Anastasia (13 page)

Worse than being cold, we are absolutely bored to tears. We can go nowhere, and hardly anyone can come here. We get no exercise but marching up and down behind Papa in the little enclosure. The only thing that’s keeping us busy is making Christmas presents for the servants and Mama’s ladies and Papa’s suite. I’m in charge of painting ribbons to use as bookmarks, and my sisters knit waistcoats until their fingers ache.

26 November/9 December 1917

Ortino is ill. Tatiana is frantic.

30 November/13 December 1917

Mr. Gibbes and M. Gilliard have come up with a grand idea: We’re forming a little theater company, and we’re planning to put on plays for whomever we can convince to be our audience. Mama has agreed to write our programs, and Papa is cast in the title role of our first production, Chekhov’s
The Bear
. (What a coincidence that the play I wrote on the
Standart
had the same title.)

The most enthusiastic of our actors is Alexei, who loves the idea of putting on a false beard and speaking in a growl. (His voice has begun to change, but it tends to squeak when he least wants it to. Too funny, but we dare not laugh.)

1/14 December 1917

Ortino seemed to be improving but this morning took a turn for the worse. This evening he died. Tatiana weeps.

25 December 1917/7 January 1918

The day started off the way Christmas
should
, and then something happened that ruined everything. As usual we went to the little church on the far side of the public garden for Mass, and at the end of the service the priest said a prayer for the health and long life of the imperial family. Huge mistake! That prayer had been dropped from the Mass after Papa’s abdication, and the soldiers got angry when they heard it. So we’ve been told that’s the last time we’ll be allowed to attend the little church. From now on we must have our services here in the house. As if that wasn’t bad enough, we’re going to have guards
inside
the house, as well as outside.

8/21 January 1918

We’re building a snow mountain, like the ones we always had at Tsarskoe Selo. We’ve been working like slaves, shoveling tons of snow and carrying gallons of water from the kitchen to pour on the mountain to make it icy. It’s so cold that the water nearly freezes in the bucket before we can get it to the top!

20 January/2 February 1918

Our mountain is finished, and my sisters and I have made up all kinds of races and games that always seem to end up with me facedown in the snow.

30 January/12 February 1918

A new problem: money. The soldiers are not being paid, and they’re upset and angry, as though it were our fault! Also, when the cook tries to shop for food, the merchants won’t give him credit. No one speaks to
me
about this, of course, but I hear the talk.

12/25 February 1918

We’ve been notified that we’re to be put on soldier’s rations, beginning next week. The first items to go will be butter and coffee. We won’t miss butter too much, because it’s nearly time for Lent, and all of us prefer tea to coffee, anyway. One of our nicest servants, Sonia Petrovna Izvolsky, has promised to smuggle us eggs for Alexei from her henhouse.

But Papa has also decided that we must dismiss some of our servants. This will be hard because many of them brought their families here to Tobolsk, and now these loyal servants will have no way to earn a living. I hope he doesn’t dismiss Sonia.

22 February/7 March 1918

I’m so furious, I could scream. Our snow mountain has been destroyed by soldiers with picks, for a very stupid reason.

A regiment of soldiers we’d grown fond of were leaving (we knew not only their names but also their wives and children), and Papa and Alexei climbed to the top of the hill to salute them. Someone saw them and announced that it was “dangerous.” So our mountain is no more. Alexei stared at the wreckers silently, with big, sunken eyes.

4/17 March 1918

It’s Butterweek, for everyone but us. We’re stuck in this old house, half frozen, while beneath the windows we can hear the
troikas
dashing by, pulling sleighs with their little bells jingling. People out there are having fun, and we’re in here covered in gloom.

Papa tells us not to be gloomy, that we have many loyal friends who will certainly find a way to rescue us. But
when
?

Mama believes God will send us help at Easter, the time of the Resurrection.

6/19 March 1918

Papa has just received terrible news: Two weeks ago the Bolshevik government led by Vladimir Ilyitch Lenin signed a peace treaty with the Germans. It’s called the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and the Bolsheviks agreed to surrender Poland, Ukraine, the Crimea (Livadia!), and other Russian territory. Papa is completely overwhelmed with grief. It’s as though the country he loves so much has died. I don’t know what to do to console him.

12/25 March 1918

A terrible accident. Alexei, his snow mountain destroyed, took it into his head to ride his sled
down the stairs
inside the house. He fell and hurt himself in the groin. Now he’s bleeding inside and is in horrible pain. I can hear his screams from my room. He says he wants to die. I just can’t bear it.

17/30 March 1918

Alexei is a little better. The pain is less, although he still can’t walk. We all take turns staying with him, reading to him, playing cards.

New troops are arriving every day. I don’t know what this means. I thought the war was over. Why are all these soldiers here?

22 March/4 April 1918

Spring does come, even in Siberia. It would be so much more enjoyable if we could have some real exercise. For some reason I’ve been dreaming about riding a horse.

3/16 April 1918

All sorts of rumors are buzzing that someone very important is coming here from Moscow. Papa thinks it might even be Leon Trotsky, another Bolshevik leader. He says Trotsky is just as bad as Lenin.

9/22 April 1918

Our important visitor is here — not Leon Trotsky, but Commissar Vassily Yakovlev, sent by Vladimir Lenin. The commissar arrived at the head of 150 horsemen, and he brought a private telegraph operator so that he can send wires directly to the Kremlin in Moscow. (It’s now the capital, not Petrograd.) The commissar is very polite to Mama, bows to Papa, and so on, and they all seem to like each other. We’re not sure why he is here. There is even a rumor that he’s really come to rescue us. Baroness Buxhoeveden thinks we’ll go to Norway, but I heard Dr. Botkin whispering something about Japan. How exciting that would be!

12/25 April 1918

So far we’ve been wrong about everything. The reason Commissar Yakovlev is here is to take Papa away, to Moscow for trial. (But he has not committed any crime!) At first we thought we would all go with him. But Alexei is worse again, very thin and in great pain, much too ill to make a long journey. I won’t describe the tearful scene that followed, but here’s what was decided: Mama will go with Papa, and take Mashka with her! The rest of us will stay here until we find out what’s next.

We all agreed, as awful as it is, because Olga is in very low spirits, and Tatiana is the one who must look after Alexei. I’m to stay here because, as Mama and my sisters decided, “Anastasia is too young.”

Too young!
That made me feel even worse, but I said nothing because it’s all too horrible, anyway. We’ve never been separated, except when Alexei was with Papa at
Stavka
, and I don’t know how we’ll bear it.

I am nearly seventeen years old — hardly a child. Perhaps this is the time to prove to my parents that I am no longer a
shvibzik
, an imp, but a person who has earned their confidence.

13/26 April 1918

They’re gone. They left in a string of filthy peasant carts this morning before it was light. Mama was riding on a bed of straw, with Dr. Botkin’s fur cloak over her. The doctor and several others went with them.

Olga, Tatiana, Alexei, and I sit and stare at each other. We dare not wonder aloud when we will see them again.

17/30 April 1918

A telegram from Mama: They’re in a place called Ekaterinburg. This is a total surprise to us, because we were told they were going to Moscow. We can’t imagine what’s going to happen.

22 April/5 May 1918

Easter, but no celebration — just four of us with our servants, praying together. Sonia brought us four eggs and some tasty cheese, which we devoured. She’s so kind!

23 April/6 May 1918

A letter from Mama, at last, describing their long journey. We’ll be sent for soon, she says, and in the meantime we’re to “dispose of the medicines as has been agreed.” This was the code we agreed upon just before they left. All the jewels we brought with us from Tsarskoe Selo are to be hidden in our clothing so that they won’t be found when we go to Ekaterinburg. Who would have guessed that I would someday be a jewel smuggler!

26 April/9 May 1918

Tatiana is in charge: With Sonia and two of the servants we trust most, we’re busy sewing the jewels into our clothing. Sonia is very clever. She’s covered some of the jewels with cloth, to look like buttons. Others are stitched into our corsets. Alexei keeps watch with our two dogs so that we aren’t surprised by the wrong persons.

28 April/11 May 1918

Colonel Kobylinsky has been relieved of his position. We’ve come to know him after a long year, and I was a little sorry to see him go. I was even sorrier when I met his replacement, a bully named Rodionov, chief officer of the Red Guards, who’s to take us to Ekaterinburg as soon as Alexei is well enough to travel. He’s an awful person! I was waving out the window to Gleb Botkin, and Rodionov threatened to shoot anyone who waves back to us. Such a beast.

6/19 May 1918

We leave tomorrow, on the river steamer
Rus
that brought us here. Then we’ll take a train to Ekaterinburg. All is ready — even the dogs. The “medicines” have all been “disposed of.” I can hardly wait to see Mama and Papa and Mashka again.

I nearly forgot: This is Papa’s fiftieth birthday.

Later

Tatiana has given me something new to worry about. She asked me what I’m planning to do with this diary, and if I’ve written things in it that I don’t want the guards to read — about hiding the jewels, for instance. I confessed that I had.

“Then you must burn it,” she said. “You can’t take it with you.”

I know she’s right. But this diary has been my friend for a long time, and I can’t bear to destroy it.

So this is what I’ve decided: I’ll entrust this diary to Sonia, who lives here in Tobolsk and has been kind to me, and ask her to keep it safe for me. Then, when we’re free, I’ll write to her from England or Japan or wherever we’re going, and ask her to send it to me.

And so, farewell to you, dear diary. Until we meet again.

On May 20, 1918, Anastasia, Tatiana, Olga, and Alexei, accompanied by Sailor Nagorny, M. Gilliard, Mr. Gibbes, and other loyal members of the family’s staff, left Tobolsk. Some of the staff were immediately arrested and sent to prison. Others, including the two tutors, were released when they arrived in Ekaterinburg and ordered to leave the city.

The sisters, Alexei, and their parents had a joyous reunion in Ekaterinburg. They went to stay at a house prepared for them, ominously named “the House of Special Purpose.” A dozen people shared five rooms, but they were happy to be together again.

Life at the House of Special Purpose was far from pleasant. The head of the guards, Alexander Avdeyev, was a drunken boor who swore and told lewd jokes in the presence of the tsaritsa and the grand duchesses. The young women were not allowed to use the lavatory unless they were escorted by soldiers.

Yet somehow their life went on. It was spring, and they had their daily walks in the garden. Alexei, still bedridden much of the time, played with a model ship, and his mother and sisters read, knitted, and embroidered. The dogs entertained them. Sometimes in the evenings the family sang hymns to drown out the singing of the drunken soldiers.

The imperial family quickly established a routine, much as they always had, rising at eight for morning prayers, followed by breakfast, and a main meal at two o’clock. But their diet had certainly changed: Breakfast was black bread and tea, and lunch was soup and some kind of meat served on a table without either linen or silverware. Avdeyev and the other soldiers watched them eat and sometimes stuck their hands in the stewpot to seize a piece of meat. “You’ve had enough, you idle rich,” the Romanovs were told.