Alexander II_ The Last Great Tsar - Edvard Radzinsky [177]
Yurovsky appreciated Nicholas’s trust. He did not even begin to conduct a search, so as not to undermine this faith. Although, why did he need to search them now, when he could do it after?
Alix did not trust the new commandant. She did not trust a single word he said. She was happy that she had prudently concealed everything most valuable.
Alix’s diary:
“June 21 (July 4). Thursday. Avdeiev is being changed a[nd] we get new commandant (who came once to look at Baby’s leg …) with a young help who seems decent where as the others vulgar a[nd] unpleasant. All our guards inside left.… Then made us show all our jewels and the young one [the assistant] wrote them all down in detail and then they were taken from us (where to, for how long? why? don’t know) Only left me two bracelets I can’t take off.”
The commandant’s “young help,” who “seems decent” to Alix was indeed a most pleasant young man. Clear-eyed, with a clean side-buttoned shirt and a name soothing to the tsaritsa’s ears—Grigory. This was Nikulin, who in just a few days would shoot her son.
From Nikulin’s autobiography (kept in the Museum of the Revolution in Moscow):
“My father was a bricklayer, a stove-fitter, and my mother was a housewife. His education was the lowest, he completed two grades.
“Starting in 1909 I worked as a bricklayer and then at a dynamite factory (this was during the war, to get excused from military service). Ever since the factory closed in March 1918, I have worked in the Ural Regional Cheka.”
Yurovsky noticed him immediately. Nikulin did not drink, a rarity among former workers who joined the Cheka. Most important, he knew how to inspire confidence immediately. Yurovsky appreciated all this and tenderly called him “my son.” When Yurovsky became commandant, he took Grigory Nikulin for his assistant.
Alix’s diary:
“June 22 (July 5). The command[ant] came with our jewels before us.… Left them on our table a[nd] will come every day to see we have not opened the packet.”
As before, Nicholas believed in the new commandant.
Nicholas’s diary:
“23 June [6 July]. Saturday. Yesterday Commandant Yu[rovsky] brought a small box with all our stolen jewels, asked us to verify the contents, and sealed it in our presence, leaving it with us for safekeeping.… Yu. and his helper are starting to understand what type of people surrounded and guarded us, robbing us….
“25 June [8 July]. Monday. Our life has not changed a bit under Yu. He comes into the bedroom to check that the seal on the box is intact and looks out the open window.… Inside the house new Latvians are standing guard, outside it is the same—some soldiers, some workers. Rumor has it that several of Avdeyev’s men are already under arrest. The door to the shed with our baggage has been sealed—if only they had done that a month ago. Last night a storm and now even cooler.”
——
A stormy summer. He noted the storms in his diary. Lightning in the sky—and water on the land. A lot of water.
For that reason the forest roads had largely washed out and it would be hard for the truck to drive down those roads with its corpses.
Meanwhile, the house was already being readied for the final event. He paid no attention, but she took note.
“June 25 (July 8). Lunch only at 1.30 because they were repairing the electricity in our rooms.”
The jewelry had been listed and the electricity fixed.
The next day, July 9, Dr. Botkin began writing his final letter….
“I AM DEAD, BUT NOT YET BURIED”
After the execution, Yurovsky collected in Dr. Botkin’s room the papers of the last Russian court physician.
I am looking them over: “1913 Calendar for Doctors,” “notice from main headquarters on the death of [his son Dmitry] in battle, December 1914.”
And here is his letter, which he wrote to a classmate who had graduated with