How the Romanov royal family was killed. The horrifying story of the execution of the Romanov family

In Yekaterinburg on the night of July 17, 1918, the Bolsheviks shot Nicholas II, his entire family (wife, son, four daughters) and servants.

But murder royal family It was not an execution in the usual sense: a volley is fired and the condemned fall dead. Only Nicholas II and his wife died quickly - the rest, due to the chaos in the execution room, waited a few more minutes for death. The 13-year-old son of Alexei, the daughters and servants of the emperor were killed with shots to the head and stabbed with bayonets. HistoryTime will tell you how all this horror happened.

Reconstruction

Ipatiev House, where the events took place terrible events, recreated in the Sverdlovsk Regional Museum of Local Lore in a 3D computer model. The virtual reconstruction allows you to walk through the premises of the “last palace” of the emperor, look into the rooms where he, Alexandra Feodorovna, their children, servants lived, go out into the courtyard, go to the rooms on the first floor (where the guards lived) and to the so-called execution room, in which the king and family suffered martyrdom.

The situation in the house was recreated to the smallest detail (down to the paintings on the walls, the sentry’s machine gun in the corridor and bullet holes in the “execution room”) on the basis of documents (including reports of the inspection of the house made by representatives of the “white” investigation), old photographs, and also interior details that have survived to this day thanks to museum workers: in the Ipatiev House for a long time There was a Historical and Revolutionary Museum, and before its demolition in 1977, its employees were able to remove and save some items.

For example, the pillars from the stairs to the second floor or the fireplace near which the emperor smoked (it was forbidden to leave the house) have been preserved. Now all these things are on display in the Romanov Hall of the Local History Museum. " The most valuable exhibit of our exposition is the bars that stood in the window of the “execution room”, says the creator of the 3D reconstruction, head of the history department of the Romanov dynasty of the museum, Nikolai Neuymin. - She is a mute witness to those terrible events.”

In July 1918, “red” Yekaterinburg was preparing for evacuation: the White Guards were approaching the city. Realizing that taking the Tsar and his family away from Yekaterinburg was dangerous for the young revolutionary republic (on the road it would have been impossible to provide the imperial family with the same good security, as in the house of Ipatiev, and Nicholas II could easily be recaptured by the monarchists) the leaders of the Bolshevik party decide to destroy the tsar along with his children and servants.

On the fateful night, having waited for the final order from Moscow (the car brought him at half past one in the morning), the commandant of the “house special purpose“Yakov Yurovsky ordered Doctor Botkin to wake up Nikolai and his family.

Until the last minute, they did not know that they would be killed: they were informed that they were being transferred to another place for safety reasons, since the city had become restless - there was an evacuation due to the advance of white troops.

The room they were taken to was empty: there was no furniture - only two chairs were brought. The famous note from the commandant of the “House of Special Purpose” Yurovsky, who commanded the execution, reads:

Nikolai put Alexei on one, and Alexandra Fedorovna sat on the other. The commandant ordered the rest to stand in a line. ...Told the Romanovs that due to the fact that their relatives in Europe continued to attack Soviet Russia, the Urals Executive Committee decided to shoot them. Nikolai turned his back to the team, facing his family, then, as if coming to his senses, he turned around with the question: “What?” What?".

According to Neuimin, the short “Note of Yurovsky” (written in 1920 by the historian Pokrovsky under the dictation of a revolutionary) is an important, but not the best document. The execution and subsequent events are described much more fully in Yurovsky’s “Memoirs” (1922) and, especially, in the transcript of his speech at a secret meeting of old Bolsheviks in Yekaterinburg (1934). There are also recollections of other participants in the execution: in 1963-1964, the KGB, on behalf of the CPSU Central Committee, interrogated all of them alive. " Their words echo the stories of Yurovsky different years: they all say about the same thing“, notes a museum employee.

Execution

According to Commandant Yurovsky, everything did not go at all as he had planned. " His idea was that in this room - plastered with wooden blocks wall, and there will be no rebound, says Neuimin. - But a little higher there are concrete vaults. The revolutionaries shot aimlessly, the bullets began to hit the concrete and bounce off. Yurovsky says that in the midst of it he was forced to give the command to cease fire: one bullet flew over his ear, and the other hit a comrade in the finger».

Yurovsky recalled in 1922:

For a long time I was unable to stop this shooting, which had become careless. But when I finally managed to stop, I saw that many were still alive. For example, Doctor Botkin was lying with his elbow right hand, as if in a resting pose, finished off him with a revolver shot. Alexey, Tatyana, Anastasia and Olga were also alive. Demidova’s maid was also alive.

The fact that despite the prolonged shooting, members of the royal family remained alive is simply explained.

It was decided in advance who would shoot whom, but the majority of revolutionaries began to shoot at the “tyrant” - Nicholas. " In the wake of revolutionary hysteria, they believed that he was the crowned executioner, says Neuimin. - Liberal-democratic propaganda, starting from the 1905 revolution, wrote this about Nicholas! They issued postcards - Alexandra Fedorovna with Rasputin, Nicholas II with huge branchy horns, in Ipatiev’s house all the walls were covered with inscriptions on this topic».

Yurovsky wanted everything to be unexpected for the royal family, so those whom the family knew entered the room (most likely): Commandant Yurovsky himself, his assistant Nikulin, and security chief Pavel Medvedev. The rest of the executioners stood in the doorway in three rows

In addition, Yurovsky did not take into account the size of the room (approximately 4.5 by 5.5 meters): members of the royal family settled in it, but there was no longer enough space for the executioners, and they stood behind each other. There is an assumption that only three stood inside the room - those whom the royal family knew (commandant Yurovsky, his assistant Grigory Nikulin and security chief Pavel Medvedev), two more stood in the doorway, the rest behind them. Alexey Kabanov, for example, recalls that he stood in the third row and shot, sticking his hand with a pistol between the shoulders of his comrades.

He says that when he finally entered the room, he saw that Medvedev (Kudrin), Ermakov and Yurovsky were standing “above the girls” and were shooting at them from above. Ballistic examination confirmed that Olga, Tatiana and Maria (except Anastasia) had bullet wounds to the head. Yurovsky writes:

Comrade Ermakov wanted to finish the matter with a bayonet. But, however, this did not work. The reason became clear later (the daughters were wearing diamond armor like bras). I was forced to shoot everyone in turn.

When the shooting stopped, it was discovered that Alexey was alive on the floor - it turns out that no one had shot at him (Nikulin was supposed to shoot, but he later said that he couldn’t, because he liked Alyoshka - a couple of days before the execution, he cut out a wooden pipe). The Tsarevich was unconscious, but breathing - and Yurovsky also shot him point-blank in the head.

Agony

When it seemed that everything was over, she stood up in the corner female figure(maid Anna Demidova) with a pillow in her hands. With a cry " God bless! God saved me!"(all the bullets got stuck in the pillow) she tried to run away. But the cartridges ran out. Later, Yurovsky said that Ermakov, supposedly a good fellow, was not taken aback - he ran out into the corridor where Strekotin was standing at the machine gun, grabbed his rifle and began to poke the maid with a bayonet. She wheezed for a long time and did not die.

The Bolsheviks began to carry the bodies of the dead into the corridor. At this time, one of the girls - Anastasia - sat down and screamed wildly, realizing what had happened (it turns out that she fainted during the execution). " Then Ermakov pierced her - she died the last most painful death"- says Nikolai Neuimin.

Kabanov says that he had “the hardest thing” - killing dogs (before the execution, Tatyana had a French bulldog in her arms, and Anastasia had a dog Jimmy).

Medvedev (Kudrin) writes that the “triumphant Kabanov” came out with a rifle in his hand, on the bayonet of which two dogs were dangling, and with the words “for dogs - a dog’s death,” he threw them into a truck, where the corpses of members of the royal family were already lying.

During interrogation, Kabanov said that he barely pierced the animals with a bayonet, but, as it turned out, he lied: in the well of mine No. 7 (where the Bolsheviks dumped the bodies of those killed that same night), the “white” investigation found the corpse of this dog with a broken skull: apparently, one he pierced the animal and finished off the other with the butt.

All this terrible agony lasted, according to various researchers, up to half an hour, and even some seasoned revolutionaries’ nerves could not stand it. Neuimin says:

There, in Ipatiev’s house, there was a guard, Dobrynin, who abandoned his post and ran away. There was the head of the external security, Pavel Spiridonovich Medvedev, who was put in command of the entire security of the house (he is not a security officer, but a Bolshevik who fought, and they trusted him). Medvedev-Kudrin writes that Pavel fell during the execution and then began to crawl out of the room on all fours. When his comrades asked what was wrong with him (whether he was wounded), he cursed dirtyly and began to feel sick.

The Sverdlovsk museum displays pistols used by the Bolsheviks: three revolvers (analogues) and Pyotr Ermakov’s Mauser. The last exhibit is the original weapon used to kill royal family(there is an act of 1927, when Ermakov handed over his weapons). Another proof that this is the same weapon is a photograph of a group of party leaders at the site where the remains of the royal family were hidden in Porosenkov Log (taken in 2014).

On it are the leaders of the Ural Regional Executive Committee and the Regional Party Committee (most were shot in 1937-38). Ermakov’s Mauser lies right on the sleepers - above the heads of the murdered and buried members of the royal family, whose burial place the “white” investigation was never able to find and which only half a century later the Ural geologist Alexander Avdonin was able to discover.

On the night of July 16-17, 1918 in the city of Yekaterinburg, in the basement of the house of mining engineer Nikolai Ipatiev, Russian Emperor Nicholas II, his wife Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, their children - Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, heir Tsarevich Alexei, as well as life -medic Evgeny Botkin, valet Alexey Trupp, room girl Anna Demidova and cook Ivan Kharitonov.

The last Russian emperor Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov (Nicholas II) ascended the throne in 1894 after the death of the emperor's father Alexandra III and ruled until 1917, until the situation in the country became more complicated. On March 12 (February 27, old style), 1917, an armed uprising began in Petrograd, and on March 15 (March 2, old style), 1917, at the insistence of the Provisional Committee State Duma Nicholas II signed an abdication of the throne for himself and his son Alexei in favor of his younger brother Mikhail Alexandrovich.

After his abdication, from March to August 1917, Nicholas and his family were under arrest in the Alexander Palace of Tsarskoye Selo. A special commission of the Provisional Government studied materials for the possible trial of Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna on charges of treason. Having not found evidence and documents that clearly convicted them of this, the Provisional Government was inclined to deport them abroad (to Great Britain).

In August 1917, the arrested were transported to Tobolsk. The main idea of ​​the Bolshevik leadership was an open trial of former emperor. In April 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee decided to transfer the Romanovs to Moscow. For the trial former king Vladimir Lenin spoke out, it was supposed to make Leon Trotsky the main accuser of Nicholas II. However, information appeared about the existence of “White Guard conspiracies” to kidnap the Tsar, the concentration of “conspiratorial officers” in Tyumen and Tobolsk for this purpose, and on April 6, 1918, the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee decided to transfer the royal family to the Urals. The royal family was transported to Yekaterinburg and placed in the Ipatiev house.

The uprising of the White Czechs and the offensive of the White Guard troops on Yekaterinburg accelerated the decision to shoot the former tsar.

The commandant of the Special Purpose House, Yakov Yurovsky, was entrusted with organizing the execution of all members of the royal family, Doctor Botkin and the servants who were in the house.

© Photo: Museum of the History of Yekaterinburg

The execution scene is known from investigative reports, from the words of participants and eyewitnesses, and from the stories of the direct perpetrators. Yurovsky spoke about the execution of the royal family in three documents: “Note” (1920); "Memoirs" (1922) and "Speech at a meeting of old Bolsheviks in Yekaterinburg" (1934). All the details of this crime, conveyed by the main participant in different time and under completely different circumstances, they agree on how the royal family and its servants were shot.

Based on documentary sources, it is possible to establish the time when the murder of Nicholas II, members of his family and their servants began. The car that delivered the last order to exterminate the family arrived at half past two on the night of July 16-17, 1918. After which the commandant ordered physician Botkin to wake up the royal family. It took the family about 40 minutes to get ready, then she and the servants were transferred to the semi-basement of this house, with a window overlooking Voznesensky Lane. Nicholas II carried Tsarevich Alexei in his arms because he could not walk due to illness. At Alexandra Feodorovna’s request, two chairs were brought into the room. She sat on one, and Tsarevich Alexei sat on the other. The rest were located along the wall. Yurovsky led the firing squad into the room and read the verdict.

This is how Yurovsky himself describes the execution scene: “I invited everyone to stand up. Everyone stood up, occupying the entire wall and one of the side walls. The room was very small. Nikolai stood with his back to me. I announced that the Executive Committee of the Councils of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies The Urals decided to shoot them. Nikolai turned and asked. I repeated the order and commanded: “Shoot.” I shot first and killed Nikolai on the spot. The shooting lasted a very long time and, despite my hopes that the wooden wall would not ricochet, the bullets bounced off it ". For a long time I was not able to stop this shooting, which had become careless. But when, finally, I managed to stop, I saw that many were still alive. For example, Doctor Botkin was lying, leaning on the elbow of his right hand, as if in a resting position, with a revolver shot ended him. Alexey, Tatyana, Anastasia and Olga were also alive. Demidova was also alive. Comrade Ermakov wanted to finish the matter with a bayonet. But, however, this did not succeed. The reason became clear later (the daughters were wearing diamond armor like bras). I was forced to shoot each one in turn."

After death was confirmed, all the corpses began to be transferred to the truck. At the beginning of the fourth hour, at dawn, the corpses of the dead were taken out of Ipatiev’s house.

The remains of Nicholas II, Alexandra Feodorovna, Olga, Tatiana and Anastasia Romanov, as well as people from their entourage, shot in the House of Special Purpose (Ipatiev House), were discovered in July 1991 near Yekaterinburg.

On July 17, 1998, the burial of the remains of members of the royal family took place in the Peter and Paul Cathedral of St. Petersburg.

In October 2008, the presidium Supreme Court The Russian Federation decided to rehabilitate Russian Emperor Nicholas II and members of his family. The Russian Prosecutor General's Office also decided to rehabilitate members of the imperial family - the Grand Dukes and Princes of the Blood, executed by the Bolsheviks after the revolution. Servants and associates of the royal family who were executed by the Bolsheviks or subjected to repression were rehabilitated.

In January 2009, the Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee under the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation stopped investigating the case into the circumstances of the death and burial of the last Russian emperor, members of his family and people from his entourage, shot in Yekaterinburg on July 17, 1918, "due to the expiration of the statute of limitations for bringing to justice criminal liability and the death of persons who committed premeditated murder" (subparagraphs 3 and 4 of part 1 of article 24 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the RSFSR).

On January 15, 2009, the investigator issued a resolution to terminate the criminal case, but on August 26, 2010, the judge of the Basmanny District Court of Moscow decided, in accordance with Article 90 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation, to recognize this decision as unfounded and ordered the violations to be eliminated. On November 25, 2010, the investigation decision to terminate this case was canceled by the Deputy Chairman of the Investigative Committee.

On January 14, 2011, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation reported that the resolution was brought in accordance with the court decision and the criminal case regarding the death of representatives of the Russian Imperial House and people from their entourage in 1918-1919 was discontinued. The identification of the remains of members of the family of the former Russian Emperor Nicholas II (Romanov) and persons from his retinue has been confirmed.

On October 27, 2011, a resolution was issued to terminate the investigation into the case of the execution of the royal family. The 800-page resolution outlines the main conclusions of the investigation and indicates the authenticity of the discovered remains of the royal family.

However, the question of authentication still remains open. Russian Orthodox Church In order to recognize the found remains as the relics of royal martyrs, the Russian Imperial House supports the position of the Russian Orthodox Church on this issue. The director of the chancellery of the Russian Imperial House emphasized that genetic testing is not enough.

The Church canonized Nicholas II and his family and on July 17 celebrates the day of remembrance of the Holy Royal Passion-Bearers.

The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources

Exactly 100 years ago, on July 17, 1918, security officers shot the royal family in Yekaterinburg. The remains were found more than 50 years later. There are many rumors and myths surrounding the execution. At the request of colleagues from Meduza, journalist and associate professor at RANEPA Ksenia Luchenko, the author of many publications on this topic, answered key questions about the murder and burial of the Romanovs

How many people were shot?

The royal family and their entourage were shot in Yekaterinburg on the night of July 17, 1918. In total, 11 people were killed - Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Empress Alexandra Fedorovna, their four daughters - Anastasia, Olga, Maria and Tatiana, son Alexei, the family doctor Yevgeny Botkin, cook Ivan Kharitonov and two servants - valet Aloysius Troupe and maid Anna Demidova.

The execution order has not yet been found. Historians have found a telegram from Yekaterinburg, in which it is written that the tsar was shot because the enemy was approaching the city and the discovery of a White Guard conspiracy. The decision to execute was made by the local government authority Uralsovet. However, historians believe that the order was given by the party leadership, and not the Urals Council. The commandant of the Ipatiev House, Yakov Yurovsky, was appointed the main person in charge of the execution.

Is it true that some members of the royal family did not die immediately?

Yes, according to the testimony of witnesses to the execution, Tsarevich Alexei survived the machine gun fire. He was shot by Yakov Yurovsky with a revolver. Security guard Pavel Medvedev spoke about this. He wrote that Yurovsky sent him outside to check if shots were heard. When he returned, the whole room was covered in blood, and Tsarevich Alexei was still moaning.

Yurovsky himself wrote that it was not only Alexei who had to be “finished”, but also his three sisters, the “maid of honor” (maid Demidova) and Doctor Botkin. There is also evidence from another eyewitness, Alexander Strekotin.

“The arrested were all already lying on the floor, bleeding, and the heir was still sitting on the chair. For some reason he did not fall from his chair for a long time and remained alive.”

They say that bullets bounced off the diamonds on the princesses' belts. This is true?

Yurovsky wrote in his note that the bullets ricocheted off something and jumped around the room like hailstones. Immediately after the execution, the security officers tried to appropriate the property of the royal family, but Yurovsky threatened them with death so that they would return the stolen property. Jewels were also found in Ganina Yama, where Yurovsky’s team burned the personal belongings of the murdered (the inventory includes diamonds, platinum earrings, thirteen large pearls, and so on).

Is it true that their animals were killed along with the royal family?

The royal children had three dogs. After the night execution, only one survived - Tsarevich Alexei's spaniel named Joy. He was taken to England, where he died of old age in the palace of King George, cousin of Nicholas II. A year after the execution, the body of a dog was found at the bottom of a mine in Ganina Yama, which was well preserved in the cold. Her right leg was broken and her head was pierced. Teacher in English royal children Charles Gibbs, who helped Nikolai Sokolov in the investigation, identified her as Jemmy, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Grand Duchess Anastasia. The third dog french bulldog Tatyana was also found dead.

How were the remains of the royal family found?

After the execution, Yekaterinburg was occupied by the army of Alexander Kolchak. He ordered to begin an investigation into the murder and find the remains of the royal family. Investigator Nikolai Sokolov studied the area, found fragments of burnt clothing of members of the royal family and even described a “bridge of sleepers”, under which a burial was found several decades later, but came to the conclusion that the remains were completely destroyed in Ganina Yama.

The remains of the royal family were found only in the late 1970s. Film writer Geliy Ryabov was obsessed with the idea of ​​finding the remains, and Vladimir Mayakovsky’s poem “Emperor” helped him in this. Thanks to the poet’s lines, Ryabov got an idea of ​​the Tsar’s burial place, which the Bolsheviks showed to Mayakovsky. Ryabov often wrote about the exploits of the Soviet police, so he had access to classified documents of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

In 1976, Ryabov came to Sverdlovsk, where he met local historian and geologist Alexander Avdonin. It is clear that even the scriptwriters favored by the ministers in those years were not allowed to openly search for the remains of the royal family. Therefore, Ryabov, Avdonin and their assistants secretly searched for the burial place for several years.

The son of Yakov Yurovsky gave Ryabov a “note” from his father, where he described not only the murder of the royal family, but also the subsequent scrambles of the security officers in attempts to hide the bodies. The description of the final burial site under a flooring of sleepers near a truck stuck on the road coincided with Mayakovsky’s “instructions” about the road. It was the old Koptyakovskaya road, and the place itself was called Porosenkov Log. Ryabov and Avdonin explored the space with probes, which they delineated by comparing maps and various documents.

In the summer of 1979, they found a burial and opened it for the first time, taking out three skulls. They realized that it would be impossible to conduct any examinations in Moscow, and keeping the skulls in their possession was dangerous, so the researchers put them in a box and returned them to the grave a year later. They kept the secret until 1989. And in 1991, the remains of nine people were officially found. Two more badly burnt bodies (by that time it was already clear that these were the remains of Tsarevich Alexei and Grand Duchess Maria) were found in 2007 a little further away.

Is it true that the murder of the royal family was ritual?

There is a typical anti-Semitic myth that Jews allegedly kill people for ritual purposes. And the execution of the royal family also has its own “ritual” version.

Finding themselves in exile in the 1920s, three participants in the first investigation into the murder of the royal family - investigator Nikolai Sokolov, journalist Robert Wilton and General Mikhail Diterichs - wrote books about it.

Sokolov cites an inscription he saw on the wall in the basement of the Ipatiev house where the murder took place: “Belsazar ward in selbiger Nacht Von seinen Knechten umgebracht.” This is a quote from Heinrich Heine and translates as “On this very night Belshazzar was killed by his slaves.” He also mentions that he saw there a certain “designation of four signs.” Wilton in his book concludes from this that the signs were “kabbalistic”, adds that among the members of the firing squad there were Jews (of those directly involved in the execution, only one Jew was Yakov Yurovsky, and he was baptized into Lutheranism) and comes to the version about the ritual murder of the royal family. Dieterichs also adheres to the anti-Semitic version.

Wilton also writes that during the investigation, Dieterichs assumed that the heads of the dead were severed and taken to Moscow as trophies. Most likely, this assumption was born in attempts to prove that the bodies were burned in Ganina Yama: teeth that should have remained after the burning were not found in the fire pit, therefore, there were no heads in it.

The version of ritual murder circulated in emigrant monarchist circles. The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad canonized the royal family in 1981 - almost 20 years earlier than the Russian Orthodox Church, so many of the myths that the cult of the martyr king had acquired in Europe were exported to Russia.

In 1998, the Patriarchate asked the investigation ten questions, which were fully answered by the senior prosecutor-criminologist of the Main Directorate who led the investigation. investigation department General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation Vladimir Solovyov. Question No. 9 was about the ritual nature of the murder, question No. 10 was about the cutting off of heads. Soloviev replied that in the Russian legal practice there are no criteria for “ritual murder,” but “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, team, murder weapon, burial place, manipulation of corpses) were determined by random circumstances. People of various nationalities (Russians, Jews, Magyars, Latvians and others) took part in these actions. The so-called “Kabbalistic writings have no analogues in the world, and their writing is interpreted arbitrarily, with essential details being discarded.” All the skulls of those killed were intact and relatively intact; additional anthropological studies confirmed the presence of all cervical vertebrae and their correspondence to each of the skulls and bones of the skeleton.

“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.

Tells about the reasons and main characters of the murder of the royal family Doctor of Historical Sciences Vladimir Lavrov.

Maria Pozdnyakova,« AiF": It is known that the Bolsheviks were going to carry out over Nicholas II trial, 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, in Petrograd they shot a peaceful demonstration of many thousands in support Constituent Assembly. 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 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 on public process after such a peace, he 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 time 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 a death 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 the Soviet people by declaring that their wife and children were alive. They were deceived because they understood perfectly well: in the eyes of the public, there is nothing wrong with killing guilty women and a 13-year-old boy - 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 white movement did not intend 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 outbreak broke out in the country. Civil War. 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.

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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 Tsarskoye 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 under the leadership of Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov detailed information about the results of the study of 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.