Chapter VIII: Planning the Crime

Nothing had been done at Ekaterinburg to prepare for the arrival of such prisoners as the ex-Tsar and his family till April 27th (_i.e._, two days after the spy Zaslavsky had denounced Yakovlev). The arrangements then taken consisted in requisitioning Ipatiev’s house and putting a rough hoarding around it. Zaslavsky reached Ekaterinburg in company with a Russian workman named Alexander Avdeiev, who had been with him at Tobolsk and become imbued with the Jew’s tale of Yakovlev’s alleged treachery. In return for his support and blind subserviency, this man received the post of commandant of the new imperial prison and promises of further promotion.

Isai Goloshchekin, the intimate friend of Yankel Sverdlov, took charge of the prisoners on their arrival. Isai played the part of a Bolshevist Poohba, being a Komisar many times over, but above all he loomed largely in the local _chrezvychaika_. He supervised the removal of the prisoners from their railway carriage, completely ignoring Avdeiev, and took them away in his motor-car. On reaching the Ipatiev house, Goloshchekin told the imperial trio to descend, then pointing to the door, said:--“Citizen Romanov, you may enter.” In the same manner he let the ex-Empress and Maria pass the threshold.

Prince Dolgoruky, who was of the party, did not meet with Goloshchekin’s approval. “You go to another prison,” said he, and straightway Dolgoruky was removed, never to be seen again.

When, three weeks later, the other children and remainder of the household arrived, the same procedure was adopted. Once more Avdeiev was ignored, the person in charge being Rodionov. His brutalities at Tobolsk had earned him distinction. Here he excelled himself. It was raining heavily and the platforms were slimy with mud. He would not permit anyone to help the grand duchesses to carry their own luggage. Nagorny, one of the imperial servants, was knocked over for daring to extend a hand to Anastasia, dragging a heavy bag.

Nobody had permission to share the new prison with the Romanovs except the physically weak or mentally undeveloped. The only exception was Dr. Botkin. Those who did not enter the house went to other prisons, the two foreigners excepted. Their fate is described elsewhere.

The family, once more reunited, had need of all their love and faith to endure the sufferings that marked this last stage of their earthly pilgrimage. Besides them and their physician only four servants were permitted to remain--the chambermaid Demidova, the footman Trupp, the _chef_ Haritonov, and the boy Leonid Sednev, attendant and playmate of the sick Alexis. Chemodurov, the Tsar’s valet, was transferred to the town prison from the Ipatiev house three weeks after his arrival. He survived, but his mind was affected.

This building stands at the corner of Vosnesensky prospekt and Vosnesensky pereulok (lane) facing a large square in which stands the church of the Ascension (Vosnesenia), a prominent landmark in the city and suburbs. It is a two-storey stone building with a garden and outhouses behind, to which access is obtained through a gateway into the square. As the lane descends steeply from the square, the lower storey is a semi-basement in front, gradually clearing the surface of the street on the lane side. The lower floor was occupied by the guard; the prisoners lived upstairs in the corner rooms away from the stairs and entrance, which were on the gate side. Nicholas, Alexandra, and Alexis shared one room facing the square; the adjoining chamber, overlooking the lane, was occupied by the grand duchesses. The family could not leave these two rooms except for meals, which were taken in the adjoining dining-room. Another room, divided into two halves by an arch, accommodated Dr. Botkin and Chemodurov on one side and the servants on the other. From the dining-room a door led to a terrace, overlooking the garden.

Around the house, a wooden hoarding reached up to the windows of the upper floor. Soon after the prisoners arrived, another hoarding was put up, completely screening the whole house up to the eaves, and enclosing also the front entrance and gateway. There were double windows, as usual in Russian houses. Both panes were covered with whitewash, rendering it utterly impossible for the prisoners to see anything outside--even a crow flying.

Sentries paced between the hoardings, inside the garden, and were stationed at the stairs, beside the lavatory, and on the terrace. Here, and at other convenient points, machine-guns were posted. The prisoners were in a trap from which there was no escape. The awful thing about it was the constant surveillance, by day and night. There was no privacy, not even for the girls--no consideration for decency or modesty. The Ekaterinburg period was one long martyrdom for the Romanovs, growing worse--with one short interval--as the hour of their death approached. Their guards, at first, were Russians, who, brutal as they were, never attained the fiendish ingenuity in tormenting their helpless captives that came to be displayed by the alien guards and executioners of the final week.

There had been no provision for guarding the house--another proof that the prisoners had not been intended for Ekaterinburg. After the first few days, a regular guard was organised from workmen employed at the local mills and iron works. Alexander Avdeiev received the style of “Commandant of the Special Purpose House”--such was the name of the imperial prison. His assistants were Alexander Moshkin and Pavel Medvedev, both workmen and Russians. Avdeiev and his particular friends among the guards lived upstairs in the ante room and another chamber facing the square. They were, consequently, in immediate proximity to the prisoners. No pen can describe what this meant.

The men were coarse, drunken, criminal types, such as a revolution brings to the surface. They entered the prisoners’ rooms whenever they thought fit, at all hours, prying with drunken, leering eyes into everything that they might be doing. Their mere presence was an offence; but picture the torments of the captives to have to put up with their loathsome familiarities! They would sit down at the table when the prisoners ate, put their dirty hands into the plates, spit, jostle and reach in front of the prisoners. Their greasy elbows would be thrust, by accident or design, into the ex-Tsar’s face. Alexandra was, of course, a special object of attention. They would crowd round her chair, lolling in such a manner that any movement on her part brought her in contact with their evil smelling bodies.

Prison fare of the poorest kind was provided. Breakfast comprised stale black bread from the day before, with tea--no sugar. For dinner they had thin soup and meat, the latter of doubtful quality. The ex-Empress could eat nothing except macaroni.

The table cover was a greasy oil-cloth. There were not knives or forks or even plates enough to go round. All ate with wooden spoons out of one common dish. By the Emperor’s wish the servants sat at table with the family.

The guards sang revolutionary songs devised to hurt and shock the feelings of the prisoners, containing foul words such as no man should dare to utter in the presence of innocent girls, but the revolutionary warriors delighted in wounding the modesty of the grand duchesses in this and in other still more repulsive ways, by filthy scribbling and drawings on the walls and by crowding round the lavatory--there was only one for the prisoners and the warders. They went reeling about the house, smoking cigarettes, unkempt, dishevelled, shameless, inspiring terror and loathing. They did not scruple to help themselves liberally to the clothes and other property of the prisoners whenever anything came within their reach.

Only a quarter of an hour was allowed to the prisoners in the open air. No physical work was permitted. The ex-Tsar felt this privation very much. Alexandra suffered terribly. Her son remained an invalid, unable to walk. The family seemed to be overwhelmed by grief. But their faith in God and their love for each other illuminated the gloom of this awful prison. Above the ribald songs of their tormentors might be heard the chanting of the Song of Cherubim, the Russian hymn of praise.

Now we come to the final phase that preceded the murder. It is full of significance. Every step taken by the occult powers of the Ekaterinburg _chrezvychaika_, which, it must be remembered, did nothing without orders from the central institutions in Moscow--Sverdlov being in direct communication with Goloshchekin--falls into its natural appointed place as part of the cruel fate reserved for the Romanov family.

The monsters who had been placed in charge of the prisoners--as if on purpose to torment them through the agency of Russians--did not fulfil their mission to the end. Even they became humanised by the spectacle of the sufferings and the patience and humility of their former sovereigns--not all of them, of course, but certainly a majority, including their commandant, Avdeiev.

One of these men afterwards related how the change came over him. He had begun with hatred in his heart. The Tsar was the head of the capitalistic system, the greatest capitalist of them all. To destroy him was to destroy capitalism itself--the Social-Democratic programme had made it all so plain to him. He watched the crowned enemy of mankind, the “drinker of the people’s blood,” as he walked about the garden, and listened to him exchanging simple, homely words with the other warders. His notions began to waver. This was not a bad man; he was so human, so kindly, just a man like other men, and even better. Then the idea occurred to him that it was wrong to desire his death. What harm could he do? Why not let him escape! Yes, it would be much better if he went away, and the children, too, they had done no harm, and the Tsaritsa also. She was proud. Not simple and homely, like the Tsar; but let her also go. If she had done harm, she had also suffered.

This man repented of the evil he and his fellows were doing. He would sing no more lewd songs, and tried to dissuade the others. Rapidly the whole of the guard--workmen from the Lokalov and Syssert companies’ plants--were becoming disaffected.

Towards the end of June a secret emissary of one of the Monarchist organisations called upon the Bishop of Ekaterinburg and tried to get into communication with the Imperial prisoners through the clergy; but this proved to be impossible. He then proposed that, at all events, some food and comforts should be sent to the prison-house. Dr. Derevenko, who had been permitted to remain in the city, gave his assistance at this juncture. By some means he was in touch with the warders. Avdeiev agreed to take in milk and other provisions if they reached the house without attracting notice. The nuns of the monastery thereupon sent two novices, dressed in lay garments, to the house, with all manner of dairy produce. Avdeiev received them himself. These journeys became frequent. The poor captives felt comforted, morally and physically. They had not been forgotten, and the men who had been so terrible were so much kinder. Hope once more blossomed. The Grand Duchesses looked bright and cheerful, “as if ready to smile,” says a person who saw them at this time. The nuns, emboldened by Avdeiev’s attitude, brought even some tobacco for the ex-Tsar. Avdeiev referred to him as “The Emperor.”

In the beginning of July some suspicions must have arisen among the Jewish camarilla, or perhaps Moscow had received “information.” As the time was getting ripe for “action,” no doubt steps had been taken to verify the arrangements, and the discovery of disaffection among the Russian guards followed. Avdeiev was at once dismissed, the Russian guards moved out of the house into premises on the opposite side of the lane, and, with one exception, were forbidden to come into the house. This exception was Pavel Medvedev. He retained his post as chief warder. The Russian guard continued to provide sentries for the outside posts only. They could do no harm there, and served to throw dust in the eyes of the public.

All these changes were carried out by the new commandant, a person with whom the reader is already acquainted, namely, Yankel Yurovsky, the son of a Jew convict, himself a mystery man, having obtained money in Germany for unexplained “services,” and presently one of the chiefs of the local _chrezvychaika_. Yankel brought with him a squad of ten “Letts”--as the Russians called them--to mount guard inside the prison-house and take charge of the machine-gun posts. These men were the hired assassins of the red _okhrana_. They were not Letts but Magyars, some of them really Magyarised Germans. It must be remembered that Siberia was Sovietised from the east, not by Russians in the first place, but by the soldiers of Wilhelm and his Austrian henchmen, who acted under orders from the two Kaisers. These so-called Letts had entered the service of the _chrezvychaika_ after helping to carry out the German design to undermine Russia.

Innumerable evidences prove that the newcomers are correctly classified. The Russian guards could tell by their speech that they were foreigners. To designate them as Letts was quite natural because the Letts formed the backbone and bulk of the foreign mercenaries of Sovietdom and therefore any non-Russian Red-guard became a “Lett.” But, as a matter of fact, the Magyars resemble Letts in their appearance and accent. Yurovsky spoke to them in a foreign language. Besides Russian and Yiddish he knew only German. Among the papers found afterwards in the prison-house was an unfinished letter to his “Tereschen” from one of the “Letts.” It was in Magyar, but, according to the findings of experts, the writer was evidently a German. He used capital letters for substantives, often employed Gothic characters and made glaring blunders in grammar, such as no Magyar would make.

Another of the “Letts” left a still more eloquent evidence of his nationality. This man had stood on guard on the terrace communicating with the dining-room and overlooking the garden--a very important post with a machine-gun capable of sweeping the interior of the house and all the approaches from the garden side. On the very day before the murder, this man wrote in pencil on the wall of the house a record of his service as follows:--

András Verhás

Orsegen 1918 VII/15

Alongside this inscription he had tried to write the Russian equivalent, but could not spell out the word “karaul” (guard duty), in Magyar _örsegen_. Scraps of paper on which other “Letts” had practised writing Russian words were also found.

We are able to fix the date approximately when the German-Magyar guard and Yurovsky took possession. The lay sisters bringing their usual offerings met with a strange reception on or about July 10th--about a week before the murder. Avdeiev did not come out to them. Some of the Russian guards, whom they knew, were standing near the door, looking very much confused, and at first not disposed to take charge of the gifts. Finally, however, they did so. The sisters then walked away. Presently the soldiers came running after them. “Please will you come back,” they said. The nuns returned. An individual whom they afterwards identified as Yurovsky, inquired by whose authority they had brought the provisions. “Avdeiev and Derevenko,” was the truthful reply. “O, they are both in it, are they,” he remarked ominously. He nevertheless permitted them to come again, “but with milk only.”

This last week of their life must have been the most dreadful one of all for the Romanovs. Brutal and bestial as the Russians had been in the early part of their wardenship, they were preferable, even at their worst, to the silent relentless torture applied by Yurovsky, who also was a drunkard. He and his band watched them literally like a cat watches a mouse. He was polite to the Tsar and spoke softly to Alexis; he even permitted a priest to come and say prayers, which comforted Alexandra and the poor captives unspeakably; yet there is evidence that never had they looked so utterly, hopelessly wretched as under the tutelage of the Jew. This man’s brothers and sisters describe him as a “cruel tyrant who would not hesitate at anything to attain his ends.”

The man and his executioners only waited for the signal that was to come from Yankel Sverdlov. Everything was ready for the murder. The victims had been adequately tortured. Goloshchekin, the Jew Sadist, licked his lips in pleasurable anticipation.