The Last Tsar (67 page)

Yurovsky: “Once we had gathered together everything of value into sacks, everything else we found on the bodies was burned and the bodies themselves lowered into the mine shaft. In the process some of the valuables (someone’s brooch, Botkin’s false teeth) were dropped.”

A great many diamonds and pearls are gathered, so they do not worry about the small change. They are tired.

Yurovsky: “It was all buried at Alapaevsk in the cellar of one of the little buildings. In 1919 it was dug up and taken to Moscow.”

The historic moment has passed. Life begins anew.

He has a breakfast of eggs on a tree stump. Alexei’s eggs. After Yurovsky eats, it occurs to him to toss in a few grenades.

Yurovsky: “In my attempt to collapse the mine shaft with the help of hand grenades, evidently the bodies were damaged and a few parts torn off—that is how the commandant explains the Whites (who later discovered the mine) finding there a detached finger, etc.”

After which Ermakov and his comrades go to Upper Isetsk and Yurovsky makes sure the jewels get off to Alapaevsk, where that night Ella and her companions in captivity are to be “liquidated.”

There, in a hiding place, in the cellar of an anonymous Alapaevsk house, all the jewels taken from the “Ural Romanovs” are collected.

Yurovsky: “After completing the operation and leaving a guard there, at about ten or eleven in the morning (of July 17 now), the commandant took his report to the Ural Executive Committee, where he found Safarov and Beloborodov. The commandant told them what had been found and expressed regret that he had not been allowed to conduct a search of the Romanovs sooner.”

In fact, at the Soviet Yurovsky was dealt a cruel blow, which he concealed in his Note.

The son of Chekist Medvedev:

“In the morning my father went to the bazaar and heard from the local merchants a detailed account of where and how the bodies of the tsar’s family had been hidden. That is the real reason why the bodies were buried a second time.”

——

Ermakov’s lads could not hold their tongues. Now they had to start all over. Find a new place, think of where to hide the bodies. They had run out of time—the Whites were on the threshold.

Yurovsky: “The commandant found out from Chutskaev (the chairman of the Municipal Executive Committee) that there were some very deep mines suitable for burying the Romanovs located at verst 9 along the Moscow highway.… The commandant started out but had only gotten partway when his car broke down. He reached the mines on foot. He did indeed find three very deep mines filled with water, where he decided to drown the bodies, having first attached stones to them. Since there were watchmen around who made awkward witnesses, it was decided that along with the truck carrying the bodies a car would come with Chekists, who on the pretext of a search would arrest all the spectators. The commandant had to drive back on a pair of horses he happened to appropriate en route. In the event the plan with the mines did not work out, it was decided to burn the bodies and bury them in the clayey, water-filled pits, after first taking the precaution of disfiguring them beyond the point of identification with sulfuric acid.

“When they finally got back to town it was nearly eight in the evening on July 17, and they began getting together everything they needed—kerosene, sulfuric acid. Driverless carts and horses were taken from the prison.… They did not set out until 12:30 on the night of July 17–18. To isolate the mines (one a prospector’s mine) for the duration of the operation, an announcement was made in Koptyaki that Czechs were hiding in the woods and the forest was going to be searched, so no one should go there for any reason. It was decreed that anyone who broke through the cordoned area would be shot on the spot.”

Steal a pair of horses from a peasant they happen to run into, shoot an inhabitant who accidentally sets foot on the protected zone—all in the name of the shining future.

At midnight, the commandant returned to the original nameless mine.

The son of Chekist Medvedev:

“They lit the mine shaft with torches. Vaganov the sailor climbed down into the mine shaft and stood below in the darkness in the icy
water, which was up to his chest. A rope was lowered. He tied the bodies to it and sent them up.”

Once again the commandant saw the tsar’s entire family in torchlight. At the same time in Alapaevsk they were killing Ella and the other Ural Romanovs.

Yurovsky: “Meanwhile it was growing light. It occurred to me to bury some of the bodies right there by the mine. We started digging a pit and had almost finished when a peasant Ermakov knew rode up and explained that he could see the hole. We had to abandon that idea and decided to take the bodies to the deep mines.”

The bodies set off once again, on carts at first and then in the truck. With them went Yurovsky. For three whole days he had been living alongside these corpses, “evacuating them to a safe place.”

Yurovsky: “Since the carts proved unstable and were falling apart, the commandant went to town for some vehicles—one truck and two cars for the Chekists. We managed to get on our way only at eight in the evening; we crossed the railroad tracks about half a verst away and moved the bodies onto the truck. We had a hard time, planking over treacherous spots with boards, and still getting stuck several times. At about four-thirty on the morning of July 19 the vehicle got permanently stuck. Since we weren’t going to get as far as the mines, all we could do was either bury them or burn them.… One comrade, whose last name the commandant has forgotten, promised to take the latter upon himself, but he left without keeping his promise. We wanted to burn A[lexei] and A[lexandra] F[eodorovna], but by mistake instead of her we burned the lady-in-waiting and Alexei. They buried the remains right there under the fire and then scattered the fires in order to cover up completely any trace of digging. Meanwhile a common grave was dug for the rest. At about seven in the morning a pit two and a half arshins [6 feet] deep and three and a half arshins [8 feet] square was ready. The bodies were put in the hole and the faces and all the bodies generally doused with sulfuric acid, both so they couldn’t be recognized and to prevent any stink from them rotting [it was not a deep hole]. We scattered it with dirt and lime, put boards on top, and rode over it several times—no trace of the hole remained. The secret was kept—the Whites did not find this burial site.”

At the end of his Note, Yurovsky added a notation indicating the precise location of that secret grave:

“Koptyaki, 18 v[ersts] [12 miles] from Ekaterinburg to the northwest. The railroad tracks pass 9 versts between Koptyaki and the
Upper Isetsk factory. From where the railroad tracks cross they are buried about 100 sazh[ens] [700 feet] in the direction of the Isetsk factory.”

The guest chuckled. “You tell the burial story the way Yurovsky described it in his Note. But after all, there was one other equally important witness, my friend Peter Zakharovich [Ermakov], After all, he too described how the burial came about. So
two
descriptions exist. True, in the 1950s yet a third description by a witness appeared in the West.”

“You’re talking about Iogann Meyer’s pamphlet?”

“Absolutely correct. But that’s a fake, full of mythical people who never existed.… So Peter Zakharovich’s manuscript is one of two existing authentic documents attributable to the pen of actual participants. Moreover, not just participants, but the men in charge of that terrible burial, if you can call the horror they undertook a burial.”

After this tirade my guest again opened his briefcase and gave me the conclusion to Ermakov’s memoirs laboriously copied out by hand:

“When this operation was over, the vehicle with the bodies set out for the forest through Upper Isetsk in the direction of the Koptyaki road, where I had chosen a site for burying the bodies.

“I had considered in advance, however, the fact that we shouldn’t dig, for I was not alone, but had comrades with me. Generally speaking, I could scarcely entrust anyone with this matter, especially since I had told everyone beforehand that I had decided to burn them, for which I had gotten together sulfuric acid and kerosene; I had anticipated everything. Without tipping anyone off, I said: ‘Let’s drop them into the mine shaft,’ and that was what we decided. Then I ordered them all undressed, so we could burn the clothes, which was done. When they started taking their dresses off, medallions with a picture of Rasputin inserted were found on ‘herself’ [Alexandra Feodorovna] and the daughters. Further under their dresses, next to their bodies, were specially altered double corsets inside the padding in which precious stones had been placed and stitched in. This was for ‘herself’ and her four daughters. All this was handed over piece by piece to Yurovsky, the Ural Soviet member. I really wasn’t interested in what was there right then for I had no time. The clothing was burned then and there. The bodies were carried about 50 meters
and dropped down a mine shaft. It wasn’t deep, about 6 sazhens [14 yards], for I know all those mines well. So we would be able to pull them out for further operations with them. All this I did in order to hide my tracks from any extra comrades of mine present. When all this was over it was already full dawn, about four o’clock in the morning [July 17]. This place was located about 3 versts [2 miles] off the road.

“When everyone was gone, I remained in the forest, which no one knew. On the night of July 17–18, I went to the forest again, brought a rope, and was lowered into the mine. I began tying up each one individually (the bodies, that is), and two men pulled them out (the bodies). When they were all out I ordered them put on a two-wheeled cart, carried them away from the mine, unloaded them onto three stacks of firewood, doused them with kerosene, and then themselves (the bodies, that is) with sulfuric acid. The bodies burned to ash, which was buried. All this took place at twelve o’clock on the night of July 17–18, 1918. After all of which I reported on July 18. Now I am finished with everything. October 29, 1947. Ermakov.”

I asked him: “May I publish this?”

My guest shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t care, I’m old. Soon, very soon, I’ll be meeting up with
them
. So that before I go I leave you all this with pleasure.” (Soon after, I published in
Ogonyok
these memoirs of Ermakov, which were being kept in secret storage.) “But you’ve got a dangerous topic there—it will eat up your life the way it did mine. But I’m disappointed in your question. In your place I would be interested in something completely different. Discounting Peter Zakharovich’s ordinary boastfulness and his habit of ascribing to himself everything others did, consider the most important point: according to Ermakov there was no second burial—the bodies were burned not far from Koptyaki. He has a completely different reading from Yurovsky, moreover on an important fact. And here Ermakov repeats what Sokolov arrived at: the graves do not exist; the bodies of the family vanished in the flames of the fire. Much as I regretted it, I thought that maybe because Peter Zakharovich was drunk they simply didn’t take him to the second burial. No, Yurovsky, recounting the events of July 18, wrote very clearly in his Note: ‘A peasant Ermakov knew rode up to him.’ So Ermakov was there, and he saw it through to the end. So what’s going on? That is why I kept questioning him and he in reply kept repeating, ‘We burned the bodies!’

“That is why I met with a
third man.”

“In 1943, when I saw him for the first time, the third man was living in Perm [then Molotov]. That’s what I called him, ‘Comrade Charon.’ But he didn’t laugh. Even when I explained to him that Charon ferried the Greeks to the kingdom of death. He
never
laughed and
never
talked on the topic of interest to us. I saw him in 1953, not long before his death. A dried-out old man, short, with a narrow, predatory nose and sparse hair, our Charon went around wearing pathetic ear flaps and a threadbare winter coat. The man who had driven the truck carrying the tsarist bodies lived in a tiny room in a horrible shack. And behind a curtain in the same little room lived his youngest son with his wife. This shack was located on Twenty-fifth Anniversary of October Street. That was where he died. This old Bolshevik died in a dirty barracks on a street named after his own revolution.

“Have you figured out who I’m going to tell you about? Sergei Ivanovich Lyukhanov, the
third witness
to that terrible trip. His biography is most curious. Unlike all the regicides, he never mentioned his participation in the great proletarian mission of regicide and never fought for any privileges. Moreover, his son told me that he never ever mentioned that he had been in Ekaterinburg in 1918. All in all, for all our meetings, he never did say a word about it. Oh, it was very hard to talk with this taciturn man. I remember I invited him to a restaurant. He sat the whole evening in silence, then picked up the check, which I paid, and said, ‘Too bad, I could live on this for an entire month.’ And he left. Everything I learned about him I learned from his youngest son, whose name was Alexei, like the heir, and who did tell me about his papa. It turns out, having lived to age eighty, he was not even receiving a pension—his son explained that Lyukhanov apparently didn’t realize that he was entitled to one. Odd? A Bolshevik since 1906 didn’t know that in the country of victorious socialism old men receive pensions? A great deal about his life was odd. For example, those constant moves from town to town. Immediately after the execution he quit Ekaterinburg with the retreating Bolsheviks, but after the return of Soviet power to Ekaterinburg Lyukhanov did not go back there but went to Osa—which he soon quit as well. There followed frequent moves, as if he were dashing about the Urals, forever changing places. No sooner did he get used to a place then look out, he refused a good position and off
he went! It was as if he were afraid of something. But the most interesting part was his relationship with his wife, Avgusta.