Alexander II_ The Last Great Tsar - Edvard Radzinsky [163]
He: “24 May [6 June]. All day suffered from the pain of hem[orrhoids], therefore went to bed, since it is more convenient to apply compresses. Alix and Alexei spent half an hour in the fresh air, and we spent an hour after them. The weather was marvelous.”
She: “May 25 [June 7]. Friday. Beautiful weather. Nicholas] stayed in bed all day since he slept poorly last night due to the pains. P—a [these two Latin letters conceal the Russian word for “bottom,” which she modestly shortened to insert in her English text] is better when he lies quietly….
“… Vladimir Nikolaevich did not come today either.”
Dr. Derevenko was no longer allowed to see Alexei.
He: “27 May [9 June]. Finally got up and quit my bed, it was a summer’s day, walked twice. The green is very fine and lush, a pleasant smell.”
Again Nicholas felt something was going on. Something was about to happen.
“28 May [10 June].… Outward relations … have changed lately. Our jailers are trying not to talk to us, as if they did not feel right, and one senses alarm and worry in them! Incomprehensible!”
But beyond the limits of the Ipatiev house, everything was quite comprehensible. In the middle of May there was an uprising against the Bolsheviks by former tsarist war prisoners—the Czech Legion, who were joined by Cossack units. Chelyabinsk fell. Now they were advancing on the capital of the Red Urals.
The town was expecting them. On June 10 there were sinister riots. The night before, June 8–9, a certain Ensign Ardatov and his detachment had gone over to the Whites. Now the chief support of the Ural Soviet in the town was the detachment of Upper Isetsk workers led by Commissar Peter Ermakov. A huge, shouting crowd gathered on Ascension Square. Ermakov and his Isetsk detachment, Yurovsky and his Chekists, and Commissar Goloshchekin had a hard time dispersing the mutinous crowd. They just did not have enough loyal soldiers. Meanwhile, how many Red Guards were guarding the “tyrant and his family.”
He: “31 May [13 June]. This afternoon we were let out into the garden for some reason. Avdeyev came and talked for a long time with E. S. [Botkin], According to him, he and the Regional Soviet are worried about anarchist acts and therefore we may be facing a hasty departure, probably to Moscow. He asked us to prepare for departure. We immediately began to pack, but quietly, so as not to attract attention from the sentry officers, at Avdeyev’s special request. At about 11 at night he returned and said that we would remain another few days. Therefore on the 1st [14th] of June we stayed bivouacked, not unpacking anything. Finally after dinner Avdeyev, slightly tipsy, told Botkin that the anarchists had been captured, the danger had passed, and our departure had been postponed. After all the preparations it was rather tiresome.”
The former tsaritsa wrote obscurely that day:
“May 31 [June 13]. Pray morning. Sunshine.
“12.30 Avd[eyev]no walk.… said to pack up as any moment….
“At night Av[deyev] again … said not before several days.”
——
What a strange story. Not long before, the Ural Soviet had done battle with Moscow, explaining how dangerous it was to transport the Romanovs by rail. Now, frightened by anarchists, the Urals themselves wanted to take the tsar and his family to Moscow. Now—when the Czechs were advancing on the town. When there was an uprising in the town itself, when the land around Ekaterinburg was burning! And all this out of concern for the bloody tyrant?
No, something is not right here. It is hard to believe in this sudden concern on the part of the Uralites. This was a very strange trip for Moscow being planned.
Let us recall a conversation between Commissar Yakovlev and the commander of the Ekaterinburg detachment—Busyatsky—en route to Tobolsk, when the latter suggested to Yakovlev: “During the Romanovs’ trip, en route, stage an attack and kill them.”
Kill them on a trip?
MISHA’S LAST JOURNEY
If only Nicholas had known,