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The car stopped in a field by the Alexander Station. By the tracks stood three or more companies of soldiers—the detachment being sent along to guard and protect the tsar and his family. These were all St. George’s Cross holders, brave lads all, riflemen from the First, Second, and Fourth Guards regiments. All in new tunics and new greatcoats. For their future service they had been promised pay as well as travel compensation. At the head of the entire detachment was Colonel Evgeny Kobylinsky of the Life Guard Keksgolmsky Regiment, a fighting officer who had been at the front since the war’s outset, had been wounded many times, had returned to the front, and had been taken to the hospital again by wounds. He had lain in the hospital at Tsarskoe Selo in September 1916, when the “most august Sisters of Mercy”—Alix and her daughters, the grand duchesses—made the injured colonel’s acquaintance for the first time. “We visited him in hospital & took our picture together.” Later he was a “true soldier”—so Alix wrote to her friend. Now the former wounded officer was master of their fate.

Among the guard’s riflemen was Sergeant-Major Peter Matveyev. His “Notes and Reminiscences About Nicholas Romanov” are kept in the Sverdlovsk Party Archives.

From Matveyev’s Notes:

“We saw that from the tsar’s branch line a train of international cars, with ‘Red Cross Mission’ written on them in red letters, was pulling in.… We still didn’t know where we were going or where we were taking them.”

Two trains were made up. In the breaking sun a string of people walked over to the train cars.

One train carried the guard, the other the family, the guard, their “people,” and the suite. The “people and suite” comprised forty-five people. More “people”—their servants—and many fewer of the suite had agreed to share their exile. Even then, in early March, their closest friends had made themselves scarce at the Tsarskoe Selo station—K. Naryshkin, head of the imperial chancellery; von Grabbe, commander of the imperial convoy; Nikolai Sablin, an aide-de-camp and one of the tsar’s and tsaritsa’s closest friends; the Prince of Leuchtenberg; and Colonel Mordvinov. Their loyal suite took to their heels.

“How they all betrayed him,” Nicholas Romanov said biliously and curtly.

Traveling with them were Valya (Marshal of the Court Prince Dolgorukov), the tsar’s aide-de-camp General Tatishchev, and several of the tsaritsa’s ladies-in-waiting—all that remained of their brilliant court—and their “people.”

Kerensky was nervous. He himself was directing the loading—the endless trunks, suitcase, and boxes, the furniture. Commissar Makarov entered the car; he was to accompany the family into exile for the Provisional Government (he already had experience, having brought the arrested Nicholas from Headquarters to Tsarskoe Selo in early March).

Two trains under the Red Cross flag. They would pass through large stations with curtains drawn, and at each of them Commissar Makarov would have to send a telegram to Prime Minister Kerensky. Even the riflemen of the guard did not yet know the direction of their route.

Nicholas and Alexandra were walking along the tracks to their car. The recession from Tsarskoe Selo was almost complete.

A certain Colonel Artabolevsky was present at this recession and recorded in detail how they walked to their train across the approach tracks, along the rails, how he led her, supporting her, toward the car (she had weak legs), how he helped her climb the high step, supporting her by the elbow, how she struggled up and how easily and boldly (a guardsman!) yesterday’s tsar jumped up to the step of the train car.

This was the sleeping car of the same Chinese-Eastern Railway for which countless years before, while still heir to the throne, he had helped lay a foundation stone in Vladivostok. Now he was taking this route into exile.

As dawn was breaking, they were still loading the many suitcases into the cars.

Aide-de-camp General Ilya Leonidovich Tatishchev; Marshal of the Court Vasily Alexandrovich Dolgorukov;