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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 held in custody, where they were brutally shot by the Bolsheviks, and subsequently burned body.
The eerie scene continues to haunt us to this day, and their remains, which for most of the century lay in unmarked graves, the location of which was known only to the Soviet leadership, are still surrounded by an aura of mystery. In 1979, enthusiastic historians discovered the remains of some members royal family, and in 1991, after the collapse of the USSR, their affiliation was confirmed using DNA analysis.
The remains of two more royal children, Alexei and Maria, were discovered in 2007 and subjected to a similar analysis. However, the ROC questioned the results of the DNA tests. The remains of Alexei and Maria were not buried, but transferred to a scientific institution. In 2015, they were again subjected to analysis.
The historian Simon Sebag Montefiore recounts these events in detail in his book 'The Romanovs, 1613-1618', published in this year. El Confidential has already written about her. In the Town & Country magazine, the author recalls that the official investigation into the murder of the royal family was resumed last fall, and the remains of the king and queen were exhumed. This gave rise to conflicting statements from the government and representatives of the Church, again putting this issue in the public eye.
According to Sebag, Nikolai was good-looking, and apparent weakness hid an imperious 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 then a rare occurrence. She brought to family life paranoid thinking, mystical fanaticism (just remember Rasputin) and another danger - hemophilia, which was passed on to her son, 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 forced. Many Orthodox again expressed their disagreement and perceived this 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 the statements of its representatives, it was necessary to conduct their reliable identification.
When Yeltsin left his post and nominated an unknown Vladimir Putin, a KGB lieutenant colonel who considered the collapse of the USSR “the biggest catastrophe of the 20th century,” the young leader began to concentrate power in his hands, put up barriers to foreign influence, help strengthen Orthodox faith and pursue an aggressive foreign policy. It seemed—Sebag reflects ironically—he decided to continue the political line of the Romanovs.
Putin is a political realist, and he is moving along the path outlined by the leaders of a strong Russia: from Peter I to Stalin. These were bright personalities who opposed the international threat.
The position of Putin, who questioned the results of scientific research (weak echo cold war: there were many Americans among the researchers), calmed the Church and created a breeding ground for conspiracy, 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, moved the bodies to Moscow with orders to mutilate them. Was it really the king and his family? Or did someone manage to escape?
Context
How did the kings return to Russian history
Atlantico 19.08.2015304 years of Romanov rule
Le Figaro 05/30/2016Why both Lenin and Nicholas II are “good”
Radio Prague 14.10.2015What did Nicholas II give the Finns?
Helsingin Sanomat 25.07.2016 During civil war The Bolsheviks declared the Red Terror. They took the family away from Moscow. It was a terrible journey by train and horse-drawn carts. Tsarevich Alexei suffered from hemophilia, and some of his sisters were sexually abused on the train. Finally, they ended up in the house where their life path. It, in fact, was turned into a fortified prison and machine guns were installed around the perimeter. Be that as it may, the royal family tried to adapt to the new conditions. Eldest daughter Olga was depressed, and those who were younger played, not really understanding what was happening. Maria had an affair with one of the guards, and then the Bolsheviks replaced all the guards, tightening the rules of the internal order.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 supposed to secretly bury everyone in the nearby forests. But the assassination was 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 the shots and the screams of people being shot, many of the Romanovs were still alive. They were wounded and wept in terror.
The fact is that diamonds were sewn into the clothes of the princesses, and the bullets bounced off them, which confused 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, drunken executioners robbed the corpses, loaded them onto a truck that stalled along the way. In addition, at the last moment it turned out that all the bodies did not fit in the graves dug in advance for them. The dead were stripped of their clothes and burned. Then the frightened Yurovsky came up with another plan. He left the bodies in the forest and went to Yekaterinburg for acid and gasoline. For three days and nights, he brought containers of sulfuric acid and gasoline into the forest to destroy the bodies, which he decided to bury in different places in order to confuse those who set out to find them. No one was supposed to know about what happened. The bodies were doused with acid and gasoline, they were burned, and then buried.
Sebag wonders how 2017 will mark the 100th anniversary of the October Revolution. What will happen to the royal remains? The country does not want to lose its former glory. The past is always viewed in a positive light, but the legitimacy of autocracy continues to generate controversy. New research initiated by the Russian Orthodox Church and carried out by the Investigative Committee, led to the repeated exhumation of the bodies. Was held comparative analysis DNA with living relatives, in particular with British prince Philip, one of whose grandmothers was Grand Duchess Olga Konstantinovna Romanova. Thus, he is the great-great-grandson of Tsar Nicholas II.
That the Church is still deciding on such important issues, attracted attention in the rest of Europe, as well as the lack of openness and a chaotic series of burials, exhumations, DNA tests of certain members of the royal family. Most political observers believe that 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 please each side? Will the Romanovs be given royal or ecclesiastical honors like saints?
In Russian textbooks, many Russian tsars are still presented as heroes covered in glory. Gorbachev and last king The Romanovs recanted, Putin said he would never do that.
The historian claims that in his book he did not omit anything from the materials he studied 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 groaned, and they had to be finished off. Whatever the future of the country, it will be impossible to erase this terrible episode from memory.
The text of the resolution of the Presidium of the Ural Regional Soviet of Workers, Peasants and Red Army Deputies, published a week after the execution, said: “In view of the fact that Czechoslovak gangs threaten the capital of the Red Urals, Yekaterinburg; in view of the fact that the crowned executioner can avoid the court of the people (a conspiracy of the White Guards had just been discovered, which had the aim of kidnapping the entire Romanov family), the Presidium of the Regional Committee, in pursuance of the will of the people, decided: to shoot former Tsar Nicholas Romanov guilty before the people of countless bloody crimes.
The civil war was gaining momentum, and Yekaterinburg soon really came under the control of the whites. The decree did not report on the execution of the entire family, but the members of the Ural Council were guided by the formula "You can't leave them a banner." According to the revolutionaries, any of the Romanovs liberated by the Whites could later be used for the project of restoration of the monarchy in Russia.
If you look at the question more broadly, then Nikolai and Alexandra Romanovs considered populace as the main culprits of the misfortunes that occurred in the country at the beginning of the 20th century - the lost Russian-Japanese war, "Bloody Sunday" and the subsequent first Russian revolution, "Rasputinism", the First World War, low living standards, etc.
Contemporaries testify that among the workers of Yekaterinburg there were demands for reprisals against the tsar, caused by rumors about attempts to escape the Romanov family.
The execution of all the Romanovs, including children, is perceived as a terrible atrocity from the point of view of peacetime. But in the conditions of the Civil War, both sides fought with increasing brutality, in which not only ideological opponents, but also their families were increasingly killed.
As for the execution of the close associates who accompanied the royal family, the members of the Ural Council subsequently explained their actions as follows: they decided to share the fate of the Romanovs, so let them share it to the end.
Who made the decision to execute Nikolai Romanov and his family members?
The official decision to execute Nicholas II and his relatives was made on July 16, 1918 by the Presidium of the Ural Regional Council of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies.
This council was not exclusively Bolshevik and also consisted of anarchists and Left Social Revolutionaries, who were even more radically disposed towards the family of the last emperor.
It is known that the top leadership of the Bolsheviks in Moscow considered holding a trial of Nikolai Romanov in Moscow. However, the situation in the country deteriorated sharply, the Civil War broke out and the issue was postponed. The question of what to do with the rest of the family was not even discussed.
In the spring of 1918, rumors about the death of the Romanovs arose several times, but the Bolshevik government denied them. Lenin's directive, sent to Yekaterinburg, demanded the prevention of "any violence" against the royal family.
The top Soviet leadership in the face Vladimir Lenin and Yakov Sverdlov was put by the Ural comrades before the fact - the Romanovs were executed. Under the conditions of the Civil War, the control of the center over the regions was often formal.
To date, there is no real evidence to suggest that the government of the RSFSR in Moscow ordered the execution of Nikolai Romanov and his family members.
Why were the children of the last emperor executed?
In conditions of acute political crisis During the Civil War, the four daughters and son of Nikolai Romanov were not seen as ordinary children, but as figures with the help of which the monarchy could be revived.
Based known facts It can be said that such a view was not close to the Bolshevik government in Moscow, but the revolutionaries on the ground reasoned in this way. Therefore, the children of the Romanovs shared the fate of their parents.
At the same time, it cannot be said that the execution of the royal children is a cruelty that has no analogues in history.
After being elected to the Russian throne founder of the Romanov dynasty Mikhail Fedorovich, in Moscow, a 3-year-old was hanged at the Serpukhov Gate Ivashka Vorenok, aka Tsarevich Ivan Dmitrievich, son of Marina Mnishek and False Dmitry II. The whole fault of the unfortunate child was that the opponents of Mikhail Romanov considered Ivan Dmitrievich as a contender for the throne. Supporters of the new dynasty removed the problem radically by strangling the baby.
At the end of 1741, as a result of a coup, she ascended the Russian throne Elizaveta Petrovna, daughter Peter the Great. At the same time, she overthrew John VI, the baby emperor, who at the time of the overthrow was not even one and a half years old. The child was subjected to strict isolation, forbidding his images and even pronouncing his name in public. Having spent his childhood in exile in Kholmogory, at the age of 16 he was imprisoned in solitary confinement in the Shlisselburg Fortress. After spending his whole life in captivity, the former emperor, at the age of 23, was stabbed to death by guards while failed attempt his release.
Is it true that the murder of the family of Nikolai Romanov was of a ritual nature?
All investigative groups that have ever worked on the case of the execution of the Romanov family came to the conclusion that it was not of a ritual nature. Information about certain signs and inscriptions at the place of execution, which have a symbolic meaning, is a product of myth-making. This version was most widely disseminated thanks to the book of the Nazi Helmut Schramm"Ritual Murder Among the Jews". Schramm himself included it in the book at the suggestion of Russian emigrants. Mikhail Skaryatin and Grigory Schwartz-Bostunich. The latter not only collaborated with the Nazis, but made a brilliant career in the Third Reich, rising to the rank of SS Standartenführer.
Is it true that some members of the family of Nicholas II escaped execution?
To date, we can confidently say that both Nikolai and Alexandra, as well as all their five children, died in Yekaterinburg. In general, the vast majority of members of the Romanov clan either died during the revolution and the Civil War, or left the country. The rarest exception can be considered the great-great-great-granddaughter of Emperor Nicholas I, Natalya Androsova, who in the USSR became a circus performer and a master of sports in motorcycle racing.
To a certain extent, the members of the Ural Council achieved the goal they were striving for - the ground for the revival of the institution of the monarchy in the country was completely and irrevocably destroyed.
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AT this case the conversation will be about those gentlemen, thanks to whom on the night of July 16-17, 1918 in Yekaterinburg there was a brutal the royal family of the Romanovs was killed. The name of these executioners is one - regicides. Some of them made the decision, while others carried it out. As a result, the Russian Emperor Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra Feodorovna and their children, Grand Duchesses Anastasia, Maria, Olga, Tatyana and Tsarevich Alexei, died. Together with them, people from the service personnel were also shot. These are the personal cook of the family Ivan Mikhailovich Kharitonov, the chamber footman Alexei Egorovich Trupp, the room girl Anna Demidova and the family doctor Evgeny Sergeevich Botkin.
criminals
A terrible crime was preceded by a meeting of the Presidium of the Ural Council, which took place on July 12, 1918. It was on it that the decision was made to execute the royal family. A detailed plan was also developed for both the crime itself and the destruction of corpses, that is, the concealment of traces of the destruction of innocent people.
The meeting was headed by the chairman of the Ural Council, a member of the presidium of the regional committee of the RCP (b) Alexander Georgievich Beloborodov (1891-1938). Together with him, the decision was made by: the military commissar of Yekaterinburg Filipp Isaevich Goloshchekin (1876-1941), the chairman of the regional Cheka Fyodor Nikolaevich Lukoyanov (1894-1947), Chief Editor newspapers "Yekaterinburgsky Rabochiy" Georgy Ivanovich Safarov (1891-1942), Commissioner for Supply of the Ural Council Pyotr Lazarevich Voikov (1888-1927), commandant of the "House of Special Purpose" Yakov Mikhailovich Yurovsky (1878-1938).
The Bolsheviks called the house of the engineer Ipatiev the "House of Special Purpose". It was in it that the Romanov royal family was kept in May-July 1918 after it was transported from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg.
But you have to be a very naive person to think that middle-level executives took responsibility and independently made the most important political decision to execute the royal family. They found it possible only to coordinate it with the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov (1885-1919). This is how the Bolsheviks presented everything in their time.
Already somewhere, where, but in the Leninist party, discipline was ironclad. Decisions came only from the very top, and grass-roots employees unquestioningly executed them. Therefore, with all responsibility it can be argued that the instruction was given directly by Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, who was sitting in the silence of the Kremlin office. Naturally, he discussed this issue with Sverdlov and the chief Ural Bolshevik Evgeny Alekseevich Preobrazhensky (1886-1937).
The latter, of course, was aware of all the decisions, although he was absent from Yekaterinburg on the bloody date of the execution. During this time he took part in the V All-Russian Congress Soviets in Moscow, and then departed for Kursk and returned to the Urals only in the last days of July 1918.
But, in any case, officially Ulyanov and Preobrazhensky cannot be blamed for the death of the Romanov family. Sverdlov bears indirect responsibility. After all, he imposed the resolution "agreed". A kind of soft-bodied leader. Resignedly took note of the decision of the grassroots organization and readily scribbled the usual replies on a piece of paper. Only a 5-year-old child can believe in this.
The royal family in the basement of the Ipatiev house before the execution
Now let's talk about performers. About those villains who carried out a terrible sacrilege by raising their hands against the anointed of God and his family. To date, the exact name of the killers is unknown. No one can name the number of criminals. There is an opinion that Latvian riflemen took part in the execution, since the Bolsheviks considered that Russian soldiers would not shoot at the tsar and his family. Other researchers insist on the Hungarians who guarded the arrested Romanovs.
However, there are names that appear on all the lists of various researchers. This is the commandant of the "House of Special Purpose" Yakov Mikhailovich Yurovsky, who led the execution. His deputy Grigory Petrovich Nikulin (1895-1965). The commander of the guards of the royal family, Pyotr Zakharovich Ermakov (1884-1952) and an employee of the Cheka, Mikhail Aleksandrovich Medvedev (Kudrin) (1891-1964).
These four people were directly involved in the execution of representatives of the House of Romanov. They carried out the decision of the Ural Council. At the same time, they showed amazing cruelty, since they not only shot absolutely defenseless people, but also finished them off with bayonets, and then doused them with acid so that the bodies could not be recognized.
To each will be rewarded according to his deeds
Organizers
There is an opinion that God sees everything and punishes the villains for their deeds. The regicides belong to the most cruel part of the criminal elements. Their goal is to seize power. They go to her through the corpses, not at all embarrassed by this. At the same time, people are dying who are not at all to blame for the fact that they received their crowned title by inheritance. As for Nicholas II, this man was no longer emperor at the time of his death, since he voluntarily renounced the crown.
Moreover, there is no way to justify the death of his family and staff. What was driving the villains? Of course, rabid cynicism, disregard for human lives, lack of spirituality and rejection of Christian norms and rules. The most terrible thing is that, having committed a terrible crime, these gentlemen were proud of what they had done for the rest of their lives. They willingly told about everything to journalists, schoolchildren and just idle listeners.
But let us return to God and trace the life path of those who doomed innocent people to a terrible death for the sake of an irrepressible desire to command others.
Ulyanov and Sverdlov
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. We all know him as the leader of the world proletariat. However, this people's leader was spattered up to the top of his head with human blood. After the execution of the Romanovs, he lived for only 5 years. He died of syphilis, having lost his mind. This is the most terrible punishment of the heavenly forces.
Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov. He left this world at the age of 33, 9 months after the villainy committed in Yekaterinburg. In the city of Orel, he was severely beaten by workers. The very ones for whose rights he allegedly stood up for. With multiple fractures and injuries, he was taken to Moscow, where he died 8 days later.
These are the two main criminals directly responsible for the death of the Romanov family. The regicides were punished and died not at an advanced age, surrounded by children and grandchildren, but in the prime of life. As for the other organizers of villainy, here the heavenly forces delayed the punishment, but God's judgment still happened, giving everyone what they deserved.
Goloshchekin and Beloborodov (right)
Philip Isaevich Goloshchekin- the chief security officer of Yekaterinburg and the territories adjacent to it. It was he who went to Moscow at the end of June, where he received oral instructions from Sverdlov regarding the execution of crowned persons. After that, he returned to the Urals, where the Presidium of the Ural Council was hastily assembled, and a decision was made on the secret execution of the Romanovs.
In mid-October 1939, Philip Isaevich was arrested. He was accused of anti-state activities and an unhealthy attraction to little boys. This perverted gentleman was shot at the end of October 1941. Goloshchekin outlived the Romanovs by 23 years, but retribution still overtook him.
Chairman of the Ural Council Alexander Georgievich Beloborodov- currently the chairman regional duma. It was he who led the meeting at which the decision was made to execute the royal family. His signature was next to the word "I approve". If we approach this issue officially, then it is he who bears the main responsibility for the murder of innocent people.
Beloborodov has been a member of the Bolshevik Party since 1907, having joined it as a minor boy after the 1905 revolution. In all the posts entrusted to him by his senior comrades, he showed himself to be an exemplary and diligent worker. The best proof of this is July 1918.
After the execution of the crowned persons, Alexander Georgievich soared very high. In March 1919, his candidacy was considered for the post of president of the young Soviet republic. But preference was given to Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin (1875-1946), since he knew peasant life well, and our "hero" was born into a working-class family.
But the former chairman of the Ural Council was not offended. He was appointed head of the political department of the Red Army. In 1921, he became deputy to Felix Dzherzhinesky, who headed the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs. In 1923 he succeeded him in this high post. True, more brilliant career did not work out.
In December 1927, Beloborodov was removed from his post and exiled to Arkhangelsk. From 1930 he worked as a middle manager. In August 1936 he was arrested by the NKVD. In February 1938, by decision of the military board, Alexander Georgievich was shot. At the time of his death, he was 46 years old. After the death of the Romanovs, the main culprit did not live even 20 years. In 1938, his wife Yablonskaya Franciska Viktorovna was also shot.
Safarov and Voikov (right)
Georgy Ivanovich Safarov- Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper "Ekaterinburg Worker". This Bolshevik with pre-revolutionary experience was an ardent supporter of the execution of the Romanov family, although she did nothing wrong to him. He lived well until 1917 in France and Switzerland. He came to Russia together with Ulyanov and Zinoviev in a "sealed carriage".
After the committed villainy, he worked in Turkestan, and then in the executive committee of the Comintern. Then he became the editor-in-chief of Leningradskaya Pravda. In 1927 he was expelled from the party and sentenced to 4 years of exile in the city of Achinsk ( Krasnoyarsk region). In 1928, the party card was returned and again sent to work in the Comintern. But after the assassination of Sergei Kirov at the end of 1934, Safarov finally lost confidence.
He was again exiled to Achinsk, and in December 1936 he was sentenced to 5 years in the camps. From January 1937, Georgy Ivanovich served his sentence in Vorkuta. He performed the duties of a water carrier there. He walked in a prisoner's pea jacket, belted with a rope. The family abandoned him after the guilty verdict. For the former Bolshevik-Leninist, this was a heavy moral blow.
Safarov was not released after the end of his term. It was a difficult time, military, and someone apparently decided that Ulyanov’s former ally had nothing to do in the rear Soviet troops. He was shot by decision of a special commission on July 27, 1942. This "hero" survived the Romanovs by 24 years and 10 days. He died at the age of 51, having lost both freedom and family at the end of his life.
Pyotr Lazarevich Voikov- the main supplier of the Urals. He was closely involved in food issues. And how could he get food in 1919? Naturally, he took them away from peasants and merchants who did not leave Yekaterinburg. With his tireless activity, he brought the region to complete impoverishment. The troops of the white army arrived well in time, otherwise people would begin to die of hunger.
This gentleman also came to Russia in a "sealed carriage", but not with Ulyanov, but with Anatoly Lunacharsky (the first people's commissar of education). Voikov was a Menshevik at first, but quickly figured out which way the wind was blowing. At the end of 1917, he broke with a shameful past and joined the RCP (b).
Pyotr Lazarevich not only raised his hand, voting for the death of the Romanovs, but also took an active part in hiding the traces of villainy. It was he who came up with the idea to douse the bodies with sulfuric acid. Since he was in charge of all the warehouses of the city, he personally signed the invoice for the receipt of this very acid. By his order, transport was also allocated for the transportation of bodies, shovels, picks, crowbars. The business manager is the main one, whatever you want.
Activities related to material values, Pyotr Lazarevich liked. From 1919 he worked consumer cooperation while holding the position of Deputy Chairman of the Central Union. Concurrently, he organized the sale abroad of the treasures of the Romanov House and museum valuables of the Diamond Fund, the Armory, private collections requisitioned from the exploiters.
Priceless works of art and jewelry went to the black market, since officially at that time no one had business with the young Soviet state. Hence the ridiculous prices that were given for items that had a unique historical value.
In October 1924, Voikov left as an envoy to Poland. It was already big politics, and Petr Lazarevich enthusiastically began to settle in a new field. But the poor guy was out of luck. On June 7, 1927, he was shot dead by Boris Kaverda (1907-1987). The Bolshevik terrorist fell at the hands of another terrorist belonging to the white émigré movement. Retribution came almost 9 years after the death of the Romanovs. At the time of his death, our next "hero" was 38 years old.
Fyodor Nikolaevich Lukoyanov- the chief Chekist of the Urals. He voted for the execution of the royal family, therefore he is one of the organizers of villainy. But in subsequent years, this "hero" did not show himself in any way. The point is that since 1919 he began to be tormented by bouts of schizophrenia. Therefore, Fedor Nikolaevich devoted his entire life to journalism. He worked in various newspapers, and died in 1947 at the age of 53, 29 years after the murder of the Romanov family.
Performers
As for the direct perpetrators of the bloody crime, God's court treated them much milder than the organizers. They were forced people and just carried out the order. Therefore, they are less to blame. At least that's what you might think if you trace the fateful path of each criminal.
The main perpetrator of the terrible murder of defenseless women and men, as well as a sick boy. He boasted that he personally shot Nicholas II. However, his subordinates also claimed this role.
Yakov Yurovsky
After the crime, he was taken to Moscow and sent to work in the organs of the Cheka. Then, after the liberation of Yekaterinburg from the White troops, Yurovsky returned to the city. Received the post of Chief Chekist of the Urals.
In 1921 he was transferred to the Gokhran and began to live in Moscow. Engaged in the accounting of material values. After that, he worked a little in the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs.
In 1923, a sharp decline. Yakov Mikhailovich was appointed director of the Krasny Bogatyr plant. That is, our hero began to lead the production of rubber shoes: boots, galoshes, boots. A rather strange profile after the KGB and financial activities.
In 1928, Yurovsky was transferred as director of the Polytechnic Museum. This is a long building near the Bolshoi Theatre. In 1938, the main perpetrator of the assassination died of an ulcer at the age of 60. He outlived his victims by 20 years and 16 days.
But apparently the regicides bring a curse on their offspring. This "hero" had three children. The eldest daughter Rimma Yakovlevna (1898-1980) and two younger sons.
The daughter joined the Bolshevik Party in 1917 and headed youth organization(Komsomol) Yekaterinburg. Since 1926, in the party work. She made a good career in this field in the city of Voronezh in 1934-1937. Then she was transferred to Rostov-on-Don, where she was arrested in 1938. She stayed in the camps until 1946.
Sat in prison and son Alexander Yakovlevich (1904-1986). He was arrested in 1952, but, however, was soon released. But trouble happened with the grandchildren and granddaughters. All the boys tragically died. Two fell from the roof of the house, two burned down during the fire. The girls died in infancy. Yurovsky's niece Maria suffered the most. She had 11 children. Only one boy survived to adolescence. The mother abandoned him. The child was adopted by strangers.
Concerning Nikulin, Ermakova and Medvedev (Kudrin), then these gentlemen lived to old age. They worked, were honorably retired, and then buried with dignity. But regicides always get what they deserve. This trio escaped their well-deserved punishment on earth, but there is still judgment in heaven.
Grave of Grigory Petrovich Nikulin
After death, each soul rushes to heavenly places, hoping that the angels will let her into the kingdom of heaven. So the souls of the killers rushed to the Light. But then a dark personality appeared in front of each of them. She politely took the sinner by the elbow and unambiguously nodded in the opposite direction from Paradise.
There, in the heavenly haze, a black pharynx was visible in the Underworld. And next to him were disgusting grinning faces, nothing like heavenly angels. These are devils, and they have one job - to put a sinner on a hot frying pan and fry him forever on a slow fire.
In conclusion, it should be noted that violence always breeds violence. The one who commits a crime becomes a victim of the criminals himself. Vivid proof of this is the fate of the regicides, about which we have tried to tell in as much detail as possible in our sad story.
Egor Laskutnikov
Until now, historians cannot say for sure who exactly gave the order to execute the royal family. According to one version, this decision was made by Sverdlov and Lenin. According to another, they wanted to start at least bringing Nicholas II to Moscow to judge in an official setting. Another version says that the party leaders did not want to kill the Romanovs at all - the Ural Bolsheviks made the decision to shoot them on their own, without consulting with their superiors.
During the Civil War, confusion reigned, and the local branches of the party had broad independence, - explains Alexander Ladygin, a teacher of Russian history at the Institute of UrFU. - Local Bolsheviks advocated a world revolution and were very critical of Lenin. In addition, during this period there was an active offensive of the White Czech corps against Yekaterinburg, and the Ural Bolsheviks believed that they should leave to the enemy such an important propaganda figure as former king, is unacceptable.
It is also not completely known how many people participated in the execution. Some "contemporaries" claimed that 12 people with revolvers were selected. Others that there were far fewer of them.
The identities of only five participants in the murder are known for certain. These are the commandant of the House of Special Purpose Yakov Yurovsky, his assistant Grigory Nikulin, the military commissar Pyotr Ermakov, the head of the house security Pavel Medvedev and a member of the Cheka Mikhail Medvedev-Kudrin.
Yurovsky fired the first shot. This served as a signal to the rest of the security officers, - says Nikolai Neuimin, head of the department of the history of the Romanov dynasty of the Sverdlovsk Regional Museum of Local Lore. - Everyone was shooting at Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna. Yurovsky then gave the command to cease fire, as one of the Bolsheviks nearly had his finger blown off by indiscriminate firing. All the Grand Duchesses were still alive at that time. They began to beat them. Alexei was one of the last to be killed, as he was in a faint. When the Bolsheviks began to carry out the bodies, Anastasia suddenly came to life, and she had to be beaten with bayonets.
Many participants in the murder of the royal family have preserved written memories of that night, which, by the way, do not match in all details. So, for example, Peter Ermakov stated that it was he who led the execution. Although other sources claim that he was just an ordinary performer. Probably, in this way, the participants in the murder wanted to curry favor with the new leadership of the country. It didn't help everyone though.
The grave of Pyotr Ermakov is located almost in the very center of Yekaterinburg - at the Ivanovo cemetery. Headstone with large five pointed star stands literally three steps from the grave of the Ural storyteller Pavel Petrovich Bazhov. After the end of the Civil War, Ermakov worked as a law enforcement officer, first in Omsk, then in Yekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk. And in 1927 he achieved promotion to the head of one of the Ural prisons. Many times Yermakov met with collectives of workers to talk about how the royal family was killed. He was encouraged many times. In 1930, the party bureau awarded him a browning, and a year later, Ermakov was given the title of honorary shock worker and was rewarded with a diploma for completing the five-year plan in three years. However, not everyone treated him favorably. According to rumors, when Marshal Zhukov headed the Ural Military District, Pyotr Yermakov met with him at one of the solemn meetings. As a sign of greeting, he extended his hand to Georgy Konstantinovich, but he refused to shake it, saying: “I don’t shake hands with executioners!”
When Marshal Zhukov headed the Ural Military District, he refused to shake hands with Pyotr Ermakov, saying: “I don’t shake hands with executioners!” Photo: archive of the Sverdlovsk region
Ermakov lived quietly until the age of 68. And in the 1960s, one of the streets of Sverdlovsk was renamed in his honor. True, after the collapse of the USSR, the name was changed again.
- Pyotr Ermakov was only a performer. Maybe this is one of the reasons that he escaped repression. Ermakov never held major leadership positions. His highest appointment is the inspector of places of detention. No one had any questions for him, - says Alexander Ladygin. - But over the past two years, the monument to Pyotr Ermakov has been subjected to acts of vandalism three times. A year ago, during the Royal Days, we cleaned it. But today he is back in color.
After the execution of the royal family, Yakov Yurovsky managed to work in the Moscow City Council, in the Cheka of the Vyatka province and the chairman of the provincial Cheka in Yekaterinburg. However, in 1920 he began to have stomach problems and moved to Moscow for treatment. During the capital stage of his life, Yurovsky changed more than one job. At first he was the manager of the organizational instructor department, then he worked in the gold department at the People's Commissariat of Finance, from where he later moved to the position of deputy director of the Bogatyr plant, which produced galoshes. Until the 1930s, Yurovsky changed several more leadership positions and even managed to work as the director of the State Polytechnic Museum. And in 1933 he retired and died five years later in the Kremlin hospital from a perforated stomach ulcer.
The ashes of Yurovsky were buried in the church of the Donskoy Monastery of Seraphim of Sarov in Moscow, Nikolai Neuimin notes. - In the early 1920s, the first crematorium in the USSR was opened there, in which they even published a magazine that promoted the cremation of Soviet citizens as an alternative to pre-revolutionary burials. And there, on one of the shelves, there were urns with the ashes of Yurovsky and his wife.
After the Civil War, the assistant commandant of the Ipatiev House, Grigory Nikulin, worked for two years as the head of the criminal investigation department in Moscow, and then got a job at the Moscow Water Supply Station, also in a senior position. He lived to be 71 years old.
Interestingly, Grigory Nikulin was buried on Novodevichy cemetery. His grave is located next to the grave of Boris Yeltsin, - they say in the regional museum of local lore. - And 30 meters from him, next to the grave of a friend of the poet Mayakovsky, lies another regicide - Mikhail Medvedev-Kudrin.
Grigory Nikulin worked for two years as the head of the criminal investigation department in Moscow. The latter, by the way, lived for another 46 years after the execution of the royal family. In 1938, he took a leading position in the NKVD of the USSR and rose to the rank of colonel. He was buried with military honors on January 15, 1964. In his will, Mikhail Medvedev-Kudrin asked his son to give Khrushchev the Browning from which the royal family was killed, and to give Fidel Castro the Colt that the regicide used in 1919.
After the execution of the royal family, Mikhail Medvedev-Kudrin lived for another 46 years. Perhaps the only one of the five well-known killers who was unlucky in life is Pavel Medvedev, head of the security of the Ipatiev house. Shortly after the massacre, he was captured by the whites. Upon learning of his role in the execution of the Romanovs, members of the White Guard Criminal Investigation Department put him in the Yekaterinburg prison, where he died of typhus on March 12, 1919.
Moscow. On July 17, the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II and all members of his family were shot in Yekaterinburg. Almost a hundred years later, the tragedy has been studied up and down by Russian and foreign researchers. Below are the 10 most important facts about what happened in July 1917 at the Ipatiev House.
1. The Romanov family and retinue were placed in Yekaterinburg on April 30, in the house of a retired military engineer N.N. Ipatiev. Doctor E. S. Botkin, the chamber footman A. E. Trupp, the maid of the Empress A. S. Demidov, the cook I. M. Kharitonov and the cook Leonid Sednev lived in the house with the royal family. All but the cook were killed along with the Romanovs.
2. In June 1917, Nicholas II received several letters allegedly from a white Russian officer. The anonymous author of the letters told the tsar that the supporters of the crown intended to kidnap the prisoners of the Ipatiev House and asked Nikolai to help - draw plans for the rooms, inform the sleep schedule of family members, etc. The tsar, however, in his response stated: "We do not want and cannot run away. We can only be abducted by force, as we were brought from Tobolsk by force. Therefore, do not count on any of our active help, "thus refusing to assist the" kidnappers, "but not giving up the very idea of being abducted.
Subsequently, it turned out that the letters were written by the Bolsheviks in order to test the readiness of the royal family to escape. The author of the texts of the letters was P. Voikov.
3. Rumors about the assassination of Nicholas II appeared in June 1917 after the assassination of Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich. The official version of the disappearance of Mikhail Alexandrovich was an escape; at the same time, the tsar was allegedly killed by a Red Army soldier who broke into the Ipatiev House.
4. The exact text of the verdict, which the Bolsheviks took out and read to the tsar and his family, is unknown. At about 2 am from July 16 to 17, the guards woke the doctor Botkin so that he would wake up the royal family, ordered them to get together and go down to the basement. The preparations took, according to various sources, from half an hour to an hour. After the Romanovs with the servants went down, the Chekist Yankel Yurovsky informed them that they would be killed.
According to various recollections, he said:
"Nikolai Alexandrovich, your relatives tried to save you, but they did not have to. And we are forced to shoot you ourselves"(Based on the materials of the investigator N. Sokolov)
"Nikolai Alexandrovich! Attempts by your like-minded people to save you were unsuccessful! And now, in a difficult time for the Soviet Republic ... - Yakov Mikhailovich raises his voice and cuts the air with his hand: - ... we have been entrusted with the mission of ending the Romanovs' house"(according to the memoirs of M. Medvedev (Kudrin))
"Your friends are advancing on Yekaterinburg, and therefore you are sentenced to death"(according to the memoirs of Yurovsky's assistant G. Nikulin.)
Yurovsky himself later said that he did not remember the exact words he uttered. "... I immediately, as far as I remember, told Nikolai something like the following, that his royal relatives and close ones both in the country and abroad tried to release him, and that the Soviet of Workers' Deputies decided to shoot them."
5. Emperor Nicholas, having heard the verdict, asked again:"My God, what is this?" According to other sources, he managed to say only: "What?"
6. Three Latvians refused to carry out the sentence and left the basement shortly before the Romanovs went down there. The weapons of the refuseniks were distributed among those who remained. According to the recollections of the participants themselves, 8 people participated in the execution. “In fact, there were 8 performers of us: Yurovsky, Nikulin, Mikhail Medvedev, Pavel Medvedev four, Peter Ermakov five, so I’m not sure that Kabanov Ivan is six. And I don’t remember the names of two more,” G writes in his memoirs. .Nikulin.
7. It is still unknown whether the execution of the royal family was sanctioned by the highest authorities. According to the official version, the decision on the "execution" was made by the executive committee of the Ural Regional Council, while the central Soviet leadership found out about what had happened only after. By the beginning of the 90s. a version was formed according to which the Ural authorities could not make such a decision without a directive from the Kremlin and agreed to take responsibility for the unauthorized execution in order to provide the central government with a political alibi.
The fact that the Ural Regional Council was not a judicial or other body that had the authority to pass sentence, the execution of the Romanovs for a long time was considered not as political repression, but as a murder, which prevented the posthumous rehabilitation of the royal family.
8. After the execution, the bodies of the dead were taken out of the city and burned, previously poured with sulfuric acid to bring the remains beyond recognition. The sanction for the release of a large amount of sulfuric acid was issued by the Commissar for the supply of the Urals P. Voikov.
9. Information about the murder of the royal family became known to society a few years later; Initially, the Soviet authorities reported that only Nicholas II was killed, Alexander Fedorovna and her children were allegedly transported to a safe place in Perm. He told the truth about the fate of the entire royal family in the article " Last days the last tsar" P. M. Bykov.
The Kremlin recognized the fact of the execution of all members of the royal family, when the results of the investigation of N. Sokolov became known in the West, in 1925.
10. The remains of five members of the imperial family and four of their servants were found in July 1991. not far from Yekaterinburg under the embankment of the Old Koptyakovskaya road. On July 17, 1998, the remains of members of the imperial family were buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg. In July 2007, the remains of Tsarevich Alexei and Grand Duchess Mary.
