• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 2155 0

the children’s tutor Pierre Gilliard; Alexei’s English teacher Charles Gibbes; Court Physician Evgeny Sergeyevich Botkin; the tsaritsa’s personal lady-in-waiting Anastasia Gendrikova; her reader Ekaterina Schneider; her lady-in-waiting Baroness Buxhoeveden; the two friends, the parlormaids Anna Demidova and Elizaveta Ersberg; the children’s servant Ivan Sednev; the heir’s companion, the sailor N. G. Nagorny; the cook Kharitonov; and the valet Alexander Volkov entered the car. Servers, lackeys, scribes, a hairdresser, a wardrobe attendant, a wine steward—the string of retainers took their places in the train.

Nicholas’s diary:

“The sunrise that saw us off was beautiful.… Left Tsarskoe Selo at 6.10 in the morning.”

The entire family stood at the windows of the train and looked at Tsarskoe illuminated by the rising sun.

Tsarskoe vanished—and along with it their entire past life.

From Matveyev’s Notes:

“Only when we turned away from Petrograd did we realize from the station names that we were following the direct northern route and taking the former tsar into the forests and steppes of Siberia.”

i1.1. Nicholas and the grand dukes on parade at Krasnoe Selo.

i1.2. Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, uncle of Nicholas II.

i1.3. The imperial family: Olga, Marie, Nicholas, Alexandra, Anastasia, Alexei, and Tatiana.

i1.4. Grigory Rasputin.

i1.5. Grand Duchess Marie, photographed by Alexandra, Tsarskoe Selo.

i1.6. Procession of the tsar through Red Square and ceremonial greeting during celebrations for the tricentennial of the Romanov dynasty, Moscow, May 24, 1913.

i1.7. Religious procession during the Romanov tricentennial, Kostroma, 1913.

i1.8. Nicholas emerging from a coach at the entrance to the Romanov house on Varvarka Street, Moscow, during the Romanov tricentennial, May 25, 1913. The Romanov coat of arms can be seen on the house.

i1.9. Kostroma Mayor N. K. Shelashinov performs the ritual offering of bread and salt to the tsar, Romanov tricentennial, 1913.

i1.10. Tsar Nicholas II, 1914.

i1.11. Tsaritsa Alexandra Feodorovna, 1914.

i1.12. Alexandra with Alexei, who had injured himself jumping off a boat, Spala, Poland, 1912.

i1.13. Alexei bathing in the Dnieper near Mogilev. The bruises from hemophilia are visible on his legs.

i1.14. Alexandra, Olga, and Tatiana after completing their nursing course and receiving diplomas from the International Red Cross Society, 1914.

i1.15. World War I: a ward for wounded officers in the Winter Palace, Petrograd, 1916.

i1.16. Nicholas and his family preparing for a meeting with representatives of a town in the south of Russia during World War I.

i1.17. Nicholas before a map of military operations, the western front, World War I.

i1.18. The tsar exchanges Easter salutations with officers, imperial headquarters, Mogilev, April 11, 1916.

i1.19. Nicholas at headquarters with military representatives of the Allied powers: Colonel Marsengo (Italy), Baron B. de Ricquel (Belgium), General Sir John Hanbury-Williams (England), Nicholas, Marquess de Laguiche (France), and Colonel Londkijevic (Serbia), 1916.

i1.20. The parlor car on the imperial train in which Vasily Shulgin and Alexander Guchkov accepted Nicholas’s abdication in March 1917.

i1.21. The grand duchesses with shaved heads, under arrest of the Provisional Government, Tsarskoe Selo, 1917.

i1.22. Nicholas on a bicycle, in captivity, in Tobolsk, Siberia, 1917.

Chapter 9

THE PRISONER’S SIBERIAN DIARY

“THANK GOD WE ARE SAVED AND TOGETHER”

The two trains, their windows gleaming in the rising sun, inexorably linked, were heading toward Siberia.

Nicholas’s diary:

“1 August. The whole family got settled in a fine sleeping car.… Quite stifling and dusty—26 degrees [79°F] in the car. Took a walk in the afternoon with our riflemen—gathered flowers and berries….

“2 August.… At all stations have had to draw the curtains, at the commandant’s request—stupid and boring….

“4 August. Crossed the Urals and felt a substantial cooling. Passed Ekaterinburg