Kingslayers. Who ordered the execution of the royal family

One of the most interesting historical topics for me is the high-profile murders of famous personalities. In almost all these murders and the investigations that were then carried out, there are many incomprehensible, contradictory facts. Often the killer was not found, or only the perpetrator, the scapegoat, was found. Main characters, the motives and circumstances of these crimes remained behind the scenes and made it possible for historians to put forward hundreds of different hypotheses, constantly interpret known evidence in a new and different way and write interesting books which I love so much.

In execution royal family in Yekaterinburg on the night of July 16-17, 1918, secrets and inconsistencies are more than years old for the regime that approved this execution and then carefully concealed its details. In this article, I will only give a few facts that prove that Nicholas II was not killed on that summer day. Although, I assure you, there are many more of them and still many professional historians do not agree with the official statement that the remains of the entire royal family were found, identified and buried.

I will very briefly remind you of the circumstances as a result of which Nicholas II and his family found themselves under the rule of the Bolsheviks and under the threat of execution. For the third year in a row, Russia was drawn into the war, the economy was in decline, and popular anger was fueled by scandals related to the tricks of Rasputin and the German origin of the emperor's wife. Unrest begins in Petrograd.

Nicholas II at that time was going to Tsarskoe Selo, because of the riots, he was forced to make a detour through the Dno station and Pskov. It is in Pskov that the tsar receives telegrams with requests from the commanders-in-chief to abdicate and signs two manifestos that legitimize his abdication. After this turning point for the empire and for his own event, Nikolai lives for some time under the protection of the Provisional Government, then falls into the hands of the Bolsheviks and dies in the basement of the Ipatiev house in July 1918 ... Or not? Let's look at the facts.

Fact number 1. Contradictory, and in some places simply fabulous testimonies of the participants in the execution.

For example, the commandant of the Ipatiev house and the leader of the execution, Ya.M. Yurovsky, in his note compiled for the historian Pokrovsky, claims that during the execution, the bullets ricocheted off the victims and flew around the room in a hail, as the women sewed up gems in your corsages. How many stones are needed for the corsage to provide the same protection as cast chain mail ?!

Another alleged participant in the execution, M.A. Medvedev, recalled not only a hail of ricochets, but also stone pillars that came from nowhere in a room in the basement, as well as a powder fog, because of which the executioners almost shot each other! And this, given that smokeless powder was invented more than thirty years before the events described.

Another killer, Pyotr Ermakov, argued that he single-handedly shot all the Romanovs and their servants.

The same room in the Ipatiev house, where, according to both the Bolsheviks and the chief White Guard investigators, the family of Nikolai Aleksandrovich Romanov was shot. It is quite possible that completely different people were shot here. More on this in future articles.

Fact number 2. There is a lot of evidence that the whole family of Nicholas II or one of its members were alive after the day of execution.

The railway conductor Samoilov, who lived in the apartment of one of the tsar's guards, Alexander Varakushev, assured the White Guards interrogating him that Nicholas II and his wife were alive on the morning of July 17. Varakushev convinced Samoilov that he saw them after the "execution" at the railway station. Samoilov himself saw only a mysterious car, the windows of which were painted over with black paint.

There are documented testimonies of Captain Malinovsky and several other witnesses who heard from the Bolsheviks themselves (in particular from Commissar Goloshchekin) that only the tsar was shot, the rest of the family was simply taken out (most likely to Perm).

The same "Anastasia", which had a striking resemblance to one of the daughters of Nicholas II. It is worth noting, however, that there were many facts indicating that she was an impostor, for example, she knew almost no Russian.

There is a lot of evidence that Anastasia, one of the Grand Duchesses, escaped execution, managed to escape from prison and ended up in Germany. For example, the children of the court physician Botkin recognized her. She knew many details from the life of the imperial family, which were later confirmed. And most importantly: an examination was carried out and the similarity of its structure was established auricle with the shell of Anastasia (after all, photographs and even videotapes depicting this daughter of Nikolai have been preserved) according to 17 parameters (according to German law, only 12 are enough).

The whole world (at least the world of historians) knows about the note of the grandmother of the Prince of Anjou, which was made public only after her death. In it, she claimed that she was Mary, the daughter of the last Russian emperor, and that the death of the royal family was an invention of the Bolsheviks. Nicholas II accepted certain conditions of his enemies and saved the family (although later it was separated). The story of the grandmother of the Prince of Anjou is confirmed by documents from the archives of the Vatican and Germany.

Fact number 3. The king's life was more profitable than death.

On the one hand, the masses demanded the execution of the tsar and, as you know, the Bolsheviks did not hesitate much with executions. But the execution of the royal family is not an execution, it is necessary to sentence to execution, to hold a trial. Here there was a murder without trial (at least formal, indicative) and investigation. And even if the former autocrat was still killed, why didn’t they show the corpse, didn’t prove to the people that they fulfilled his desire.

On the one hand, why should the Reds leave Nicholas II alive, he can become the banner of the counter-revolution. On the other hand, the dead are also of little use. And he could, for example, be exchanged alive for freedom for the German communist Karl Liebknecht (according to one version, the Bolsheviks did just that). There is also a version that the Germans, without whom at that time the communists would have had a very hard time, needed the signature of the former tsar on the Brest Treaty and his life as a guarantee of the fulfillment of the contract. They wanted to secure themselves in case the Bolsheviks did not hold on to power.

Also, do not forget that Wilhelm II was a cousin of Nicholas. It is hard to imagine that after almost four years of war, the German Kaiser had some kind of warm feelings towards the Russian Tsar. But some researchers believe that it was the Kaiser who saved the crowned family, since he did not want the death of his relatives, even if they were yesterday's enemies.

Nicholas II with his children. I would like to believe that they all survived that terrible summer night.

I don’t know if this article could convince anyone that the last Russian emperor was not killed in July 1918. But, I hope that many had doubts about this, which prompted them to dig deeper, to consider other evidence that contradicts the official version. Much more facts, indicating that the official version of the death of Nicholas II is false, you can find, for example, in the book of L.M. Sonin "The mystery of the death of the royal family". Most of the material for this article I took from this book.

According to official history, on the night of July 16-17, 1918, Nikolai Romanov, along with his wife and children, was shot. After the burial was opened and identified, the remains were reburied in 1998 in the tomb of the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg. However, then the ROC did not confirm their authenticity.

“I cannot rule out that the church will recognize the royal remains as genuine if convincing evidence of their authenticity is found and if the examination is open and honest,” said Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, in July this year.

As you know, the Russian Orthodox Church did not participate in the burial of the remains of the royal family in 1998, explaining this by the fact that the church is not sure whether the true remains of the royal family are buried. The Russian Orthodox Church refers to the book of the Kolchak investigator Nikolai Sokolov, who concluded that all the bodies were burned. Some of the remains collected by Sokolov at the place of burning are stored in Brussels, in the church of St. Job the Long-suffering, and they have not been examined. At one time, a version of the note by Yurovsky, who supervised the execution and burial, was found - it became the main document before the transfer of the remains (along with the book of the investigator Sokolov). And now, in the upcoming year of the 100th anniversary of the execution of the Romanov family, the Russian Orthodox Church has been instructed to give a final answer to all the dark places of execution near Yekaterinburg. To obtain a final answer under the auspices of the Russian Orthodox Church, research has been conducted for several years. Once again, historians, geneticists, graphologists, pathologists and other specialists are rechecking the facts, powerful scientific forces and the forces of the prosecutor's office, and all these actions again take place under a dense veil of secrecy.

Research on genetic identification is carried out by four independent groups of scientists. Two of them are foreign, working directly with the ROC. In early July 2017, the secretary of the church commission for studying the results of the study of the remains found near Yekaterinburg, Bishop Tikhon (Shevkunov) of Yegoryevsk, said: a large number of new circumstances and new documents. For example, Sverdlov's order to execute Nicholas II was found. In addition, according to the results of recent research, forensic experts confirmed that the remains of the king and queen belong to them, since a trace was suddenly found on the skull of Nicholas II, which is interpreted as a trace from a saber blow he received when visiting Japan. As for the queen, dentists identified her by the world's first porcelain veneers on platinum pins.

Although, if you open the conclusion of the commission, written before the burial in 1998, it says: the bones of the sovereign's skull are so destroyed that the characteristic callus cannot be found. In the same conclusion, severe damage to the teeth of the alleged remains of Nikolai by periodontal disease was noted, since this person never been to the dentist. This confirms that it was not the tsar who was shot, since the records of the Tobolsk dentist, whom Nikolai turned to, remained. In addition, the fact that the growth of the skeleton of "Princess Anastasia" is 13 centimeters larger than her lifetime growth has not yet been found. Well, as you know, miracles happen in the church ... Shevkunov did not say a word about the genetic examination, and this despite the fact that the genetic studies of 2003, conducted by Russian and American specialists, showed that the genome of the body of the alleged empress and her sister Elizabeth Feodorovna do not match , which means no relationship.

On this topic

In addition, in the museum of the city of Otsu (Japan) there are things left after the injury of the policeman Nicholas II. They have biological material that can be examined. According to them, Japanese geneticists from the Tatsuo Nagai group proved that the DNA of the remains of "Nicholas II" from near Yekaterinburg (and his family) does not 100% match the DNA of biomaterials from Japan. During the Russian DNA examination, second cousins ​​were compared, and in the conclusion it was written that "there are matches." The Japanese compared relatives of cousins. There are also the results of a genetic examination of the President of the International Association of Forensic Physicians, Mr. Bonte from Dusseldorf, in which he proved that the found remains and twins of the family of Nicholas II Filatov are relatives. Perhaps, from their remains in 1946, the “remains of the royal family” were created? The problem has not been studied.

Earlier, in 1998, the Russian Orthodox Church, on the basis of these conclusions and facts, did not recognize the existing remains as authentic, but what will happen now? In December, all the conclusions of the Investigative Committee and the commission of the Russian Orthodox Church will be considered by the Council of Bishops. It is he who will decide on the attitude of the church to the Yekaterinburg remains. Let's see why everything is so nervous and what is the history of this crime?

Worth the fight for that kind of money

Today, some of the Russian elites have suddenly awakened interest in one very piquant story of relations between Russia and the United States, connected with the Romanov royal family. Briefly, the story is this: more than 100 years ago, in 1913, the United States created the Federal Reserve System (FRS) - the central bank and printing press for the production of international currency, which still operates today. The Fed was created for the emerging League of Nations (now the UN) and would be a single world financial center with its own currency. Russia contributed 48,600 tons of gold to the "authorized capital" of the system. But the Rothschilds demanded that Woodrow Wilson, who was then re-elected as President of the United States, transfer the center to their private property along with gold. The organization became known as the Fed, where Russia owned 88.8%, and 11.2% - 43 international beneficiaries. Receipts stating that 88.8% of gold assets for a period of 99 years are under the control of the Rothschilds, six copies were transferred to the family of Nicholas II. The annual income on these deposits was fixed at 4%, which was supposed to be transferred to Russia annually, but settled on the X-1786 account of the World Bank and on 300 thousand accounts in 72 international banks. All these documents confirming the right to 48,600 tons of gold pledged to the FRS from Russia, as well as income from leasing it, the mother of Tsar Nicholas II, Maria Fedorovna Romanova, deposited in one of the Swiss banks. But the conditions for access there are only for the heirs, and this access is controlled by the Rothschild clan. For the gold provided by Russia, gold certificates were issued that allowed the metal to be claimed in parts - the royal family hid them in different places. Later, in 1944, the Bretton Woods Conference confirmed Russia's right to 88% of the Fed's assets.

This “golden” issue was once proposed by two well-known Russian oligarchs – Roman Abramovich and Boris Berezovsky. But Yeltsin "did not understand" them, and now, apparently, that very "golden" time has come ... And now this gold is remembered more and more often - though not at the state level.

On this topic

In Lahore, Pakistan, 16 police officers have been arrested in connection with the shooting of an innocent family on the streets of the city. According to eyewitnesses, the police stopped the car on its way to the wedding and brutally cracked down on its driver and passengers.

For this gold they kill, fight and make fortunes on it

Today's researchers believe that all wars and revolutions in Russia and in the world occurred due to the fact that the Rothschild clan and the United States did not intend to return the gold to the Russian Federal Reserve. After all, the execution of the royal family made it possible for the Rothschild clan not to give away gold and not pay for its 99-year lease. “Now, out of three Russian copies of the agreement on gold invested in the Fed, two are in our country, the third is presumably in one of the Swiss banks,” researcher Sergey Zhilenkov believes. - In the cache, in the Nizhny Novgorod region, there are documents from the royal archive, among which there are 12 "golden" certificates. If they are presented, then the global financial hegemony of the United States and the Rothschilds will simply collapse, and our country will receive a lot of money and all the opportunities for development, since it will no longer be strangled from across the ocean, ”the historian is sure.

Many wanted to close questions about royal assets with the reburial. Professor Vladlen Sirotkin also has an estimate for the so-called military gold exported to the West and East during the First World War and the Civil War: Japan - 80 billion dollars, Great Britain - 50 billion, France - 25 billion, USA - 23 billion, Sweden - 5 billion, the Czech Republic - $1 billion. Total - 184 billion. Surprisingly, officials in the US and UK, for example, do not dispute these figures, but are surprised at the lack of requests from Russia. By the way, the Bolsheviks remembered Russian assets in the West in the early 20s. Back in 1923, the people's commissar foreign trade Leonid Krasin ordered a British investigative law firm to evaluate Russian real estate and cash deposits abroad. By 1993, the firm reported that it had amassed a $400 billion data bank! And this is legal Russian money.

Why did the Romanovs die? Britain did not accept them!

There is a long-term study, unfortunately, by Professor Vladlen Sirotkin (MGIMO), who has already passed away, “Foreign Gold of Russia” (M., 2000), where the gold and other holdings of the Romanov family accumulated in the accounts of Western banks are also estimated at no less than 400 billion dollars, and together with investments - more than 2 trillion dollars! In the absence of heirs from the Romanovs, the closest relatives turn out to be members of the English royal family ... These are whose interests may be the background of many events of the XIX-XXI centuries ... By the way, it is not clear (or, on the contrary, it is understandable) for what reasons the royal house of England refused the family three times Romanovs in the shelter. The first time in 1916, at the apartment of Maxim Gorky, an escape was planned - the rescue of the Romanovs by abduction and the internment of the royal couple during their visit to an English warship, then sent to Great Britain. The second was Kerensky's request, which was also rejected. Then they did not accept the request of the Bolsheviks. And this despite the fact that the mothers of George V and Nicholas II were sisters. In the surviving correspondence, Nicholas II and George V call each other "Cousin Nicky" and "Cousin Georgie" - they were cousins ​​with an age difference of less than three years, and in their youth, these guys spent a lot of time together and were very similar in appearance. As for the queen, her mother, Princess Alice, was the eldest and beloved daughter of the English Queen Victoria. At that time, 440 tons of gold from the gold reserves of Russia and 5.5 tons of personal gold of Nicholas II were in England as collateral for military loans. Now think about it: if the royal family died, then to whom would the gold go? Close relatives! Isn't that the reason why Cousin Georgie was denied admission to Cousin Nicky's family? To get gold, its owners had to die. Officially. And now all this must be connected with the burial of the royal family, which will officially testify that the owners of untold wealth are dead.

Versions of life after death

All versions of the death of the royal family that exist today can be divided into three. The first version: the royal family was shot near Yekaterinburg, and their remains, with the exception of Alexei and Maria, were reburied in St. Petersburg. The remains of these children were found in 2007, all examinations were carried out on them, and they, apparently, will be buried on the day of the 100th anniversary of the tragedy. When confirming this version, it is necessary for accuracy to once again identify all the remains and repeat all examinations, especially genetic and pathological anatomical ones. The second version: the royal family was not shot, but was scattered throughout Russia and all family members died of natural causes, having lived their lives in Russia or abroad, in Yekaterinburg, a family of twins was shot (members of the same family or people from different families, but similar to members of the emperor's family). Nicholas II had twins after Bloody Sunday 1905. When leaving the palace, three carriages left. In which of them Nicholas II sat is unknown. The Bolsheviks, having seized the archive of the 3rd department in 1917, had these twins. There is an assumption that one of the families of twins - the Filatovs, who are distantly related to the Romanovs - followed them to Tobolsk. The third version: the secret services added false remains to the burial places of members of the royal family as they died naturally or before opening the grave. For this, it is necessary to carefully track, among other things, the age of the biomaterial.

Here is one of the versions of the historian of the royal family, Sergei Zhelenkov, which seems to us the most logical, although very unusual.

Before investigator Sokolov, the only investigator who published a book about the execution of the royal family, worked investigators Malinovsky, Nametkin (his archive was burned along with his house), Sergeev (dismissed from the case and killed), Lieutenant General Diterikhs, Kirsta. All these investigators concluded that the royal family was not killed. Neither the Reds nor the Whites wanted to disclose this information - they understood that the American bankers were primarily interested in obtaining objective information. The Bolsheviks were interested in the money of the king, and Kolchak declared himself the Supreme Ruler of Russia, which could not be with a living sovereign.

Investigator Sokolov conducted two cases - one on the fact of the murder and the other on the fact of the disappearance. In parallel, military intelligence in the person of Kirst conducted an investigation. When the whites left Russia, Sokolov, fearing for collected materials, sent them to Harbin - some of his materials were lost on the way. Sokolov's materials contained evidence of the financing of the Russian revolution by the American bankers Schiff, Kuhn and Loeb, and Ford became interested in these materials, in conflict with these bankers. He even called Sokolov from France, where he settled, to the USA. When returning from the USA to France, Nikolai Sokolov was killed. Sokolov's book came out after his death, and many people "worked" on it, removing many scandalous facts from there, so it cannot be considered completely truthful. The surviving members of the royal family were watched by people from the KGB, where a special department was created for this, which was dissolved during perestroika. The archive of this department has been preserved. The royal family was saved by Stalin - the royal family was evacuated from Yekaterinburg through Perm to Moscow and fell into the hands of Trotsky, then People's Commissar of Defense. To further save the royal family, Stalin carried out a whole operation, stealing it from Trotsky's people and taking them to Sukhumi, to a specially built house next to the former house of the royal family. From there, all family members were distributed to different places, Maria and Anastasia were taken to the Glinsk hermitage (Sumy region), then Maria was transported to Nizhny Novgorod region, where she died of illness on May 24, 1954. Anastasia subsequently married Stalin's personal bodyguard and lived very secluded on a small farm, died

June 27, 1980 in the Volgograd region. The eldest daughters, Olga and Tatyana, were sent to the Serafimo-Diveevsky convent - the empress was settled not far from the girls. But they did not live here for long. Olga, having traveled through Afghanistan, Europe and Finland, settled in Vyritsa Leningrad region where she died on January 19, 1976. Tatyana lived partly in Georgia, partly on the territory Krasnodar Territory, buried in Krasnodar Territory, died September 21, 1992. Alexei and his mother lived in their dacha, then Alexei was transferred to Leningrad, where he was "made" a biography, and the whole world recognized him as a party and Soviet leader Alexei Nikolaevich Kosygin (Stalin sometimes called him a prince in front of everyone). Nicholas II lived and died in Nizhny Novgorod (December 22, 1958), and the tsarina died in the village of Starobelskaya, Lugansk region, on April 2, 1948, and was subsequently reburied in Nizhny Novgorod, where she and the emperor share a common grave. Three daughters of Nicholas II, except for Olga, had children. N.A. Romanov talked with I.V. Stalin, and wealth Russian Empire were used to strengthen the power of the USSR ...

The 20th century did not start well for the Russian Empire. Failed at first Russo-Japanese War, as a result of which Russia lost Port Arthur, and the authorities lost their authority among the already dissatisfied people. Nicholas II, unlike his predecessors, nevertheless decided to make concessions and give up a number of powers. So the first parliament appeared in Russia, but this did not help either.

Low level economic development states, poverty, First World War and the growing influence of the socialists led to the overthrow of the monarchy in Russia. In 1917, Nicholas II signed the abdication of the throne on his behalf and on behalf of his son, Tsarevich Alexei. After that, the royal family, namely the emperor, his wife Alexandra Feodorovna, daughters Tatyana, Anastasia, Olga, Maria and son Alexei were sent to Tobolsk.

The emperor, his wife Alexandra Feodorovna, daughters Tatyana, Anastasia, Olga, Maria and son Alexei were sent to Tobolsk // Photo: ria.ru

Exile to Yekaterinburg and imprisonment in the Ipatiev house

There was no unity among the Bolsheviks about the future fate of the emperor. The country was plunged into civil war, and Nicholas II could become a trump card for the Whites. The Bolsheviks did not want this. But at the same time, according to a number of researchers, Vladimir Lenin did not want to quarrel with the German emperor Wilhelm, to whom the Romanovs were close relatives. Therefore, the "leader of the proletariat" was categorically against the massacre of Nicholas II and his family.

In April 1918, a decision was made to transfer the royal family from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg. In the Urals, the Bolsheviks were more popular and were not afraid that the emperor could be released by his supporters. The royal family was placed in the requisitioned mansion of the mining engineer Ipatiev. The physician Evgeny Botkin, the cook Ivan Kharitonov, the valet Alexei Trupp and the room girl Anna Demidova were admitted to Nicholas II and his family. From the very beginning they declared their readiness to share the fate of the deposed emperor and his family.

As noted in the diaries of Nikolai Romanov and members of his family, exile in Yekaterinburg was a test for them // Photo: awesomestories.com

As noted in the diaries of Nikolai Romanov and members of his family, exile in Yekaterinburg became a test for them. The guards assigned to them allowed themselves liberties and often morally mocked the crowned persons. But at the same time, the nuns of the Novo-Tikhvin Monastery daily sent fresh food to the emperor's table, trying to please the exiled anointed of God.

There is an interesting history associated with these deliveries. Once, in a cork from a bottle of cream, the emperor found a note on French. It said that officers who remembered the oath were preparing the emperor's escape and he needed to be ready. Each time Nicholas II received such a note, he and his family members went to bed dressed and waited for their deliverers.

Later it turned out that it was a provocation of the Bolsheviks. They wanted to test how ready the emperor and his family were to escape. It turned out that they were waiting for the right moment. According to some researchers, this only strengthened the new government in the belief that it was necessary to get rid of the king as soon as possible.

The execution of the emperor

Until now, historians have not been able to find out who made the decision to kill the imperial family. Some argue that it was Lenin personally. But there is no documentary evidence for this. according to another version, Vladimir Lenin did not want to stain his hands with blood, and the Ural Bolsheviks took responsibility for this decision. The third version says that Moscow found out about the incident after the fact, and the decision was actually made in the Urals in connection with the uprising of the White Czechs. As Leon Trotsky noted in his memoirs, the execution order was practically given personally by Joseph Stalin.

“Having learned about the uprising of the White Czechs and the approach of the Whites to Yekaterinburg, Stalin uttered the phrase: “The Emperor must not fall into the hands of the Whites.” This phrase became the death sentence for the royal family. Trotsky writes.

By the way, Leon Trotsky was to become the main prosecutor at the show trial of Nicholas II. But it never took place.

The facts show that the execution of Nicholas II and his family was planned. On the night of July 16-17, 1918, a car for transporting corpses arrived at Ipatiev's house. Then the Romanovs were awakened and ordered to dress urgently. Allegedly, a group of people tried to free them from captivity, so the family will be urgently transported to another place. The assembly took about forty minutes. After that, members of the royal family were taken to the basement. Tsarevich Alexei could not walk on his own, so his father carried him in his arms.

Finding that there was absolutely no furniture in the room where they were taken, the empress asked to bring two chairs, on one of which she sat herself, and on the second she sat her son. The rest were lined up against the wall. After everyone gathered in the room, their chief jailer Yurovsky went down to the royal family and read out the verdict to the king. Yurovsky himself does not exactly remember what he said at that moment. Approximately he said that the supporters of the emperor tried to free him, so the Bolsheviks were forced to shoot him. Nicholas II turned around and asked again, and immediately the firing squad opened fire.

Nicholas II turned around and asked again, and immediately the firing squad opened fire // Photo: v-zdor.com

Nicholas II was one of the first to be killed, but his daughters and the Tsarevich were finished off with bayonets and shots from a revolver. Later, when the dead were undressed, they found in their clothes great amount jewels that protected the girls and the empress from bullets. Jewelry was stolen.

Burial of the remains

Immediately after the execution, the bodies were loaded into a car. Servants and a physician were killed along with the imperial family. As the Bolsheviks later explained their decision, these people themselves expressed their readiness to share the fate of the royal family.

Initially, the bodies were planned to be buried in an abandoned mine, but this idea failed because they could not arrange a collapse, and the corpses were easy to find. After the Bolsheviks made an attempt to burn the bodies. This idea was a success with the Tsarevich and the room girl Anna Demidova. The rest were buried near the road under construction, after disfiguring the corpses with sulfuric acid. The burial was also supervised by Yurovsky.

Investigation and conspiracy theories

The murder of the royal family was investigated repeatedly. Soon after the murder, Yekaterinburg was still captured by the Whites, and the investigation was entrusted to the investigator of the Omsk District, Sokolov. After they were engaged in foreign and domestic experts. In 1998 the remains last emperor and his relatives were buried in St. Petersburg. The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation announced the closure of the investigation in 2011.

As a result of the investigation, the remains of the imperial family were discovered and identified. Despite this, a number of experts continue to assert that not all members of the royal family were killed in Yekaterinburg. It is worth noting that initially the Bolsheviks announced the execution of only Nicholas II and Tsarevich Alexei. For a long time, the world community and the people believed that Alexandra Fedorovna and her daughters were taken to another place and survived. In this regard, impostors periodically appeared, calling themselves the children of the last Russian emperor.

He was not shot, and the entire female half of the royal family was taken to Germany. But the documents are still classified...

FOR me, this story began in November 1983. I then worked as a photojournalist for a French agency and was sent to the summit of heads of state and government in Venice. There I accidentally met an Italian colleague who, having learned that I was Russian, showed me a newspaper (I think it was La Repubblica) dated the day of our meeting. In the article, which the Italian drew my attention to, it was about the fact that in Rome, at a very old age, a certain nun, Sister Pascalina, died. I later learned that this woman held an important position in the Vatican hierarchy under Pope Pius XII (1939-1958), but that is not the point.

The Secret of the Iron Lady of the Vatican

THIS sister Pascalina, who earned the honorary nickname of the "iron lady" of the Vatican, before her death called a notary with two witnesses and in their presence dictated information that she did not want to take with her to the grave: one of the daughters of the last Russian Tsar Nicholas II - Olga - was not shot by the Bolsheviks on the night of July 16-17, 1918, and lived a long life and was buried in a cemetery in the village of Marcotte in northern Italy.

After the summit, I went to this village with an Italian friend, who was both a driver and an interpreter for me. We found the cemetery and this grave. On the stove was written in German: "Olga Nikolaevna, the eldest daughter of the Russian Tsar Nikolai Romanov" - and the dates of life: "1895 - 1976". We talked with the cemetery watchman and his wife: they, like all the villagers, perfectly remembered Olga Nikolaevna, knew who she was, and were sure that the Russian Grand Duchess was under the protection of the Vatican.

This strange find interested me greatly, and I decided to find out for myself all the circumstances of the execution. And in general, was he?

I have every reason to believe that there was no execution. On the night of July 16-17, all the Bolsheviks and their sympathizers left for railway to Perm. The next morning, leaflets were posted around Yekaterinburg with the message that the royal family had been taken away from the city - and so it was. Soon the whites occupied the city. Naturally, an investigative commission "on the case of the disappearance of Tsar Nicholas II, the Empress, the Tsarevich and the Grand Duchesses" was formed, which did not find any convincing traces of execution.

Investigator Sergeev in 1919 said in an interview with an American newspaper: “I don’t think that everyone was executed here - both the tsar and his family. In my opinion, the empress, the prince and the grand duchesses were not executed in the Ipatiev house.” This conclusion did not suit Admiral Kolchak, who by that time had already proclaimed himself "the supreme ruler of Russia." And really, why does the "supreme" need some kind of emperor? Kolchak ordered a second investigative team to be assembled, which got to the bottom of the fact that in September 1918 the Empress and the Grand Duchesses were kept in Perm. Only the third investigator, Nikolai Sokolov (conducted the case from February to May 1919), turned out to be more understanding and issued a well-known conclusion that the whole family was shot, the corpses were dismembered and burned at the stake. "The parts that did not succumb to the action of fire," wrote Sokolov, "were destroyed with the help of sulfuric acid." What, then, was buried in 1998 in the Peter and Paul Cathedral? Let me remind you that soon after the start of perestroika, some skeletons were found on the Piglet Log near Yekaterinburg. In 1998, they were solemnly reburied in the family tomb of the Romanovs, after numerous genetic examinations had been carried out before that. Moreover, the secular power of Russia in the person of President Boris Yeltsin acted as a guarantor of the authenticity of the royal remains. But the Russian Orthodox Church refused to recognize the bones as the remains of the royal family.

But let's go back to the Civil War. According to my information, the royal family was divided in Perm. The path of the female part lay in Germany, while the men - Nikolai Romanov himself and Tsarevich Alexei - were left in Russia. Father and son were kept near Serpukhov for a long time. former dacha merchant Konshin. Later, in the reports of the NKVD, this place was known as "Object No. 17". Most likely, the prince died in 1920 from hemophilia. I can't say anything about the fate of the last Russian emperor. Except for one thing: in the 30s, "Object No. 17" was twice visited by Stalin. Does this mean that in those years Nicholas II was still alive?

The men were held hostage

IN order to understand why such incredible events from the point of view of a person of the 21st century became possible and to find out who needed them, you will have to go back to 1918. Remember from school course stories about the Brest peace? Yes, on March 3, in Brest-Litovsk, a peace treaty was concluded between Soviet Russia on the one hand and Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey on the other. Russia lost Poland, Finland, the Baltic States and part of Belarus. But it was not because of this that Lenin called the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk "humiliating" and "obscene." By the way, full text The treaty has not yet been published either in the East or in the West. I believe that because of the secret conditions in it. Probably, the Kaiser, who was a relative of Empress Maria Feodorovna, demanded that all the women of the royal family be transferred to Germany. The girls had no right to the Russian throne and, therefore, could not threaten the Bolsheviks in any way. The men, on the other hand, remained hostages - as guarantors that the German army would not go further east than it was written in the peace treaty.

What happened next? How was the fate of women exported to the West? Was their silence prerequisite their immunity? Unfortunately, I have more questions than answers.

By the way

Romanovs and false Romanovs

AT DIFFERENT years more than a hundred "miraculously saved" Romanovs appeared in the world. Moreover, in some periods and in some countries there were so many of them that they even arranged meetings. The most famous false Anastasia is Anna Anderson, who declared herself the daughter of Nicholas II in 1920. The Supreme Court of Germany finally refused her this only 50 years later. The most recent "Anastasia" is the century-old Natalia Petrovna Bilikhodze, who continued to play this old play as far back as 2002!

The murder of the Romanov family gave rise to many rumors, speculation, and we will try to figure out who ordered the assassination of the king.

Version One "Secret Directive"

One version, often and quite unanimously favored by Western scholars, is that all the Romanovs were destroyed in accordance with some kind of "secret directive" received from the government from Moscow.

It was this version that the investigator Sokolov adhered to, setting it out in his book full of various documents about the murder of the royal family. The same point of view is expressed by two other authors who personally took part in the investigation in 1919: General Dieterikhs, who was instructed to “observe” the progress of the investigation, and Robert Wilton, a correspondent for the London Times.

The books they wrote are the most important sources for understanding the dynamics of the development of events, but - like Sokolov's book - they are distinguished by a certain tendentiousness: Dieterikhs and Wilton strive at all costs to prove that the Bolsheviks who operated in were monsters and criminals, but just pawns in the hands of "non-Russians » elements, that is, a handful of Jews.

In some right circles white movement- namely, the authors mentioned by us adjoined - anti-Semitic sentiments manifested themselves at that time in extreme forms: insisting on the existence of a conspiracy of the "Jewish-Masonic" elite, they explained by this all the events that took place, from the revolution to the murder of the Romanovs, blaming only the Jews for their deeds.

We know almost nothing about the possible "secret directive" that came from Moscow, but we are well aware of the intentions and movements of various members of the Ural Council.

The Kremlin continued to evade the adoption of any specific solution about the fate of the imperial family. Perhaps, at first, the Moscow leadership thought about secret negotiations with Germany and intended to use the former tsar as their trump card. But then, once again, the principle of "proletarian justice" prevailed: they were to be judged on a demonstration open process and thereby demonstrate to the people and the whole world the grandiose meaning of the revolution.

Trotsky, filled with romantic fanaticism, saw himself as a public accuser and dreamed of experiencing moments worthy of the Great French Revolution in their significance. Sverdlov was instructed to deal with this issue, and the Ural Council was to prepare the process itself.

However, Moscow was too far from Yekaterinburg and could not fully assess the situation in the Urals, which was rapidly escalating: the White Cossacks and White Czechs successfully and quickly advanced towards Yekaterinburg, and the Red Army fled without offering resistance.

The situation became critical, and it even seemed that the revolution could hardly be saved; in this difficult situation When Soviet power could fall any minute, the very idea of ​​holding a show trial seemed anachronistic and unrealistic.

There is evidence that the Presidium of the Ural Council and the regional Cheka discussed the fate of the Romanovs with the leadership of the "center", and precisely in connection with the complicated situation.

In addition, it is known that at the end of June 1918, the military commissar of the Ural region and a member of the Presidium of the Ural Council Philip Goloshchekin went to Moscow to decide the fate of the imperial family. We do not know exactly how these meetings with government representatives ended: we only know that Goloshchekin was received at the house of Sverdlov, his great friend, and that he returned to Yekaterinburg on July 14, two days before the fateful night.

The only source that speaks of the existence of a "secret directive" from Moscow is Trotsky's diary, in which the former People's Commissar claims that he only learned about the execution of the Romanovs in August 1918 and that Sverdlov informed him about it.

However, the significance of this evidence is not too great, since we know another statement by the same Trotsky. The fact is that in the thirties, memoirs of a certain Besedovsky, a former Soviet diplomat who fled to the West, were published in Paris. An interesting detail: Besedovsky worked together with the Soviet ambassador in Warsaw, Piotr Voykov, an "old Bolshevik" who made a dizzying career.

It was the same Voikov who - while still being the Commissar of Food of the Ural Region - got sulfuric acid to pour it over the corpses of the Romanovs. Having become an ambassador, he himself will die a violent death on the platform of the Warsaw railway station: on June 7, 1927, Voikov will be shot with seven shots from a pistol by a nineteen-year-old student and “Russian patriot” Boris Koverda, who decided to avenge the Romanovs.

But let us return to Trotsky and Besedovsky. In the memoirs of the former diplomat, a story is given - allegedly recorded from the words of Voikov - about the murder in the Ipatiev House. Among other numerous fictions, there is one absolutely incredible in the book: Stalin turns out to be a direct participant in the massacre.

Subsequently, Besedovsky will become famous precisely as the author of fictional stories; to the accusations that fell from all sides, he answered that no one was interested in the truth and that he main goal was to lead the reader by the nose. Unfortunately, already in exile, blinded by hatred for Stalin, he believed the author of the memoirs and noted the following: “According to Besedovsky, regicide was the work of Stalin ...”

There is one more piece of evidence that can be considered confirmation that the decision to execute the entire imperial family was made "outside" Yekaterinburg. We are again talking about Yurovsky's "Note", which refers to the order for the execution of the Romanovs.

It should not be forgotten that the “Note” was compiled in 1920, two years after the bloody events, and that in some places Yurovsky’s memory betrays him: for example, he confuses the name of the cook, calling him Tikhomirov, and not Kharitonov, and also forgets that Demidova was a servant, not a lady-in-waiting.

You can also make another hypothesis, more plausible, and try to explain some not entirely clear places in the "Note" as follows: these brief memories were intended for the historian Pokrovsky and, probably, with the first phrase, the former commandant wanted to minimize the responsibility of the Ural Council and, accordingly, his own. The fact is that by 1920 both the goals of the struggle and the political situation itself had changed dramatically.

In his other memoirs, dedicated to the execution of the royal family and still unpublished (they were written in 1934), he no longer talks about the telegram, and Pokrovsky, touching on this topic, mentions only a certain “telephone message”.

And now let's consider the second version, which, perhaps, looks more plausible and impressed Soviet historians more, since it removed any responsibility from the top party leaders.

According to this version, the decision to execute the Romanovs was made by the members of the Ural Council, and quite independently, without even asking for sanction from the central government. Yekaterinburg politicians "had" to take such extreme measures due to the fact that the whites were advancing rapidly and it was impossible to leave the former sovereign to the enemy: to use the terminology of that time, Nicholas II could become a "living banner of the counter-revolution."

There is no information - or they have not yet been published - that the Uralsovet sent a message to the Kremlin about its decision before the execution.

The Ural Council clearly wanted to hide the truth from the Moscow leaders and, in this regard, gave two false information of paramount importance: on the one hand, it was alleged that the family of Nicholas II "was evacuated to safe place”And besides, the Council allegedly had documents confirming the existence of a White Guard conspiracy.

As for the first statement, there is no doubt that it was a shameful lie; but the second statement turned out to be a hoax: in fact, there could not be documents related to some major White Guard conspiracy, since there were not even individuals capable of organizing and carrying out such a kidnapping. Yes, and the monarchists themselves considered it impossible and undesirable to restore autocracy with Nicholas II as sovereign: the former tsar was no longer interested in anyone and, with general indifference, went towards his tragic death.

The third version: messages "on a direct wire"

In 1928, a certain Vorobyov, the editor of the Uralsky Rabochiy newspaper, wrote his memoirs. Ten years have passed since the execution of the Romanovs, and - no matter how terrible what I will say now - this date was considered as an "anniversary": many works were devoted to this topic, and their authors considered it their duty to boast of direct participation in the murder.

Vorobyov was also a member of the Presidium of the Executive Committee of the Ural Council, and thanks to his memoirs - although there is nothing sensational in them for us - one can imagine how the connection "on a direct wire" between Yekaterinburg and the capital took place: the leaders of the Ural Council dictated the text to the telegraph operator, and in Moscow Sverdlov personally tore off and read the tape. It follows that the Yekaterinburg leaders had the opportunity to contact the "center" at any time. So, the first phrase of Yurovsky's "Notes" - "16.7 a telegram was received from Perm ..." - is inaccurate.

At 9 pm on July 17, 1918, the Ural Council sent a second message to Moscow, but this time a very ordinary telegram. True, there was something special in it: only the address of the recipient and the signature of the sender turned out to be written letters, and the text itself was a set of numbers. Obviously, disorder and negligence have always been constant companions of the Soviet bureaucracy, which at that time was only being formed, and even more so in an environment of hasty evacuation: leaving the city, many valuable documents were forgotten on the Yekaterinburg telegraph. Among them was a copy of the same telegram, and it, of course, ended up in the hands of the whites.

This document came to Sokolov along with the materials of the investigation and, as he writes in his book, immediately attracted his attention, took a lot of his time and caused a lot of trouble. While still in Siberia, the investigator tried in vain to decipher the text, but he succeeded only in September 1920, when he was already living in the West. The telegram was addressed to the Secretary of the Council of People's Commissars Gorbunov and signed by the Chairman of the Ural Council Beloborodov. We present it in full below:

"Moscow. Secretary of the Council of People's Commissars Gorbunov with a reverse check. Tell Sverdlov that the whole family suffered the same fate as the head. Officially, the family will die during the evacuation. Beloborodov.

Until now, this telegram has been one of the main evidence that all members of the imperial family were killed; therefore, it is not surprising that its authenticity was often called into question, and by those authors who willingly pecked at fantastic versions about one or another of the Romanovs, who allegedly managed to avoid a tragic fate. There are no serious reasons to doubt the authenticity of this telegram, especially when compared with other similar documents.

Sokolov used Beloborodov's message to show the sophisticated cunning of all the Bolshevik leaders; he believed that the deciphered text confirmed the existence of a preliminary agreement between the Yekaterinburg leaders and the "centre". Probably, the investigator was not aware of the first report transmitted “by direct wire”, and the Russian version of his book does not contain the text of this document.

Let us digress, however, from Sokolov's personal point of view; we have two pieces of information transmitted nine hours apart, with the true state of affairs revealed only at the last moment. Giving preference to the version according to which the decision to execute the Romanovs was taken by the Ural Council, one can conclude that, by not immediately reporting everything that happened, the Yekaterinburg leaders wanted to mitigate, possibly, the negative reaction of Moscow.

Two pieces of evidence can be cited to support this version. The first belongs to Nikulin, the deputy commandant of the Ipatiev House (that is, Yurovsky) and his active assistant during the execution of the Romanovs. Nikulin also felt the need to write his memoirs, clearly considering himself - as, indeed, and his other "colleagues" - an important historical figure; in his memoirs, he openly claims that the decision to destroy the entire royal family was made by the Ural Council, completely independently and "at your own peril and risk."

The second testimony belongs to Vorobyov, already familiar to us. In the book of memoirs, a former member of the Presidium of the Executive Committee of the Ural Council says the following:

“... When it became obvious that we could not hold Yekaterinburg, the question of the fate of the royal family was posed point-blank. There was nowhere to take the former king away, and it was far from safe to take him away. And at one of the meetings of the Regional Council, we decided to shoot the Romanovs, without waiting for their trial.

Obeying the principle of "class hatred", people should not have felt the slightest pity for Nicholas II "Bloody" and utter a word about those who shared his terrible fate with him.

Version Analysis

And now the following quite logical question arises: was it within the competence of the Ural Council to decide on the execution of the Romanovs independently, without even applying for sanction to the central government, thus taking on all political responsibility for what they had done?

The first circumstance that should be taken into account is the outright separatism inherent in many local Soviets during the civil war. In this sense, the Uralsoviet was no exception: it was considered “explosive” and had already managed to openly demonstrate its disagreement with the Kremlin several times. In addition, representatives of the Left Social Revolutionaries and many anarchists were active in the Urals. With their fanaticism, they pushed the Bolsheviks to demonstration actions.

The third spurring circumstance was that some members of the Uralsoviet - including the chairman Beloborodov himself, whose signature is under the second telegraph - adhered to extreme left-wing views; these people survived many years of exile and tsarist prisons, hence their specific worldview. Although the members of the Ural Council were relatively young, they all went through the school of professional revolutionaries, and they had years of underground and "serving the cause of the party" behind them.

The struggle against tsarism in any form was the only purpose of their existence, and therefore they did not even have any doubts that the Romanovs, "enemies of the working people", should be destroyed. In that tense atmosphere, when raged Civil War and the fate of the revolution seemed to hang in the balance, the execution of the imperial family seemed to be a historical necessity, a duty that had to be fulfilled without falling into sympathetic moods.

In 1926, Pavel Bykov, who replaced Beloborodov as Chairman of the Ural Council, wrote a book entitled " Last days Romanovs"; as we will see later, it was the only Soviet source that confirmed the fact of the murder of the royal family, but this book was very soon withdrawn. Here is what Tanyaev writes in his introductory article: “This task was carried out by the Soviet government with its characteristic courage - to take all measures to save the revolution, no matter how arbitrary, lawless and harsh they may seem from the outside.”

And one more thing: “... for the Bolsheviks, the court in no way mattered as a body that clarifies the true guilt of this “holy family”. If the court had any meaning, it was only as a very good agitational tool for the political enlightenment of the masses, and no more. And here is another of the most “interesting” passages from Tanyaev’s preface: “The Romanovs had to be eliminated in an emergency.

The Soviet government in this case showed extreme democracy: it did not make an exception for the all-Russian murderer and shot him on a par with an ordinary bandit. Sofya Alexandrovna, the heroine of A. Rybakov’s novel “Children of the Arbat”, was right, having found the strength to shout in the face of her brother, an unbending Stalinist, the following words: “If the tsar judged you according to your laws, he would have held out for another thousand years ...”