THE HOUSE OF SPECIAL DESIGNATION
ON May 23 the Tzarevitch Alexis and his three sisters arrived at Ekaterinburg from Tobolsk ; the entire family was thus reunited, never again to be separated. But the two foreign tutors, Gilliard and Gibbs, were not permitted to continue in attendance on their pupils. They remained in Ekaterinburg, however, until the arrival of the White troops.
The imprisonment which now began was far different in character and severity from the preceding periods. Brutality replaced respect, and the thirst for vengeance became increasingly apparent in the attitude of the jailers. Two hoardings of rough logs and planks were erected around the Ipatiev house, the outer one a short distance from the first stockade, leaving a walking space between. These barricades reached to the level of the second-story window-tops, thus completely isolating the prisoners from sight and the outside world from them. To ensure a complete screen, the windows themselves were painted. The Grand Duchess Anastasia, driven desperate by the isolation, once opened her window and looked out. She was driven back by a shot from a sentry, the bullet lodging in the woodwork of the window frame. A machine gun was mounted on the roof of the house directly opposite and trained on the Ipatiev house ; guards were posted at every corner of the stockade as well as at the doors of the rooms where the prisoners ate, slept, and congregated. The first floor was occupied by the Bolshevist guards ; the royal family was quartered on the second.
For the first time the prisoners were subjected to personal search. Avdeiev, the Commandant of the “House, of Special Designation,” rudely snatched a reticule from the hands of the Empress. Nicholas protested : “Until now I have had honest and respectful men around me.”
Didkovsky, one of the searchers, retorted : “Please remember that you are under arrest and in the hands of justice.”
Tchemodourov, the Tzar’s faithful valet who accompanied the family throughout their imprisonment, has left, under oath, a deposition the bare recital of which makes comment superfluous : —
Night and day three Red guards were posted on the first floor, one at the door, one in the vestibule, and one at the door of the [only] toilet. The conduct of these men was gross ; cigarettes hanging on their lips, vulgar and half-clothed, their looks, actions, and habitual manners inspired fear and disgust. . . . When the young Grand Duchesses passed on their way to the toilet room the guards followed, under pretense of watching them ; they addressed indecent remarks to the girls, asking them whither they were going and for what purpose. While the girls were inside the guards lounged against the door. . . The food was bad, coming all prepared from a Soviet dining room. [Later they were allowed to have their own cook.] Their Majesties always ate in company with the domestics . . . They would put a soup tureen on the table, but there would not be enough spoons or knives or forks. The Red guards sat by our side and ate from the same dishes. One day a soldier plunged his spoon into the pureen, saying, “Enough for you — I will be served.” Another day Avdeiev [the Commandant] kept his hat on and smoked a cigarette. As we ate our cutlets, he took his plate and, interposing his arms between the Emperor and the Empress, helped himself. As he took the meat, he managed to bend his elbow and strike the Emperor on the chin.
The very walls of the Ipatiev house, particularly in the lavatory, were made to contribute something to the mental suffering of the helpless victims. The guards, under the tutelage of a certain Bielomoine, covered them with ribald verses and gross sketches caricaturing the Empress and Rasputin. On another occasion Faya Safonov, one of the most offensive of the guard, climbed a fence to the level of the Tzarina’s window and sang filthy songs at her.
The girls had a swing in the garden ; the soldiers carved indecent words on the seat. Under the moral torture and physical confinement, — toward the end the prisoners were allowed but five minutes in the garden each day, — the ex-Tzar maintained that astonishing external calm and passivity which characterized his whole life. His health did not seem to weaken, nor did his hair whiten. During the few minutes allowed for exercise in the open air, he carried the Tzarevitch in his arms, as the boy was unable to walk, and marched stolidly up and down until his precious five minutes were over. But the Empress never left the porch ; she aged visibly, her health failed, and gray hairs appeared.
The first days of July brought important and ominous changes in the personnel guarding the prisoners. Avdeiev, together with his colleagues, Moshkin and all the peasant-soldiers who had been recruited locally from the Zlokazov and Sissert factories, were dismissed or removed to a position outside the house. All “key” stations were taken by “reliable” guards, a sure indication that murder was contemplated. Three entirely new figures glide into the picture — Jankel Mikhailovich Jurov , who assumed the duties of Commandant vacated by Avdeiev, Chaia Isaacovich Golostchekin, an active and influential member of the Bolshevist Party, and Alexander Georgevich Bieloborodov, the twenty-five-year-old peasant who served as President of the Soviet of the Ural region. Jurovsky and Golostchekin were of Jewish birth, while Bieloborodov was of purely Slavic origin. All three were leading spirits in the local organ of terrorism, the Chrezvychaika, commonly called the “Cheka” or secret police, and had contributed their share to its final roll call of 1,800,000 victims. All, particularly Golostchekin, were in close relation with another Jewish Commissar, Jankel Sverdlov, who was, at that time, undisputed master of Moscow as Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the All-Russian Congress. It was to Sverdlov that reports would be directed from Ekaterinburg.
The new arrivals were accompanied by ten Lettish soldiers — that is, by a detachment of those hardened shock-troops whose ruthless brutality won for them the reputation of being the bashibazouks of the Russian Revolution. In the present case certain circumstances would indicate that this group were really Magyars. In any case, the Cheka simply followed its common practice in thus removing all strictly Russian guards from immediate participation in the most comprehensive act of regicide in the history of a people whose annals reek with deeds of violence and bloodshed.
Golostchekin had been in Moscow for the two weeks preceding the night of the murder, remaining absent until the fourteenth of July. During that time he was closeted in frequent conference with Sverdlov, with whom he lodged. Bieloborodov kept him informed by wire of events at the Ipatiev house. Thus in early July, the following telegram was dispatched : —
Moscow. Sverdlov for Golostchekin. . . . Jurovsky replaces Avdeiev. The indoor guard has been entirely changed.BIELOBORODOV
In the meantime, Jurovsky had been seen by townsfolk on several occasions surveying the woods in the suburbs of Ekaterinburg ; a week before the murder he was discovered in the same occupation near the locality which subsequent investigation determined as the spot where the funeral pyre had been erected.
On July 14, the day of Golostchekin’s return from Moscow, an Orthodox priest of Ekaterinburg, Storojev by name, was permitted to celebrate Mass for the prisoners. He testified later that Jurovsky had remarked : —
“You have said Mass here before ?”
“Yes.”
“Well and good. You will do it once again.”
Storojev further deposed : —
According to the liturgy governing a low Mass, at a determined moment the following prayer must be read : “May the souls of the departed rest in peace with Thy saints.” I do not know why he did it, but my deacon, instead of merely reading the prayer, began to chant it. [This prayer is never sung except at funerals.] I followed suit, though somewhat irritated at his violation of the canons. We had barely begun when we heard, behind us, the noise of the whole imperial family throw themselves on their knees. . . . At the end of the service they all approached to kiss the Cross and the deacon gave the Blessed Bread to both Emperor and Empress. . . . The deacon and I left in silence. . . . Suddenly, in front of the School of Fine Arts, the deacon said to me, “Do you know, something has happened to them.” As his words corresponded exactly to what I was thinking, I stopped and asked him why he thought so. “I am sure,” he said ; “they seem so changed, and not one of them sang to-day.” He was right, because for the first time, on July 14, not one of the Romanovs accompanied us by singing.
On Monday, the fifteenth, four women were admitted into the death house and ordered to scrub the parquet floors. Their testimony, taken before the Commission of Inquiry, establishes the fact that the entire imperial family was alive on that day and in good health. On the same day, two lay sisters from a local institution, Antonina Trinkina and Maria Krokhaleva, presented themselves as usual with milk for the prisoners. Jurovsky himself received the charitable offering and informed them that on the morrow, July 16, they should bring not only milk but fifty eggs, carefully packed in a basket. This the good Samaritans gladly did on the sixteenth, all unconscious of the cynical preparation Jurovsky was making to ensure a luncheon for his executioners, in the woods after the deed of blood was done and the traces removed. During the minute examination of the ground in the forest at the spot where the bodies were cremated, the indefatigable Nicholas Sokolov discovered a mass of broken eggshells.
Final preparations seem to have been completed by Tuesday, July 16. On that day the boy Leonid Sednev, a playmate of the Tzarevitch, was removed from the house and transferred to an adjoining building. He was never seen again, except for a brief moment next day as he sat in tears at an open window. Five motor lorries were requisitioned from the official Bolshevist garage and the chauffeurs were instructed to have them in readiness outside the Ipatiev house at midnight. On one of these trucks were placed two barrels of benzine and a few smaller jugs containing a supply of sulphuric acid. The Commission of Inquiry which gathered and laboriously analyzed every scrap of evidence bearing on the gruesome happenings of those twenty-four hours, was able to establish, from the confiscated receipts delivered by Jurovsky for these supplies, that the barrels held more than three hundred litres of benzine and the jugs one hundred and ninety kilogrammes of the deadly acid. These destructive precautions had been obtained on mandates signed by Voikov, who paid for his zeal with his life ; he was assassinated by a Russian exile at Warsaw, in June 1927.
The instruments of death were provided ; the grave was ready ; the executioners were resolved, and the victims were asleep in their beds. It was Tuesday night, July 16, 1918.