The Last Tsar (73 page)

“ ‘Stop! Cease firing,’ Yurovsky commanded.

“ ‘Thank the Lord! God has saved me!’ The surviving maid staggered as she tried to get up.… Then the maid was bayonetted. At her dying cry, Alexei, who was lightly wounded, came to and started moaning. He was lying on a chair. Yurovsky walked over and emptied the last bullets from his Mauser into him. The boy became quiet and slowly crawled to his father’s feet.… Nicholas was completely riddled with bullets.… We examined the remaining ones and finished off Tatiana and Anastasia, who were still alive, with the Colt.”

Did “lightly wounded” Alexei and Anastasia survive the execution? Only after that, Medvedev-Kudrin asserts, were they finished off—in a room where “you couldn’t see anything because of the smoke.”

Two tape recordings are also preserved in the Party Archive: those historic 1964 recordings once discussed in such detail by historian Mikhail Medvedev, Medvedev-Kudrin’s son. On the tapes are the voices of one of the main regicides, Grigory Nikulin, the assistant to the Ipatiev house commandant, and I. Rodzinsky, who participated in the secret burial of the tsar’s family, telling the story of how the tsar and his family died.

Especially interesting are the statements of the man whose name so resembles my own, I. Rodzinsky.

First he tells the tale I have already heard from Medvedev about how the Cheka organized provocations by composing “forged letters over the signature ‘An Officer’”:

“We needed proof that preparations were under way to abduct the Family, even though no such preparations were under way.… Voikov dictated the letters to me in French, and I wrote … so the handwriting was mine.”

The Chekist described the execution as well, and here the name of Alexei crops up once again:

“I must say the execution was chaotic. We nearly shot ourselves because of the bullets ricocheting.… For example, Alexei II took 11 bullets … only after that did he die.”

But Rodzinsky himself did not witness the execution. His story is based on what the other executioners told them, and they were clearly amazed at Alexei’s “strange vitality.”

He did witness the second burial of the tsar’s family, however, and even participated in it. He describes all its terrible details. The Chekist remembered everything: how they got to the mine at dawn, “how one man dropped down into the water with ropes and dragged the corpses out of the water … we pulled Nicholas out first.” He recalled: “The water was so cold that the corpses’ faces were red-cheeked, as if they were still alive.” He recalled seeing the naked body of the tsar and how amazed he was at “Nicholas’s remarkable physical development … his muscles, torso, stomach, and arms.” He remembered little details, too, such as Yurovsky being sent to town for sulfuric acid and him taking that time to go into the village to drink some milk.

He described in detail how they created this terrible secret grave:

“The truck got stuck in a quagmire, and we barely pulled it out. That was when we got the idea we eventually carried out. We decided we weren’t going to find anyplace better.… We dug out that quagmire immediately … poured sulfuric acid over the corpses … disfigured them … and dumped them into the quagmire.… The railway wasn’t far from there.” He recalled how they trucked in rotten ties to disguise the grave. But they only buried some of those shot in the grave: “The rest we burned.”

As soon as he gets to the burning, the Chekist’s memory starts to betray him: “I don’t remember how many we burned exactly … or exactly who.” This is where he starts making strange mistakes: “Nicholas we did burn, I remember.… And Botkin, too, and Alexei, I think….”

No, I never am going to finish this book!

i1.43
. The testimony of A. I. Guchkov on the ceremonial procedure of the signing of the act of abdication.

i1.44
. 1918 document signed by the chairman of the Ural Soviet and a Bolshevik party member, Aleksandr Georgievich Beloborodov (1891–1938), concerning the transmittal of the former Tsar Nicholas, the former Tsarina Aleksandra Feodorovna, and their daughter Maria Nikolaevna (1899–1918).

i1.45
. The last pages of the diary of Tsarina Aleksandra Feodorovna, 1918.

ENGLISH-LANGUAGE SOURCES

Alexander, Grand Duke of Russia.
Once a Grandduke
. London, 1932.

Alexandrov, V.
The End of the Romanovs
. Boston, 1967.

Benckendorff, P.
Last Days of Tsarskoe Selo
. London, 1927.

Botkin, G.
The Real Romanovs
. New York, 1931.

Buchanan, G.
My Mission to Moscow
. London, 1923.

Buxhoevden, S.
The Life and Tragedy of Alexandra Feodorovna
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Chavchavadze, D.
The Grand Dukes
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Cyril, Grand Duke.
My Life in Russia’s Service
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Dehn, Lili.
The Real Tsaritsa
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Kerensky, A.
The Crucifixion of Liberty
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Kschessinska, M.
Dancing in Petersburg
. Garden City, 1961.

Kurth, P.
Anastasia: The Riddle of Anna Anderson
. Boston and Toronto, 1983.

Letters of the Tsar to the Tsaritsa, 1914–1917
. London, 1976.

Letters of the Tsaritsa to the Tsar, 1914–1916
. London, 1923.

Massie, R.
Nicholas and Alexandra
. London, 1969.

Mosolov, A.
At the Court of the Last Tsar
. London, 1935.

Richards, G.
The Hunt for the Czar
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Summers, A., and Mangold, T.
The File of the Tsar
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Trotsky, L.
The History of the Russian Revolution
. New York, 1932.

RUSSIAN-LANGUAGE SOURCES

TsGAOR SSSR
here stands for the U.S.S.R. Central State Archive of the October Revolution, located in Moscow.

Alfer’ev, E. E.
Pis’ma tsarskoi sem’i iz zatocheniia
. Jordanville, N.Y., 1984.

Amvrosii, Archbishop.
Svetloi pamiati velikoi kniagini Elizavety Fedorovny
. Jerusalem, 1915.

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Autobiography of P. Z. Ermakov. Sverdlovsk Party Archive, f. 41, op. 2, d. 79, ss. 5–6.

Autobiography of Ural Cheka Chairman F. N. Lukoyanov. Copy in author’s possession.

Avdeev, A. D. “Nikolai Romanov v Tobol’ske i Ekaterinburge.”
Krasnaia nov’
, no. 5 (1928).

Berberova, N.
Liudi i lozhi
. New York, 1986.

Biography of Ipatiev house driver S. I. Lyukhanov, compiled by his son Alexei. In author’s possession.

Blok, A. A.
Zapisnye knizhki
. Moscow, 1965.

Budberg, A.
Dnevnik belogvardeitsa
. Leningrad, 1929.

Burtsev, V. L. “Istinnye ubiitsy Nikolaia II—Lenin i ego tovarishchi.”
Obshchee delo
. Paris, 1921.

Bykov, P. M.
Poslednie dni Romanovykh
. Sverdlovsk, 1926.

Copy of the Yurovsky Note on the execution of the tsar and his family given by him to historian M. N. Pokrovsky and verified by his son A. Yurovsky. Museum of the Revolution, Moscow.

Correspondence of Nicholas and Alice of Hesse (the future empress Alexandra Feodorovna) in 1894. TsGAOR SSSR, f. 601, pp. 1, d. 1147.

Correspondence of Nicholas and his mother Empress Marie Feodorovna. TsGAOR SSSR, f. 642, op. 1, d. 2328.

Diaries of Emperor Nicholas II, 1882–1918. TsGAOR SSSR, f. 601, op. 1, d. 217–266.

Diary of Alexander II. TsGAOR SSSR, f. 678, op. 1, d. 294–295. Diary of Alexandra Feodorovna, 1918. TsGAOR SSSR, f. 640, op. 1, d. 326.

Diary of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, 1917. TsGAOR SSSR, f. 640, op. 1, d. 333.

Diary of Grand Duchess Marie. TsGAOR SSSR, f. 685, op. 1, d. 10.

Diary of Grand Duchess Olga. TsGAOR SSSR, f. 673, op. 1, d. 8.

Diary of Grand Duchess Tatiana. TsGAOR SSSR, f. 651, op. 1, d. 26.

Diary of Tsesarevich Alexei. TsGAOR SSSR, f. 682, op. 1, d. 189,