Over the past decades, this event has been described in great detail, which, however, does not prevent the cultivation of old myths and the birth of new ones.

Let's look at the most famous of them.

Myth one. The family of Nicholas II, or at least some of its members, escaped execution

Remains of five members imperial family(as well as their servants) were found in July 1991 near Yekaterinburg, under the embankment of the Old Koptyakovskaya road. Numerous examinations have shown that all family members are present among the dead, with the exception of Tsarevich Alexei And Grand Duchess Maria.

The latter circumstance gave rise to various speculations, however, in 2007, the remains of Alexei and Maria were found during new searches.

Thus, it became clear that all the stories about the “surviving Romanovs” are falsifications.

Myth two. “The execution of the royal family is a crime that has no analogues”

The authors of the myth do not pay attention to the fact that the events in Yekaterinburg took place against the backdrop of the Civil War, which was characterized by extreme cruelty on both sides. Today they talk about “red terror” very often, in contrast to “white terror”.

But here's what I wrote General Greves, Commander of the American Expeditionary Force in Siberia: “There were terrible murders in Eastern Siberia, but they were not committed by the Bolsheviks, as was usually thought. I will not be mistaken if for every person killed by the Bolsheviks, a hundred were killed by anti-Bolshevik elements.”

From memories Headquarters captain of the dragoon squadron of the corps Kappel Frolov: “The villages of Zharovka and Kargalinsk were cut to pieces, where for sympathy with Bolshevism they had to shoot all the men from 18 to 55 years old, and then let the “rooster” go.

On April 4, 1918, that is, even before the execution of the royal family, the Cossacks of the village of Nezhinskaya, led by military foreman Lukin And Colonel Korchakov made a night raid on the Orenburg City Council, located in the former cadet school. The Cossacks chopped down people who were sleeping, who did not have time to get out of bed, and who did not offer resistance. 129 people were killed. Among the dead were six children and several women. Children's corpses were chopped in half, murdered women lay with their breasts cut out and their bellies ripped open.

There are a great many examples of inhuman cruelty on both sides. Both the children from the royal family and those who were hacked to death by the Cossacks in Orenburg are victims of a fratricidal conflict.

Myth three. “The execution of the royal family was carried out on the orders of Lenin”

For almost a hundred years, historians have been trying to find confirmation that the order to execute came to Yekaterinburg from Moscow. But no convincing facts in favor of this version have been discovered for a century.

Senior investigator for particularly important cases of the Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee under the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Solovyov, who during the 1990s - 2000s was involved in the case of the execution of the royal family, came to the conclusion that the execution of the Romanovs was carried out by order of the executive committee of the Ural Regional Council workers', peasants' and soldiers' deputies without the sanction of the Bolshevik government in Moscow.

“No, this is not the Kremlin’s initiative. Lenin he himself became, in a certain sense, a hostage to the radicalism and obsession of the leaders of the Urals Council. I think that in the Urals they understood that the execution of the royal family could give the Germans a reason to continue the war, for new seizures and indemnities. But they went for it!” - Soloviev expressed this opinion in one of his interviews.

Myth four. The Romanov family was shot by Jews and Latvians

According to current information, the firing squad included 8-10 people, including: Ya. M. Yurovsky, G. P. Nikulin, M. A. Medvedev (Kudrin), P. S. Medvedev, P. Z. Ermakov, S. P. Vaganov, A. G. Kabanov, V. N. Netrebin. Among them there is only one Jew: Yakov Yurovsky. A Latvian could also have taken part in the execution Jan Zelms. The rest of the participants in the execution were Russians.

For revolutionaries who spoke from the position of internationalism, this circumstance did not matter; they did not divide each other along national lines. Subsequent stories about the “Jewish-Masonic conspiracy” that appeared in the emigrant press were based on deliberate distortion of the lists of participants in the execution.

Myth fifth. “Lenin kept the severed head of Nicholas II on his desk”

One of the strangest myths was launched almost immediately after the death of the Romanovs, but continues to live to this day.

Here, for example, is an article from the Trud newspaper for 2013 with the characteristic headline “The head of the emperor stood in Lenin’s office”: “According to some noteworthy information, the heads Nicholas II And Alexandra Fedorovna were actually in Lenin’s Kremlin office. Among the ten questions sent at one time from the Patriarchate to the state commission dealing with the case of the remains found in the Urals, there was a point concerning these heads. However, the answer received turned out to be compiled in the most in general terms, but a copy of the documented inventory of the situation in Lenin’s office was not sent.”

But here’s what the already mentioned investigator Vladimir Solovyov said in October 2015: “Another question arose: there are long-standing legends that after the execution the sovereign’s head was brought to the Kremlin, to Lenin. This “tale” is also in the book of a prominent monarchist Lieutenant General Mikhail Diterichs, organizer of excavations at the site of the supposed burial of the royal family in Ganina Yama, which was carried out by investigator Nikolai Sokolov. Dieterichs wrote: “There are jokes that they allegedly brought the head of the Tsar and will exhibit it in cinemas.” It all sounded like black humor, but it was picked up and there was talk of ritual murder. Already in our time there were publications in the media that this head was allegedly discovered. We checked this information, but could not find the author of the note. The information is completely “yellow” and indecent, but nevertheless these rumors have been circulating for many years, especially among emigrants abroad. Opinions were also expressed that representatives of the Soviet secret services once opened the burial and brought something there. Therefore, the patriarch proposed once again to conduct research to confirm or debunk these legends... For this, small fragments of the skulls of the emperor and empress were taken.”

And here is what the Russian said in an interview with the Pravoslavie.ru portal criminologist and forensic physician, doctor of medical sciences, professor Vyacheslav Popov, who was directly involved in the examination of the remains of the royal family: “Now I will touch on the following point regarding the version Hieromonk Iliodor about severed heads. I can firmly state, hand on heart, that the head of remains No. 4 (presumed to be Nicholas II) was not separated. We found the entire cervical spine of remains No. 4. On all seven cervical vertebrae there is no trace of any sharp object that could be used to separate the head from the neck. It is impossible to just cut off the head, because you have to somehow cut the ligaments and intervertebral cartilage with a sharp object. But no such traces were found. In addition, we once again returned to the burial scheme drawn up in 1991, according to which the remains of No. 4 lie in the southwestern corner of the burial. The head is located at the edge of the burial, and all seven vertebrae are visible. Therefore, the version of the severed heads does not stand up to criticism.”

Myth six. “The murder of the royal family was ritual”

Part of this myth is the statements we previously discussed about certain “Jewish killers” and cut off heads.

But there is also a myth about a ritual inscription in the basement of the house Ipatieva, which I just recently mentioned again State Duma deputy Natalya Poklonskaya: “Mr. Teacher, is there an inscription in your film that was discovered in the basement of the Ipatiev House a hundred years ago, just for the anniversary of which you prepared the premiere of the mocking film “Matilda”? Let me remind you of the content: “Here by order dark forces The Tsar was sacrificed to destroy Russia. All nations are informed of this."

So what's wrong with this inscription?

Immediately after the Whites occupied Yekaterinburg, an investigation was launched into the alleged murder of the Romanov family. In particular, the basement of Ipatiev’s house was also inspected.

General Dieterichs wrote about it this way: “The appearance of the walls of this room was ugly and disgusting. Someone’s dirty and depraved natures, with illiterate and rude hands, dotted the wallpaper with cynical, obscene, meaningless inscriptions and drawings, hooligan poems, swear words and especially, apparently, the relished names of the creators of Khitrovsky painting and literature.”

Well, as we know, with regard to hooligan graffiti on walls, the situation in Russia has not changed even after 100 years.

But what kind of notes did investigators find on the walls? Here is the data from the case file:

“Long live the world revolution, down with international imperialism and capital and to hell with the entire monarchy.”

“Nikola, he’s not a Romanov, but a Chukhonian by birth. The family of the Romanov family ended with Peter III, here all the Chukhonian breed has gone.”

There were inscriptions with openly obscene content.

Ipatiev House (Museum of the Revolution), 1930

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

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

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

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

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

Wounds

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

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

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

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

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

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

Context

How the tsars returned to Russian history

304 years of Romanov rule

Why both Lenin and Nicholas II are “good”

What did Nicholas II give to the Finns?

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

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

Scars

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

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

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

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

The historian claims that in his book he omitted nothing from the materials he examined on the execution of the Romanov family... with the exception of the most disgusting details of the murder. When the bodies were taken to the forest, the two princesses moaned and had to be finished off. Whatever the future of the country, it will be impossible to erase this terrible episode from memory.

It would seem difficult to find new evidence of the terrible events that occurred on the night of July 16-17, 1918. Even people far from the ideas of monarchism remember that it became fatal for the Romanov family. That night, Nicholas II, who abdicated the throne, the former Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and their children - 14-year-old Alexei, Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia - were killed. The fate of the sovereign was shared by the doctor E. S. Botkin, the maid A. Demidova, the cook Kharitonov and the footman. However, from time to time, witnesses are discovered who, after many years of silence, report new details of the execution of the royal family.

Many books have been written about the death of the Romanovs. There are still discussions about whether the murder of the Romanovs was a pre-planned operation and whether it was part of Lenin’s plans. There are still people who believe that at least the emperor’s children managed to escape from the basement of the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg. The accusation of murdering the emperor and his family was an excellent trump card against the Bolsheviks, giving grounds to accuse them of inhumanity. Isn’t that why most of the documents and evidence telling about last days Romanovs, appeared and continues to appear in Western countries? But some researchers suggest that the crime for which Bolshevik Russia was accused was not committed at all...

From the very beginning, there were many mysteries in the investigation into the circumstances of the murder of the Romanovs. Two investigators were working on it relatively quickly. The first investigation began a week after the alleged execution. The investigator came to the conclusion that Nicholas was indeed executed on the night of July 16-17, but the lives of the former queen, her son and four daughters were spared.

At the beginning of 1919, a new investigation was carried out. It was headed by Nikolai Sokolov. Did he find irrefutable evidence the fact that the entire family of Nicholas 11 was killed in Yekaterinburg? It’s hard to say... While inspecting the mine where the bodies of the royal family were dumped, he discovered several things that for some reason did not catch the eye of his predecessor: a miniature pin that the prince used as a fish hook, gems, which were sewn into the belts of the Grand Duchesses, and the skeleton of a tiny dog, obviously the favorite of Princess Tatiana. If we remember the circumstances of the death of the Romanovs, it is difficult to imagine that the dog’s corpse was also transported from place to place, trying to hide... Sokolov did not find any human remains, except for several fragments of bones and the severed finger of a middle-aged woman, presumably the empress.

In 1919, Sokolov fled abroad to Europe. However, the results of his investigation were published only in 1924. Quite a long period of time, especially considering the huge number of emigrants who were interested in the Romanov family. According to Sokolov, all members of the royal family were killed on the fateful night. True, he was not the first to suggest that the empress and her children failed to escape. Back in 1921, this version was published by the Chairman of the Yekaterinburg Council Pavel Bykov. It would seem that one could forget about hopes that one of the Romanovs survived. However, both in Europe and in Russia, numerous impostors and pretenders constantly appeared, declaring themselves children of Nicholas. So, there were still doubts?

The first argument of supporters of revising the version of the death of the entire royal family was the announcement of the Bolsheviks about the execution of the former emperor, made on July 19. It said that only the tsar was executed, and Alexandra Feodorovna and her children were sent to a safe place. The second is that at that moment it was more profitable for the Bolsheviks to exchange Alexandra Fedorovna for political prisoners held captive in Germany. There were rumors about negotiations on this topic. Sir Charles Eliot, the British consul in Siberia, visited Yekaterinburg shortly after the death of the emperor. He met with the first investigator in the Romanov case, after which he informed his superiors that, in his opinion, the former Tsarina and her children left Yekaterinburg by train on July 17.

Almost at the same time, Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig of Hesse, Alexandra's brother, allegedly informed his second sister, the Marchioness of Milford Haven, that Alexandra was safe. Of course, he could simply console his sister, who could not help but hear rumors about reprisals against the royal family. If Alexandra and her children had really been exchanged for political prisoners (Germany would have willingly taken this step to save its princess), all the newspapers of both the Old and New Worlds would have trumpeted about it. This would mean that the dynasty, linked by blood ties to many of the oldest monarchies in Europe, was not interrupted. But no articles followed, so the version that Nikolai’s entire family was killed was recognized as official.

In the early 1970s, English journalists Anthony Summers and Tom Menschld familiarized themselves with the official documents of the Sokolov investigation. And they found many inaccuracies and shortcomings in them that cast doubt on this version. Firstly, an encrypted telegram about the murder of the entire Romanov family, sent to Moscow on July 17, appeared in the case only in January 1919, after the dismissal of the first investigator. Secondly, the bodies have still not been found. And judging the empress’s death based on a single fragment of her body—a severed finger—was not entirely correct.

In 1988, seemingly irrefutable evidence appeared of the death of Nikolai, his wife and children. Former investigator of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, screenwriter Geliy Ryabov, received a secret report from the son of Yakov Yurovsky (one of the main participants in the execution). It contained detailed information about where the remains of members of the imperial family were hidden. Ryabov began searching. He managed to find greenish-black bones with burn marks left by acid. In 1988, he published a report on his find.

In July 1991, Russian professional archaeologists arrived at the site where remains that supposedly belonged to the royal family were discovered. 9 skeletons were removed from the ground. Four of them belonged to Nicholas's servants and their family doctor. Another five - to the emperor, his wife and children. It was not easy to determine the identity of the remains. First, the skulls were compared with surviving photographs of members of the Romanov family. One of them was identified as the skull of Nicholas II. Later, a comparative analysis of DNA fingerprints was carried out. For this, the blood of a person who was related to the deceased was needed. The blood sample was provided by Britain's Prince Philip.

His maternal grandmother was the sister of the empress’s grandmother. The results of the analysis showed a complete DNA match between the four skeletons, which gave grounds to officially recognize them as the remains of Alexandra and her three daughters. The bodies of the Tsarevich and Anastasia were not found. Two hypotheses have been put forward about this: either two descendants of the Romanov family managed to survive, or their bodies were burned. It seems that Sokolov was right after all, and his report turned out to be not a provocation, but a real coverage of the facts... In 1998, the remains of the royal family were transported with honors to St. Petersburg and buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral. True, there were immediately skeptics who were convinced that the cathedral contained the remains of completely different people.

In 2006, another DNA test was carried out. This time, samples of skeletons discovered in the Urals were compared with fragments of the relics of Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna. A series of studies was carried out by Doctor of Sciences, employee of the Institute of General Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences L. Zhivotovsky. Colleagues from the USA helped him. The results of this analysis were a complete surprise: the DNA of Elizabeth and the would-be empress did not match. The first thought that came to the researchers’ minds was that the relics stored in the cathedral actually did not belong to Elizabeth, but to someone else. But this version had to be excluded: Elizabeth’s body was discovered in a mine near Alapaevsk in the fall of 1918, she was identified by people who were closely acquainted with her, including the confessor of the Grand Duchess, Father Seraphim.

This priest subsequently accompanied the coffin with the body of his spiritual daughter to Jerusalem and would not allow any substitution. This meant that at least one body did not belong to members of the royal family. Later, doubts arose about the identity of the remaining remains. On the skull, which had previously been identified as the skull of Nicholas II, there was no bone callus, which could not disappear even so many years after death. This mark appeared on the emperor's skull after an assassination attempt on him in Japan.

Yurovsky's protocol stated that the emperor was killed at point-blank range, and the executioner shot him in the head. Even taking into account the imperfection of the weapon, at least one bullet hole would certainly remain in the skull. But it lacks both inlet and outlet holes.

It is possible that the 1993 reports were fraudulent. Need to discover the remains of the royal family? Please, here they are. Conduct an examination to prove their authenticity? Here are the results of the examination! In the 90s of the last century there were all conditions for myth-making. It is not for nothing that the Russian Orthodox Church was so cautious, not wanting to recognize the found bones and count Nicholas and his family among the martyrs...
Conversations began again that the Romanovs were not killed, but hidden in order to be used in some kind of political game in the future. Could the emperor live in the USSR under a false name with his family?

On the one hand, this option cannot be excluded. The country is huge, there are many corners of it where no one would recognize Nicholas. The royal family could have been settled in some kind of shelter, where they would have been completely isolated from contact with the outside world, and therefore not dangerous. On the other hand, even if the remains found near Yekaterinburg are the result of falsification, this does not mean at all that the execution did not take place. They knew how to destroy the bodies of dead enemies and scatter their ashes back in ancient times. To burn a human body, 300-400 kilograms of wood are needed - in India, thousands of dead people are buried every day using the burning method. So is it really possible that the killers, who had an unlimited supply of firewood and a fair amount of acid, would not have been able to hide all traces?

More recently, in the fall of 2010, during work in the vicinity of the Old Koptyakovskaya road in the Sverdlovsk region, places were discovered where the killers hid jugs of acid. If there was no execution, where did they come from in the Ural wilderness?
Attempts to reconstruct the events preceding the execution were made repeatedly. As you know, after the abdication, the imperial family was settled in the Alexander Palace, in August they were transported to Tobolsk, and later to Yekaterinburg, to the notorious Ipatiev House.
Aviation engineer Pyotr Duz was sent to Sverdlovsk in the fall of 1941. One of his duties in the rear was the publication of textbooks and manuals to supply the country's military universities.

Getting acquainted with the property of the publishing house, Duz ended up in the Ipatiev House, in which at that time several nuns and two elderly women archivists lived. While inspecting the premises, Duz, accompanied by one of the women, went down to the basement and noticed strange grooves on the ceiling, which ended in deep recesses...

As part of his work, Peter often visited the Ipatiev House. Apparently, the elderly employees felt confidence in him, because one evening they showed him a small closet in which, right on the wall, on rusty nails, hung a white glove, a lady’s fan, a ring, several buttons of different sizes... On a chair lay a small Bible in French and a pair of books in antique bindings. According to one of the women, all these things once belonged to members of the imperial family.

She also spoke about the last days of the Romanovs’ life, which, according to her, were unbearable. The security officers guarding the prisoners behaved incredibly rudely. All the windows in the house were boarded up. The security officers explained that these measures were taken for security purposes, but Duzya’s interlocutor was convinced that this was one of a thousand ways to humiliate the “former”. It must be said that the security officers had reasons for concern. According to the archivist’s recollections, the Ipatiev House was besieged every morning (!) by local residents and monks who tried to pass notes to the Tsar and his relatives and offered to help with household chores.

Of course, this cannot justify the behavior of the security officers, but any intelligence officer entrusted with the protection of an important person is simply obliged to limit his contacts with the outside world. But the behavior of the guards was not limited to just “not allowing sympathizers” to the members of the imperial family. Many of their antics were simply outrageous. They took particular pleasure in shocking Nikolai's daughters. They wrote obscene words on the fence and the toilet located in the yard, and tried to watch for girls in the dark corridors. No one has mentioned such details yet. Therefore, Duz listened carefully to the story of his interlocutor. She also reported a lot of new things about the last minutes of the Romanovs’ life.

The Romanovs were ordered to go down to the basement. Nikolai asked to bring a chair for his wife. Then one of the guards left the room, and Yurovsky took out a revolver and began to line everyone up in one line. Most versions say that the executioners fired in volleys. But the inhabitants of the Ipatiev house recalled that the shots were chaotic.

Nikolai was killed immediately. But his wife and the princesses were destined for a more difficult death. The fact is that diamonds were sewn into their corsets. In some places they were located in several layers. The bullets ricocheted off this layer and went into the ceiling. The execution dragged on. When the Grand Duchesses were already lying on the floor, they were considered dead. But when they began to lift one of them to load the body into the car, the princess groaned and moved. Therefore, the security officers finished off her and her sisters with bayonets.

After the execution, no one was allowed into the Ipatiev House for several days - apparently, attempts to destroy the bodies took a lot of time. A week later, the security officers allowed several nuns to enter the house - the premises needed to be restored to order. Among them was the interlocutor Duzya. According to him, she recalled with horror the picture that opened in the basement of the Ipatiev House. There were many bullet holes on the walls, and the floor and walls in the room where the execution took place were covered in blood.

Later, experts from the Main state center Forensic and forensic examinations of the Russian Ministry of Defense restored the picture of the execution to the minute and to the millimeter. Using a computer, relying on the testimony of Grigory Nikulin and Anatoly Yakimov, they established where and at what moment the executioners and their victims were. Computer reconstruction showed that the Empress and the Grand Duchesses tried to shield Nicholas from the bullets.

Ballistic examination established many details: what weapons were used to kill members of the royal family, and approximately how many shots were fired. The security officers needed to pull the trigger at least 30 times...
Every year the chances of discovering the real remains of the Romanov family (if we recognize the Yekaterinburg skeletons as fakes) are dwindling. This means that the hope of one day finding an exact answer to the questions is fading: who died in the basement of the Ipatiev House, whether any of the Romanovs managed to escape, and what was the further fate of the heirs to the Russian throne...

V. M. Sklyarenko, I. A. Rudycheva, V. V. Syadro. 50 famous mysteries of the history of the 20th century

The Romanov family was numerous; there were no problems with the successors to the throne. In 1918, after the Bolsheviks shot the emperor, his wife and children, a large number of impostors. Rumors spread that that very night in Yekaterinburg, one of them still survived.

And today many believe that one of the children could have been saved and that their offspring could live among us.

Anastasia was Nikolai's youngest daughter. In 1918, when the Romanovs were executed, Anastasia’s remains were not found in the family’s burial place and rumors spread that the young princess had survived.

People all over the world have been reincarnated as Anastasia. One of the most prominent impostors was Anna Anderson. I think she was from Poland.

Anna imitated Anastasia in her behavior, and rumors that Anastasia was alive spread quite quickly. Many also tried to imitate her sisters and brother. People all over the world tried to cheat, but Russia had the most doppelgängers.

Many believed that the children of Nicholas II survived. But even after the burial of the Romanov family was found, scientists were unable to identify the remains of Anastasia. Most historians still cannot confirm that the Bolsheviks killed Anastasia.

Later, a secret burial was found, in which the remains of the young princess were discovered, and forensic experts were able to prove that she died along with the rest of the family in 1918. Her remains were reburied in 1998.

Many people believed that the Bolsheviks buried the Romanovs in various places in the Sverdlovsk region. In addition, many were convinced that two of the children were able to escape.

There was a theory that Tsarevich Alexei and Princess Maria were able to escape from the scene of the terrible execution. In 1976, scientists picked up a trail with the remains of the Romanovs. In 1991, when the era of communism was over, researchers were able to obtain government permission to open the burial site of the Romanovs, the same one left by the Bolsheviks.

But scientists needed DNA analysis to confirm the theory. They asked Prince Philip and Prince Michael of Kent to provide DNA samples to compare with those of the royal couple. Forensic experts confirmed that the DNA did indeed belong to the Romanovs. As a result of this research, it was possible to confirm that the Bolsheviks buried Tsarevich Alexei and Princess Maria separately from the rest.

In 2007, Sergei Plotnikov, one of the founders of an amateur historical group, made amazing discovery. His group was searching for any facts related to the royal family.

In his free time, Sergei was engaged in searching for the remains of the Romanovs at the supposed site of the first burial. And one day he was lucky, he came across something solid and started digging.

To his surprise, he found several fragments of pelvic and skull bones. After an examination, it was established that these bones belong to the children of Nicholas II.

After an analysis of the bones of Alexei and Maria, it was found that the bones were severely damaged, but differently than the bones of the emperor himself.

Traces of bullets were found on Nikolai's remains, which means the children were killed in a different way. The rest of the family also suffered in their own ways.

Scientists were able to establish that Alexei and Maria were doused with acid and died from burns. Despite the fact that these two children were buried separately from the rest of the family, they suffered no less.

Archaeologists discovered 9 skulls, teeth, bullets of various calibers, fabric from clothes and wires from a wooden box. The remains were determined to be those of a boy and a woman, with approximate ages ranging from 10 to 23 years.

The likelihood that the boy was Tsarevich Alexei, and the girl Princess Maria, is quite high. In addition, there were theories that the government managed to discover the location where the Romanov bones were kept. There were rumors that the remains had been found back in 1979, but the government kept this information secret.

In 1990, another group of archaeologists decided to start excavations, in the hope that they would be able to discover some more traces of the location of the remains of the Romanovs.

After several days or even weeks, they dug up an area the size of a football field, but never completed the study because they ran out of money. Surprisingly, Sergei Plotnikov found bone fragments in this very territory.

The Russian Orthodox Church refused to accept the fact that the bones actually belonged to the Romanov family. The Church demanded more evidence that these same remains were actually found in the burial of the royal family in Yekaterinburg.

The successors of the Romanov family supported the Russian Orthodox Church, demanding additional research and confirmation that the bones really belong to the children of Nicholas II.

The reburial of the family was postponed many times, as the Russian Orthodox Church each time questioned the correctness of the DNA analysis and the belonging of the bones to the Romanov family. The church asked forensic experts to conduct an additional examination. After scientists finally managed to convince the church that the remains really belonged to the royal family, the Russian Orthodox Church planned a reburial.

The successors of the family tree of the Romanov dynasty live among us. One of the heirs to the royal genes is Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and he provided his DNA for research. Prince Philip is the husband of Queen Elizabeth II, grandniece of Princess Alexandra, and the great-great-great-grandson of Nicholas I.

Another relative who helped with DNA identification is Prince Michael of Kent. His grandmother was a cousin of Nicholas II.

There are eight more successors of this family: Hugh Grosvenor, Constantine II, Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna Romanova, Grand Duke George Mikhailovich, Olga Andreevna Romanova, Francis Alexander Matthew, Nicoletta Romanova, Rostislav Romanov. But these relatives did not provide their DNA for analysis, since Prince Philip and Prince Michael of Kent were recognized as the closest relatives.

The Bolsheviks executed the royal family in Yekaterinburg, and they needed to somehow hide the evidence of the crime.

There are two theories about how the Bolsheviks killed children. According to the first version, they first shot Nikolai, and then put his daughters in a mine where no one could find them. The Bolsheviks tried to blow up the mine, but their plan failed, so they decided to pour acid on the children and burn them.

According to the second version, the Bolsheviks wanted to cremate the bodies of the murdered Alexei and Maria. After several studies, scientists and forensic experts concluded that it was not possible to cremate the bodies.

To cremate a human body, you need a very high temperature, and the Bolsheviks were in the forest, and they did not have the opportunity to create the necessary conditions. After unsuccessful attempts at cremation, they finally decided to bury the bodies, but divided the family into two graves.

The fact that the family was not buried together explains why not all family members were initially found. This also disproves the theory that Alexei and Maria managed to escape.

The mystery of the Romanov dynasty rests with their remains in the Church of Saints Peter and Paul in St. Petersburg. After numerous studies, scientists still agreed that the remains belong to Nikolai and his family.

Last farewell ceremony took place in Orthodox Church and lasted three days. During the funeral procession, many still questioned the authenticity of the remains. But scientists say the bones match 97% of the royal family's DNA.

In Russia, this ceremony was given special significance. Residents of fifty countries around the world watched as the Romanov family retired. It took more than 80 years to debunk myths about the family last emperor Russian Empire. With the completion of the funeral procession, an entire era passed into the past.

Almost a hundred years have passed since that terrible night when the Russian Empire ceased to exist forever. Until now, no historian can state unequivocally what happened that night and whether any of the family members survived. Most likely, the secret of this family will remain unsolved and we can only guess what really happened.

Tsar Nicholas II and King George V. 1913

Historian-researcher, publisher of diaries of the imperial family about betrayal, passions and the execution of a family on the scale of European geopolitics

What is History like? The story is like a huge one communal apartment. We are all registered in it - all residents, all participants. Some of the rooms are occupied. You can come in, introduce yourself, ask questions. Others are empty and sealed, there is no one to ask, and only by what people left behind can one understand what they were like. For what? Yes, because we live together! Shared owners of common housing.

What is time? A category of reason, that is, a part of ourselves. The way we want it, that’s how we see it. If it really is a single space of rooms-epochs, then we cannot be divided into “we” and “they” - we are one. And who knows if our ancestors live behind the wall, if they hear our fuss, and if they are not ashamed of us. The surest way to get there, behind the wall, is through documents, letters and diaries. Once you immerse yourself in them, you are in History. The line between times is blurred, as if you wrote it all down yourself. Extreme events are rare. In the diaries, everyday, repetitive actions are performed. You are imperceptibly drawn in and live them yourself, in the first person, and you can no longer say - I another.

The publishing house "PROZAIK" published "The Diary of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich (K.R.) 1911-1915." This is the third and final part of a large publishing project "To the 400th anniversary of the House of Romanov." It includes the two-volume “Diaries of Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna 1917-1918”, as well as “Diaries and Letters of Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich 1915-1918.” Previously, only imperial archives were published. The documents of the Grand Dukes are published in full for the first time.

The editor of the series is Vladimir Khrustalev, Candidate of Historical Sciences and employee of the State Archives of the Russian Federation (GARF). He has been studying the Romanovs all his life. He suffered with them, he died with them, he saved them. He also has questions.

You have been working on the royal family for a long time; you have dozens of publications on this topic. How did she come into your life?

— As a child, I wanted to be a criminologist, then an archaeologist, which in my mind was also associated with investigation. But due to health reasons I could not do either one or the other and went to the historical and archival department. I did it and didn’t regret it. The library is gorgeous, closed collections (you can look at them, but you can’t use them). And there I came across Nikolai Sokolov’s book “The Murder of the Royal Family.” And my grandmother is also Sokolova. Aren't they relatives? I became interested in the topic and little by little began to collect information. During a student internship at the Central State Administration of the RSFSR in the personal pensioners fund, I came across the confession of Nikolai Zhuzhgov, one of the murderers of Mikhail Romanov, the brother of Nicholas II.

Were there many murderers?

- Yes. I took note of everyone and began to slowly track them.

What is their future fate?

- Their lives turned out differently, but their conscience did not torment them, and fate did not pursue them. They were proud to take part in the executions. Several people received a personal pension. Although the commandant of the Ipatiev House, a member of the Yekaterinburg Cheka, Yakov Yurovsky (Yankel Yurovskikh), was dying of a stomach ulcer in terrible agony in the Kremlin hospital.

My father still has a tape recording of one of these people. He was at our house. I didn’t see him, I don’t remember his name, and I know some of the details of his confessions only from the words of his parents. He said that the girls, the Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia, remained alive for a long time during the execution, because their corsets were stuffed with diamonds, and the bullets bounced off. They were told that they were being taken out of Yekaterinburg. They were probably preparing to leave, hoping that they would be able to escape. Who could it be?

- Possibly Pyotr Ermakov. He was called "Comrade Mauser". Recently a story about him was published under the same title. Ermakov took part in the execution, finishing off the princesses with a bayonet. When they were executed, they started a truck engine in the courtyard of the house to muffle the shots. At the end of the execution they saw that some were alive. But the engine was turned off, they heard the shooting, and stabbed with a bayonet. But Ermakov died in the early 1950s.

So it's not him. My father conducted that interview in the 1970s. Do you support the version of the miraculous salvation of the youngest Grand Duchess, Anastasia?

“When it was all over, they began to carry the bodies into the truck. They picked up Anastasia - she screamed, and Ermakov stabbed her. Hence the rumors and a whole series of impostors. The most famous is Polish Anna Anderson. In the 1920s, during a trial, she tried to prove that she belonged to the royal family. Even some of the Romanovs recognized her, because she knew things known only to her inner circle. Most likely, someone advised her. Next to her, by the way, was the son of Nicholas II’s physician, Gleb Botkin, who testified that she was the Tsar’s daughter. Then she married an American and moved to the USA. MGIMO professor Vladlen Sirotkin and Baltic investigator Anatoly Gryannik, both non-professional historians, found a certain Georgian lady and passed her off as Anastasia. She wrote a book, “I am Anastasia Romanova,” and the two began preparing a presentation. The lady had died by that time, but they continued to pass her off as alive. Strange story. Further, this same Gryannik published the monograph “The Testament of Nicholas II” and claimed that the royal family under the name Berezkins lived in the Caucasus and that Elizaveta Fedorovna (who was killed in Alapaevsk and whose remains lie in Jerusalem), and Mikhail Romanov (who was killed in Perm and whose remains have not yet been found). According to this version, they all lived long life and died safely near Sukhumi. Some kind of schizophrenia.

Such myths are not born just like that. How long did there remain hope in Russia and among the emigrants associated with the restoration of the monarchy?

— The memories of Tatyana Melnik-Botkina, daughter of the physician of Nicholas II, have been preserved. She wrote how they were transported from Yekaterinburg to Tyumen. There was no railway there, it was winter, and the ships did not go. They were transported on carts. When they passed through the villages, changed horses, the peasants took them for a royal motorcade and said: “Thank God, the Tsar-Father is returning! Soon there will be order." But Nicholas II was then killed so that this order would never return. On the other hand, the White Guard movement during civil war a common idea was needed, and that idea was the return of the monarchy. This was not their official slogan: most of the whites rejected the monarchy, were Cadets, Socialist Revolutionaries, Octobrists... But it was important for them to maintain a united anti-Bolshevik front, and therefore they secretly relied on the tsar: that he had not died, that he was hiding somewhere and would soon return and will reconcile everyone. For this reason, many did not believe in the research of Nikolai Sokolov, who represented the version of the white movement, or in other investigations into the murder of the Romanovs, which multiplied since the end of 1918, for fear of losing this idea. White Guard newspapers often published reports that the brother of Nicholas II, V.K. Mikhail first appeared in Omsk, then with Wrangel in Crimea, then in Indochina, in Laos, then somewhere else. Such “ducks” flew for a long time. Partly the Bolsheviks themselves started these rumors. After all, according to the official version, only the tsar was killed, and the royal family was taken away, including Anastasia among others. She was specifically mentioned that she was saved. They even found someone who was passed off as her. But it turned out that she was almost some kind of thief, and she was quickly exposed. And about Mikhail, when he was shot, they officially wrote that he fled and allegedly showed up in Omsk and called for the liberation of Russia from the Bolsheviks. Moreover, months after his death, a report was prepared that he had been detained and was being investigated by the Cheka. They had already typed this text at the printing house, but at the last moment they gave the command to cancel it so as not to attract attention once again. And there were empty spaces in the newspapers. But they didn’t have time to take down one of the county papers, and it got into print that Mikhail was arrested along with his secretary, the Englishman Johnson.

— Before the revolution, he lived in Penza and was a forensic investigator, and when the Civil War began, he changed into a peasant dress, went over to the side of the whites and eventually ended up with Kolchak. Although the investigation into the murder of Nicholas II was already underway, he decided that he would do it better and took on it himself. But he started only in February 1919, that is, six months after the execution. By this time, much evidence had been lost.

Chief of Staff

In the days of the great struggle with an external enemy, striving for almost three

years to enslave our Motherland, the Lord God was pleased to send

Russia faces a new ordeal. The beginning of internal folk

unrest threatens to have a disastrous effect on further conduct

stubborn war. The fate of Russia, the honor of our heroic army, the good

people, the entire future of our dear Fatherland requires bringing

war at all costs to a victorious end. Cruel enemy

strains her last strength, and the hour is already approaching when the valiant

our army, together with our glorious allies, will be able

finally break the enemy. In these decisive days in the life of Russia

We considered it a duty of conscience to facilitate close unity for our people and

rallying all the people's forces to achieve victory as quickly as possible and

In agreement with the State Duma, we recognized it as good to renounce

throne of the Russian state and resign as supreme

power. Not wanting to part with our beloved son, we convey

our legacy to our brother Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich

and we bless him for his accession to the throne of the state

Russian. We command our brother to rule affairs

state in complete and inviolable unity with

representatives of the people in legislative institutions at those

principles that will be established by them, bringing in that inviolable 123

oath. In the name of our beloved Motherland, we call on all faithful sons

Fatherland to fulfill his sacred duty to him

obedience to the king in difficult times of national trials and help

he, together with the representatives of the people, should withdraw the state

Russian on the path of victory, prosperity and glory. Yes it will help

Lord God of Russia.

Signed: Nikolay

Minister of the Imperial Household Adjutant General Count Fredericks

To the grave

If we try to determine the role of the last tsar in Russian history, what is it? Isn't this the role of the slain lamb, the victim? His entire journey, starting from his coronation on Khodynka and ending with his execution in Yekaterinburg, was a continuous sacrifice, blood.

“Not everyone thought so.” Some saw in February revolution sin and horror: regime change, God's anointed was thrown off the throne. For them, Nicholas was the king-lamb. And others believed that in this way they had freed themselves from tsarism and now a bright future awaited them. And in different eras perception also changes. It is impossible to answer this question unambiguously.

Grand Duchesses Tatiana and Anastasia are carrying water for the garden. Summer 1917

In August 1915, the sovereign replaced his cousin, V.K., as commander-in-chief. Nikolai Nikolaevich, Nikolasha. Isn't this a sacrifice? After all, he understood that the opposition would peck him. Why did he do this?

“From the very beginning of the war, he wanted to take this position, but he was dissuaded, and he appointed Nikolai Nikolaevich. Temporarily, because I always dreamed of leading the army myself. Meanwhile, by the end of 1914 the situation at the front had changed. At first we attacked, Lvov and Galich were taken...

...“original Russian cities”, as Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich writes...

- Yes, although they changed hands and eventually ended up in Austria. But already in August-September 1914 ours were defeated by the Germans. Two armies almost died, commander-in-chief of the 2nd Army. In 1915, the Germans entered the Baltic states, drove us out of Galicia, and panic began among the Russians. It became clear: something urgently needed to be done. Meanwhile, Nikolai Nikolaevich played his own game. He attributed the failures at the front to War Minister Sukhomlinov, who did not provide weapons supplies. Through his efforts, this minister was removed and put on trial. Following Sukhomlinov, he tried to reappoint other ministers, replacing them with democrats close to the Duma. Nicholas II listened to him at first, but Alexandra Feodorovna did not like it, and neither did Rasputin. And they began to convince the sovereign that Nikolai Nikolaevich was taking power. And then rumors began that Nikolai Nikolaevich said:

Rasputin comes to Headquarters - I will hang him on a bitch, and I will send the queen to a monastery so that she does not interfere in business.

And the king, seeing that things were not important at the front, and that there was a conspiracy in the rear, sent away Nikolasha to the Caucasus and himself stood at the head of the army. It was the right decision. In this way he suppressed criticism of the military authorities. Because it’s one thing to criticize Nikolai Nikolaevich, and another to criticize the Tsar. And everyone immediately stopped talking. So considerations of state necessity prevail here, and not at all sacrifice. He sacrificed, yes. His reputation, if the war had reached Moscow. But, with a change in military leadership, the course of hostilities stabilized, and the military industry began to gain momentum. Supplies of equipment began to arrive from abroad, control over military orders in the country tightened, the army again went on the offensive and again almost reached Lvov. By heading Headquarters, the Tsar saved the situation

In the latest all-Russian census, in the column “occupation” NikolaiII wrote: owner of the Russian land. He defined himself this way: not a warrior - master. And his rank was colonel . He received it even before he was crowned king and remained in it, taking over the supreme command. How much did the status of commander-in-chief correspond to his sense of self?

“The post of commander-in-chief was for him tantamount to the title of king. He understood both as his sacred duty. He is God’s anointed, swore an oath on the Bible to remain faithful to Russia and the autocracy. And just as he was not free to choose whether to be king or not, he could not deviate from the post of commander-in-chief. And he received a colonel even before his marriage, when he commanded a company of the Life Guards Preobrazhensky Regiment. Alexander III himself, by the way, became a general at the age of 18, and Nicholas followed all the steps and reached the rank of colonel. He truly served. I was in the camps and commanded a battalion. And when Alexander III died, he believed that since his father gave him this title, he would keep it. But in any case, he is the supreme commander in chief by status. Like President Putin today: not a general by rank, but still commander in chief. The children of the Romanov dynasty were specially prepared for both the university and military programs. Every Romanov man was considered a military man.

Not just men. Both Empress Alexandra and the Grand Duchesses-daughters were colonels.

— Women's military ranks honorary Tatyana and Olga were considered colonels, but did not serve, but were chiefs of hussar regiments. As for whether Nicholas II considered himself a military man, there are memories of how, even before the war, the sovereign tested his uniform during the exercises of an infantry regiment. At the end of the training, he filled out the soldier’s honor book: Rank - Soldier. Service life - Until death.

Big Bolshevik secret

You investigated the “Romanov case”, but was it an investigation into the background?

— Unofficially, I collected materials not so much on the royal family, but on the great princes, who were also shot. And my official candidate’s dissertation was called “The History of the Creation of the System of State Nature Reserves of the Russian Federation.” My father was a military man, first in Far East served on Lake Khanka, then in Central Asia and Ukraine. He was a hunter, a mushroom picker, he was fond of fishing and he took me with him. I loved these trips.

Do you remember the first time you realized that all family destroyed? This was our big Soviet secret. It was still known about Nikolai Alexandrovich and the queen, but few knew that the children, doctor Botkin, sisters and brothers were killed.

“I heard about children when I was very little, and this impression stuck with me. My grandmother Zhenya was born the same year as the Tsarevich, in 1904. She often repeated that she was the same age as him. It was strange for me to hear this. At school they say one thing, grandma says another. It seemed that those times were terrible, life was difficult for people - what should they remember? But she didn’t say that the children were also killed. I learned about this later when I read Sokolov in 1967.

And how did you take it?

- How... Terrible! My boarding school friend and I marched and sang “God Save the Tsar.” Here’s something else that outraged me: there is tsarist history, and there is Soviet history. And one thing often does not coincide with the other. I was fascinated by the Russo-Japanese War, the 1st and 2nd Pacific Squadrons. And so, I ask the teacher about the cruiser Aurora, about its participation in hostilities. And she said, “I don’t know whether he was there or not.” But I read Stepanov’s Novikov-Priboy in Tsushima and Port Arthur - I was!

Now it has been established precisely whose order it was to shoot the Romanovs?

— They are still arguing, although in the note of the commandant of the Ipatiev House, Yurovsky, we read: “An order came from Moscow via Perm in conventional language"(telegrams then did not go directly, but through Perm) . So, about the execution. Because there was an agreement on a signal from above in a conventional language.

The names of those who gave the order?

- They are not in any document, but it is implied that these are Lenin and Sverdlov. There is an opinion that the local authorities are to blame for everything - the Petrograd Soviet, the Urals Soviet. But it is known that the military commissar, secretary of the Ural Regional Committee Philip Goloshchekin (real name Shaya Itsovich-Isakovich, party nickname Philip), went to Moscow in June-July 1918 before the Left Socialist-Revolutionary rebellion and asked what to do with the tsar. By the way, he was friends with Yakov Sverdlov and lived in his house during this trip. But he returned with nothing. They did not give permission either to take them to the rear or to Moscow, where it would be more convenient to organize a trial. No, they ordered us to stay on the front line, although the White Czechs and the Siberian Army were advancing. Apparently they were already afraid. If you bring it to Moscow, the Germans will say: at least give us the queen back. But perhaps they came to an agreement with the Germans. We received carte blanche for the fate of the Romanovs. Shortly before the execution, Goloshchekin turned to Uritsky and Zinoviev in Petrograd, since they seemed to be going to try the tsar. And where to judge, if the Whites are advancing, then they’ll take Yekaterinburg? They sent a dispatch to Moscow: "Philip asks what to do". In the end, Yurovsky wrote down that the order had been received from Moscow. But this is indirect evidence, because there are a lot of encrypted telegrams that no one has read.

The sovereign with children and servants in the Tsarskoye Selo garden. Spring 1917

What did Trotsky have to do with the execution?

— In his emigrant diaries, he denies his participation in these events—the diaries have been published. He claims that in June 1918 he was at the front. But in reality, when the decision was made to execute him, he was in Moscow. He writes that he asked Sverdlov: “ Did they shoot the whole family?” — "Yes". “Who made the decision?” - "We are here". "We"- this is Sverdlov, Zinoviev and the Politburo as a whole.

And Voikov?

— His name is associated with the execution of the royal family. But this is a myth. It is believed that it was he who left the German inscription in the room of the Ipatiev house where the execution took place. They say that Yurovsky is illiterate, but Voikov lived abroad, spoke languages ​​and could write this. In reality, he did not participate in the execution. This is a small fry. He was a supply commissar in Yekaterinburg.

What kind of inscription?

— BelsatzarwarinselbigerNachtvonseinenKnechtenumgebracht - That night Belshazzar was killed by his slaves. This is a quote from Heine's poem about biblical king Belshazzar. She was discovered by white officers when they entered Yekaterinburg. Written on the wallpaper. This piece was cut out, it ended up in Sokolov’s archive, was taken abroad and eventually appeared at auction. Now a fragment of this inscription has returned to Russia. Perhaps the White Czechs wrote this. By the time the whites arrived, a lot of people were already in the Ipatiev House.

You are an eyewitness and participant in the process of revealing the truth about the Yekaterinburg and Alapaevsk executions. How did he walk?

— It began with the arrival of Yeltsin, who brought his team, historians, and professors from Sverdlovsk University to Moscow. In the early 1990s, Rudolf Germanovich Pihoya arrived and headed the Main Archives. Professor Yuri Alekseevich Buranov arrived. His topic was the history of metallurgy in the Urals. But there, willy-nilly, when you collect material, you will come up with it. Buranov worked in the Central Party Archive, but went to study documents on the Romanovs at the TsGAOR (Central State Archive of the October Revolution, now GARF), and I was invited to advise him. This was in the late 1980s, and in the early 1990s we already had publications in “Top Secret” by Artyom Borovik.

Are these the first publications of the archives of the royal family?

- Yes. Buranov and I prepared two materials: “Blue Blood” - about the execution of the great princes and their entourage in Alapaevsk in 1918 and “The Unknown Diary of Mikhail Romanov - this the last notes Mikhail Alexandrovich for 1918, a fragment of his diaries from the Perm archive. Then we found the same fragment from 1918 in Moscow. Documents from the courts of the imperial family were mainly kept in St. Petersburg. If you are going to study this topic, then you need to know all the archives, including regional ones. Of course, most of the materials ended up in the archives of the FSB (formerly the KGB) and party archives. They are more difficult to access, and again you need to know where to look. In the West, documents of those who managed to escape have been preserved. This is the foundation of Grand Duchess Ksenia Alexandrovna, the sister of Nicholas II. Partially - the Alexander Mikhailovich Foundation ( Sandro), second cousin and friend of the king. Their documents ended up mainly in the libraries of American universities.

Which of the Romanovs managed to leave?

— 18 members of the imperial family were killed. Those who found themselves in Crimea fled: Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, Alexander Mikhailovich, Nikolai Nikolaevich - Commander-in-Chief Russian army in 1914-1915 and 1917 and the Tsar’s cousin, his brother Pyotr Nikolaevich. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk contains a paragraph stating that Germans and immigrants from Germany have the right to freely leave Russia for 10 years. German princesses, wives of grand dukes and their children fell under this article. Let's say Konstantinovichi(children of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich , K.R. - Note edit.) not only fell under, because their mother, Elizaveta Mavrikievna, Mavra, was German, but they weren’t even in the line of succession to the throne! They were not even great princes, but only princes of imperial blood. In total there were almost 50 people - members of the imperial family. Gabriel Konstantinovich with tuberculosis was kept in prison in St. Petersburg, and only thanks to Gorky, he was allowed to move to a hospital, and then to Finland. On the other hand, everyone was under arrest, but V.K. Vladimir Kirillovich, and then Kerensky managed to escape to Finland. There was a list of the imperial family, and arrests were made using it. Immediately after the revolution, this was done by the Petrograd Soviet. But the same decree was issued under the Provisional Government. Moreover, officially it only ordered the arrest of the royal family - i.e. Nicholas II, Alexandra and children - and behind the scenes, all the Romanovs were supposed to be in custody and where the revolution found them. For example, Maria Pavlovna, the aunt of Nicholas II (since 1909 - president of the Academy of Arts, in the 1910s, together with Grand Duke Nikolai Mikhailovich, led the grand ducal opposition to Nicholas II), with her sons Andrei and Boris, she ended up on vacation in Kislovodsk and was arrested there. It is unclear how they managed to escape. Perhaps they paid off with a bribe and managed to hide. They hid in the mountains until the whites arrived, and when they began to retreat, in 1920 they left by sea for Europe. In addition to them, several generals turned out to be in Kislovodsk, incl. Commander of the Northern Front, General Ruzsky.

Is this the tsar’s adjutant, the head of the Pskov Headquarters, who forced Nicholas to abdicate and wringed his hands?

- Yes. He and other military leaders were not just killed, they were cut to pieces with sabers. And the elder brother of Konstantin Konstantinovich ( K.R.) Nikolai Konstantinovich was arrested in Tashkent, where he had been exiled back in tsarist times. He had an American mistress, either an actress or a dancer. She didn’t have enough money for a gift, and he stole precious stones from the frame of the family icon from the Marble Palace. There was a terrible scandal, Alexander II exiled him to Central Asia. There he died, although they say that he was killed.

And Grand Duchess Elizaveta Feodorovna was detained in Moscow...

- Yes, in the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent, which she founded. It was the third day of Easter 1918. She was arrested and, together with two assistants, taken to Perm. One of them was released, the other stayed with Elizaveta Fedorovna, she was also killed. Many Romanovs were in Perm at that time. Then they decided to take them to Yekaterinburg. They took us to Yekaterinburg - it seemed like a bit much. And those who were not directly part of the family were transported to Alapaevsk.

In 1992, Elizaveta Fedorovna was canonized, but during her lifetime she was hated and persecuted. In 1915-1916, she became a favorite target of Moscow pogromists. Because she is German and the sister of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna?

“Those who didn’t know how she helped people hated her.” During the war, terrible propaganda was carried out against the Germans. And who knew, they were treated with love. When the pogromists went to the Martha and Mary Convent, they defended it.

In total, the Romanovs were kept in eight places: Tobolsk, St. Petersburg, Crimea, Tashkent, Kislovodsk, Perm, Yekaterinburg, Alapaevsk. Did I name everything?

— Vologda is still at nine. The cousins ​​of Nicholas II were taken there: Grand Duke Nikolai Mikhailovich, he was a historian, his brother Grand Duke Georgiy Mikhailovich, manager of the Russian Museum, as well as Grand Duke Dmitry Konstantinovich, manager of the state horse breeding.

Who was killed in Alapaevsk?

- The children of Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich - Igor, John and Konstantin Konstantinovich, Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich, the Empress's sister Elizaveta Feodorovna and Vladimir Pavlovich Paliy - the son of Grand Duke Pavel Alexandrovich, who, although he had a different surname, also belonged to the royal family. They tried to destroy their bodies, like the remains of the royal family. They threw me into a mine. And after they failed to bring it down, they showered it with garbage.

And this is a special topic. The fact is that not everyone officially recognizes the authenticity of the royal remains. There are different interpretations among researchers from different years. For example, Nikolai Sokolov and Konstantin Diterichs, who wrote about the Romanovs in the 1920s, testify that the bodies were burned. Sokolov found fragments and melted bullets, but did not find the remains themselves and was inclined to believe that they had been destroyed. White emigrants claim that the royal family was destroyed, and then suddenly, the remains were found. Personally, I believe that they are genuine, although, of course, everything needs to be double-checked. During the investigation, many distortions were made.

In the early 1990s, a commission was created for royal remains. Did you take part in it?

— I was part of the expert group of the commission and observed its work. And this is what struck me. Firstly, its composition. God knows who, ignorant people. Deputy Minister of Textile Industry! And secondly, not all documents were looked at. Many Ural archives disappeared during the summer of 1918, and no one even seriously tried to search. We opened the party archive for this period - we couldn’t find it! Maybe they disappeared, maybe they were destroyed when Yekaterinburg was evacuated to Vyatka. But there were no whites or Germans there; they couldn’t lose them. Some materials surface on Lubyanka. Suddenly! After all, when the commission on the remains contacted them, they swore that they had nothing on the murder of the Romanovs, but years later, suddenly, there were two whole volumes on the royal family.

What is this connected with?

— Perhaps they don’t know their archives well about the first years of Soviet power. And there is a version that some of the documents were bombed during the Second World War during the evacuation. They were taken out of Moscow. On the Volga, the barge perished, and many materials, for example, from the People's Commissariat of Agriculture, then disappeared. This is evidenced in the acts, I saw these acts. But the materials found are enough to understand: both murders are identical, in fact it was one order. They were killed in Yekaterinburg on the night of July 16-17, 1918. In Alapaevsk - a day later. The bodies of the royal family were stripped and their belongings were burned. This was witnessed by the funeral team of security officers. Alapaevites were thrown into the mine alive, with documents, in clothes. The acts drawn up by the White Guards were found. According to them, the bodies were thrown into the mine and they tried to blow them up in both cases, in Alapaevsk and near Yekaterinburg. And the commandant of the Ipatiev House, Yurovsky, writes that they wanted to temporarily place them there. How temporary it is if you throw grenades into a mine! Soon they began to talk about the execution of the royal family, and in order to stop the rumors, they returned to the remains, brought kerosene, sulfuric acid... Apparently, they themselves did not know what to do. It was impossible for them to be found. Pravda and Izvestia then wrote: “In connection with the threat of the capture of the Tsar by the White Czechs, by decision of the Urals Council, he was shot. The family is in a safe place". And the Germans were told the same thing.

Cousin Georgie and AuntAlix

You said that they delayed the execution. Why?

— Because initially there was a decision to judge. It was assumed that Trotsky would organize some kind of trial.

Or did they expect that the royal family would be taken out? Starting with Peter the Romanovs married German women, and there were also family relationships with other European courts. Nicholas II's mother, Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, is the daughter of the King of Denmark. Her sister Alexandra, Queen Dowager of England, was the mother of King George of England V and dear aunt Nikolai. Cousin Georgie And aunt Alix(not to be confused with Alix- Nikolai's wifeII, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. — Approx. ed.) have you tried?

- No. We would like to - both the Germans and the British had opportunities.

It is known that the British brother was afraid to give asylum to his Russian brother. The official pretext is that parliament voted against it. But this is an excuse, and he himself wanted this? In letters to Russian relatives he signed "cousin and old friend Georgie". Did they have a good relationship with Nikolai?

- Yes, while he was in power. And then they decided to disown him. Why do we need a retired king? Nikolai had a trusting relationship with Georg. During the war, rumors spread that, secretly from England, Germany and I were preparing a separate peace. They say that the German empress and Rasputin have formed a German party that is playing on this, and England will not give up the straits to us (according to the treaty of alliance, in the event of an Entente victory, the Dardanelles and Bosphorus straits went to Russia. - Note ed.). Someone deliberately spread these rumors. Maybe the Germans, maybe our factory owners. Because if Russia wins, they will not see power, but for now the war is an opportune moment to get rid of the tsar. And Nicholas II and George V discussed this plot in letters. Georgie wrote: don’t believe these rumors, they are hostile, the Germans don’t want to make peace, and we will give up the straits. And the sovereign told him: yes, there are people who want to quarrel between us. But we will not make peace with Germany, we will fight to the end. They assured each other of their loyalty. Participants in the events testify to this. The English military attache Williams, who was at our Headquarters, personally discussed this issue with the sovereign, his memoirs were published.

But then politics, and family ties?

— Alexandra Fedorovna in letters to Nicholas II, according to auntsAlix reported details of the life of British relatives. That one died at the front, the other got married... We are talking about everyday, routine things, family relationships they were supportive. We read all this in their front-line correspondence, which was published. Recently a hefty volume was published - “Correspondence of Nicholas and Alexandra”. This is virtually all of their wartime correspondence. By the way, it was published in the 1920s - in 5 volumes from 1923 to 1927. Then it was published by the historian of Freemasonry Oleg Platonov under the title “Nicholas II in Secret Correspondence.”

Since the time of JohnIII and IV England “played” against us. And in 1917, the Russian opposition and members of the Provisional Government consulted at the British embassy. This is documented. At the same time, personal ties between the two courts were strong. Maria Fedorovna spent a long time visiting her sister at Marlborough House. Her children and grandchildren were brought up in the English tradition: they all had English teachers, they all knew English language and even kept diaries in English. The main Anglomaniac among the Romanovs was Nicholas's brother, in whose favor he abdicated, Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich. He sincerely loved England; he served “exile” there in 1912-1914. England had reasons not to save them. But isn't this a betrayal? “Corporate” - the monarch betrays the monarch and blood - brother of brother.

— It is officially believed that Nicholas II was “surrendered” because the British government was against his stay in England during the war. The country was then ruled by the Laborites, that is, the leftists - they allegedly insisted on this decision. The British Ambassador Buchanan confirms this version in his memoirs. And when in the 1990s an examination of the royal remains was carried out, and the chairman of the commission, director of the GARF Sergei Mironenko traveled with investigator Solovyov to England, he saw with his own eyes the diaries of George V. It is written in them that this was his order, he personally put pressure on the government, so that it does not accept the Romanovs. That is official version was fabricated to shield the king.

In his diaries one can trace a moment of hesitation, choice, or Georgie Was he guided only by political expediency?

— I haven’t seen these documents, but it is known that as soon as the February revolution took place and the tsar abdicated, George V invited the royal family to England by telegram, and it seems that Nicholas II was ready to accept this offer. But the children were sick, measles, everyone had a temperature of 40, where should we take them! And Nikolai went to Headquarters to hand over his cases. Yes, no one seemed to touch anyone, everyone was still free. Kerensky even promised that he himself would escort them to Murman, and then put them on a cruiser, and they would leave for England. They wrote about this in the newspapers. But the Petrograd Soviet, headed by Trotsky, declared: how can you let the emperor go abroad! He is organizing a counter-revolution there! Urgently arrest and go to the Peter and Paul Fortress! However, then Trotsky still had to coordinate actions with the Provisional Government. But it was against it, and they made a compromise: not to arrest everyone, but only the royal family and not to keep them in a fortress, but whoever was there. In fact, it was house arrest. Well, soon the Provisional Government no longer cared about the royal family. While it was fighting for its portfolios, the October coup occurred, and Nicholas II and his family were sent to Tobolsk instead of England.

Everyone was sure that it was about to resolve. Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich wrote in his diaries: everything is being sorted out. For February-March 1917 there are such notes every day.

- They thought so. And when the Bolsheviks declared a separate peace, it became clear that something strange was happening. After all, Nicholas II was accused of precisely this, that he, a traitor, wanted to make peace with Germany, and for this he was overthrown. And it turned out that after seizing power, the Bolsheviks did just that. Why? Because the Germans financed them. The February Revolution actually took place with German money. Just like the first Russian one - into Japanese ones. And the Bloody Resurrection was arranged for them. All these are planned provocations carried out with Japanese and German money with the support of local revolutionaries. Both Japan in 1905 and Germany in 1917 had a vested interest in Russia weakening. Germany was on the verge of defeat; at any cost it was necessary to get us out of the war. Back in July 1917, Germany tried to provoke an armed uprising, but then Kerensky dispersed the Bolsheviks and Lenin was put on the wanted list.

By the February Revolution, the royal family was in Petrograd. When and why was she taken out of there?

- If we talk about the family as such - Nikolai, Alexander and children - they were transported to Tobolsk on the night of July 31 to August 1. As for the v.c. Mikhail Alexandrovich and other grand dukes, back in March 1918 there was an order from the Petrograd Commune to remove them from Petrograd. The Bolsheviks themselves rushed to Moscow just then, moving the capital because of the German threat. The Germans, on the one hand, signed a peace treaty, and on the other, they advanced and chopped off half of Russia, including Ukraine. And the situation was such that if the king abdicated the throne, then Mikhail did not abdicate! The document he signed implied that the choice of the board would be carried out by the Constituent Assembly. He did not deny, but “suspended” the question. That is, the danger of restoration remained. Therefore, the Constituent Assembly was dispersed (January 5/18, 1918, on the day of its convocation), and all the Romanovs were taken out of Petrograd.

There is a version that NikolaiII also did not recant, and his signature on the Manifesto was forged.

— Historian Peter Multatuli adheres to this version. But a putsch is a putsch. The same Catherine II - who did she ask for signatures? If you look at the act of abdication, it is not a manifesto in the proper sense of the word, that is, drawn up according to all the rules, but a telegram that the tsar agreed with Headquarters. In this case, it is considered that he renounced voluntarily, although in reality he did it under duress, and therefore, illegally. The way the act of renunciation is framed is illegal! Various forces were interested in the abdication of Nikolai Romanov. Both Russian masons and Western powers. There was a common goal - to knock Russia out of the game. Because in the war the scales tipped in favor of the Entente. If Russia got the Black Sea straits, England would be in trouble. From there it’s a stone’s throw to Egypt, Syria is nearby, Palestine is nearby. The Russians were then in Iran, and the British traditionally considered it their sphere of influence.

Do you mean the redistribution of the world between the allies, which has been discussed since the beginning of 1917? According to this plan, the Dardanelles with the Bosphorus and Constantinople, which Potemkin had still dreamed of, and Paul I, who named his first-born Constantine - in honor of Byzantine emperor and with an eye to expanding the empire.

— This was discussed back in 1915. The coup meant that there would be a new king, and necessarily a constitutional monarch, as in England, and there would be new agreements, that is, then the agreements could be revised. But when everything started to go south in Russia, they themselves, it seems, were no longer happy.

England was for the revolution-constitution, but not for the revolution-chaos and the power of the Bolsheviks?

— Yes, and England was not the only one involved in this complex combination. The British feared a separate peace treaty for Russia. If Russia is just leaving the war, how many German divisions are being liberated! They would attack these French in one fell swoop, and then attack the British. But the main reason for the events of 1917 was not in England, but in our so-called democracy and revolutionary social democracy. As during Russo-Japanese War, and in 1917 the Russian opposition tried at all costs to achieve a constitutional monarchy. In 1905 it took place, but this already seemed not enough, and soon Zemgor - there was such public organization— opposed the current government. It turns out that the more you give in, the more demands there are. And with the beginning of the war, they began to seek military defeat so that tsarism would fall: “ Convert the Imperialist war into a civil war!“When this happened, all the social gains achieved under the king collapsed. You know, in the First World War, prisoners were kept on both sides, they were served by the Red Cross. If they returned from captivity or escaped, then they were heroes. Stalin said - we have no prisoners, only traitors. They built a just world, they built equality, but the “builders” have the same slogans, but their actions are completely different. This collision is always repeated and always outrages. They promised land to peasants, factories to workers, but what happened in the end? In fact, we had state capitalism. This became clear very soon, and without the help of the Red Latvians, the Bolsheviks would hardly have survived. When the German ambassador Mirbach was killed, a critical moment came. The Germans were very tense, and it seems to me that the security officers shot the royal family out of fear.

Rescue attempts

It is known that there were attempts to free the sovereign. One of them was undertaken by the adjutant and friend of Mikhail Alexandrovich, Rizochka - captain of His Imperial Majesty's own convoy Alexander Petrovich Riza-Quli-Mirza Qajar. He even managed to sneak into Yekaterinburg incognito. Before this, the captives were visited in Tobolsk by a lady-in-waiting of the highest court, Margarita Khitrovo. What did they expect?

- All this is nothing more than good wishes, no one has done anything serious. Margarita Khitrovo was a friend of the eldest daughter of Nicholas II, Olga Nikolaevna. She traveled to Tobolsk during the Provisional Government. As soon as the royal family was taken there in 1917, she immediately went to them on a visit. After all, they were taken from Petrograd to the rear, away from the Germans, “to freedom.” And this Margarita, apparently, said something carelessly on the way: she was going to visit, she was carrying letters from relatives. And she was immediately arrested on suspicion of conspiracy. She was soon released, but V.K. was arrested under this sign. Mikhail Alexandrovich in Gatchina and Pavel Alexandrovich (uncle of Nicholas II) in Petrograd. And after, by the way, the Bolsheviks often resorted to this topic. Several times they published messages that supposedly someone was trying to free the king.

Nicholas II with his children on the roof of the Freedom House in Tobolsk. Spring 1918

So neither Rizochka, nor others actually did anything?

- Nothing. But there was this Boris Nikolaevich Solovyov (the husband of Matryona Rasputina, Grigory’s daughter, died in 1926 in Germany), he tried to organize something. He arrived in Tobolsk, established surveillance of the royal family and tried to arrange their release. Investigator Sokolov believed that he was afraid that the Entente would capture the family and make it the banner of the white movement, which was against the Germans. The Germans were afraid of whites. If they won, Russia could turn its bayonets against Germany.

Have Western governments tried to do something?

— They reasoned like George V: “Why risk your skin because of some Romanovs!” But he still sent a ship to Crimea and took the mother of Nicholas II, the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, and took the brothers Nicholas and Peter Nikolaevich to Europe.

As for the Entente governments, they persuaded the Bolsheviks to continue the war and open a second front. And Lenin dressed up between the Germans and the Entente, trying to figure out who was better with him. To which the German Ambassador Mirbach made it clear: if you do this, then we can change you and win you back. In the end, his security officer Blyumkin dropped a bomb. Meanwhile, the communists themselves had different attitudes towards the war. Many people, especially those on the left, wanted it. So that it would be like in the French Revolution - there, too, the Germans entered Paris. They thought that this is how, with bayonets, the global wave would begin. And the situation at the front was such that the Czechs went on the offensive. The Czechs are the power of the Entente. And the Germans decided that if the new regime, which is for ending the war, is not supported, it will be overthrown, the previous government will return, and a second front can be organized. We must support! And they turned a blind eye to the fact that the royal family was killed. But that's what I think. Or maybe there was some kind of agreement between the powers. That's why everyone is still silent.

- What do you mean, they are silent? Are there archives in the West to which access is prohibited?

On some issues, the term there is up to a hundred years or more, especially in England. Until it expires, documents cannot be touched. The British archive is like our Spetskhran, and even worse. It was during perestroika that we pulled out almost everything, and now we’re throwing ashes on our heads. And they are silent, although they have no less sins and provocations behind them.

We thank the publishing house "PROZAiK" for the materials provided.