Alexander II_ The Last Great Tsar - Edvard Radzinsky [133]
Upon his return to Ekaterinburg Goloshchekin began his own turbulent activities and evidently made contact with the “spy.”
The “spy.” I can picture his first meeting with Matveyev in Freedom House. Lukoyanov would find out that the family had already begun to know great need. Soloviev had extracted huge sums “for the plot,” and now the tsar’s family did not have enough money. The new government of workers and peasants was not about to give them any. Kobylinsky, Tatishchev, and Dolgorukov had gone around to the merchants of Tobolsk borrowing money. At first they gave willingly—they did not expect the new authorities to last—but now they were not giving at all.
The abundant meals in the house continued, however. As before, the empress’s only walk was out to the yard, where the ducks and geese roamed and she carried on entertaining conversations with the chef, Kharitonov. In captivity, food is entertainment. They ate and ate, and the smells of the scraps lingered in the back yard.
But now the aroma had faded: there was no more money. To Matveyev’s delight, the Moscow government had put the family on soldiers’ rations. Nicholas Romanov had been given a soldier’s ration card.
The new, meager meals were served as before by servants in livery. But the servants had begun to rebel, too: no wages.
Nicholas’s diary:
“14 (27) February. We have had to cut our expenditures for food and servants significantly. These last few days we have been busy figuring out the minimum for us to make ends meet….
“15 (28) February. For this reason we must part with many of our people, since we cannot support everyone who is in Tobolsk; this naturally is very hard, but unavoidable.”
Just then the “spy” appeared in the house.
A conversation in Freedom House:
“What can you do?” (This is Matveyev.)
“I’m a carpenter. You can set up a workshop in the building next to the storeroom. Where the Romanov things are kept. That way they’ll be safer.”
He searched the storeroom for the first time late that night. The house was long since asleep. Matveyev brought a great clutch of keys and began opening the innumerable trunks and suitcases. Just what wasn’t there in those trunks! Multitudes of the odd and useless—you could see they had packed clumsily, in haste. There was a suitcase filled with riding crops, a trunk with tiny children’s booties—evidently for Alexei when he was little. Many dresses and linens. No jewels, of course. Those were kept upstairs. But there was a large brown leather suitcase stuffed with papers, black notebooks covered in a precise handwriting—the tsar’s diary! Lukoyanov immediately sensed how important this brown suitcase would be for him.
Later there was a ball in honor of their departing “people.” The drunken servants made a racket all night long. The family locked themselves in their rooms.
“AT TIMES IT SEEMS I HAVEN’T THE STRENGTH TO GO ON”
Nicholas’s diary:
“9 (22) March. Today is the anniversary of my arrival at Tsarskoe Selo and my confinement with my family at Alexander Palace. Cannot help but remember this difficult year gone by—and what lies in store for us? All is in God’s hands, all our hopes are on Him.”
Now he could only recall anniversaries of his confinement.
The guard had been changing before his very eyes. After Matveyev’s return, many “good riflemen” were dismissed.
“During my morning walk said goodbye to our best riflemen, who are going home. They are leaving now in the winter unwillingly and would gladly stay on until the opening of navigation.”
From Matveyev’s Notes:
“The rightist diehards got their wolf passports [indicating their political unreliability] in the teeth and were told to clear the hell out.”
With the appearance of the “spy,” matters accelerated. Kobylinsky was barely managing with the remaining riflemen and was already begging the tsar to let them go home: “I can no longer be of use to you.