The Last Tsar (35 page)

i1.16
. Nicholas and his family preparing for a meeting with representatives of a town in the south of Russia during World War I.

i1.17
. Nicholas before a map of military operations, the western front, World War I.

i1.18
. The tsar exchanges Easter salutations with officers, imperial headquarters, Mogilev, April 11, 1916.

i1.19
. Nicholas at headquarters with military representatives of the Allied powers: Colonel Marsengo (Italy), Baron B. de Ricquel (Belgium), General Sir John Hanbury-Williams (England), Nicholas, Marquess de Laguiche (France), and Colonel Londkijevic (Serbia), 1916.

i1.20
. The parlor car on the imperial train in which Vasily Shulgin and Alexander Guchkov accepted Nicholas’s abdication in March 1917.

i1.21
. The grand duchesses with shaved heads, under arrest of the Provisional Government, Tsarskoe Selo, 1917.

i1.22
. Nicholas on a bicycle, in captivity, in Tobolsk, Siberia, 1917.

The two trains, their windows gleaming in the rising sun, inexorably linked, were heading toward Siberia.

Nicholas’s diary:

“1 August. The whole family got settled in a fine sleeping car.… Quite stifling and dusty—26 degrees [79°F] in the car. Took a walk in the afternoon with our riflemen—gathered flowers and berries….

“2 August.… At all stations have had to draw the curtains, at the commandant’s request—stupid and boring….

“4 August. Crossed the Urals and felt a substantial cooling. Passed Ekaterinburg early morning. All these days the second echelon with the riflemen has frequently overtaken us—we meet like old Friends.”

The children and Alix slept, but he did not. Behind the curtained windows was a station. There had been so many stations in his life, but this was destined to be his last.

“4 August. Dragged along incredibly slowly to arrive at Tyumen late—at 11.30. There the train pulled in almost to the platform, so that we only had to go down to the steamer. Ours is called the
Russia
. The loading of our things began and went on all night.… Poor Alexei again went to bed God knows when!”

They were met in Tyumen.

From Matveyev’s Notes:

“I was watching and the doors of the Romanovs’ car opened. Nicholas appeared before them all. I turned toward the gathered military authorities and saw that Romanov was still only thinking about leaving the car and they were all standing, strung out in a line, maintaining a salute.… How many people there are who have absolutely not been permeated by the revolutionary spirit!”

At six in the morning they left Tyumen on the
Russia
. Two steamers sailed behind the
Russia
—the
Kormilets
and the
Tyumen
, which carried the servants and baggage. The caravan of vessels sailed down the river Tur.

On August 6 they entered the river Tobol.

“The river is broader and the banks higher. The morning was fresher, and in the afternoon it got quite warm when the sun showed itself.… Forgot to mention that yesterday before dinner we went past the village of Pokrovskoe—Grigory’s home.”

At the very beginning of their journey toward death, they were near him again, the immortal holy man.

Volkov heard Alix say with feeling: “Here lived Grigory Efimovich. In this river he caught the fish he brought to us in Tsarskoe Selo.” There were tears in her eyes.

They were approaching Tobolsk.

A quarter of a century before, so young and happy, he too had sailed on a steamer. Nicholas’s diary:

“6 August [continued].… Many people were standing on shore, so they knew of our arrival. I remembered the view of the cathedral and houses on the hill.”

From Matveyev’s Notes:

“Literally the entire town, I am not exaggerating, spilled out onto the shore.”

The crowd gazed at the short man wearing a khaki shirt with regimental stripes, a forage cap with a cross-shaped cockade, his shirt belted by an ordinary soldier’s belt with a gleaming brass buckle, on his chest the silver Cross of St. George, wide trousers with a crimson stripe, and folded-over boots. Next to him was a boy dressed in a soldier’s greatcoat with epaulets, a lance corporal’s stripes, and a soldier’s forage cap. And she—in a black coat—and the four girls in navy traveling costumes.

Bells were ringing in all the churches. The commissars of the
Provisional Government took fright that a monarchist demonstration had begun in the town, but it was the Feast of the Divine Transfiguration.

Nicholas’s diary:

“6 August [conclusion].… As soon as the steamer landed they began unloading our baggage. Valya [Dolgorukov], the commissar, and the commandant [as he called the guard commander, Kobylinsky] went off to inspect the houses designated for us and the suite. Upon his return Valya told us the lodgings were empty, unfurnished, dirty, and unfit to move into. So we remained on the steamer and began to wait for them to bring back the necessary baggage for us to retire. We had supper, joked about people’s astonishing inability to arrange even for lodgings, and went to bed early.”

So they remained on the steamer. But they were happy at this liberty and this new, unfamiliar place.

Only on August 6, after their commissar reported that the family had arrived in Tobolsk, was the official announcement about their departure published: “Due to considerations of state necessity, the government has resolved to move the former emperor and empress, now under guard, to a new location. Designated as such is the town of Tobolsk, where the former emperor and empress have been sent in accordance with all measures pertaining to their protection. Along with the former emperor and empress under the same conditions their children and individuals close to them have at their own wish gone to Tobolsk.”

The governor’s house, where they were to live, was called Freedom House after the February Revolution, which brought the Provisional Government to power, and the street where this house was located was called Freedom Street. The word
freedom
was very popular then.

Freedom House became the first home of their Siberian captivity. (The Dno station, the
Russia
steamer, Freedom House, the Ipatiev house—was all this history’s irony?) Freedom House had two floors; the family lived on the second, and on the first were the dining room and rooms for the servants. There was also a half-cellar, ground floor, where their possessions were taken.

The entire downstairs was stacked with the family’s traveling bags, trunks, and suitcases. Special belongings were kept in two small wardrobes, and there was a trunk filled with albums of yellowed photographs. There was also a dark leather suitcase that contained the former tsar’s diaries and letters. This was all that remained of their vanished life.

While their people were preparing the house, hanging portieres, arranging the furniture they had brought, and cleaning the furniture bought in town, the family remained on the steamer. They even took rides on it, as they once had on their yacht.