Alexander II_ The Last Great Tsar - Edvard Radzinsky [176]
Lenin fought with surprising enthusiasm against the stone images of the Romanovs.
From the memoirs of Kremlin Commandant P. Malkov:
“ ‘They still haven’t removed this monstrosity’—Lenin pointed to a monument erected on the spot of the murder of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich.… Ilich [Lenin] deftly fashioned a noose and hurled it over the monument. We got down to business and very soon after, the monument was ensnared in ropes from all sides. Lenin, Sverdlov, Avanesov … and other members of the government … harnessed themselves to the ropes, bore down, pulled, and the monument crashed to the cobblestones.”
After Lenin’s death the tradition continued. While destroying one of the Kremlin’s cathedrals, the Bolsheviks would open the sarcophagi and strip them of the remains of the shrouded Muscovite tsaritsas, which they would dump onto a cart. And a horse would drag them across the Kremlin’s ancient St. John’s Square. On one cart were the mother and wife of Ivan the Terrible, the wives of the first Romanovs, the mother of Peter the Great—which would be dropped into the cellar of the Palace of Justice through a hole in the boards.
Seventy years later people in Russia would be tumbling monuments to Lenin from their pedestals—history the joker!
But let us return to 1918. In Moscow an agonizing July week was drawing to a close. Goloshchekin was on his way to Ekaterinburg; Lenin to Kuntsevo in the country, where he spent his free days with his wife and sister. And relaxed.
Chapter 14
PREPARATIONS FOR MURDER
THE LAST TWO WEEKS
In Ekaterinburg, in anticipation of Goloshchekin’s return, preparations for the end were already under way.
On July 4, Commandant Alexander Avdeyev was replaced by Chekist Yakov Yurovsky. Simultaneously the entire guard inside the house was replaced; the outer guard, however, made up of the Zlokazov workers brought in by Avdeyev, remained.
Also remaining was the husband of Avdeyev’s sister—the driver of the house automobile—Sergei Lyukhanov.
Inside the house, unfamiliar, taciturn young blond men appeared: the Cheka’s new Latvians, who occupied the entire downstairs.
Nicholas felt it immediately: the “dark man” had come. Now it would be soon.
Yurovsky had entered the Ipatiev house in the guise of a deliverer. First he had been a doctor. Now he was a battler against dishonest thievery.
He informed Nicholas of the many robberies by the former guard. Silver spoons, which had been found buried in the garden, were returned to the family triumphantly.
At the same time, however, all the family’s property was recorded—for purposes of learning the extent of the robberies, naturally. This record began with the jewels.
The Romanovs were under arrest, and of course they were not allowed to wear jewels, such being the lot of all prisoners, explained Yurovsky. For now they must not. The experienced Chekist cleverly weighed this “for now” in his conversation. For now. Until the denouement. Until their fate was decided.
That was what Nicholas understood, although he did not believe him, of course.
This secretive and at the same time very trusting man. He did not know the slogan of the great revolutions: Rob the robbed. It seemed to him that for the first time an understanding had arisen between him and this altogether incomprehensible power. The town would fall, and they had decided to take his life, but in doing so, naturally, they must surrender to the family that which belonged to it, intact and preserved. The jewels—that was all they had. It was unclear where they would have to live afterward. Or how. He was the father of the family, and he was obliged to consider their future. He was happy with this unspoken gentlemen’s agreement.
Nicholas’s diary:
“21 June [4 July]. Today there was a change of commandant. During dinner Beloborodov and others came and announced that instead of Avdeyev they were appointing the man we took for a doctor, Yurovsky. In the afternoon before tea he and his assistant compiled