I had known all this. I had known that the remains had been sent to the country where the family had been so happy at the end of the last century. I was well informed about the work of the Moscow team of experts and had even helped them get in touch with the grandson of Dr. Botkin, Konstantin Melnik, who was living in Paris.
And I had already seen a certain file in the former Archives of the October Revolution (which has abashedly changed its name to the Russian State Archives), a file with the terrible title “Envelope with a crown and the inscription ‘Anichkov Palace’” (archive 640, list 2, file 14). Inside the file, indeed, lay a small envelope with “Anichkov Palace” printed on it and an embossed crown. But there was one more inscription on the envelope, this handwritten, and in English: “Nicky hair when three years old.” And a signature: “Alix.” Actually, even without the signature it would have been easy to recognize the elegant handwriting of the last tsaritsa.
Evidently, immediately after the wedding, when Alix and Nicky were first living with the dowager empress at Anichkov Palace, his mother had given Alix this little envelope, and punctilious Alix had written it all down on the spot.
The envelope holds little Nicky’s golden curls, which you can see in that first photograph of him as a baby.
For this reason I was not listening very closely to that part of my guest’s conversation. But when he started talking about the diamonds …
He immediately sensed my agitation and said, derisively as always: “I’ll try to send you the documents. And I’ll call.”
He did send me the documents. But he never called.
Soon after I learned from the newspapers that a blood analysis had been done in England on Prince Philip, consort of the English queen. The DNA of the prince—the grandson of Alix’s sister—proved identical to the DNA taken from the bones of the alleged skeleton of the murdered tsaritsa. The prince’s DNA also matched the genetic code of three other skeletons—the alleged grand duchesses.
Is the story of the tsarist grave over?
I remembered this strange sentence from long ago: “Even opening the grave will not clear up the puzzle for us completely.”
Naturally, I waited impatiently for my guest’s phone call and usual commentaries.
But he never called me again. Actually, I’ve written that about him before. So I continue to await his call.
A few extracts from the file he sent me:
“Materials related to the search for the valuables of the family of the former tsar Nicholas Romanov in three volumes.
“Top secret. Report of the OGPU Economics Department for the Urals on the confiscation of the tsarist valuables …
“After an extensive search on November 20, 1933, in the town of Tobolsk, the valuables of the tsar’s family were confiscated. While the tsar’s family was staying in Tobolsk, the tsarist family’s valet Chemodurov had turned these valuables over for safekeeping to Druzhinina, mother superior of the Tobolsk Monastery of St. Ivan.”
This was the same monastery where they had so dreamed of living.
“Shortly before her death, Druzhinina gave them to her assistant, the deaconess Marfa Uzhentsova, who hid these valuables in the monastery well, the monastery cemetery, and several other places as well.”
Soon, however, after the monastery’s closing, the monks were driven out, and Marfa evidently had nowhere to hide the tsarist jewels. She tried to figure out what to do to keep them from falling into the hands of the authorities who had killed the tsar and his family.
“In 1924–25, M. Uzhentsova was planning to throw the valuables into the river. She was dissuaded from this step, however, by former Tobolsk fishing industrialist Kornilov, to whom she entrusted the valuables for temporary safekeeping.”
Yes, this was the same Kornilov in whose home the tsar’s suite had been housed during their Tobolsk confinement. Evidently, though, either Marfa consulted with someone about the tsarist jewels or she simply let it slip. The former deaconess did not realize that times had changed and that by then it was no longer prudent to seek other people’s advice.
“Arrested on October 15 of the same year, Uzhentsova admitted to keeping the tsarist valuables and indicated where they were located. No valuables were found in the indicated place.”
She was still trying to save the tsarist diamonds entrusted to her. Evidently, though, they had had her under surveillance for a long time.
“As a result of the secret service’s work, V. M. Kornilov was arrested. V. M. Kornilov, who was apprehended in Tobolsk, revealed the actual location of the valuables.
“On Kornilov’s instruction, valuables were removed in two large glass jars, which had been placed in small wooden receptacles.
“They were dug up in the cellar of Kornilov’s house.”
These fantastic jewels, which had glittered at tsarist balls, had been buried under the floor of the Kornilov house.
There is a photograph in the file of the GPU workers “with the confiscated jewels.”
——
“Appraisal of the valuables.
“In all, 154 objects were confiscated, for a total value of 3,270,693 rubles (gold rubles), 50 kopeks.
“Among the confiscated valuables were:
“1. A diamond brooch (100 carats),
“2. Three hat pins (44 and 36 carats),
“3. A diamond crescent (70 carats) [according to reports, this crescent was a gift to the tsar from the Turkish sultan],
“4. 4 diadems of the tsaritsa, and others.”
This successful operation inaugurated a real hunt for the tsarist diamonds.
First they went after the relatives of everyone connected with the Romanovs’ Tobolsk confinement.
They found and questioned the relatives of the murdered cook Kharitonov, but without success.
They located the widow of Colonel Kobylinsky, who had been shot during the civil war.
They sought her out in the small town of Orekhovo-Zuevo, where the unlucky woman had attempted to hide, living quietly with her fourteen-year-old son Innokenty, and had worked at Karbolit, a local factory.
She told them about the sovereign’s cap and the tsarist jewels, which her husband had brought home to show her and which according to rumors had later been hidden on some isolated squatter’s holding in the taiga. (Captain Aksyuta had told the truth: the tsaritsa’s jewels and the tsar’s cap had been buried in the taiga!)
Through the Kobylinsk Secret Police they picked up the trail of Pechekos’s sister and brother, whom the Kobylinskys had stayed with in 1918 in Tobolsk and who, according to Kobylinskaya, knew about the cache.
First they arrested Anelia Pechekos. Evidently they interrogated her rather zealously, and Pechekos realized she wouldn’t be able to hold out.
“On July 8, 1934, Anelia Vikentievna Pechekos died in prison after swallowing iron objects.”
Her arrested brother threw himself out a window, but survived.
Realizing that these people would rather die than reveal the secret, the secret police decided to release Pechekos from prison and put him under permanent surveillance, which went on for decades and was lifted only after Pechekos’s death.
The searches kept up. They interrogated people who had known the deceased valet Chemodurov. They determined that the old man had died in the house of the barman Grigory Solodukhin, “who according to rumors had amassed great valuables.”
But they couldn’t arrest Solodukhin. In 1920 shortsighted Chekists had shot him.
Nonetheless, they did finally pick up a fresh trail.
They determined that the tsaritsa had instructed Father Alexei (the same priest who had once prayed for “A long life!” for the tsar’s family in Tobolsk) “to carry out and conceal a case containing diamonds and gold objects of not less than one pood [36 pounds].”
And once again they met with failure: Father Alexei had managed to pass away in 1930.
They interrogated his children. But the children didn’t know anything. Father Alexei had saf
ely hidden the tsarist case.
So perhaps even now, buried somewhere in the cellar of an old Tobolsk house, is a brown leather case bearing the tsarist coat of arms and a pood of jewels, and somewhere in the taiga of Siberia still lie the tsar’s cap and the Romanov diamonds.
I’m never going to finish this book!
The letters keep arriving, such as this one from St. Petersburg with information on that strange man Filipp Semyonov, who considered himself Alexei’s savior. Apparently, during the Khrushchev era the alleged tsarevich went straight from prison camp to Leningrad, where he married and later died in 1979. Before his death, his wife had always called him Alexei. As he was dying, he got his wife’s word that she would rebury him alongside the rest of his family. The envelope contained a photograph of him shortly before his death.
Another specter of the Ipatiev house emerging from oblivion.
At the Central Party Archive, I was finally able to read the “Secret statements of Chekist Medvedev-Kudrin on the execution of the tsar’s family,” which I had heard so much about from his son. One more witness tells the story:
“Yurovsky read the decision to execute. ‘You mean they’re not taking us anywhere?’ Botkin asked. Yurovsky wanted to say something in response, but I was already pulling the trigger. I planted the first bullet in the tsar.… Yurovsky and Ermakov shot Nicholas in the chest as well, almost point-blank.… On my fifth shot Nicholas II toppled back like a sheaf of grass.… There was a woman’s scream, and moaning.… You couldn’t see anything because of the smoke: we were shooting at falling silhouettes we could barely see….
“ ‘Stop! Cease firing,’ Yurovsky commanded.
“ ‘Thank the Lord! God has saved me!’ The surviving maid staggered as she tried to get up.… Then the maid was bayonetted. At her dying cry, Alexei, who was lightly wounded, came to and started moaning. He was lying on a chair. Yurovsky walked over and emptied the last bullets from his Mauser into him. The boy became quiet and slowly crawled to his father’s feet.… Nicholas was completely riddled with bullets.… We examined the remaining ones and finished off Tatiana and Anastasia, who were still alive, with the Colt.”
Did “lightly wounded” Alexei and Anastasia survive the execution? Only after that, Medvedev-Kudrin asserts, were they finished off—in a room where “you couldn’t see anything because of the smoke.”
Two tape recordings are also preserved in the Party Archive: those historic 1964 recordings once discussed in such detail by historian Mikhail Medvedev, Medvedev-Kudrin’s son. On the tapes are the voices of one of the main regicides, Grigory Nikulin, the assistant to the Ipatiev house commandant, and I. Rodzinsky, who participated in the secret burial of the tsar’s family, telling the story of how the tsar and his family died.
Especially interesting are the statements of the man whose name so resembles my own, I. Rodzinsky.
First he tells the tale I have already heard from Medvedev about how the Cheka organized provocations by composing “forged letters over the signature ‘An Officer’”:
“We needed proof that preparations were under way to abduct the Family, even though no such preparations were under way.… Voikov dictated the letters to me in French, and I wrote … so the handwriting was mine.”
The Chekist described the execution as well, and here the name of Alexei crops up once again:
“I must say the execution was chaotic. We nearly shot ourselves because of the bullets ricocheting.… For example, Alexei II took 11 bullets … only after that did he die.”
But Rodzinsky himself did not witness the execution. His story is based on what the other executioners told them, and they were clearly amazed at Alexei’s “strange vitality.”
He did witness the second burial of the tsar’s family, however, and even participated in it. He describes all its terrible details. The Chekist remembered everything: how they got to the mine at dawn, “how one man dropped down into the water with ropes and dragged the corpses out of the water … we pulled Nicholas out first.” He recalled: “The water was so cold that the corpses’ faces were red-cheeked, as if they were still alive.” He recalled seeing the naked body of the tsar and how amazed he was at “Nicholas’s remarkable physical development … his muscles, torso, stomach, and arms.” He remembered little details, too, such as Yurovsky being sent to town for sulfuric acid and him taking that time to go into the village to drink some milk.
He described in detail how they created this terrible secret grave:
“The truck got stuck in a quagmire, and we barely pulled it out. That was when we got the idea we eventually carried out. We decided we weren’t going to find anyplace better.… We dug out that quagmire immediately … poured sulfuric acid over the corpses … disfigured them … and dumped them into the quagmire.… The railway wasn’t far from there.” He recalled how they trucked in rotten ties to disguise the grave. But they only buried some of those shot in the grave: “The rest we burned.”
As soon as he gets to the burning, the Chekist’s memory starts to betray him: “I don’t remember how many we burned exactly … or exactly who.” This is where he starts making strange mistakes: “Nicholas we did burn, I remember.… And Botkin, too, and Alexei, I think….”
No, I never am going to finish this book!
APPENDIX
i1.43. The testimony of A. I. Guchkov on the ceremonial procedure of the signing of the act of abdication.
i1.44. 1918 document signed by the chairman of the Ural Soviet and a Bolshevik party member, Aleksandr Georgievich Beloborodov (1891–1938), concerning the transmittal of the former Tsar Nicholas, the former Tsarina Aleksandra Feodorovna, and their daughter Maria Nikolaevna (1899–1918).
i1.45. The last pages of the diary of Tsarina Aleksandra Feodorovna, 1918.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
ENGLISH-LANGUAGE SOURCES
Alexander, Grand Duke of Russia. Once a Grandduke. London, 1932.
Alexandrov, V. The End of the Romanovs. Boston, 1967.
Benckendorff, P. Last Days of Tsarskoe Selo. London, 1927.
Botkin, G. The Real Romanovs. New York, 1931.
Buchanan, G. My Mission to Moscow. London, 1923.
Buxhoevden, S. The Life and Tragedy of Alexandra Feodorovna. New York and London, 1928.
Chavchavadze, D. The Grand Dukes. New York, 1990.
Cyril, Grand Duke. My Life in Russia’s Service. London, 1939.
Dehn, Lili. The Real Tsaritsa. London, 1922.
Kerensky, A. The Crucifixion of Liberty. New York, 1934.
Kschessinska, M. Dancing in Petersburg. Garden City, 1961.
Kurth, P. Anastasia: The Riddle of Anna Anderson. Boston and Toronto, 1983.
Letters of the Tsar to the Tsaritsa, 1914–1917. London, 1976.
Letters of the Tsaritsa to the Tsar, 1914–1916. London, 1923.
Massie, R. Nicholas and Alexandra. London, 1969.
Mosolov, A. At the Court of the Last Tsar. London, 1935.
Richards, G. The Hunt for the Czar. New York, 1970.
Summers, A., and Mangold, T. The File of the Tsar. New York and London, 1976.
Trotsky, L. The History of the Russian Revolution. New York, 1932.
RUSSIAN-LANGUAGE SOURCES
TsGAOR SSSR here stands for the U.S.S.R. Central State Archive of the October Revolution, located in Moscow.
Alfer’ev, E. E. Pis’ma tsarskoi sem’i iz zatocheniia. Jordanville, N.Y., 1984.
Amvrosii, Archbishop. Svetloi pamiati velikoi kniagini Elizavety Fedorovny. Jerusalem, 1915.
Autobiography of G. Nikulin. Museum of the Revolution, Moscow.
Autobiography of P. Z. Ermakov. Sverdlovsk Party Archive, f. 41, op. 2, d. 79, ss. 5–6.
Autobiography of Ural Cheka Chairman F. N. Lukoyanov. Copy in author’s possession.
Avdeev, A. D. “Nikolai Romanov v Tobol’ske i Ekaterinburge.” Krasnaia nov’, no. 5 (1928).
Berberova, N. Liudi i lozhi. New York, 1986.
Biography of Ipatiev house driver
S. I. Lyukhanov, compiled by his son Alexei. In author’s possession.
Blok, A. A. Zapisnye knizhki. Moscow, 1965.
Budberg, A. Dnevnik belogvardeitsa. Leningrad, 1929.
Burtsev, V. L. “Istinnye ubiitsy Nikolaia II—Lenin i ego tovarishchi.” Obshchee delo. Paris, 1921.
Bykov, P. M. Poslednie dni Romanovykh. Sverdlovsk, 1926.
Copy of the Yurovsky Note on the execution of the tsar and his family given by him to historian M. N. Pokrovsky and verified by his son A. Yurovsky. Museum of the Revolution, Moscow.
Correspondence of Nicholas and Alice of Hesse (the future empress Alexandra Feodorovna) in 1894. TsGAOR SSSR, f. 601, pp. 1, d. 1147.
Correspondence of Nicholas and his mother Empress Marie Feodorovna. TsGAOR SSSR, f. 642, op. 1, d. 2328.
Diaries of Emperor Nicholas II, 1882–1918. TsGAOR SSSR, f. 601, op. 1, d. 217–266.
Diary of Alexander II. TsGAOR SSSR, f. 678, op. 1, d. 294–295. Diary of Alexandra Feodorovna, 1918. TsGAOR SSSR, f. 640, op. 1, d. 326.
Diary of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, 1917. TsGAOR SSSR, f. 640, op. 1, d. 333.
Diary of Grand Duchess Marie. TsGAOR SSSR, f. 685, op. 1, d. 10.
Diary of Grand Duchess Olga. TsGAOR SSSR, f. 673, op. 1, d. 8.
Diary of Grand Duchess Tatiana. TsGAOR SSSR, f. 651, op. 1, d. 26.
Diary of Tsesarevich Alexei. TsGAOR SSSR, f. 682, op. 1, d. 189,
Diterikhs, M. K. Ubiistvo tsarshoi sem’i i chlenov doma Romanovykh na Urale. Vols. 1–2. Vladivostok, 1922.
Duty notebook for the special detachment (watch journal). TsGAOR SSSR, f. 601, op. 2, d. 37.
History notes made by Alexander II during his time as heir to the throne. TsGAOR SSSR, f. 678, op. 1, d. 257.
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