Ilya Belous

Today, the tragic events of July 1918, when the Imperial Family died as a martyr, are increasingly becoming a tool for various political manipulations and suggestions of public opinion.

Many consider the leadership of Soviet Russia, namely V. I. Lenin and Y. M. Sverdlov, to be the direct organizers of the execution. It is very important to understand the truth about who conceived and committed this cruel crime, and why. Let's look into everything in detail, objectively using verified facts and documents.

August 19, 1993, in connection with the discovery of the alleged burial royal family on the old Koptyakovskaya road near Sverdlovsk, at the direction of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, criminal case No. 18/123666-93 was initiated.

Investigator for Particularly Important Cases of the Main Investigative Committee of the Investigative Committee under the RF Prosecutor's Office V.N. Solovyov, who led the criminal investigation into the death of the royal family, testified that there was not a single evidence that the execution was sanctioned by Lenin or Sverdlov, or of any involvement in the murder.

But first things first.

In August 1917 The provisional government sent royal family to Tobolsk.

Kerensky originally intended to send Nicholas II to England via Murmansk, but this initiative met with no support from either the British or the Provisional Government.

It is not clear what made Kerensky send the Romanovs to the peasant-revolutionary Siberia, which was then under the rule of the Socialist-Revolutionaries.

According to Karabchevsky's lawyer, Kerensky did not rule out a bloody denouement:

Kerensky leaned back in his chair, thought for a moment, and, passing the forefinger of his left hand along his neck, made an energetic gesture upwards. I and everyone understood that this was a hint of hanging. - Two, three victims, perhaps, are necessary! - said Kerensky, looking around us with his eyes that were either mysterious or half-sighted thanks to the upper eyelids hanging heavily over our eyes. // Karabchevsky N. P. Revolution and Russia. Berlin, 1921. Vol. 2. What my eyes have seen. Ch. 39.

After October revolution According to Nicholas II, the Soviet government took a position on the organization open court over the former emperor.

February 20, 1918 At a meeting of the commission under the Council of People's Commissars, the issue of "preparing an investigative material on Nikolai Romanov" was considered. Lenin spoke out for the trial of the former tsar.

April 1, 1918 The Soviet government decided to transfer the royal family from Tobolsk to Moscow. This was categorically opposed by the local authorities, who believed that the royal family should remain in the Urals. They offered to transfer her to Yekaterinburg. // Kovalchenko I.D. The age-old problem of Russian history // Journal Russian Academy Sciences, No. 10, 1994. P.916.

At the same time, Soviet leaders, including Yakov Sverdlov, the issue of the security of the Romanovs was worked out. In particular, April 1, 1918 The Central Executive Committee issued the following resolution:

“... Instruct the commissar for military affairs to immediately form a detachment of 200 people. (including 30 people from the Partisan detachment of the Central Executive Committee, 20 people from the detachment of the Left S.R.) and send them to Tobolsk to reinforce the guard and, if possible, immediately transport all those arrested to Moscow. This resolution is not subject to publication in the press. Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee Ya. Sverdlov. Secretary of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee V. Avanesov.

Academician-Secretary of the Department of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences Ivan Dmitrievich Kovalchenko in 1994 gives information similar to the testimony of investigator Solovyov:

“Judging by the documents we found, the fate of the royal family as a whole was not discussed in Moscow at any level. It was only about the fate of Nicholas II. It was proposed to hold a trial against him, Trotsky volunteered to be the accuser. The fate of Nicholas II was actually a foregone conclusion: the court could only pass a death sentence on him. Representatives of the Urals took a different position.

They believed that it was urgent to deal with Nicholas II. A plan was even developed to kill him on the way from Tobolsk to Moscow. The chairman of the Ural Regional Council, Beloborodov, wrote in his memoirs in 1920: “We believed that, perhaps, there was even no need to bring Nikolai to Yekaterinburg, that if favorable conditions were provided during his transfer, he should be shot on the road. Zaslavsky had such an order (the commander of the Yekaterinburg detachment sent to Tobolsk. - I.K.) and all the time tried to take steps to implement it, although to no avail. " // Kovalchenko I.D. The age-old problem of Russian history // Journal of the Russian Academy of Sciences, No. 10, 1994.

April 6, 1918 The All-Russian Central Executive Committee made a new decision - to transfer Nicholas II and his family to Yekaterinburg. Such a quick change of decision is the result of a confrontation between Moscow and the Urals, academician Kovalchenko claims.

In a letter from the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, Sverdlov, Ya.M. Uraloblsovet says:

“The task of Yakovlev is to deliver | Nicholas II | to Yekaterinburg alive and hand over either to the chairman Beloborodov or Goloshchekin. // Decree on the termination of the criminal case No. 18 / 123666-93 "On the clarification of the circumstances of the death of members of the Russian Imperial House and persons from their entourage in the period 1918-1919", paragraphs 5-6.

Yakovlev Vasily Vasilyevich is a professional Bolshevik with many years of experience, a former Ural militant. Real surname- Myachin Konstantin Alekseevich, pseudonyms - Stoyanovich Konstantin Alekseevich, Krylov. Yakovlev was given 100 revolutionary soldiers to the detachment, and he himself was endowed with emergency powers.

By this time, the leadership of the Council in Yekaterinburg decided the fate of the Romanovs in its own way - it made an unspoken decision on the need for the secret destruction of all members of the family of Nicholas II without trial or investigation during their move from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg.

Chairman of the Ural Council A.G. Beloborodov recalled:

“... it is necessary to dwell on one extremely important circumstance in the line of conduct of the Regional Council. We thought that there was probably no need to bring Nikolai to Yekaterinburg, that if favorable conditions were provided during his transfer, he should be shot on the road. Such an order had | the commander of the Yekaterinburg detachment | Zaslavsky and all the time tried to take steps towards its implementation, although to no avail. In addition, Zaslavsky, obviously, behaved in such a way that his intentions were unraveled by Yakovlev, which to some extent explains the misunderstandings that arose later between Zaslavsky and Yakovlev on a rather large scale. // Decree on the termination of the criminal case No. 18 / 123666-93 "On the clarification of the circumstances of the death of members of the Russian Imperial House and persons from their entourage in the period 1918-1919", paragraphs 5-6.

At the same time, the Ural leadership was ready to go into direct conflict with Moscow. An ambush was being prepared to kill the entire Yakovlev detachment.

Here is the statement of the statement of the Red Guard of the Ural detachment A.I. Nevolin to Commissioner Yakovlev V.V.

“... He was a member of the Red Army in the 4th hundred in Yekaterinburg ... Gusyatsky ... says that Commissar Yakovlev is traveling with the Moscow detachment, we need to wait for him ... assistant instructor Ponomarev and instructor Bogdanov begin: “We ... now decided this: on the way to Tyumen let's set up an ambush. When Yakovlev rides with Romanov, as soon as they catch up with us, you must use machine guns and rifles to whip the entire Yakovlev detachment to the ground. And don't tell anyone. If they ask what kind of detachment you are, then say that you are from Moscow, and do not say who your boss is, because you need to do this apart from the regional one and in general all the Soviets. I then asked the question: “Robbers, then, to be?” I, they say, personally do not agree with your plans. If you need to kill Romanov, then let someone alone decide, but I don’t allow such a thought in my head, bearing in mind that our entire armed force is on guard for the defense of Soviet power, and not for individual benefits, and people, if Commissar Yakovlev, seconded after him, is from the Council of People's Commissars, then he must introduce him to where he was ordered. But we were not and cannot be robbers, so that because of one Romanov, they would shoot the same Red Army comrades as we are. ... After that, Gusyatsky became even more angry with me. I see that the matter is beginning to touch my life. Looking for ways out, I finally decided to escape with Yakovlev's detachment. // Decree on the termination of the criminal case No. 18 / 123666-93 "On the clarification of the circumstances of the death of members of the Russian Imperial House and persons from their entourage in the period 1918-1919", paragraphs 5-6.

There was also a plan, tacitly approved by the Ural Council, to liquidate the royal family with the help of a train wreck on the way from Tyumen to Yekaterinburg.

A set of documents related to the relocation of the royal family from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg indicates that the Ural Council on issues related to the security of the royal family was in sharp confrontation with the central authorities.

A telegram from the Chairman of the Ural Council A.G. Beloborodov, sent by V.I. Lenin, in which he complains in an ultimatum form about the actions of the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee Ya.M. Sverdlov, in connection with his support for the actions of Commissioner V.V. Yakovlev (Myachin), aimed at the safe transfer of the royal family from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg.

Correspondence of Yakovlev V.V. with the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee Sverdlov Ya.M. shows the true intentions of the Bolsheviks of the Urals in relation to the royal family. Despite the clearly expressed position of Lenin V.I. and Sverdlov Ya.M. about the delivery of the royal family to Yekaterinburg alive, the Bolsheviks of Yekaterinburg went against the leadership of the Kremlin in this matter and made an official decision to arrest Yakovlev V.V. and even the use of armed force against his detachment.

On April 27, 1918, Yakovlev sends a telegram to Sverdlov, in which he testifies to the attempts of the local Bolsheviks to kill the Tsar's family (calling it with the code word "baggage") reflected by his fighters:

“I just brought some of my luggage. I want to change the itinerary due to the following extremely important circumstances. From Yekaterinburg to Tobolsk, special people arrived before me to destroy the luggage. The special-purpose detachment fought back - it almost came to bloodshed. When I arrived, the residents of Yekaterinburg gave me a hint that there was no need to bring luggage to the place. ... They asked me not to sit next to the luggage (Petrov). It was a direct warning that I might also be destroyed. ... Not having achieved their goal either in Tobolsk, or on the road, or in Tyumen, the Yekaterinburg detachments decided to ambush me near Yekaterinburg. They decided that if I did not give them the luggage without a fight, they decided to kill us too. ... Yekaterinburg, with the exception of Goloshchekin, has one desire: to do away with luggage at all costs. The fourth, fifth and sixth companies of the Red Army are preparing an ambush for us. If this is at odds with the central opinion, then it is madness to carry luggage to Yekaterinburg. // Decree on the termination of the criminal case No. 18 / 123666-93 "On the clarification of the circumstances of the death of members of the Russian Imperial House and persons from their entourage in the period 1918-1919", paragraphs 5-6.

When Nicholas II arrived in Yekaterinburg, local authorities provoked a crowd at the Yekaterinburg I station, which tried to lynch the family former emperor. Commissar Yakovlev acted decisively, threatening those who attempted on the tsar to use machine guns against them. Only this allowed to avoid the death of the royal family.

April 30, 1918 Yakovlev handed over to the representatives of the Ural Regional Council Nicholas II, Alexandra Fedorovna, Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna, Chamberlain V.A. Dolgorukov and life physician prof. Botkin, valet T.I. Chemodurov, footman I.L. Sednev and room girl A.S. Demidov. Dolgorukov and Sednev were arrested upon arrival and placed in a prison in Yekaterinburg. The rest were sent to the house of the industrialist and engineer Ipatiev N.N.

23 May 1918 Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich, Grand Duchesses Olga Nikolaevna, Tatyana Nikolaevna and Anastasia Nikolaevna were transported from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg. Along with them came a large group of servants and people from the environment. In Yekaterinburg, immediately after their arrival, Tatishchev, Gendrikova, Schneider, Nagornov, Volkov were arrested and placed in prison. The following were placed in the Ipatiev house: Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich, Grand Duchesses Olga Nikolaevna, Tatyana Nikolaevna and Anastasia Nikolaevna, the boy Sednev and the footman Trupp A.E. Footman Chemodurov was transferred from the Ipatiev house to the prison in Yekaterinburg.

June 4, 1918 at a meeting of the Board of the People's Commissariat of Justice of the RSFSR, the order of the Council of People's Commissars was considered, according to which a decision was made: to delegate to the Council of People's Commissars a representative from the People's Commissariat of Justice "as an investigator Comrade Bogrov." Materials relating to Nicholas II were systematically collected. Such a trial could only take place in the capitals. In addition, V.I. Lenin and L.D. Trotsky received messages from the Urals and from Siberia about the unreliability of the protection of the royal family. // Decree on the termination of the criminal case No. 18 / 123666-93 "On the clarification of the circumstances of the death of members of the Russian Imperial House and persons from their entourage in the period 1918-1919", paragraphs 5-6. 5.4. The situation of the family and people from the environment of the former Emperor Nicholas II after the Bolsheviks came to power

Sentiment towards Nicholas II in the Urals

Archival, newspaper and memoir sources coming from the Bolsheviks have preserved a lot of evidence that the "working masses" of Yekaterinburg and the Urals in general constantly expressed concern about the reliability of the protection of the royal family, the possibility of releasing Nicholas II and even demanded his immediate execution. If you believe the editor of the "Uralsky Rabochy" V. Vorobyov, "they wrote about this in letters that came to the newspaper, they spoke at meetings and rallies." This was probably true, and not only in the Urals. Among the archival documents there is, for example, this one.

July 3, 1918 The Council of People's Commissars received a telegram from the Kolomna District Committee of the Party. It reported that the Kolomna Bolshevik organization

"unanimously decided to demand from the Council of People's Commissars the immediate destruction of the entire family and relatives of the former tsar, because the German bourgeoisie, together with the Russian, are restoring the tsarist regime in the captured cities." “In case of refusal,” the Kolomna Bolsheviks threatened, “it was decided on your own enforce this decision." // Ioffe, G. Z. Revolution and the fate of the Romanovs / M .: Respublika, 1992 . pp.302-303

The Ural elite was all “leftist”. This was manifested in the issue of the Brest Peace, and in the separatist aspirations of the Ural Regional Council, and in relation to the deposed tsar, whom the Urals did not trust Moscow. Ural Chekist I. Radzinsky recalled:

“The dominance in the head was left, left-communist ... Beloborodov, Safarov, Nikolai Tolmachev, Evgeny Preobrazhensky - they were all leftists.”

The party line, according to Radzinsky, was led by Goloshchekin, who was also a “leftist” at that time.

In their "leftism" the Ural Bolsheviks were forced to compete with the Left Social Revolutionaries and anarchists, whose influence was always tangible, and by the summer of 1918 even increased. Even in the winter of 1918, a member of the Ural Regional Committee of the Party, I. Akulov, wrote to Moscow that the Left SRs were simply "puzzling" with "their unexpected radicalism."

The Ural Bolsheviks could not and did not want to give their political rivals the opportunity to reproach them for "slipping to the right." The SRs made similar announcements. Maria Spiridonova reproached the Bolshevik Central Committee for dismissing “tsars and sub-tsars” in “Ukraine, Crimea and abroad” and raising a hand against the Romanovs “only at the insistence of the revolutionaries,” referring to the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries and anarchists.

Commandant of the Ipatiev House (until 07/04/1918) A.D. Avdeev testified in his memoirs that a group of anarchists tried to pass a resolution "that the former tsar be executed immediately." Extremist-minded groups were not limited to some demands and resolutions. // Avdeev A. Nicholas II in Tobolsk and Yekaterinburg // Krasnaya Nov. 1928. No. 5. S. 201.

Chairman of the Yekaterinburg City Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies P.M. Bykov in his memoirs points to attempts to organize an attack on the Ipatiev house and eliminate the Romanovs. // Bulls P. The last days of the Romanovs. Uralbook. 1926. S. 113

“In the morning, for a long time, but in vain, they waited for the arrival of the priest to perform the service; everyone was busy in churches. During the day, for some reason, they didn’t let us out into the garden. Avdeev came and talked for a long time with Evg. Serg. According to him, he and the Regional Council are afraid of the actions of the anarchists and therefore, perhaps, we will have to leave soon, probably to Moscow! He asked to be prepared for departure. They immediately began to pack, but quietly, so as not to attract the attention of the guards, at the special request of Avdeev. Around 11 o'clock. In the evening he returned and said that we would stay a few more days. Therefore, on June 1, we stayed in bivouac, without laying out anything. The weather was good; The walk took place, as always, in two turns. Finally, after dinner, Avdeev, slightly tipsy, announced to Botkin that the anarchists had been captured and that the danger had passed and our departure had been cancelled! After all the preparations, it even became boring! In the evening we played bezique. // Diary of Nikolai Romanov // Red Archive. 1928. No. 2 (27). pp. 134-135

The next day, Alexandra Feodorovna wrote in her diary:

"Now they say that we are staying here, because they managed to capture the leader of the anarchists, their printing house and the whole group." //TSGAOR. F. 640. Op.1. D.332. L.18.

Rumors of lynching of the Romanovs swept the Urals in June 1918. Moscow began to send disturbing requests to Yekaterinburg. On June 20, the following telegram arrived:

“Information spread in Moscow that the former Emperor Nicholas II had allegedly been killed. Provide the information you have. Manager of the affairs of the Council of People's Commissars V. Bonch-Bruevich. // TsGAOR. F. 130. Op.2. D.1109. L.34

In accordance with this request, the commander of the Severoural group of Soviet troops R. Berzin, together with the military commissar of the Ural military district Goloshchekin and other officials, checked the Ipatiev House. In telegrams to the Council of People's Commissars, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the People's Commissariat for Military Affairs, he reported that

“All members of the family and Nicholas II himself are alive. All information about his murder is a provocation.” // TsGAOR. F.1235. op.93. D.558.L.79; F.130.Op.2.D.1109.L.38

June 20, 1918 In the premises of the Postal and Telegraph Office of Yekaterinburg, a conversation took place over a direct wire between Lenin and Berzin.

According to three former officials of this office (Sibirev, Borodin and Lenkovsky), Lenin ordered Berzin:

“... take the entire Royal Family under your protection, and prevent any violence against it, answering in this case with your (i.e. Berzin) own life.” // Summary of information on the Royal Family of the Department of Military Field Control under the Commissioner for the Protection of State Order and Public Peace in the Perm Province dated 11/III/1919. Published: The death of the Royal Family. Materials of the investigation in the case of the murder of the Royal Family, (August 1918 - February 1920), p. 240.

Newspaper "Izvestia" June 25 and 28, 1918 published denials of rumors and reports from some newspapers about the execution of the Romanovs in Yekaterinburg. // Ioffe, G. Z. Revolution and the fate of the Romanovs / M .: Respublika, 1992 . pp.303-304

Meanwhile, the White Czechs and Siberian troops were already bypassing Yekaterinburg from the south, trying to cut it off from the European part of Russia, capturing Kyshtym, Miass, Zlatoust and Shadrinsk.

As it appears, the Ural authorities made a fundamental decision on execution by July 4, 1918: on this day, commandant Avdeev, loyal to Nicholas II, was replaced by Chekist Ya.M. Yurovsky. There was a change in the protection of the royal family.

Security guard Netrebin V.N. wrote in his memoirs:

“Soon [after entering the internal guard on July 4, 1918 - S.V.], it was explained to us that ... we might have to execute the b / c [former tsar. - S.V.], and that we must strictly keep everything a secret, everything that can happen in the house ... Having received explanations from comrade. Yurovsky, that we need to think about how best to carry out the execution, we began to discuss the issue ... The day when the execution would have to be carried out was unknown to us. But we still felt that it would come soon.”

“The All-Russian Central Executive Committee does not give sanctions for execution!”

In early July 1918, the Ural Regional Council tried to convince Moscow to shoot the Romanovs. At this time, a member of the Presidium of the Regional Council, Philip Isaevich Goloshchekin, who knew Yakov Sverdlov well from underground work, went there. He was in Moscow during the fifth All-Russian Congress Soviets from 4 to 10 July 1918. The congress ended with the adoption of the Constitution of the RSFSR.

According to some reports, Goloshchekin stopped at Sverdlov's apartment. Among the main questions then could be: the defense of the Urals from the troops of the Siberian army and the White Czechs, the possible surrender of Yekaterinburg, the fate of the gold reserves, the fate of the former tsar. It is possible that Goloshchekin tried to coordinate the imposition of a death sentence on the Romanovs.

Probably, Goloshchekin did not receive permission to be shot from Sverdlov, and the central Soviet government, in the person of Sverdlov, insisted on a trial for which it was preparing. A participant in the execution of the royal family Medvedev (Kudrin) M.A. writes:

“... When I entered [the premises of the Ural Cheka on the evening of July 16, 1918], those present were deciding what to do with the former Tsar Nicholas II Romanov and his family. Information about a trip to Moscow to Ya.M. Sverdlov was made by Philip Goloshchekin. Goloshchekin failed to obtain sanctions from the All-Russian Central Executive Committee for the execution of the Romanov family. Sverdlov consulted with V.I. Lenin, who spoke in favor of bringing the royal family to Moscow and an open trial of Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra Fedorovna, whose betrayal during the First World War cost Russia dearly ... Ya.M. Sverdlov tried to give [Lenin] Goloshchekin’s arguments about the dangers of transporting the royal family’s train through Russia, where counter-revolutionary uprisings broke out in cities every now and then, about the difficult situation on the fronts near Yekaterinburg, but Lenin stood his ground: “Well, what if the front is retreating ? Moscow is now a deep rear! And here we will arrange a trial for them all over the world.” At parting, Sverdlov said to Goloshchekin: “Say so, Philip, to your comrades: the All-Russian Central Executive Committee does not give official sanction for execution.” // Decree on the termination of the criminal case No. 18 / 123666-93 "On the clarification of the circumstances of the death of members of the Russian Imperial House and persons from their entourage in the period 1918-1919", paragraphs 5-6

This position of the Moscow leadership must be considered in the context of the events taking place at that time on the fronts. For several months now, by July 1918, the situation had become increasingly critical.

Historical context

At the end of 1917 Soviet authority strenuously tried to get out of the First World War. Great Britain sought the resumption of the clash between Russia and Germany. On December 22, 1917, peace negotiations began in Brest-Litovsk. On February 10, 1918, the German coalition in an ultimatum demanded that the Soviet delegation accept extremely difficult peace conditions (Russia's rejection of Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, parts of Latvia, Estonia and Belarus). Contrary to Lenin's instructions, the head of the delegation, Trotsky, arbitrarily interrupted the peace negotiations, although the ultimatum had not yet been officially received, and stated that Soviet Russia did not sign peace, but stopped the war and demobilized the army. The negotiations were interrupted, and soon the Austro-German troops (over 50 divisions) went on the offensive from the Baltic to the Black Sea. On February 12, 1918, the offensive of Turkish troops began in Transcaucasia.

In an attempt to provoke Soviet Russia into continuing the war with Germany, the Entente governments offered her "help," and on March 6 the British troops occupied Murmansk under the false pretext of the need to protect the Murmansk Territory from the powers of the German coalition.

The open military intervention of the Entente began. // Ilya Belous / "Red" terror arose in response to international and "white" terror

Not having sufficient forces to repulse Germany, the Soviet Republic on March 3, 1918 was forced to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. On March 15, the Entente declared the non-recognition of the Brest Peace and accelerated the deployment of military intervention. On April 5, Japanese troops landed in Vladivostok.

Despite its severity, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk temporarily stopped the advance of German troops in the central directions and gave the Soviet Republic a little respite.

In March-April 1918, an armed struggle unfolded in Ukraine against the occupying Austro-German troops and the Central Rada, which, on February 9, concluded a “peace treaty” with Germany and its allies. The small Ukrainian Soviet units with battles retreated to the borders of the RSFSR in the direction of Belgorod, Kursk and to the Don region.

In mid-April 1918, German troops, violating Brest Treaty, occupied the Crimea and liquidated Soviet power there. Part of the Black Sea Fleet went to Novorossiysk, where, in view of the threat of the seizure of ships by the German invaders, they were flooded on June 18 by order of the Soviet government. Also, German troops landed in Finland, where they helped the Finnish bourgeoisie to eliminate the revolutionary power of the workers.

The Baltic Fleet, which was in Helsingfors, made the transition to Kronstadt under difficult conditions. On April 29, the German invaders in Ukraine eliminated the Central Rada, putting in power the puppet hetman P. P. Skoropadsky.

The Don Cossack counter-revolution also adopted a German orientation, again launching a civil war on the Don in mid-April.

On May 8, 1918, German units occupied Rostov, and then helped to take shape in the kulak-Cossack "state" - the "Great Don Host" led by Ataman Krasnov.

Turkey, taking advantage of the fact that the Transcaucasian Commissariat declared its independence from Soviet Russia, launched a broad intervention in the Transcaucasus.

On May 25, 1918, the rebellion of the Czechoslovak Corps, prepared and provoked by the Entente, began, the echelons of which were located between Penza and Vladivostok due to the upcoming evacuation to Europe. At the same time, German troops, at the request of the Georgian Mensheviks, landed in Georgia. The rebellion caused a sharp revival of the counter-revolution. Mass counter-revolutionary rebellions unfolded in the Volga region, in the South Urals, the North Caucasus, in the Trans-Caspian and Semirechensk regions. and other areas. With renewed vigor, the Civil War began to unfold in the Don, the North Caucasus and Transcaucasia.

Soviet power and the Soviet state were under the threat of complete occupation and liquidation. The Central Committee of the Communist Party directed all its forces to the organization of defense. Volunteer units of the Red Army were being formed all over the country.

In parallel, the Entente allocated significant funds and agents for the creation of military conspiratorial organizations within the country: the right-wing Socialist-Revolutionary “Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom” headed by Boris Savinkov, the right-wing monarchist “National Center”, the coalition “Union for the Revival of Russia. The Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks supported the petty-bourgeois counter-revolution, ideologically and organizationally. Work was carried out to destabilize the internal political life in the country.

On July 5, 1918, the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Yakov Blyumkin killed in Moscow the German ambassador to Moscow under the government of the RSFSR, Count Wilhelm Mirbach. The terrorist attack was designed to break the Brest Peace and a possible resumption of war with Germany. Simultaneously with the terrorist attack on July 6, 1918, an uprising of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries took place in Moscow and a number of large Russian cities.

The Entente began to land large landings in Vladivostok, the bulk of which were Japanese (about 75 thousand people) and American (about 12 thousand people) troops. The troops of the interventionists in the North, consisting of British, American, French and Italian units, were reinforced. In July, the Right SR Yaroslavl mutiny of 1918, prepared with the support of the Entente, and smaller mutinies in Murom, Rybinsk, Kovrov, and others took place. an agreement with the White Czechs, to move with them to Moscow.

The efforts of the interventionists and the internal counter-revolution were united.

“Their war with the civil war merges into one single whole, and this is the main source of the difficulties of the present moment, when the military question, military events, has again come to the fore as the main, fundamental question of the revolution” // Lenin V.I. Full coll. soch., 5th ed., vol. 37, p. 14.

English trace

Western services, based on Socialist-Revolutionary-anarchist elements, posed a serious threat to Russia, inflating chaos and banditry in the country in opposition to the policy of the new government.

The former Minister of War of the Provisional Government and Kolchakist A.I. Verkhovsky joined the Red Army in 1919. // Verkhovsky Alexander Ivanovich. On a difficult pass.

In his memoirs, Verkhovsky wrote that he was a member of the Union for the Revival of Russia, which had a military organization that trained personnel for anti-Soviet armed uprisings, which was financed by the "allies".

“In March 1918, I was personally invited by the Union for the Revival of Russia to join the military headquarters of the Union. The military headquarters was an organization that had the goal of organizing an uprising against the Soviet regime ... The military headquarters had connections with the allied missions in Petrograd. General Suvorov was in charge of relations with allied missions... Representatives of the allied missions were interested in my assessment of the situation from the point of view of the possibility of restoring ... the front against Germany. I had conversations on this subject with General Nissel, the representative of the French mission. Military headquarters through the cashier of the headquarters of Suvorov received funds from allied missions». // Golinkov D. L. Secret operations of the Cheka

The testimonies of A. I. Verkhovsky are fully consistent with the memoirs of another figure in the Union for the Revival of Russia, V. I. Ignatiev (1874-1959, died in Chile).

In the first part of his memoirs Some Facts and Results of the Four Years of the Civil War (1917-1921), published in Moscow in 1922, Ignatiev confirms that the organization's source of funds was "exclusively allied". the first amount from foreign sources Ignatiev received from General A.V. Gerua, to whom General M.N. Suvorov sent him. From a conversation with Gerua, he learned that the general was instructed to send officers to the Murmansk region at the disposal of the English general F. Poole, and that funds had been allocated to him for this business. Ignatiev received a certain amount from Gerua, then received money from one agent of the French mission - 30 thousand rubles.

An espionage group was operating in Petrograd, headed by the sanitary doctor V.P. Kovalevsky. She also sent officers, mostly guards, to the English General Poole in Arkhangelsk through Vologda. The group called for the establishment of a military dictatorship in Russia and was supported by British funds. The representative of this group, the English agent Captain G. E. Chaplin, worked in Arkhangelsk under the name Thomson. December 13, 1918 Kovalevsky was shot on charges of creating a military organization associated with the British mission.

On January 5, 1918, the Defense Union Constituent Assembly prepared a coup d'état that prevented the Cheka. The English plan failed. The Constituent Assembly was dispersed.

Dzerzhinsky was aware of the counter-revolutionary activities of the socialists, mainly the Socialist-Revolutionaries; their connections with the British services, about the flows of their financing by the Allies.

Detailed information about the activities of the Socialist-Revolutionaries in the various committees "Salvation of the Motherland and the Revolution", "Protection of the Constituent Assembly" and others disclosed by the Cheka was given already in 1927 by Vera Vladimirova in her book "The Year of Service of the "Socialists" to the Capitalists. Essays on history, counter-revolution in 1918"

Russian historian and politician V. A. Myakotin, one of the founders and leaders of the Union for the Revival of Russia, also published his memoirs in 1923 in Prague “From the recent past. On the other side." According to his story, relations with the diplomatic representatives of the allies were conducted by members of the Union for the Revival of Russia, specially authorized for this. These communications were carried out through the French ambassador Noulens. Later, when the ambassadors left for Vologda, through the French consul Grenard. The French financed the "Union", but Noulens directly stated that "the allies, in fact, do not need the assistance of Russian political organizations" and may well land their troops in Russia themselves. // Golinkov D. L. Secret operations of the Cheka.

The Russian Civil War was actively supported by British Prime Minister Lloyd George and US President Woodrow Wilson.

The US President personally oversaw the work of agents to discredit the Soviet government, and above all, the young government headed by Lenin, both in the West and in Russia.

In October 1918, on the direct orders of Woodrow Wilson, an edition was published in Washington. "German-Bolshevik conspiracy", better known as "The Sisson Papers", allegedly proving that the Bolshevik leadership consisted of direct agents of Germany, controlled by the directives of the German General Staff. // The German-Bolshevik conspiracy / by United States. Committee on Public Information; Sisson, Edgar Grant, 1875-1948; National Board for Historical Service

"Documents" was acquired at the end of 1917 by Edgar Sisson, special envoy of the US President in Russia, for 25 thousand dollars. The publisher of the publication was CPI - the Committee of Public Information under the US government. This committee was created by US President Woodrow Wilson and pursued the task of "influencing public opinion on the issues of US participation in the First World War", that is, CPI was a propaganda structure that served the US military. The committee existed from April 14, 1917 to June 30, 1919.

"Documents" fabricated Polish journalist and traveler Ferdinand Ossendowski. They allowed the myth to be spread throughout Europe about the leader of the Soviet state, Lenin, who allegedly "made a revolution with German money."

Sisson's mission went "brilliantly". He "obtained" 68 documents, some of which allegedly confirmed the existence of Lenin's connection with the Germans and even the direct dependence of the Council of People's Commissars on the Government of Kaiser Germany until the spring of 1918. More information about forged documents can be found on the website of academician Yu. K. Begunov.

Forgery continues to spread in modern Russia. So, in 2005, the documentary film “Secrets of Intelligence. Revolution in a suitcase.

Murder

In July, the White Czechs and the White Guards captured Simbirsk, Ufa and Yekaterinburg, where the "regional government of the Urals" was created. Germany demanded that the Kremlin give permission to send a battalion of German troops to Moscow to protect its subjects.

Under these conditions, the execution of the royal family could have a negative impact on the development of relations with Germany, since former empress Alexandra Feodorovna and the Grand Duchesses were German princesses. Given the current situation, under certain conditions, the extradition of one or more members of the royal family of Germany was not ruled out in order to alleviate the serious conflict caused by the assassination of the German ambassador Mirbach.

On July 16, 1918, a telegram arrived from Petrograd to Moscow with a quote from another telegram from a member of the presidium of the Ural Regional Council F. I. Goloshchekin to Moscow:

“July 16, 1918. Submitted on July 16, 1918 [at] 5:50 pm. Accepted on July 16, 1918 [at] 21:22. From Petrograd. Smolny. HP 142.28 Moscow, Kremlin, copy to Lenin.
From Yekaterinburg, the following is transmitted by direct wire: “Inform Moscow that the [trial] agreed with Filippov, due to military circumstances, cannot wait, we cannot wait. If your opinions are different, please let me know right now, out of turn. Goloshchekin, Safarov”
Get in touch with Yekaterinburg about this yourself
Zinoviev.

At that time, there was no direct connection between Yekaterinburg and Moscow, so the telegram went to Petrograd, and from Petrograd Zinoviev sent it to Moscow, to the Kremlin. The telegram arrived in Moscow on July 16, 1818 at 21:22. It was already 23:22 in Yekaterinburg.

“At this time, the Romanovs were already offered to go down to the execution room. We do not know if Lenin and Sverdlov read the telegram before the first shots were fired, but we know that the telegram did not say anything about the family and servants, so accusing the Kremlin leaders of killing children is at least unfair, ”says the investigator Solovyov in an interview with Pravda

On July 17, at 12 noon, a telegram addressed to Lenin from Yekaterinburg arrived in Moscow with the following content:

“In view of the approach of the enemy to Yekaterinburg and the disclosure by the Extraordinary Commission of a large White Guard conspiracy aimed at kidnapping the former tsar and his family ... by order of the Presidium of the Regional Council, Nikolai Romanov was shot on the night of July 16 to July 17. His family has been evacuated to a safe place.” // Heinrich Ioffe. Revolution and the Romanov family

Thus, Yekaterinburg lied to Moscow: the whole family was killed.

Lenin learned about the murder not immediately. On July 16, the editors of the Danish newspaper National Tidende sent Lenin the following request:

“There are rumors here that the former tsar has been killed. Please report the actual state of affairs." // IN AND. Lenin. unknown documents. 1891-1922 M., Russian Political Encyclopedia (ROSSPEN). 2000. p. 243

Lenin sent a reply to the telegraph:

"National Tidende. Copenhagen. The rumor is false, the former tsar is unharmed, all the rumors are just lies of the capitalist press.” //IN AND. Lenin. unknown documents. 1981-1922 M., Russian Political Encyclopedia (ROSSPEN). 2000. p. 243

Here is the conclusion of the investigator of the ICR for especially important cases Solovyov:

“The investigation has reliably established that Yakov Mikhailovich (Yankel Khaimovich) Yurovsky, his deputy Grigory Petrovich Nikulin, Chekist Mikhail Alexandrovich Medvedev (Kudrin), head of the 2nd Ural squad Pyotr Zakharovich Ermakov, his assistant Stepan Petrovich Vaganov, security guard Pavel Spiridonovich Medvedev, Chekist Alexei Georgievich Kabanov. Participation in the execution of the guard Viktor Nikiforovich Netrebin, Jan Martynovich Tselms and the Red Guard Andrey Andreyevich Strekotin is not excluded. There is no reliable information about the other participants in the execution.

By national composition the "firing" team included Russians, Latvians, one Jew (Yurovsky), possibly one Austrian or Hungarian.

These persons, as well as other participants in the execution, after Yurovsky pronounced Ya.M. The sentence began indiscriminate shooting, and the shooting was carried out not only in the room where the execution was carried out, but also from the adjacent room. After the first volley, it turned out that Tsarevich Alexei, the daughters of the Tsar, the maid A.S. Demidova and Dr. E.S. Botkin show signs of life. Grand Duchess Anastasia screamed, the maid Demidova A.S. rose to her feet, Tsarevich Alexei remained alive for a long time. They were shot with pistols and revolvers, Ermakov P.Z. finished off the survivors with a rifle bayonet. After the statement of death, all the corpses began to be transferred to the truck.

As established by the investigation, on the night of July 16-17, 1918, in the Ipatiev house in Yekaterinburg, the following were shot: the former Emperor Nicholas II (Romanov), the former Empress Alexandra Feodorovna Romanova, their children - Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich Romanov, Grand Duchesses Olga Nikolaevna Romanova, Tatyana Nikolaevna Romanova, Maria Nikolaevna Romanova and Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova, life physician Evgeny Sergeevich Botkin, maid Anna Stepanovna Demidova, cook Ivan Mikhailovich Kharitonov and footman Aloisy Egorovich Trupp.

The version is often circulated that the murder was “ritual”, that the heads of the corpses of members of the royal family were cut off after death. This version is not confirmed by the results of the forensic examination.

“In order to study the possible postmortem amputation of the head, the necessary forensic medical examinations were carried out on all sets of skeletons. According to the categorical conclusion of the forensic medical examination on the cervical vertebrae of skeletons No. 1-9 there are no traces that could indicate a post-mortem detachment of heads. At the same time, the version about a possible opening of the burial in 1919-1946 was checked. Investigative and expert data indicate that the burial was not opened until 1979, and during this opening, the remains of Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna were not affected. An audit by the FSB Directorate for the city of Yekaterinburg and the Sverdlovsk Region showed that the UFSB does not have data on a possible opening of the burial in the period from 1919 to 1978. // Resolution on the termination of the criminal case No. 18/123666-93 "On the clarification of the circumstances of the death of members of the Russian Imperial House and persons from their entourage in the period 1918-1919", paragraphs 7-9.

The All-Russian Central Executive Committee did not punish the Uraloblsovet for arbitrariness. Some consider this evidence that the sanction to kill did exist. Others - that the central government did not go into conflict with the Urals, because in the conditions of the successful offensive of the Whites, the devotion of the local Bolsheviks, and the propaganda of the Socialist-Revolutionaries about Lenin's sliding "to the right" were more important factors than the disobedience and execution of the Romanovs. The Bolsheviks may have feared a split under difficult conditions.

People's Commissar for Agriculture in the first Soviet government, Chairman of the Supreme Economic Council of the RSFSR V.P. Milyutin recalled:

“I returned late from the Council of People's Commissars. There were "current" cases. During the discussion of the draft on health care, Semashko's report, Sverdlov entered and sat down in his place on a chair behind Ilyich. Semashko finished. Sverdlov went up, leaned over to Ilyich and said something.
— Comrades, Sverdlov is asking for the floor for a message.
“I must say,” Sverdlov began in his usual tone, “a message has been received that in Yekaterinburg, by order of the regional Soviet, Nikolai was shot ... Nikolai wanted to run away. The Czechoslovaks advanced. The Presidium of the CEC decided to approve...
“Now let’s move on to reading the project article by article,” suggested Ilyich ... ” // Sverdlova K. T. Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov. - 4th. - M .: Young Guard, 1985.

“On July 8, the first meeting of the Presidium of the Central I.K. of the 5th convocation took place. Comrade presided. Sverdlov. Members of the Presidium were present: Avanesov, Sosnovsky, Teodorovich, Vladimirsky, Maksimov, Smidovich, Rozengolts, Mitrofanov and Rozin.
Chairman comrade. Sverdlov announces a message just received via a direct wire from the Regional Ural Council about the execution of the former Tsar Nikolai Romanov.
In recent days, the capital of the Red Urals, Yekaterinburg, was seriously threatened by the danger of the approach of Czechoslovak bands. At the same time, a new conspiracy of counter-revolutionaries was uncovered, with the aim of wresting the crowned executioner from the hands of Soviet power. In view of this, the Presidium of the Ural Regional Council decided to shoot Nikolai Romanov, which was carried out on July 16th.
The wife and son of Nikolai Romanov were sent to a safe place. Documents about the revealed conspiracy were sent to Moscow with a special courier.
Having made this message, comrade. Sverdlov recalls the story of the transfer of Nikolai Romanov from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg after the disclosure of the same organization of the White Guards, which was preparing the escape of Nikolai Romanov. In recent times, it has been proposed to bring the former king to justice for all his crimes against the people, and only the events of recent times have prevented this from being carried out.
The Presidium of the Central I.K., having discussed all the circumstances that forced the Ural Regional Council to decide on the execution of Nikolai Romanov, decided:
The All-Russian Central I.K., represented by its Presidium, recognizes the decision of the Ural Regional Council as correct.

The historian Ioffe believes that specific people played a fatal role in the fate of the royal family: the head of the Ural party organization and military commissar of the Ural region F.I. Goloshchekin, Chairman of the Presidium of the Executive Committee of the Ural Regional Council A. Beloborodov, and a member of the collegium of the Ural Cheka, the commandant of the "special purpose house" Ya.M. Yurovsky. // Ioffe, G. Z. Revolution and the fate of the Romanovs / M .: Respublika, 1992 . pp.311-312 Holo

It should be noted that in the summer of 1918 a whole "campaign" was carried out in the Urals to exterminate the Romanovs.

At night from 12 to 13 June 1918 Several armed men came to a hotel in Perm, where Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich and his personal secretary and friend Brian Johnson were living in exile. They took their victims into the forest and killed them. The remains have not been found so far. The murder was presented to Moscow as the kidnapping of Mikhail Alexandrovich by his supporters or a secret escape, which was used by local authorities as a pretext for tightening the regime for the detention of all the exiled Romanovs: the royal family in Yekaterinburg and the grand dukes in Alapaevsk and Vologda.

At night from 17 to 18 July 1918, simultaneously with the execution of the royal family in the Ipatiev House, the murder of six grand dukes who were in Alapaevsk was committed. The victims were taken to an abandoned mine and dumped into it.

The corpses were discovered only on October 3, 1918, after policeman Malshikov T.P. excavations in an abandoned coal mine located 12 versts from the city of Alapaevsk at a fork in the roads leading from the city of Alapaevsk to the Verkhotursky tract and to the Verkhne-Sinyachikhinsky plant. The doctor of the military hospital train No. 604 Klyachkin, on the instructions of the chief of police of the city of Alapaevsk, opened the corpses and established the following:

“Based on the data of a forensic autopsy of a citizen of the city of Petrograd, doctor Fyodor Semenovich REMEZ, I conclude:
Death occurred from hemorrhage of the pleural cavity and hemorrhages under the dura due to contusion.
Bruised injuries are fatal...
1. Death b. Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich occurred from a hemorrhage under the dura mater and a violation of the integrity of the substance of the brain as a result of a gunshot wound.
This damage is classified as lethal.
2. Death b. Prince Ioann Konstantinovich occurred from a hemorrhage under the dura mater and in both pleural cavities. The indicated injuries could have occurred from blows with a blunt hard object or from bruises when falling from a height onto some hard object.
3. Death b. Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich's death occurred from a hemorrhage under the dura mater and in the region of the pleural sacs. The indicated injuries occurred either as a result of blows to the head and chest with some hard blunt object, or from a bruise when falling from a height. Damage is classified as lethal.
4. Death b. Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna occurred from a hemorrhage under the dura mater. This injury could have occurred from a blow to the head with some blunt heavy object or from a fall from a height. The injury is classified as lethal.
5. The death of Prince Vladimir Paley occurred from hemorrhages under the dura mater and into the substance of the brain and into the pleura. These injuries could occur when falling from a height or from blows to the head and chest with a blunt hard tool. Damage is classified as lethal.
6. Death b. Prince Igor Konstantinovich occurred from a hemorrhage under the dura mater and a violation of the integrity of the cranial bones and the base of the skull and from hemorrhages into the pleural cavity and into the peritoneal cavity. These injuries occurred from blows by some blunt solid object or from a fall from a height. Damage is classified as lethal.
7. The death of the nun Varvara Yakovleva occurred from a hemorrhage under the dura mater. The damage in question could have been caused by blows with a blunt hard object or a fall from a height.
This whole act was drawn up in the most essential justice and conscience, in accordance with the rules of medical science and on duty, which we certify with our signatures ... "

Investigator Sokolov, Judicial Investigator for Particularly Important Cases of the Omsk District Court N. A. Sokolov, whom Kolchak instructed in February 1919 to continue the case of the murder of the Romanovs, testified:

“Both the Yekaterinburg and Alapaevsk murders are the product of the same will of the same people.” // Sokolov N. The murder of the royal family. S. 329.

Obviously: the incitement of the Ural Bolshevik elite to the murder of the royal family, and the incitement by the Socialist-Revolutionaries of such public requests in the Urals; material and consulting support for the White movement; sabotage activities of the counter-revolution within Russia; attempts to stir up a conflict between Russia and Germany; the accusation of the Soviet leadership of "involvement in German intelligence", which allegedly was the reason for his unwillingness to continue the war with Germany - all links in the same chain that stretches to the British and American intelligence services. We should not forget that a similar policy of clash between Russia and Germany was supported by British and American bankers just a few years after the events we are considering, taking on the financing of the Nazi military machine and fanning the fire of a new World War. // .

At the same time, even during the Second World War, the Third Reich, with all its sophisticated propaganda, did not release any German intelligence documents that would indicate connections with Lenin. But what a moral blow to Leninism, to the system of ideological coordinates of the Red Army soldiers who went into battle under the Leninist banner, and in general all Soviet citizens, would be! Obviously: such documents simply did not exist, just as Lenin's connection with German intelligence did not exist.

It should be noted that the version that the execution of the Royal Family was initiated by the Soviet leadership does not find any scientific confirmation, as well as the myth of the “ritual murder”, which today has become the core of monarchist propaganda, through which Western intelligence incites extremism of the Black Hundreds, anti-Semitic persuasion in Russia.

about the activities of P.L. Voikov

Pyotr Lazarevich Voikov (1888 - 1927) was born into the family of a seminary teacher (according to other sources, the director of the gymnasium). Since 1903, a member of the RSDLP, Menshevik. In the summer of 1906, he joined the fighting squad of the RSDLP, participated in the transportation of bombs and the assassination attempt on the Yalta mayor. Hiding from arrest for terrorist activities, he left in 1907 for Switzerland. Studied at the Universities of Geneva and Paris.

In April 1917, Voikov returned to Russia in a "sealed wagon" through Germany. He worked as a secretary to a comrade (deputy) minister of labor in the Provisional Government, contributed to the unauthorized seizure of factories. And in August he joined the Bolshevik Party.

From January to December 1918, Voikov was the commissar of supplies in the Ural region, supervised the forced requisitions of food from the peasants. His activities led to a shortage of goods and a significant decrease in the standard of living of the population of the Urals. Involved in repressions against entrepreneurs in the Urals.

P.L. Voikov, being a member of the Ural Regional Council, participated in the decision to execute Nicholas II, his wife, son, daughters and their companions. A participant in the execution of the royal family, Yekaterinburg Chekist M.A. Medvedev (Kudrin) indicates Voikov among those who made the decision to destroy the family of Nicholas II. His detailed memoirs about the execution and burial of the royal family were addressed to N.S. Khrushchev (RGASPI. F. 588. Op.3. D. 12. L. 43-58).

Voikov actively participated in the preparation and concealment of the traces of this crime. In documents judicial investigation, conducted by the investigator for especially important cases at the Omsk District Court N.A. Sokolov, contains two written demands from Voikov to issue 11 pounds of sulfuric acid, which was purchased at the Russian Society pharmacy store in Yekaterinburg and used to disfigure and destroy corpses (see: N.A. Sokolov. Murder of the Royal Family. M., 1991; N. A. Sokolov, Preliminary Investigation 1919-1922, Collection of Materials, M., 1998, The Death of the Royal Family, Materials of the Investigation in the Case of the Murder of the Royal Family (August 1918 - February 1920, Frankfurt am Main, 1987, etc.) .

The memoirs of the former diplomat G.Z. Besedovsky, who worked with Voikov in the Warsaw Permanent Mission. They contain the story of P.L. Voikov about his participation in the regicide. So, Voikov reports: “the question of the execution of the Romanovs was raised at the insistent demand of the Ural Regional Council, in which I worked as a regional food commissar ... The central Moscow authorities did not want to shoot the tsar at first, meaning to use him and his family to bargain with Germany ... But the Ural Regional Council and the Regional Committee of the Communist Party continued to strongly demand execution ... I was one of the most ardent supporters of this measure. The revolution must be cruel to the overthrown monarchs... The Ural Regional Committee of the Communist Party raised the issue of execution for discussion and finally decided it in a positive spirit from [beginning] July 1918. At the same time, not a single member of the regional party committee voted against ...

The implementation of the decree was entrusted to Yurovsky, as the commandant of the Ipatiev house. Voikov was supposed to be present during the execution as a delegate of the regional party committee. He, as a naturalist and chemist, was instructed to develop a plan for the complete destruction of corpses. Voikov was also instructed to read the decree on execution to the royal family, with a motivation consisting of several lines, and he really learned this decree by heart in order to read it as solemnly as possible, believing that by doing so he would go down in history as one of the main characters in this tragedy. Yurovsky, however, who also wanted to “go down in history”, got ahead of Voikov and, after saying a few words, began to shoot ... When everything was quiet, Yurovsky, Voikov and two Latvians examined the shot, firing several more bullets at some of them or piercing them with bayonets ... Voikov told me that it was a terrible picture. The corpses lay on the floor in nightmarish poses, their faces disfigured from horror and blood. The floor became completely slippery as in a slaughterhouse...

The destruction of the corpses began the very next day and was carried out by Yurovsky under the direction of Voikov and the supervision of Goloshchekin and Beloborodov ... Voikov recalled this picture with an involuntary shudder. He said that when this work was completed, near the mine lay a huge bloody mass of human stumps, arms, legs, torsos and heads. This bloody mass was poured with gasoline and sulfuric acid and immediately burned for two days in a row ... It was a terrible picture, - Voikov finished. - All of us, the participants in the burning of corpses, were downright depressed by this nightmare. Even Yurovsky, in the end, could not stand it and said that a few more days like that - and he would go crazy ... ”(Besedovsky G.Z. On the way to Thermidor. M., 1997. P. 111-116).

The cited account of what happened is consistent with other well-known documents and memoirs of participants in the murder of the royal family (see: Repentance. Materials of the Government Commission for the Study of Issues Related to the Study and Reburial of the Remains of the Russian Emperor Nicholas II and members of his family. M., 1998. P. 183 -223). At the same time, it should be said that they pierced with bayonets the living (bullets ricocheted from corsets) and innocent young girls, daughters of Nicholas II.

P.L. Voikov since 1920 was a member of the Collegium of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Trade. He is one of the leaders of the operation to sell unique treasures to the West at extremely low prices. imperial family, the Armory and the Diamond Fund, including well-known Easter eggs made by Faberge.

In 1921, Voikov headed the Soviet delegation, which agreed with Poland on the implementation of the Riga Peace Treaty. At the same time, he handed over Russian archives and libraries, art objects and material values ​​to the Poles.

Since 1924, Voikov became the Soviet plenipotentiary in Poland. In 1927, he was killed by a Russian emigrant B. Koverda, who declared that this was an act of revenge on Voikov for complicity in the murder of the royal family.

Senior Researcher

Candidate of Historical Sciences I.A. Courland

Researcher

Institute of Russian History RAS,

candidate of historical sciences V.V. Lobanov

RECEIPT

Workers' and Peasants' Government of the Russian Federal Republic Soviets Ural Regional Soviet of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies

Presidium No. 1

Receipt.

April 1918 30 days, I, the undersigned, chairman of the Ural Regional Council Rab., Kr. and Sold. Deputies Alexander Georgievich Beloborodov received from the Commissar of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee Vasily Vasilyevich Yakovlev delivered by him from the city of Tobolsk: 1. former Tsar Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov, 2. former Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna Romanova and 3. former. led. Princess Maria Nikolaevna Romanova, for their detention in the city of Yekaterinburg.

A. Beloborodov

Member Region Performed Committee G. Didkovsky

STORY

Yurovsky about the execution of the royal family

On the 15th, I began to prepare, as it was necessary to do it all quickly. I decided to take the same number of people as were being shot, I gathered them all, saying what was the matter, that everyone should prepare for this, that as soon as we received final instructions, it would be necessary to skillfully carry out everything. After all, it must be said that the execution of people is not at all as easy as it may seem to some. After all, this is not happening at the front, but, so to speak, in a “peaceful” situation. After all, there were not just bloodthirsty people here, but people who were fulfilling the heavy duty of the revolution. That is why it was not by chance that such a circumstance happened that at the last moment two of the Latvians refused - they could not stand the character.

On the morning of the 16th, under the pretext of a meeting with an uncle who had arrived in Sverdlovsk, I sent the cook boy Sednev. This caused anxiety among those arrested. The invariable intermediary Botkin, and then one of the daughters inquired where and why, took Sednev away for a long time. Alexei misses him. Having received an explanation, they left as if reassured. I prepared 12 revolvers, distributed who would shoot whom. Tov. Philip [Goloshchekin] warned me that a truck would arrive at 12 o'clock at night, those who arrived would say the password, let them through and hand over the corpses, which they would take away to bury. At about 11 o'clock in the evening on the 16th, I again gathered people, handed out revolvers and announced that we should soon begin to liquidate the arrested. I warned Pavel Medvedev about a thorough check of the guard outside and inside, that he and the guard should watch themselves all the time in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe house and the house where the external guards were located, and that they keep in touch with me. And, that only at the last moment, when everything is ready for execution, to warn both the sentries of everyone and the rest of the team that if shots are heard from the house, so as not to worry and do not leave the room and, what if anything especially will bother, then let me know through the established connection.

Only at half-past one did the truck arrive, the time of unnecessary waiting could no longer help but contribute to some anxiety, waiting in general, and most importantly, the nights are short. Only on arrival or after the phone calls that I left, I went to wake up the arrested.

Botkin was sleeping in the room closest to the entrance, he went out, asked what was the matter, I told him that it was necessary to wake everyone up right away, since it was alarming in the city and it was dangerous for them to stay up here, and that I would transfer them to another place. The preparations took a long time, about 40 minutes. When the family got dressed, I led them to a pre-designated room, downstairs. Comrade Nikulin and I obviously thought out this plan (here it must be said that we did not think in time about the fact that the windows would let the noise through, and secondly, that the wall near which the people to be shot would be placed was stone, and, finally, the third thing - which is impossible it was foreseen that the shooting would take on a disorderly character. This latter should not have happened because everyone would shoot one person i, that everything, therefore, would be in order. The reasons for the latter, that is, disorderly shooting, became clear later. Although I he warned them through Botkin that they did not need to take anything with them, however, they took some various trifles, pillows, handbags, etc., and, it seems, a small dog.

Having gone down into the room (here, at the entrance to the room, there is a very wide window on the right, almost the entire wall), I suggested that they stand along the wall. Obviously, at that moment they had no idea what awaited them. Alexandra Fedorovna said: “There aren’t even chairs here.” Alexei was carried in his arms by Nikolai. He stood with him in the room. Then I ordered to bring a couple of chairs, one of which right side from the entrance to the window almost into the corner of the village Alexandra Fedorovna. Next to her, towards the left side of the entrance, stood her daughters and Demidov. Then Alexei was seated next to him in an armchair, followed by Dr. Botkin, the cook and others, while Nikolai remained standing opposite Alexei. At the same time, I ordered that people come down, and ordered that everyone be ready and that everyone, when the command was given, be in his place. Nikolai, having seated Alexei, stood up so that he blocked him with himself. Alexei was sitting in the left corner of the room from the entrance, and I immediately, as far as I remember, told Nikolai something like the following, that his royal relatives and relatives both in the country and abroad were trying to free him, and that the Soviet of Workers' Deputies decided to shoot them. He asked: "What?" and turned to face Alexei, at that time I shot him and killed him on the spot. He did not have time to turn to face us to get an answer. Here, instead of order, random shooting began. The room, although very small, everyone, however, could enter the room and carry out the execution in order. But many, obviously, fired over the threshold, since the wall was made of stone, the bullets began to ricochet, and the shooting intensified when the cry of those being shot rose. With great difficulty I managed to stop the shooting. A bullet from one of the shooters from behind buzzed past my head, and one, I don’t remember whether it was a hand, a palm, or a finger, touched and shot through. When the shooting was stopped, it turned out that the daughters, Alexandra Fedorovna and, it seems, the maid of honor Demidova, as well as Alexei, were alive. I thought that they fell from fear or, perhaps, intentionally, and therefore are still alive. Then they started shooting (in order to have less blood, I suggested in advance to shoot in the heart area). Aleksei remained sitting petrified, I shot him. And [at] the daughters they shot, but nothing came of it, then Yermakov used the bayonet, and it didn’t help, then they shot them, shooting in the head. The reason why the execution of the daughters and Alexandra Fedorovna was difficult, I found out only in the forest.

Having finished with the execution, it was necessary to transfer the corpses, and the path is relatively long, how to transfer? Then someone guessed about the stretcher (they did not guess in time), took the shafts from the sleigh and pulled, it seems, a sheet. After checking that everyone was dead, they began to carry. It turned out that there would be traces of blood everywhere. I immediately ordered to take the existing soldier's cloth, put a piece in a stretcher, and then lined the truck with cloth. I instructed Mikhail Medvedev to take the corpses, he is a former Chekist and currently an employee of the GPU. It was he, together with Yermakov Petr Zakharovich, who had to accept and take away the corpses. When the first corpses were taken away, I, I don’t remember exactly who, said that someone had appropriated some valuables. Then I realized that, obviously, in the things they brought, there were values. I immediately stopped the transfer, gathered people and demanded to hand over the taken valuables. After some denial, the two who took their valuables returned them. Threatened with execution to those who would loot, he removed these two and ordered, as far as I remember, comrade. Nikulin, warning about the presence of the executed valuables. Having previously collected everything that turned out to be in certain things that were captured by them, as well as the things themselves, he sent them to the commandant's office. Tov. Philip [Goloshchekin], obviously sparing me (since I was not distinguished by health), warned me not to go to the “funeral”, but I was very worried about how well the corpses would be hidden. Therefore, I decided to go myself, and, as it turned out, I did well, otherwise all the corpses would certainly have been in the hands of the whites. It's easy to see what kind of speculation they would make around this case.

Having ordered everything to be washed and cleaned, we set off about 3 hours, or even a little later. I took with me a few people from the internal security. Where it was supposed to bury the corpses, I did not know, this business, as I said above, was apparently entrusted by Philip [Goloshchekin] Comrade Ermakov (by the way, Comrade Philip, as Pavel Medvedev, it seems, told me that very night, he saw him when he ran to the team, walked all the time near the house, probably worrying a lot about how everything would go here), who took us somewhere to the V [top]-Isetsky plant. I have not been to these places and did not know them. Approximately in 2 - 3 versts, and maybe more, from the Verkh-Isetsky plant, we were met by a whole escort on horseback and in cabs of people. I asked Ermakov what kind of people they were, why they were here, he answered me that they were people prepared for him. Why there were so many of them, I still don’t know, I heard only separate cries: “We thought that they would give us them alive, but here, it turns out, they are dead.” Still, it seems, after 3-4 versts we got stuck with a truck among two trees. Here some of Ermakov's people at the bus stop began to stretch the blouses of the girls, and again it turned out that there were valuables and that they were beginning to appropriate them. Then I ordered to put people in order not to let anyone near the truck. The stuck truck did not move. I ask Ermakov: “Well, is the place he has chosen far?” He says: "Not far, behind the railroad tracks." And here, in addition to being caught on trees, it is also a swampy place. Wherever we go, all swampy places. I think he brought so many people, horses, at least there were carts, otherwise cabs. However, there is nothing to do, you need to unload, lighten the truck, but this did not help either. Then I ordered to load on spans, as to wait longer time did not allow, it was already light. Only when it was already dawn, we drove up to the famous "tract". A few dozen paces from the planned burial shaft, peasants were sitting by the fire, apparently having spent the night in the hayfield. On the way, there were also loners at a distance, it became completely impossible to continue working in front of people. It must be said that the situation was becoming difficult, and everything could go down the drain. Even at that time I did not know that the mine was not fit for our purpose. And then there are those damned values. That there were quite a lot of them, I still did not know at that moment, and the people for such a case were recruited by Yermakov in no way suitable, and even so many. I decided that the people should be sucked out. I immediately learned that we had driven off from the city about 15-16 versts, and drove up to the village of Koptyaki, two or three versts from it. It was necessary to cordon off the place at a certain distance, which I did. I singled out people and instructed them to cover a certain area and, in addition, sent to the village so that no one would leave with an explanation that there were Czechoslovaks nearby. That our units have been moved here, that it is dangerous to show up here, then that everyone they meet will be turned into the village, and those who are stubbornly disobedient will be shot if nothing helps. I sent another group of people to the city as if they were not needed. Having done this, I ordered to download the corpses http://rus-sky.com/history/library/docs.htm - 21-30, take off the dress to burn it, that is, in case of destroying everything without a trace and then how to remove superfluous suggestive evidence if the corpses are found for some reason. He ordered to make fires, when they began to undress, it turned out that on the daughters and Alexandra Fedorovna, on the latter I don’t remember exactly what was on, either on the daughters or just sewn things. The daughters were wearing bodices so well made of solid diamonds and other valuable stones, which were not only receptacles for valuables, but at the same time protective shells. That is why neither the bullet nor the bayonet gave results when shooting and hitting the bayonet. By the way, no one is to blame for these death throes of theirs, except for themselves. These values ​​turned out to be only about half a pood. Greed was so great that, by the way, Alexandra Fedorovna was wearing just a huge piece of round gold wire, bent in the form of a bracelet, weighing about a pound. All valuables were immediately flogged so as not to carry bloody rags with them. Those parts of the valuables that the whites discovered during excavations undoubtedly belonged to things sewn separately and remained in the ashes of the fires during burning. Several diamonds were given to me the next day by comrades who found them there. As they did not watch over other remnants of valuables. They had enough time for this. Most likely, they simply did not guess. By the way, we must think that some valuables are returning to us through Torgsin, since, probably, they were picked up there after our departure by the peasants of the village [evni] Koptyaki. Valuables were collected, things were burned, and the corpses, completely naked, were thrown into the mine. This is where the new trouble began. The water covered the bodies a little, what to do here? They decided to blow up the mines with bombs in order to fill up. But, of course, nothing came of it. I saw that we had not achieved any results with the funeral, that it was impossible to leave it like that and that everything had to be started all over again. So what to do? Where to go? At about two o'clock in the afternoon, I decided to go to the city, since it was clear that the corpses had to be removed from the mine and transported somewhere to another place, since besides the fact that even a blind man would have discovered them, the place was failed, because people- they saw that something was going on here. Outposts left the guards in place, took the valuables and left. I went to the regional executive committee and reported to the authorities how bad everything was. T. Safarov and I don’t remember who else listened, and they didn’t say anything anyway. Then I found Philip [Goloshchekin], pointed out to him the need to transfer the corpses to another place. When he agreed, I suggested that we immediately send people to pull out the corpses. I'll look for a new place. Philip [Goloshchekin] summoned Ermakov, scolded him severely and sent him to retrieve the corpses. At the same time, I instructed him to take bread and dinner, since people there are almost a day without sleep, hungry, exhausted. There they had to wait for me to arrive. It was not so easy to get and pull out the corpses, and they suffered a lot with this. Obviously, they were busy all night, because they left late.

I went to the city executive committee to Sergei Egorovich Chutskaev, then the city executive committee, to consult, perhaps he knows such a place. He advised me on the Moscow highway very deep abandoned mines. I got a car, took with me someone from the regional Cheka, it seems Polushina, and someone else, and drove off before reaching a mile or a half to specified place, the car broke down, we left the driver to fix it, and we ourselves went on foot, examined the place and found that it was good, the whole point was that there were no extra eyes. Some people lived near here, we decided that we would come, pick them up, send them to the city, and at the end of the operation we would let them go, and we decided on that. Returning to the car, and she herself needs to be dragged. Decided to wait for someone passing by. After a while, someone rolls on a steam, stopped, the guys, it turned out, they know me, they rush to their factory. With great reluctance, of course, but I had to give up the horses.

While we were driving, another plan arose: to burn the corpses, but no one knows how to do it. Polushin seems to have said that he knows, well, okay, since no one really knew how it would turn out. I still had in mind the mines of the Moscow tract, and therefore transportation, I decided to get the carts, and, in addition, I had a plan, in case of any failure, to bury them in groups in different places on the road. The road leading to Koptyaki, near the tract, is clayey, so if you bury it here without prying eyes, not a single devil would guess, bury it and drive through it, you get a hodgepodge and that's it. So three plans. Nothing to drive, no car. I went to the garage of the chief of military transportation, if there were any cars. It turned out the car, but only the chief. I forgot his last name, who, as it turned out later, was a scoundrel and, it seems, he was shot in Perm. The head of the garage or the deputy head of military transportation, I don’t remember exactly, was Comrade Pavel Petrovich Gorbunov, currently deputy. [Chairman] of the State Bank, told him that I urgently need a car. He: “Oh, I know why.” And gave me the chief's car. I went to Voikov, the head of supply of the Urals, to extract gasoline or kerosene, as well as sulfuric acid, this is in case to disfigure faces, and, in addition, shovels. I got all this. As a comrade of the commissioner of justice of the Ural region, I ordered ten wagons without coachmen to be taken from prison. We loaded everything and went. A truck was sent there. I myself stayed to wait for Polushin, a “specialist” in incineration, who had gone missing somewhere. I was waiting for him at Voikov's. But after waiting until 11 o'clock in the evening, he did not wait. Then I was told that he had come to me on horseback, and that he had fallen off his horse and injured his leg, and that he could not ride. Bearing in mind that you can get back in the car, already at 12 o’clock at night, I went on horseback, I don’t remember with which comrade, to the location of the corpses. I also got into trouble. The horse stumbled, knelt down and somehow awkwardly fell on its side and crushed my leg. I lay there for an hour or more until I was able to get back on my horse. We arrived late at night, work was underway to extract [corpses]. I decided to bury some corpses on the road. They started digging a hole. She was almost ready by dawn, a comrade approached me and told me that, despite the prohibition not to let anyone close, a man familiar to Ermakov appeared from somewhere, whom he allowed to a distance from which it was clear that there was something then they dig, as heaps of clay lay. Although Ermakov assured that he could not see anything, then other comrades, besides the one who told me, began to illustrate, that is, showing where he was and that he, undoubtedly, could not help but see.

And so this plan failed. It was decided to restore the pit. After waiting for the evening, we boarded the cart. The truck was waiting in a place where it seemed to be guaranteed against the danger of getting stuck (the driver was the Zlokazovsky worker Lyukhanov). We were heading for the Siberian Highway. Having crossed the railroad track, we reloaded the corpses into a truck again and sat down again soon. After breaking through for about two hours, we were already approaching midnight, then I decided that we should be buried somewhere here, since no one here really could see us at this late hour in the evening, the only one who could see several people was the railway guard of the siding, for I sent to bring sleepers to cover the place where the corpses would be piled, bearing in mind that the only guess that the sleepers were here would be that the sleepers were laid in order to carry a truck. I forgot to say that this evening, or rather at night, we got stuck twice. Having unloaded everything, they got out, and the second time they got hopelessly stuck. About two months ago, leafing through the book of the investigator for extremely important cases under Kolchak Sokolov, I saw a picture of these laid sleepers, it is indicated there that here is a place laid with sleepers for a truck to pass. So, having dug up the whole area, they did not think to look under the sleepers. It must be said that everyone was so devilishly tired that they no longer wanted to dig a new grave, but as always happens in such cases, two or three got down to business, then others set to work, immediately lit a fire, and while the grave was being prepared, we burned two corpses : Alexei and, by mistake, instead of Alexandra Feodorovna, they obviously burned Demidov. A hole was dug at the place of burning, the bones were laid down, leveled, a large fire was lit again and all traces were hidden with ashes. Before putting the rest of the corpses in the pit, we doused them with sulfuric acid, filled up the pit, covered it with sleepers, the truck passed empty, compacted the sleepers a little and put an end to it. At 5-6 o'clock in the morning, having gathered everyone and outlining to them the importance of the work done, warning that everyone should forget about what they saw and never talk about it with anyone, we went to the city. Having lost us, we had already finished everything, the guys from the regional Cheka arrived: comrades Isai Rodzinsky, Gorin and someone else. On the evening of the 19th I left for Moscow with a report. I then handed over the valuables to Trifonov, a member of the Revolutionary Council of the Third Army; Soviet power in the liberated Urals, then I also went here to work, the same Novoselov valuables, I don’t remember with whom they took it out, but N. N. Krestinsky, returning to Moscow, took them there. When in 1921-23 I worked in the Gokhran of the Republic, putting things in order, I remember that one of Alexandra Feodorovna's pearl strings was valued at 600,000 gold rubles.

In Perm, where I was dismantling the former royal things, a lot of valuables were again discovered that were hidden in things up to black underwear, inclusive, and there was more than one carriage of good things.

MEMORIES

participant in the execution of the royal family Medvedev (Kudrin)

On the evening of July 16 of the New Style of 1918, in the building of the Ural Regional Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution (located in the American Hotel in the city of Yekaterinburg - now the city of Sverdlovsk), the Regional Council of the Urals met in an incomplete composition. When I, a Chekist from Yekaterinburg, was summoned there, I saw in the room the comrades I knew: Chairman of the Council of Deputies Alexander Georgievich Beloborodov, Chairman of the Regional Committee of the Bolshevik Party Georgy Safarov, Military Commissar of Yekaterinburg Filipp Goloshchekin, Council member Pyotr Lazarevich Voikov, Chairman of the Regional Cheka Fyodor Lukoyanov, my friends, members of the board of the Ural Regional Cheka Vladimir Gorin, Isai Idelevich (Ilyich) Rodzinsky (now a personal pensioner, lives in Moscow) and commandant of the House of Special Purpose (Ipatiev House) Yakov Mikhailovich Yurovsky.

When I entered, those present were deciding what to do with the former Tsar Nicholas II Romanov and his family. The report about the trip to Moscow to Y. M. Sverdlov was made by Philip Goloshchekin. Goloshchekin failed to obtain sanctions from the All-Russian Central Executive Committee for the execution of the Romanov family. Sverdlov consulted with V.I. Lenin, who spoke in favor of bringing the royal family to Moscow and an open trial of Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra Fedorovna, whose betrayal during the First World War cost Russia dearly.

- Precisely the All-Russian Court! - Lenin argued to Sverdlov: - with the publication in the newspapers. Calculate what human and material damage the autocrat inflicted on the country during the years of his reign. How many revolutionaries were hanged, how many died in hard labor, in a war that no one needed! To answer before all the people! Do you think that only a dark peasant believes in our good father-king. Not only, my dear Yakov Mikhailovich! Has it been a long time since your advanced worker from St. Petersburg went to the Winter Palace with banners? Just some 13 years ago! It is this incomprehensible “racial” credulity that the open trial of Nikolai the Bloody should dispel into smoke ...

Ya. M. Sverdlov tried to argue Goloshchekin about the dangers of transporting the royal family by train through Russia, where counter-revolutionary uprisings broke out in the cities every now and then, about the difficult situation on the fronts near Yekaterinburg, but Lenin stood his ground:

- Well, what if the front moves away? Moscow is now deep in the rear, so evacuate them to the rear! And here we will arrange for them to judge the whole world.

At parting, Sverdlov said to Goloshchekin:

- Say so, Philip, to your comrades - the All-Russian Central Executive Committee does not give official sanction for execution.

After Goloshchekin's story, Safarov asked the military commissar how many days, in his opinion, Yekaterinburg would hold out? Goloshchekin replied that the situation was threatening - the poorly armed volunteer detachments of the Red Army were retreating, and in three days, in a maximum of five, Yekaterinburg would fall. There was a painful silence. Everyone understood that to evacuate the royal family from the city not only to Moscow, but simply to the North would mean giving the monarchists a long-desired opportunity to kidnap the tsar. Ipatiev's house was to a certain extent a fortified point: two high wooden fences around, a system of posts of external and internal guards from workers, machine guns. Of course, we could not provide such reliable protection for a moving car or crew, especially outside the city.

Leaving the tsar to the white armies of Admiral Kolchak was out of the question - such a “mercy” jeopardized the existence of the young Republic of Soviets, surrounded by a ring of enemy armies. Hostile to the Bolsheviks, whom he considered traitors to the interests of Russia after the Brest Peace, Nicholas II would have become the banner of counter-revolutionary forces outside and inside the Soviet Republic. Admiral Kolchak, using the age-old belief in the good intentions of the tsars, could win over to his side the Siberian peasantry, who had never seen landowners, did not know what serfdom was, and therefore did not support Kolchak, who imposed landlord laws on the land he captured (thanks to the uprising of Czechoslovak corps) territory. The news of the "salvation" of the tsar would have multiplied the strength of the embittered kulaks in the provinces of Soviet Russia.

We, the Chekists, were fresh in our memory of the attempts of the Tobolsk clergy, headed by Bishop Hermogenes, to release the royal family from arrest. Only the resourcefulness of my friend, sailor Pavel Khokhryakov, who arrested Germogen in time and transported the Romanovs to Yekaterinburg under the protection of the Bolshevik Soviet, saved the situation. With the deep religiosity of the people in the province, it was impossible to allow the enemy to leave even the remains of the royal dynasty, from which the clergy would immediately fabricate “holy miraculous relics” - also a good flag for the armies of Admiral Kolchak.

But there was another reason that decided the fate of the Romanovs not in the way that Vladimir Ilyich wanted.

The relatively free life of the Romanovs (the mansion of the merchant Ipatiev did not even remotely resemble a prison) at such a disturbing time, when the enemy was literally at the gates of the city, caused understandable indignation among the workers of Yekaterinburg and its environs. At meetings and rallies at the factories of Verkh-Isetsk, the workers said bluntly:

- Why are you, Bolsheviks, babysitting Nikolai? It's time to finish! Otherwise, we will smash your Council to pieces!

Such sentiments seriously hampered the formation of units of the Red Army, and the very threat of reprisals was serious - the workers were armed, and their word and deed did not differ. Other parties also demanded the immediate execution of the Romanovs. As early as the end of June 1918, members of the Yekaterinburg Soviet, the Socialist-Revolutionary Sakovich and the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Khotimsky (later a Bolshevik, Chekist, died during the years of the personality cult, posthumously rehabilitated) at a meeting insisted on the speedy liquidation of the Romanovs and accused the Bolsheviks of inconsistency. The leader of the anarchists, Zhebenev, shouted to us in the Soviet:

- If you do not destroy Nicholas the Bloody, then we will do it ourselves!

Without the sanction of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee for execution, we could not say anything in response, and the position of delaying without explaining the reasons embittered the workers even more. Further postponing the decision about the fate of the Romanovs in a military situation meant further undermining the confidence of the people in our party. Therefore, it was the Bolshevik part of the regional Soviet of the Urals that gathered to finally decide the fate of the royal family in Yekaterinburg, Perm and Alapaevsk (the tsar's brothers lived there). It practically depended on our decision whether we would lead the workers to the defense of the city of Yekaterinburg or whether the anarchists and the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries would lead them. There was no third way.

For the last month or two, some “curious” people have been constantly climbing to the fence of the House of Special Purpose - mostly dark personalities, who, as a rule, came from St. Petersburg and Moscow. They tried to pass notes, products, sent letters by mail, which we intercepted: in all assurances of loyalty and offer of services. We, the Chekists, had the impression that there was some kind of White Guard organization in the city, stubbornly trying to get in touch with the tsar and tsarina. We stopped the admission to the house even of priests and nuns who carried food from the nearest monastery.

But not only the monarchists who secretly came to Yekaterinburg hoped to release the captive tsar on occasion - the family itself was ready for abduction at any moment and did not miss a single opportunity to contact the will. Yekaterinburg Chekists found out this readiness quite in a simple way. Beloborodov, Voikov and Chekist Rodzinsky wrote a letter on behalf of the Russian officer organization, which reported the imminent fall of Yekaterinburg and suggested preparing for an escape at night of a certain day. The note, translated into French by Voikov and rewritten in white red ink in the beautiful handwriting of Isai Rodzinsky, was handed over to the tsarina through one of the guards. The answer was not long in coming. Compose and send a second letter. Observation of the rooms showed that the Romanov family spent two or three nights dressed - the readiness for escape was complete. Yurovsky reported this to the regional Soviet of the Urals.

After discussing all the circumstances, we make a decision: on the same night to strike two blows: to liquidate two monarchist underground officer organizations that can strike in the back of the units defending the city (Chekist Isai Rodzinsky is allocated for this operation), and to destroy the royal Romanov family.

Yakov Yurovsky offers to make indulgence for the boy.

— What? heir? I'm against! I object.

- No, Mikhail, the kitchen boy Lenya Sednev needs to be taken away. A cook for something ... He played with Alexei.

What about the rest of the servants?

“From the very beginning, we suggested that they leave the Romanovs. Some left, and those who remained declared that they wanted to share the fate of the monarch. Let them share...

Decided: to save the life of only Lena Sedneva. Then they began to think about who to allocate for the liquidation of the Romanovs from the Ural Regional Extraordinary Commission. Beloborodov asks me:

- Will you take part?

- By decree of Nicholas II, I sued and was in prison. I definitely will!

“We still need a representative from the Red Army,” says Philip Goloshchekin: “I propose Pyotr Zakharovich Ermakov, military commissar of Verkh-Isetsk.

- Accepted. And from you, Jacob, who will participate?

“Me and my assistant Grigory Petrovich Nikulin,” Yurovsky replies. - So, four: Medvedev, Ermakov, Nikulin and me.

The meeting is over. Yurovsky, Ermakov and I went together to the House of Special Purpose, went up to the second floor to the commandant's room - here Chekist Grigory Petrovich Nikulin (now a personal pensioner, lives in Moscow) was waiting for us. They closed the door and sat for a long time, not knowing where to start. It was necessary to somehow hide from the Romanovs that they were being led to the execution. And where to shoot? In addition, there are only four of us, and the Romanovs with a life doctor, a cook, a footman and a maid - 11 people!

Hot. We can't think of anything. Maybe, when they fall asleep, throw grenades into the rooms? Not good - a roar for the whole city, they will still think that the Czechs broke into Yekaterinburg. Yurovsky suggested the second option: to stab everyone with daggers in their beds. They even distributed who to finish off whom. Waiting for sleep. Yurovsky several times goes to the rooms of the king and queen, the grand duchesses, servants, but everyone is awake - it seems that they are alarmed by the removal of the cook.

It was past midnight and it got colder. Finally, the lights went out in all the rooms of the royal family, apparently, they fell asleep. Yurovsky returned to the commandant's office and proposed a third option: to wake the Romanovs in the middle of the night and ask them to go down to the room on the first floor under the pretext that anarchists were preparing to attack the house and bullets during a shootout might accidentally fly into the second floor where the Romanovs lived (the tsar with the tsarina and Alexei - in the corner, and daughters - in the next room with windows on Voznesensky Lane). There was no real threat of anarchist attack that night, since shortly before that, Isai Rodzinsky and I dispersed the anarchist headquarters in the mansion of engineer Zheleznov (the former Commercial Assembly) and disarmed the anarchist squads of Petr Ivanovich Zhebenev.

They chose a room on the ground floor next to the pantry, just one barred window towards Voznesensky Lane (second from the corner of the house), ordinary striped wallpaper, a vaulted ceiling, a dim electric light bulb under the ceiling. We decide to put a truck in the yard outside the house (the yard is formed by an additional external fence from the side of the avenue and lane) and start the engine before the execution in order to muffle the shots in the room with noise. Yurovsky had already warned the outside guards not to worry if they heard shots inside the house; then we handed out revolvers to the Latvians of the internal guard - we considered it reasonable to involve them in the operation so as not to shoot some members of the Romanov family in front of others. Three Latvians refused to participate in the execution. The head of security, Pavel Spiridonovich Medvedev, returned their revolvers to the commandant's room. There were seven Latvians left in the detachment.

Long after midnight, Yakov Mikhailovich goes into the rooms of Dr. Botkin and the Tsar, asks to get dressed, wash and be ready to go down to the basement shelter. For about an hour the Romanovs put themselves in order after sleep, finally - at about three in the morning - they are ready. Yurovsky suggests that we take the remaining five revolvers. Pyotr Ermakov takes two revolvers and puts them in his belt, Grigory Nikulin and Pavel Medvedev take each revolver. I refuse, because I already have two pistols: an American Colt on my belt in a holster, and a Belgian Browning behind my belt (both historical pistols are Browning No. 389965 and a Colt, caliber 45, government model “C” No. 78517 - I have kept until today). The remaining revolver is taken first by Yurovsky (he has a ten-shot Mauser in his holster), but then he gives it to Yermakov, who tucks the third revolver into his belt. We all involuntarily smile, looking at his warlike appearance.

We go to the landing of the second floor. Yurovsky leaves for the royal chambers, then returns - they follow him in single file: Nicholas II (he carries Alexei in his arms, the boy has blood clotting, he hurt his leg somewhere and cannot walk by himself yet), he follows the king, rustling skirts, the tsarina, wrapped in a corset, followed by four daughters (of which I only know by sight the youngest, plump Anastasia and, older, Tatyana, who, according to Yurovsky’s dagger version, was entrusted to me until I argued with the tsar himself from Ermakov), the girls are followed by men: doctor Botkin, a cook, a footman, is carrying white pillows by the queen's tall maid. On the landing there is a stuffed bear with two cubs. For some reason, everyone is baptized, passing by the scarecrow, before going down. The procession is followed by Pavel Medvedev, Grisha Nikulin, seven Latvians (two of them have rifles with attached bayonets behind their shoulders), and Yermakov and I complete the procession.

When everyone entered the lower room (the house has a very strange arrangement of passages, so we had to first go to courtyard mansion, and then again enter the first floor), it turned out that the room was very small. Yurovsky and Nikulin brought three chairs - the last thrones of the condemned dynasty. On one of them, closer to the right arch, the queen sat on a cushion, followed by her three eldest daughters. For some reason, the youngest, Anastasia, went to the maid, who was leaning against the jamb of the locked door to the next pantry room. A chair was placed in the middle of the room for the heir, Nicholas II sat on a chair to the right, and Dr. Botkin stood behind Alexei's chair. The cook and the footman respectfully moved to the pillar of the arch in the left corner of the room and stood against the wall. The light of the bulb is so weak that the two female figures standing at the opposite closed door at times seem to be silhouettes, and only in the hands of the maid are two large pillows distinctly white.

The Romanovs are completely calm - no suspicions. Nicholas II, the tsarina and Botkin are carefully examining me and Ermakov as new people in this house. Yurovsky calls Pavel Medvedev away, and both go into the next room. Now to my left against Tsarevich Alexei stands Grisha Nikulin, against me is the tsar, to my right is Peter Ermakov, behind him is an empty space where a detachment of Latvians should stand.

Yurovsky enters swiftly and stands next to me. The king looks at him questioningly. I hear the sonorous voice of Yakov Mikhailovich:

- I'll ask everyone to stand up!

Easily, in a military way, Nicholas II stood up; flashing her eyes angrily, Alexandra Fyodorovna rose reluctantly from her chair. A detachment of Latvians entered the room and lined up just opposite her and her daughters: five people in the first row, and two - with rifles - in the second. The queen crossed herself. It became so quiet that from the courtyard through the window you can hear the rumble of a truck engine. Yurovsky steps forward half a step and addresses the tsar:

- Nikolai Alexandrovich! Attempts by your like-minded people to save you were unsuccessful! And so, in a difficult time for the Soviet Republic... - Yakov Mikhailovich raises his voice and cuts the air with his hand: - ... we have been entrusted with the mission to put an end to the house of the Romanovs!

Women's cries: “My God! Oh! Oh!" Nicholas II quickly mutters:

- Oh my God! Oh my God! What is this?!

— And that's what it is! - says Yurovsky, taking out a Mauser from his holster.

"Then they won't take us anywhere?" Botkin asks in a hollow voice.

Yurovsky wants to answer him something, but I'm already pulling the trigger of my "Browning" and putting the first bullet into the tsar. Simultaneously with my second shot, the first salvo of the Latvians and my comrades is heard from the right and left. Yurovsky and Yermakov also shoot Nicholas II in the chest almost in the ear. On my fifth shot, Nicholas II falls in a sheaf on his back. Women's squeals and groans; I see how Botkin falls, the footman settles against the wall and the cook falls to his knees. The white cushion moved from the door to the right corner of the room. In the powder smoke from the screaming women's group a female figure rushed to the closed door and immediately fell, struck down by the shots of Yermakov, who was already firing from the second revolver. You can hear how bullets ricochet from stone pillars, lime dust flies. Nothing is visible in the room because of the smoke - the shooting is already on the barely visible falling silhouettes in the right corner. The screams subsided, but the shots still rumble - Yermakov fires from the third revolver. Yurovsky's voice is heard:

- Stop! Stop shooting!

Silence. Ringing in the ears. Some of the Red Army soldiers were wounded in the finger of the hand and in the neck - either by a ricochet, or in a powder fog, Latvians from the second row of rifles burned them with bullets. The veil of smoke and dust thins. Yakov Mikhailovich invites me and Ermakov, as representatives of the Red Army, to witness the death of every member of the royal family. Suddenly, from the right corner of the room, where the pillow moved, a woman's joyful cry:

- God bless! God saved me!

Staggering, the surviving maid rises - she covered herself with pillows, in the fluff of which bullets got stuck. The Latvians had already shot all the cartridges, then two with rifles approached her through the lying bodies and pinned the maid with bayonets. From her death cry, the slightly wounded Alexei woke up and often groaned - he was lying on a chair. Yurovsky approaches him and fires the last three bullets from his Mauser. The guy calmed down and slowly slides to the floor at the feet of his father. Yermakov and I feel Nikolai's pulse - he is riddled with bullets, dead. We inspect the rest and shoot Tatiana and Anastasia, still alive, from the “colt” and the Yermakov revolver. Now everyone is breathless.

Head of security Pavel Spiridonovich Medvedev approaches Yurovsky and reports that shots were heard in the courtyard of the house. He brought the Red Army internal guards to carry the corpses and blankets that could be worn up to the car. Yakov Mikhailovich instructs me to oversee the transfer of corpses and loading into the car. The first is laid on a blanket, lying in a pool of blood, Nicholas II. The Red Army soldiers carry the remains of the emperor into the courtyard. I follow them. In the passage room I see Pavel Medvedev - he is deathly pale and vomits, I ask if he is injured, but Pavel is silent and waves his hand. Near the truck I meet Philip Goloshchekin.

- Where have you been? I ask him.

- Walked around the square. Heard shots. It was heard. — Bent over the king.

“The end, you say, of the Romanov dynasty?” Yes ... A Red Army soldier brought Anastasia's lap dog on a bayonet - when we walked past the door (to the stairs to the second floor), a long, plaintive howl was heard from behind the wings - the last salute to the Emperor of All Russia. The dog's corpse was thrown next to the royal one.

- Dogs - dog death! Goloshchekin said contemptuously.

I asked Philip and the driver to stand by the car while the corpses were being carried. Someone dragged a roll of soldier's cloth, one end spread it on sawdust in the back of a truck - they began to lay the executed on the cloth.

I accompany each corpse: now they have already figured out from two thick sticks and blankets to tie some kind of stretcher. I notice that in the room during packing, the Red Army soldiers remove rings and brooches from the corpses and hide them in their pockets. After everyone is packed into the back, I advise Yurovsky to search the porters.

“Let's make it easier,” he says, and orders everyone to go up to the second floor to the commandant's room. He lines up the Red Army men and says: - He suggested laying out on the table from his pockets all the jewelry taken from the Romanovs. Thinking for half a minute. Then I'll search every one I can find - execution on the spot! I will not allow looting. Got it all?

- Yes, we just like that - took the event as a keepsake, - the Red Army soldiers make an embarrassed noise. - Not to be lost.

On the table in a minute grows a pile of gold things: diamond brooches, pearl necklaces, wedding rings, diamond pins, gold pocket watches of Nicholas II and Dr. Botkin and other items.

The soldiers left to wash the floors in the lower room and adjacent to it. I go down to the truck, once again I count the corpses - all eleven are in place - I cover them with the free end of the cloth. Yermakov sits down next to the driver, several guards with rifles climb into the back. The car moves off, drives out of the wooden gates of the outer fence, turns right and along Voznesensky Lane through the sleeping city carries the remains of the Romanovs out of town.

Beyond Verkh-Isetsk, a few versts from the village of Koptyaki, the car stopped in a large clearing in which some kind of overgrown pits loomed. They made a fire to warm themselves - those who were riding in the back of the truck were cold. Then they began to take turns carrying the corpses to an abandoned mine, tearing off their clothes. Ermakov sent the Red Army soldiers to the road so that no one would be let through from the nearby village. On ropes, they lowered the executed into the shaft of the mine - first the Romanovs, then the servants. The sun was already out when they began to throw bloody clothes into the fire. ...Suddenly, a diamond trickle splashed from one of the ladies' bras. They trampled down the fire, began to choose jewelry from the ashes and from the ground. In two more bras in the lining, sewn-in diamonds, pearls, some colored precious stones were found.

A car rumbled on the road. Yurovsky drove up with Goloshchekin in a car. We looked into the mine. At first they wanted to fill the corpses with sand, but then Yurovsky said that they should drown in the water at the bottom - anyway, no one would look for them here, since this is an area of ​​​​abandoned mines, and there are a lot of trunks. Just in case, they decided to bring down the upper part of the cage (Yurovsky brought a box of grenades), but then they thought: explosions would be heard in the village, and fresh destruction was noticeable. They just threw old branches, branches, rotten boards found nearby. Ermakov's truck and Yurovsky's car started back. It was a hot day, everyone was exhausted to the limit, they struggled with sleep, for almost a day no one ate anything.

The next day - July 18, 1918 - the Ural Regional Cheka received information that the whole of Verkh-Isetsk was only talking about the execution of Nicholas II and that the corpses were thrown into abandoned mines near the village of Koptyaki. Here is the conspiracy! Not otherwise, as one of the participants in the burial told his wife in secret, she told the gossip, and it went all over the county.

Yurovsky was summoned to the collegium of the Cheka. Decided: that same night, send a car with Yurovsky and Ermakov to the mine, pull out all the corpses and burn them. From the Ural Regional Cheka, my friend Isai Idelevich Rodzinsky, a member of the collegium, was appointed for the operation.

So, the night came from July 18 to 19, 1918. At midnight, a truck with Chekists Rodzinsky, Yurovsky, Ermakov, sailor Vaganov, sailors and Red Army soldiers (a total of six or seven people) drove into the area of ​​abandoned mines. In the back were barrels of gasoline and boxes of concentrated sulfuric acid in bottles for disfiguring corpses.

Everything that I will tell you about the reburial operation, I speak from the words of my friends: the late Yakov Yurovsky and the now living Isai Rodzinsky, whose detailed memoirs must certainly be recorded for history, since Isai is the only survivor of the participants in this operation, who today can identify the place where the remains of the Romanovs are buried. It is also necessary to record the memoirs of my friend Grigory Petrovich Nikulin, who knows the details of the liquidation of the Grand Dukes in Alapaevsk and Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich Romanov in Perm.

We drove up to the mine, lowered two sailors on ropes - Vaganov and another one - to the bottom of the mine shaft, where there was a small platform-ledge. When all the executed were pulled out of the water by the ropes to the surface and laid in a row on the grass, and the Chekists sat down to rest, it became clear how frivolous the first burial was. In front of them lay ready-made “miraculous relics”: ice water mines not only completely washed away the blood, but also froze the bodies so much that they looked like they were alive - a blush even appeared on the faces of the king, girls and women. Undoubtedly, the Romanovs could have been preserved in such an excellent condition in a mine refrigerator for more than one month, and before the fall of Yekaterinburg, I remind you, there were only a few days left.

It started to get light. On the road from the village of Koptyaki, the first carts were pulled to the Upper Iset Bazaar. Exiled outposts from the Red Army blocked the road from both ends, explaining to the peasants that the passage was temporarily closed, as criminals had escaped from the prison, this area was cordoned off by troops and the forest was being combed. The leads were turned back.

The guys didn’t have a ready-made plan for the burial, where to take the corpses, no one knew where to hide them either. Therefore, they decided to try to burn at least some of the executed, so that their number would be less than eleven. They took away the bodies of Nicholas II, Alexei, the queen, Dr. Botkin, doused them with gasoline and set them on fire. The frozen corpses smoked, stank, hissed, but did not burn at all. Then they decided to bury the remains of the Romanovs somewhere. They piled all eleven bodies (of which four were charred) into the back of a truck, drove onto the Koptyakovskaya road and turned in the direction of Verkh-Isetsk. Not far from the crossing (apparently, through the Gorno-Uralskaya railway - check the location on the map with I. I. Rodzinsky) in a marshy lowland, the car stalled in the mud - neither forward nor backward. No matter how much they fought - not from a place. Boards were brought from the railway watchman's house at the crossing and with difficulty they pushed the truck out of the marshy pit that had formed. And suddenly someone (Ya. M. Yurovsky told me in 1933 that he was Rodzinsky) came up with the idea: this pit on the very road is an ideal secret mass grave for the last Romanovs!

They deepened the hole with shovels to black peat water. There, corpses were lowered into the swampy bog, filled with sulfuric acid, and covered with earth. A truck from the crossing brought a dozen old impregnated railway sleepers - they made a flooring over the pit from them, drove over it several times by car. The sleepers were slightly pressed into the ground, dirty, as if they had always been there.

Thus, in a random swampy pit, the last members of the royal Romanov dynasty, a dynasty that tyrannized Russia for three hundred and five years, found a worthy rest! The new revolutionary government did not make an exception for the crowned robbers of the Russian land: they were buried in the same way as from ancient times they buried robbers from the main road in Rus' - without a cross and a tombstone, so as not to stop the gaze of those walking along this road to a new life.

On the same day, Ya. M. Yurovsky and G. P. Nikulin left for Moscow through Perm to visit V. I. Lenin and Ya. M. Sverdlov with a report on the liquidation of the Romanovs. In addition to a bag of diamonds and other valuables, they carried all the diaries and correspondence of the royal family found in the Ipatiev house, photo albums of the royal family’s stay in Tobolsk (the king was a passionate amateur photographer), as well as those two letters in red ink that were compiled by Beloborodov and Voikov to clarify the mood royal family. According to Beloborodov, now these two documents were supposed to prove to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee the existence of an officer organization that set the goal of kidnapping the royal family. Alexander was afraid that V. I. Lenin would bring him to justice for arbitrariness with the execution of the Romanovs without the sanction of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. In addition, Yurovsky and Nikulin had to personally tell Ya. M. Sverdlov the situation in Yekaterinburg and the circumstances that forced the Ural Regional Council to decide on the liquidation of the Romanovs.

At the same time, Beloborodov, Safarov and Goloshchekin decided to announce the execution of only one Nicholas II, adding that the family was taken away and hidden in a safe place.

On the evening of July 20, 1918, I saw Beloborodov, and he told me that he had received a telegram from Ya. M. Sverdlov. The All-Russian Central Executive Committee at a meeting on July 18 decided: to consider the decision of the Ural Regional Council on the liquidation of the Romanovs correct. We hugged Alexander and congratulated each other, which means that in Moscow they understood the complexity of the situation, therefore, Lenin approved our actions. On the same evening, Philip Goloshchekin for the first time publicly announced at a meeting of the regional Council of the Urals about the execution of Nicholas II. There was no end to the jubilation of the listeners, the mood of the workers rose.

A day or two later, a report appeared in the Yekaterinburg newspapers that Nicholas II was shot by the people, and the royal family was taken out of the city and hidden in a safe place. I do not know the true goals of such a maneuver by Beloborodov, but I assume that the regional Soviet of the Urals did not want to inform the population of the city about the execution of women and children. Perhaps there were some other considerations, but neither I nor Yurovsky (whom I often met in Moscow in the early 1930s, and we talked a lot about the Romanov story) were not aware of them. One way or another, this deliberately false report in the press gave rise to rumors that live to this day about the salvation of the royal children, the flight of the daughter of the king Anastasia abroad and other legends.

Thus ended the secret operation to rid Russia of the Romanov dynasty. It was so successful that neither the secret of the Ipatiev house nor the burial place of the royal family has been revealed to this day.

RETURN

The criminal case on the murder of the royal family on July 17, 1918 was opened on August 19, 1993. The case was handled by the senior prosecutor-criminalist of the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation Vladimir Solovyov. On October 23, 1993, by order of the Government of the Russian Federation, a Commission was established to study issues related to the study and reburial of the remains of the Russian Emperor Nicholas II and members of his family. The first chairman is Deputy Prime Minister of the Government of the Russian Federation Yuri Yarov, since 1997 - Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov. Genetic examinations were carried out: in 1993 - at the Aldermaston Center for Forensic Research (England), in 1995 - at the Military Medical Institute of the US Department of Defense, in November 1997 - at the Republican Center for Forensic Medical Examination of the Ministry of Health of Russia. On January 30, 1998, the government commission completed its work and concluded: "The remains found in Yekaterinburg are the remains of Nicholas II, members of his family and close people." Answers were given to 10 questions of the Russian Orthodox Church. On February 26, 1998, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church spoke out in favor of the immediate burial of the remains of Emperor Nicholas II and members of his family in a symbolic memorial grave. When all doubts about the “Ekaterinburg remains” are removed and the grounds for embarrassment and confrontation in society “disappear”, we should return to the final decision on the place of their burial.

On February 27, 1998, the Government of Russia decided to bury the remains of Nicholas II and his family members in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg on July 17, 1998 - the day of the 80th anniversary of the execution of the royal family. On June 9, at a meeting of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, it was decided that Patriarch Alexy II would not take part in the burial ceremony of the royal remains. On July 17, the burial ceremony began at 12 o'clock. Russian President Boris Yeltsin delivered a speech. Members of the Government of the Russian Federation, scientists and cultural figures, public figures, more than 60 members of the Romanov House were present (Grand Duchess Leonida Georgievna, her daughter Maria Vladimirovna, Tsarevich Georgy were not present at the ceremony in the Peter and Paul Cathedral; they took part in a memorial service in the Trinity-Sergius Cathedral, served by Alexy II). At the time of the burial, a gun salute of 19 volleys sounded (two less than determined by the ritual established for the burial of the emperor). On the same day, memorial services were served in all churches for the innocently murdered Nicholas II and his family.

Historical reference RIA Novosti

The royal family spent 78 days in their last home.

Commissioner A. D. Avdeev was appointed the first commandant of the House of Special Purpose.

Preparations for the shooting

According to the official Soviet version, the decision to execute was made only by the Ural Council, Moscow was notified of this only after the death of the family.

In early July 1918, the Ural military commissar Filipp Goloshchekin went to Moscow to resolve the issue of the future fate of the royal family.

At its meeting on July 12, the Ural Council adopted a resolution on execution, as well as on methods for destroying corpses, and on July 16 transmitted a message (if the telegram was genuine) about this by direct wire to Petrograd - G. E. Zinoviev. At the end of the conversation with Yekaterinburg, Zinoviev sent a telegram to Moscow:

There is no archive source for the telegram.

Thus, the telegram was received in Moscow on July 16 at 21:22. The phrase “trial agreed with Filippov” is an encrypted decision on the execution of the Romanovs, which Goloshchekin agreed upon during his stay in the capital. However, the Uralsovet asked once again to confirm this in writing earlier. decision, referring to "military circumstances", as Yekaterinburg was expected to fall under the blows of the Czechoslovak Corps and the White Siberian Army.

Execution

On the night of July 16-17, the Romanovs and the servants went to bed, as usual, at 22:30. At 11:30 p.m., two special representatives from the Ural Council came to the mansion. They handed the decision of the executive committee to the commander of the security detachment P.Z. Ermakov and the new commandant of the house, Commissioner of the Extraordinary Investigation Commission Yakov Yurovsky, who replaced Avdeev in this position on July 4, and offered to immediately proceed with the execution of the sentence.

Awakened, family members and staff were told that due to the advance of the white troops, the mansion could be under fire, and therefore, for security reasons, it was necessary to go to the basement.

There is a version that the following document was drawn up by Yurovsky to carry out the execution: Revolutionary Committee under the Yekaterinburg Soviet of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies REVOLUTIONARY HEADQUARTERS OF THE URAL DISTRICT Extraordinary Commission C and o to the Special Forces to the house of Ipatiev / 1st Kamishl. Rifle Regiment / Commandant: Gorvat Laons Fischer Anzelm Zdelshtein Isidor Fekete Emil Nad Imre Grinfeld Victor Vergazi Andreas Prob.Com. Vaganov Serge Medvedev Pav Nikulin City of Ekaterinburg July 18, 1918 Chief of the Cheka Yurovsky However, according to V.P. Kozlov, I.F. Plotnikov, this document, once provided to the press by former Austrian prisoner of war I.P. Meyer, first published in Germany in 1956 and, most likely, fabricated, does not reflect the real shooter list. According to their version, the shooting team consisted of: a member of the collegium of the Ural Central Committee - M.A. Medvedev (Kudrin), the commandant of the house Y.M. Yurovsky, his deputy G.P. Nikulin, the security commander P.Z. Ermakov and ordinary soldiers of the guard - Hungarians (according to other sources - Latvians). In the light of I. F. Plotnikov’s research, the list of those who were shot may look like this: Ya. M. Yurovsky, G. P. Nikulin, M. A. Medvedev (Kudrin), P. Z. Ermakov, S. P. Vaganov, A. G Kabanov, P. S. Medvedev, V. N. Netrebin, Ya. M. Tselms and, under a very big question, an unknown student miner. Plotnikov believes that the latter was used in the Ipatiev house for only a few days after the execution, and only as a jewelry specialist. Thus, according to Plotnikov, the execution of the royal family was carried out by a group that consisted almost entirely of Russians in terms of national composition, with the participation of one Jew (Ya. M. Yurovsky) and, probably, one Latvian (Ya. M. Celms). According to surviving information, two or three Latvians refused to participate in the execution. , The fate of the Romanovs In addition to the family of the former emperor, all members of the Romanov House were destroyed, who for various reasons remained in Russia after the revolution (with the exception of Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich, who died in Tashkent from pneumonia, and two children of his son Alexander Iskander - Natalia Androsova (1917-1999 ) and Kirill Androsov (1915-1992), who lived in Moscow). Memoirs of contemporaries Memoirs of Trotsky My next visit to Moscow fell after the fall of Yekaterinburg. In a conversation with Sverdlov, I asked in passing: Yes, where is the king? - It's over, - he answered, - shot. - Where is the family? - And the family with him. - All? I asked, apparently with a hint of surprise. - That's it - Sverdlov answered, - but what? He was waiting for my reaction. I didn't answer. - And who decided? I asked. - We decided here. Ilyich believed that it was impossible to leave us a living banner for them, especially in the present difficult conditions. Memoirs of Sverdlova Somehow in mid-July 1918, shortly after the end of the Fifth Congress of Soviets, Yakov Mikhailovich returned home in the morning, it was already dawn. He said that he was late at the meeting of the Council of People's Commissars, where, among other things, he informed the members of the Council of People's Commissars about the latest news he had received from Yekaterinburg. - Haven't you heard? - Yakov Mikhailovich asked. - After all, the Urals shot Nikolai Romanov. Of course, I haven't heard anything yet. The message from Yekaterinburg was received only in the afternoon. The situation in Yekaterinburg was alarming: the White Czechs were approaching the city, the local counter-revolution was stirring. The Ural Council of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, having received information that Nikolai Romanov, who was being held in custody in Yekaterinburg, was preparing to escape, decided to shoot the former tsar and immediately carried out his sentence. Yakov Mikhailovich, having received a message from Yekaterinburg, reported on the decision of the regional council to the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, which approved the decision of the Ural Regional Council, and then informed the Council of People's Commissars. V. P. Milyutin, who participated in this meeting of the Council of People's Commissars, wrote in his diary: “I returned late from the Council of People's Commissars. There were "current" cases. During the discussion of the project on public health, the report of Semashko, Sverdlov entered and sat down in his place on a chair behind Ilyich. Semashko finished. Sverdlov went up, leaned over to Ilyich and said something. - Comrades, Sverdlov is asking for the floor for a message. “I must say,” Sverdlov began in his usual tone, “a message has been received that Nikolai was shot in Yekaterinburg by order of the regional Soviet ... Nikolai wanted to run away. The Czechoslovaks advanced. The Presidium of the Central Executive Committee decided to approve ... - Now let's move on to reading the project article by article, - suggested Ilyich ... " Destruction and burial of the royal remains Investigation Sokolov's investigation Sokolov painstakingly and selflessly conducted the investigation entrusted to him. Kolchak had already been shot, Soviet power returned to the Urals and Siberia, and the investigator continued his work in exile. With the materials of the investigation, he made a dangerous journey through all of Siberia to the Far East, then to America. In exile in Paris, Sokolov continued to take testimony from surviving witnesses. He died of a ruptured heart in 1924 without completing his investigation. It was thanks to the painstaking work of N. A. Sokolov that the details of the execution and burial of the royal family became known for the first time. The search for royal remains The remains of members of the Romanov family were discovered near Sverdlovsk back in 1979 during excavations led by consultant to the Minister of Internal Affairs Geliy Ryabov. However, then the found remains were buried at the direction of the authorities. In 1991, the excavations were resumed. Numerous experts have confirmed that the remains found then are most likely the remains of the royal family. The remains of Tsarevich Alexei and Princess Maria were not found. In June 2007, realizing the world historical significance of the event and the object, it was decided to carry out new survey work on the Old Koptyakovskaya road in order to find the alleged second hiding place for the remains of the members of the Romanov imperial family. In July 2007, the bones of a young man aged 10-13 years old, and a girl aged 18-23 years old, as well as fragments of ceramic amphoras with Japanese sulfuric acid, iron angles, nails, and bullets were found by Ural archaeologists near Yekaterinburg, not far from burial places of the family of the last Russian emperor. According to scientists, these are the remains of members of the Romanov imperial family, Tsarevich Alexei and his sister, Princess Maria, hidden by the Bolsheviks in 1918. Andrey Grigoriev, Deputy General Director of the Scientific and Production Center for the Protection and Use of Historical and Cultural Monuments of the Sverdlovsk Region: “I learned from the Ural local historian V. V. Shitov that the archive contains documents that tell about the stay of the royal family in Yekaterinburg and her subsequent murder, as well as an attempt to hide their remains. Until the end of 2006, we were unable to start prospecting. On July 29, 2007, as a result of the search, we stumbled upon finds.” On August 24, 2007, the General Prosecutor's Office of Russia resumed the investigation into the criminal case of the execution of the royal family in connection with the discovery near Yekaterinburg of the remains of Tsarevich Alexei and Grand Duchess Maria Romanov. Traces of cutting were found on the remains of the children of Nicholas II. This was announced by the head of the department of archeology of the research and production center for the protection and use of monuments of history and culture of the Sverdlovsk region Sergey Pogorelov. “Traces of the fact that the bodies were chopped up were found on a humerus belonging to a man and on a fragment of a skull identified as female. In addition, a fully preserved oval hole was found on the man's skull, possibly a trace from a bullet,” Sergey Pogorelov explained. 1990s investigation The circumstances of the death of the royal family were investigated as part of a criminal case initiated on August 19, 1993 at the direction of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation. The materials of the Government Commission for the study of issues related to the study and reburial of the remains of the Russian Emperor Nicholas II and members of his family have been published. Reaction to the shooting Kokovtsov V.N.: “On the day the news was printed, I was twice on the street, rode a tram, and nowhere did I see the slightest glimpse of pity or compassion. The news was read loudly, with grins, mockery and the most ruthless comments... Some kind of senseless callousness, some kind of boasting of bloodthirstiness. The most disgusting expressions: - it would have been so long ago, - come on, reign again, - cover Nikolashka, - oh, brother Romanov, danced. Heard all around, from the youngest youth, and the elders turned away, indifferently silent. Rehabilitation of the royal family In the 1990s-2000s, the question of the legal rehabilitation of the Romanovs was raised before various authorities. In September 2007, the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation refused to consider such a decision, since it did not find "accusations and relevant decisions of judicial and non-judicial bodies vested with judicial functions" on the fact of the execution of the Romanovs, and the execution was "a deliberate murder, albeit politically tinged, committed by persons not endowed with appropriate judicial and administrative powers". At the same time, the lawyer of the Romanov family notes that "As you know, the Bolsheviks transferred all power to the soviets, including the judiciary, so the decision of the Ural Regional Council is equated to a court decision." Supreme Court of the Russian Federation 8 on November 2007, he recognized the decision of the prosecutor's office as legal, considering that the execution should be considered exclusively within the framework of a criminal case.The decision of the Ural Regional Council dated July 17, 1918, which adopted the decision about the execution. This document was presented by the lawyers of the Romanovs as an argument confirming the political nature of the murder, which was also noted by representatives of the prosecutor's office, however, according to Russian legislation on rehabilitation, a decision of bodies vested with judicial functions is required to establish the fact of repression, which the Ural Regional Council de jure was not. Since the case had been considered by a higher court, representatives of the Romanov family intended to challenge the decision of the Russian court in the European Court. However, on October 1, the Presidium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation recognized Nikolai and his family as victims of political repression and rehabilitated them,,. As the lawyer of the Grand Duchess Maria Romanova Herman Lukyanov stated: According to the judge, According to procedural rules Russian legislation, the decision of the Presidium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation is final and not subject to review (appeal). On January 15, 2009, the case of the murder of the royal family was closed. . . In June 2009, the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation decided to rehabilitate six more members of the Romanov family: Mikhail Aleksandrovich Romanov, Elizaveta Fedorovna Romanova, Sergey Mikhailovich Romanov, Ioan Konstantinovich Romanov, Konstantin Konstantinovich Romanov and Igor Konstantinovich Romanov, class and social characteristics, without being charged with a specific crime...“. In accordance with Art. 1 and pp. "c", "e" art. 3 of the Law of the Russian Federation "On the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repressions", the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation decided to rehabilitate Paley Vladimir Pavlovich, Yakovleva Varvara, Yanysheva Ekaterina Petrovna, Remez Fedor Semenovich (Mikhailovich), Kalin Ivan, Krukovsky, Dr. Gelmerson and Johnson Nikolai Nikolaevich ( Brian). The issue of this rehabilitation, unlike the first case, was actually resolved in a few months, at the stage of applying to the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna, litigation was not required, since the prosecutor's office at the entrance to the audit revealed all the signs of political repression. Canonization and ecclesiastical cult of the royal martyrs Notes Multatuli, P. To the decision of the Supreme Court of Russia on the rehabilitation of the royal family. Yekaterinburg initiative. academy Russian history (03.10.2008). Retrieved November 9, 2008. The Supreme Court recognized members of the royal family as victims of repression. RIA News(01/10/2008). Retrieved November 9, 2008. Romanov Collection, General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library,

Interview with Vladimir Sychev on the Romanov case

In June 1987 I was in Venice with the French press accompanying François Mitterrand to the G7 summit. During the breaks between pools, an Italian journalist approached me and asked me something in French. Realizing from my accent that I was not French, he looked at my French accreditation and asked where I was from. - Russian, - I answered. - That's how? - my interlocutor was surprised. Under his arm, he held an Italian newspaper, from where he translated a huge, half-page article.

Sister Pascalina dies in a private clinic in Switzerland. She was known throughout the Catholic world, because. passed with the future Pope Pius XXII from 1917, when he was still Cardinal Pacelli in Munich (Bavaria), until his death in the Vatican in 1958. She had such a strong influence on him that he entrusted the entire administration of the Vatican to her, and when the cardinals asked for an audience with the Pope, she decided who was worthy of such an audience and who was not. This is a short summary great article, the meaning of which was that we had to believe the phrase uttered at the end and not a mere mortal. Sister Pascalina asked to invite a lawyer and witnesses, as she did not want to take her to the grave the secret of your life. When they arrived, she only said that the woman buried in the village Morcote, near Lake Maggiore - indeed daughter of the Russian Tsar - Olga!!

I convinced my Italian colleague that this was a gift from Fate and that it was useless to resist it. Having learned that he was from Milan, I told him that I would not fly back to Paris on the presidential press plane, but we would go to this village for half a day. We went there after the summit. It turned out that this was no longer Italy, but Switzerland, but we quickly found a village, a cemetery and a cemetery watchman who led us to the grave. On the gravestone is a photograph of an elderly woman and an inscription in German: Olga Nikolaevna(no last name) eldest daughter Nicholas Romanov, Tsar of Russia, and dates of life - 1985-1976 !!!

The Italian journalist was an excellent translator for me, but he clearly did not want to stay there for the whole day. I had to ask questions.

When did she move in here? - In 1948.

She said that she is the daughter of the Russian Tsar? - Of course, and the whole village knew about it.

Did it get into the press? - Yes.

How did the other Romanovs react to this? Did they sue? - Served.

And did she lose? - Yes, I lost.

In this case, she had to pay the opposing party's legal costs. - She paid.

She worked? - No.

Where does she get the money from? - Yes, the whole village knew that the Vatican contained it !!

The ring is closed. I went to Paris and began to look for what is known on this issue ... And quickly came across a book by two English journalists.

Tom Mangold and Anthony Summers published a book in 1979 "Dossier on the king"(“The Case of the Romanovs, or the execution that never happened”). They began with the fact that if the secrecy stamp is removed from state archives after 60 years, then in 1978 60 years from the date of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles expire, and you can “dig up” something there by looking into the declassified archives. That is, at first there was an idea just to look ... And they very quickly got on telegrams the British ambassador to your Ministry of Foreign Affairs that the royal family was taken from Yekaterinburg to Perm. There is no need to explain to professionals from the BBC that this is a sensation. They rushed to Berlin.

It quickly became clear that the Whites, having entered Yekaterinburg on July 25, immediately appointed an investigator to investigate the execution of the royal family. Nikolai Sokolov, whose book everyone still refers to, is the third investigator who received the case only at the end of February 1919! Then a simple question arises: who were the first two and what did they report to the authorities? So, the first investigator named Nametkin, appointed by Kolchak, having worked for three months and declaring that he is a professional, is a simple matter, and he does not need additional time (and the Whites were advancing and had no doubts about their victory at that time - i.e. all the time is yours, don’t rush, work!), puts a report on the table that there was no shooting, but there was a staged execution. Kolchak this report - under the cloth and appoints a second investigator by the name of Sergeev. He also works for three months and at the end of February gives Kolchak the same report with the same words (“I am a professional, it’s a simple matter, no extra time is needed,” there was no shooting- there was a staged execution).

Here it is necessary to explain and remind that it was the Whites who overthrew the tsar, and not the Reds, and they sent him into exile in Siberia! Lenin in these February days was in Zurich. Whatever they say simple soldiers, the white top is not monarchists, but republicans. And Kolchak did not need a living tsar. I advise those who have doubts to read Trotsky's diaries, where he writes that "if the whites put up any tsar - even a peasant one - we would not have lasted even two weeks"! These are the words of the Supreme Commander of the Red Army and the ideologist of the Red Terror!! Please believe.

Therefore, Kolchak already puts "his" investigator Nikolai Sokolov and gives him a task. And Nikolai Sokolov also works for only three months - but for a different reason. The Reds entered Yekaterinburg in May, and he retreated along with the Whites. He took the archives, but what did he write?

1. He did not find the bodies, and for the police of any country in any system "no bodies - no murder" - this is a disappearance! After all, when arresting serial killers, the police demand to show where the corpses are hidden !! You can say whatever you want, even at yourself, and the investigator needs material evidence!

And Nikolai Sokolov "hangs the first noodles on his ears": “thrown into a mine, filled with acid”. Now they prefer to forget this phrase, but we heard it until 1998! And for some reason no one ever doubted. Is it possible to flood the mine with acid? But acid is not enough! In the local history museum of Yekaterinburg, where the director Avdonin (the same, one of the three who "accidentally" found bones on the Starokotlyakovskaya road, cleared to them by three investigators in 1918-19), hangs a certificate about those soldiers on the truck that they had 78 liters of gasoline (not acid). In July, in the Siberian taiga, having 78 liters of gasoline, you can burn the entire Moscow zoo! No, they went back and forth, first they threw it into the mine, poured it with acid, and then they took it out and hid it under the sleepers ...

By the way, on the night of the "execution" from July 16 to July 17, 1918, a huge train with the entire local Red Army, the local Central Committee and the local Cheka left Yekaterinburg for Perm. The Whites entered on the eighth day, and Yurovsky, Beloborodov and his comrades shifted the responsibility to two soldiers? The inconsistency, - tea, they did not deal with a peasant revolt. And if they shot at their own discretion, they could have done it a month earlier.

2. The second "noodle" of Nikolai Sokolov - he describes the basement of the Ipatievsky house, publishes photographs where it is clear that bullets are in the walls and in the ceiling (apparently, they do this when staging an execution). Conclusion - women's corsets were stuffed with diamonds, and the bullets ricocheted! So, like this: the king from the throne and into exile in Siberia. Money in England and Switzerland, and they sew diamonds into corsets to sell to peasants in the market? Well well!

3. In the same book by Nikolai Sokolov, the same basement in the same Ipatiev house is described, where in the fireplace lies clothes from each member of the imperial family and hair from each head. Were they sheared and changed (undressed??) before being shot? Not at all - they were taken out by the same train on that same "night of execution", but they cut their hair and changed clothes so that no one would recognize them there.

Tom Magold and Anthony Summers intuitively realized that the clue to this intriguing detective story must be sought in Brest Peace Treaty. And they began to look for the original text. And what?? With all the removal of secrets after 60 years of such an official document nowhere! It is not in the declassified archives of London or Berlin. They searched everywhere - and everywhere they found only quotes, but nowhere could they find the full text! And they came to the conclusion that the Kaiser demanded the extradition of women from Lenin. The tsar's wife is a relative of the Kaiser, the daughters are German citizens and did not have the right to the throne, and besides, the Kaiser at that moment could crush Lenin like a bug! And here are Lenin's words that "the world is humiliating and obscene, but it must be signed", and the July coup attempt of the Socialist-Revolutionaries with Dzerzhinsky, who joined them at the Bolshoi Theater, take on a completely different look.

Officially, we were taught that the Trotsky treaty was signed only on the second attempt and only after the start of the offensive of the German army, when it became clear to everyone that the Republic of Soviets could not resist. If there is simply no army, what is “humiliating and obscene” here? Nothing. But if it is necessary to hand over all the women of the royal family, and even to the Germans, and even during the First World War, then ideologically everything is in its place, and the words are read correctly. What Lenin did, and the entire ladies' section was handed over to the Germans in Kyiv. And immediately the murder of the German ambassador Mirbach in Moscow and the German consul in Kyiv makes sense.

"Dossier on the Tsar" is a fascinating investigation into one cunningly tangled intrigue of world history. The book was published in 1979, so the words of Sister Pascalina in 1983 about Olga's grave could not get into it. And if there were no new facts, then simply retelling someone else's book here would not make sense ...

Cro-Magnon lifestyle.

Archaeological finds indicate that the weapons and methods of making them among the Cro-Magnons were much more perfect than among the Neanderthals; this was of great importance for increasing food resources and population growth. Spear throwers gave the human hand a gain in strength, doubling the distance the hunter could throw his spear. Now he was able to hit the prey at a great distance even before it had time to be frightened and run away. Among the serrated tips was invented harpoon, which could catch salmon coming from the sea to the river to spawn. Fish became an important food item for the first time.

The Cro-Magnons caught birds with snares; they were the ones who came up with deadly traps for birds, wolves, foxes and much larger animals. Some experts believe that the hundreds of mammoths whose remains were found near Pavlov in Czechoslovakia fell into such a trap.

A distinctive feature of the Cro-Magnons was hunting large herds of large animals. They learned to drive such herds to those areas where it was easier to kill the animals, and staged a mass slaughter. Cro-Magnons also moved in the wake of the seasonal migrations of large mammals. This is evidenced by their seasonal residence in selected areas. Late Stone Age Europe was teeming with large wild mammals from which much meat and furs could be obtained. After that, their number and variety have never been so great.

The main sources of food for the Cro-Magnons were such animals: reindeer and red deer, tour, horse and stone goat.

In construction, the Cro-Magnons basically followed the old traditions of the Neanderthals. They lived in the caves, they built tents from skins, built dwellings from stones or dug them out of the ground. New steel light summer tents, which were built by nomadic hunters (Fig. 2.18, Fig. 2.19).

Rice. 2.18. Reconstruction of a hut, Terra Amata Fig. 2.19. Reconstruction of dwellings, Mezin

The opportunity to live in the conditions of the ice age, in addition to dwellings, was provided by new types of clothes. Bone needles and images of people dressed in fur suggest that they wore closely fitting trousers, jackets with hoods, shoes and mittens with well-stitched seams.

In the era from 35 to 10 thousand years ago, Europe experienced great period his prehistoric art.

The range of works was wide: engravings of animals and people made on small pieces of stone, bones, ivory and deer antlers; clay and stone sculptures and reliefs; drawings with ocher, manganese and charcoal, as well as images laid out on the walls of caves with moss or applied with paint blown through a straw (Fig. 2.20).

The study of skeletons from burials suggests that two-thirds of the Cro-Magnons reached the age of 20, while among their predecessors, the Neanderthals, the number of such people was not even half; one in ten Cro-Magnons lived to be 40, compared to one in twenty among Neanderthals. That is, Cro-Magnon life expectancy increased.

The burials of the Cro-Magnons can also be used to judge their symbolic rituals and the growth of wealth and social status.

Rice. 2.20. Drawing of a bison, Nyo, France Fig. 2.21. Fox teeth necklace, Moravia

Burialers often sprinkled the dead with red ocher, which is supposed to symbolize blood and life, which may indicate that the Cro-Magnons believed in afterlife. Some corpses were buried with rich decorations (Fig. 2.21); these are early indications that in hunter-gatherer communities rich and respected people began to appear.

Perhaps the most amazing things are found in the burial of hunters, made 23,000 years ago in Sungiri, east of Moscow. Here lay an old man in fur garments, skillfully decorated with beads.

Two boys were buried nearby, dressed in beaded furs, with ivory rings and bracelets; near them lay long spears made of mammoth tusks and two strange, carved from bone and scepter-like rods of the type called the "commander's baton" (Fig. 2.22).

10 thousand years ago cold era The Pleistocene gave way to the Holocene, or "completely new" epoch. This is the time of the mild climate in which we live now. As the climate in Europe warmed, the area occupied by forests expanded. Forests advanced, occupying vast areas of the former tundra, and the rising sea flooded low coasts and river valleys.

Rice. 2.22. Burial of a man, Sungir 1, Russia

Climate change and intensified hunting led to the disappearance of the huge wild herds, at the expense of which the Cro-Magnons were fed. But on land, forest mammals remained in abundance, and in the water - fish and waterfowl.

The tools and weapons they made allowed the northern Europeans to use all these food sources. These specific hunter-gatherer groups created mesolithic culture, or " middle stone age". It was so named because it followed the ancient Stone Age, which was characterized by the hunting of huge herds of animals. Mesolithic culture laid the foundation for the emergence of agriculture in Northern Europe, characteristic of the new stone age. The Mesolithic, which lasted only 10 to 5 thousand years ago, was only a brief moment of the prehistoric period. From the bones found at the Mesolithic sites, it can be seen that the prey of the Mesolithic hunters were red deer, roe deer, wild boar, wild bulls, beavers, foxes, ducks, geese and pikes. Huge heaps of mollusk shells indicate that they ate on the Atlantic coast and North Sea. Mesolithic people were also engaged in the collection of roots, fruits and nuts. Groups of people apparently migrated from place to place, following seasonal changes in food sources.

Archaeologists believe that Mesolithic people lived in smaller groups than their possible ancestors - the Cro-Magnons. But food production was now kept at a more stable level throughout the year, with the result that the number of camps and, consequently, the population increased. Life expectancy also seems to have increased.

New stone tools and weapons helped the Mesolithic people to explore the forests and seas that occupied part of Northwestern Europe after the melting of the northern ice sheet.

One of the main types of hunting weapons were Bow and arrows, which were probably invented in the Late Paleolithic. A skilled archer could hit a stone goat at a distance of 32 m, and if his first arrow did not hit the target, he had time to send another one after it.

The arrows were usually serrated or tipped with small pieces of flint called microliths. Microliths were glued with resin to a deer bone shaft.

New examples of large stone tools helped Mesolithic people to make shuttles, paddles, skis and sleds. All this taken together made it possible to develop huge water areas for catching fish and facilitated movement through snow and wetlands.

Hominid triad

Because the only modern representative of the family is a person, from his features three most important systems were historically identified, which are considered truly hominid.

These systems have been called the hominid triad:

− upright posture (bipedia);

- a brush adapted for the manufacture of tools;

- highly developed brain.

1. Upright posture. Many hypotheses have been put forward regarding its origin. The two most important are the Miocene cooling and the labor concept.

Miocene cooling: in the middle and end of the Miocene, as a result of global climate cooling, there was a significant reduction in the areas of tropical forests and an increase in the area of ​​savannahs. This could be the reason for the transition of some hominoids to a terrestrial way of life. However, the earliest known upright primates are known to have lived in rainforests.

Labor concept: according to the well-known labor concept of F. Engels and its later versions, the emergence of upright walking is closely related to the specialization of the monkey's hand for labor activity - carrying objects, cubs, manipulating food and making tools. In the future, work led to the emergence of language and society. However, according to modern data, upright posture arose much earlier than the manufacture of tools. Bipedal locomotion arose at least 6 million years ago in Orrorin tugenensis, and the oldest tools from Gona in Ethiopia are dated only 2.7 million years ago.

Rice. 2.23. Human and gorilla skeleton

There are other versions of the origin of bipedalism. It could have arisen for orientation in the savannah, when it was necessary to look over tall grass. Also, human ancestors could stand up on their hind legs to cross water barriers or graze in swampy meadows, as modern gorillas do in the Congo.

According to the concept of C. Owen Lovejoy, upright posture arose in connection with a special breeding strategy, since hominids raise one or two cubs for a very long time. At the same time, caring for offspring reaches such complexity that it becomes necessary to free the forelimbs. Carrying helpless young and food over a distance becomes a vital element of behavior. According to Lovejoy, bipedalism originated in the rainforest, and already bipedal hominids moved to the savannas.

In addition, it has been experimentally and mathematically proven that moving over long distances at an average speed on two legs is energetically more beneficial than on four.

Most likely, not one reason acted in evolution, but a whole complex of them. To determine upright posture in fossil primates, scientists use the following main features:

· the position of the foramen magnum - in rectiformers it is located in the center of the length of the base of the skull, it opens down. Such a structure is already known about 4 - 7 million years ago. In tetrapods - in the back of the base of the skull, turned back (Fig. 2.23).

The structure of the pelvis - in upright walking the pelvis is wide and low (such a structure has been known since Australopithecus afarensis 3.2 million years ago), in tetrapods the pelvis is narrow, high and long (Fig. 2.25);

The structure of the long bones of the legs - in upright legs, the legs are long, the knee and ankle joints have a characteristic structure. This structure has been known since 6 million years ago. Quadrupedal primates have arms longer than their legs.

The structure of the foot - the arch (rise) of the foot is expressed in upright walkers, the fingers are straight, short, the thumb is not laid aside, inactive (the arch is already expressed in Australopithecus afarensis, but the fingers are long and curved in all Australopithecus, in Homo habilis the foot is flattened, but fingers are straight, short), in tetrapods the foot is flat, the fingers are long, curved, movable. In the foot of Australopithecus anamensis, the big toe was inactive. In the foot of Australopithecus afarensis, the big toe was opposed to others, but much weaker than in modern monkeys, the arches of the foot are well developed, the footprint was almost like that of a modern person. In the foot of Australopithecus africanus and Australopithecus robustus, the big toe was strongly abducted from the others, the fingers were very mobile, the structure is intermediate between apes and humans. In the foot of Homo habilis, the big toe is fully adducted to the rest.

The structure of the hands - in fully upright hominids, the hands are short, not adapted for walking on the ground or climbing trees, the phalanges of the fingers are straight. Australopithecus afarensis, Australopithecus africanus, Australopithecus robustus and even Homo habilis have traits of adaptation for walking on the ground or climbing trees.

Thus, bipedal locomotion arose more than 6 million years ago, but for a long time differed from modern version. Some Australopithecus and Homo habilis also used other types of locomotion - climbing trees and walking on the phalanges of the fingers.

Fully modern bipedalism became only about 1.6-1.8 million years ago.

2. The origin of the hand adapted to the manufacture of tools. The hand capable of making tools is different from the hand of a monkey. Although morphological features working hands are not completely reliable, but the following labor complex can be distinguished:

Strong wrist. In Australopithecus, starting with Australopithecus afarensis, the structure of the wrist is intermediate between apes and humans. Almost modern structure is observed in Homo habilis 1.8 million years ago.

Opposition of the thumb. The feature was already known 3.2 million years ago in Australopithecus afarensis and Australopithecus africanus. It was fully developed in Australopithecus robustus and Homo habilis 1.8 million years ago. Finally, it was peculiar or limited in the Neanderthals of Europe about 40-100 thousand years ago.

Broad terminal phalanges. Australopithecus robustus, Homo habilis, and all later hominids had very wide phalanges.

Attachment of muscles that move the fingers almost modern type noted in Australopithecus robustus and Homo habilis, but they also have primitive features.

The hand bones of the oldest upright hominoids (Australopithecus anamensis and Australopithecus afarensis) have a mixture of features of great apes and humans. Most likely, these species could use objects as tools, but not manufacture them. The first real tool makers were Homo habilis. Probably, South African massive australopithecines Australopithecus (Paranthropus) robustus also made tools.

So, the labor brush as a whole was formed about 1.8 million years ago.

3. Highly developed brain. The modern human brain is very different from the great ape brain (Figure 2.24) in size, shape, structure, and function, but many transitional variants can be found among fossil forms. Typical signs of the human brain are as follows:

Large overall dimensions brain. Australopithecus had the same brain size as modern chimpanzees. A rapid growth in size occurred in Homo habilis about 2.5-1.8 million years ago, and in later hominids a gradual increase to modern values ​​is observed.

Specific fields of the brain - Broca's and Wernicke's areas and other fields began to develop in Homo habilis and archanthropes, but apparently reached a completely modern look only in modern man.

The structure of the lobes of the brain. In humans, the lower parietal and frontal lobes are significantly developed, the angle of convergence of the temporal and frontal lobes is acute, the temporal lobe is wide and rounded in front, the occipital lobe is relatively small, hanging over the cerebellum. In Australopithecus, the structure and size of the brain were the same as in the great apes.

Rice. 2.24. The brain of primates: a - tarsier, b - lemur, Fig. 2.25. Taz chimpanzee (a);