have een missed, and hidden diamonds sewn into the clothes of the family have deflected bullets, all the Imperial children are still alive, with only Maria even wounded.
Kabanov
Bayonets also proving ineffective (blades deflected again by hidden jewels), the slaughter becomes a mix of stabbing and shooting ... transfixed in his chair, Alexei has a full magazine shot into his chest, he is stabbed, and then Yurovsky finishes him off with a bullet to his head, covering their heads in terror as they crouch against a wall, after being stabbed, Maria and Anastasia are gunned down, Olga dies from a gunshot to the head, and Tatiana is also shot in the head by Yurovsky. Fainting when the attack begins, and protected by two pillows containing hidden diamonds, Demidova awakes to find herself alive and proclaims, "Thank God! God has saved me!" ... a declaration that only draws the killers her way, and trying to fend of further attacks with her pillows, she to perishes, bayoneted to death. Killings of the eleven prisoners over (but not the bloodbath as Emakov goes about the room slashing at the bodies with a bayonet), Yurovsky checks each victim for lack of a pulse, then has the bodies taken on stretchers to the waiting truck. It is estimated that over seventy bullets have been fired at the prisoners ... and the executions have taken over twenty minutes (in the coming days, other Romanovs will also be murdered ... Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich, Prince Ioann Konstantinovich, Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich, Prince Igor Konstantinovich, Prince Vladimir Pavlovich Paley, and Grand Duchess Elisabeth Fyodorvna, even though she has become a nun after the 1905 assassination of her husband, they are all shoved into a mine shaft that explosives are then dropped into ... and Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich, Grand Duke Dmitry Konstantinovich, Grand Duke Nikolai Mikhailovich, Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich, and Grand Duke George Mikhailovich are all shot in the head). Only Alexei's spaniel, Joy, survives the carnage of 7/17, rescued by a British officer with the Allied Intervention Force that participates in the Russian Civil War, it lives out its days in Windsor, Berkshire.
Crime Scene - Damaged Wall Is Where
Later Investigators Dig Bullets Out Of
The Wall
Topazes Missed By Yurovsky And
His Killers
Deciding to supervise the removal of the bodies himself due to Emakov's drunken state, Yurovsky has the dead loaded into a Fiat truck with a 60 HP engine, its cargo space is six feet by 10 feet, which is then driven over nine miles on a boggy road out into the Koptyaki Forest. There, the party meets 25 men working for Ermakov (many are also intoxicated) with horses and light carts ... and Yurovsky can barely contain his anger, discovering Emakov has brought only one shovel for the required burials, and has told his men that there would be prisoners for raping (stopped at gunpoint by Yurovsky, Alexandria's corpse is pawed by two men, one of whom giggles about now being able to die in peace because he has touched the "royal cunt."). Sun now up, the disposal of the bodies becomes a farce ... clothes removed and searched for valuables, the bodies are sprinkled with sulphuric acid to disfigure them beyond recognition, and then dumped into a mine shaft ... but the pit they are placed in is only nine feet deep and the bodies are not fully submerged in its muddy waters (including the body of Anastasia's King Charles spaniel, Jimmy). Hand grenades not forceful enough to collapse the cave, Yurovsky leaves guards behind and then reports back to his superiors in Yekaterinburg, bringing the looted royal jewels with him. The decision is then made to find a alternate burial site for the Romanovs. Taking more burial supplies and men (including petrol, kerosene, more sulphuric acid, ropes and concrete blocks), in the morning of 7/18, Yurovsky is back in the forest, leading another burial party that pulls the sodden bodies from the pit, places them back in the truck, and goes off in search of a deeper copper mine. His men exhausted and beginning to refuse orders, the next day when the truck becomes stuck in the mud near a place called Porosenkov Log (Pig's Meadow), the decision is made to bury the bodies in the road where the truck is stuck. Six feet by eight feet, by two feet deep hole is dug, and nine bodies go in (to throw off searchers should the site be discovered, Alexei and Maria are burned, their charred bones smashed with spades, and the pieces tossed into a small pit and buried about fifty feet away), getting another bath in sulphuric acid, a face bashing with rifle butts, and a covering of quicklime before being being covered in soil and then beneath railroad ties that are driven over repeatedly. By 6:00 in the morning of 7/19, the bodies have all been buried.
Emakov Standing Over The Burial Site
The victims will not remain in the Koptyaki Forest however (despite extensive attempts, including Stalin himself, to cover up Soviet involvement in the crime) ... the mass grave located by local amateur sleuth Alexander Avdonin and filmmaker Geli Ryabov in 1979, they tell their story in 1989 during the era of Mikhail Gorbachev's "glasnost," and what is left of the bodies are removed, examined, and eventually (1991), the Tsar, Tsarina, and three of their daughters are laid to rest with state honors in the St. Catherine Chapel of the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg, in a ceremony attended by Boris Yeltsin and his wife. In August of 2000, the Russian Orthodox Church announces the canonization of the family in 2003 ("... for their humbleness, patience and meekness"), work is completed on the Church of All Saints, built on the former site of the House of Special Purpose, and in 2008, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation rules that Nicholas II and his family were ictims of political repression (DUH!!!!!!!!!) and rehabilitates them. As for Alexei and Maria, their remains are discovered in 2007, and plns are made to have them buried with the rest of their family in 2015 at the Peter and Paul Cathedral ... however, they remain so far with the Russian Orthodox Church, which is said to still be testing them for authenticity. Hopefully, soon, they will be reunited with the rest of their family ... rest in peace, Romanovs.
The Romanov Resting Place In St. Petersburg
Church of All Saints
The Romanovs
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