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“He went on duty on the evening of July 16, and at eight o’clock Commandant Yurovsky ordered him to take away all the detachment’s revolvers and bring them to him.… Yurovsky said, ‘Today we are going to shoot the entire family and the doctor and servant, too—warn the detachment not to worry if they hear shots.’

“The little boy cook was moved to the Popov house—to the sentry detachment’s quarters—at six in the morning, on Yurovsky’s instruction. At about ten I warned the detachment not to be alarmed if they heard shots. At about twelve at night (old style)—two o’clock new [daylight saving time]—Yurovsky woke the tsar’s family. He told them why he was disturbing them and where they must go. Medvedev did not know….

“About an hour later the tsar’s entire family, the doctor, the maid, and two servants got up, washed, and dressed. Even before Yurovsky went to wake the family, two members of the Cheka had arrived at the Ipatiev house: Peter Ermakov [from the Upper Isetsk factory] and someone else he did not know.… The tsar, the tsaritsa, the tsar’s four daughters, the doctor, the cook, and the lackey came out of their rooms. The tsar was carrying the heir in his arms. The sovereign and the heir were wearing field shirts and forage caps. The empress and her daughters wore dresses but not wraps. The sovereign walked ahead with the heir. In my presence there were no tears, no sobs, and no questions. They went downstairs, out into the courtyard, and from there through the second door into the downstairs quarters. They were led into the corner room adjacent to the sealed storeroom. Yurovsky ordered chairs brought in.

“The empress sat down by the wall where the window was, closer to the rear column of the arch. Behind her stood three of her daughters. The emperor was in the middle, next to the heir, and behind him stood Dr. Botkin. The maid, a tall woman, stood by the left jamb of the storeroom door. With her stood one of the daughters. The maid had a pillow in her arms. The tsar’s daughters had brought small pillows; they put one on the seat of the heir’s chair, the other on their mother’s. Simultaneously, eleven men walked into the room: Yurovsky, his assistant, the two from the Cheka, and seven Latvians. According to Medvedev, Yurovsky told him: ‘Go out to the street and see whether anyone’s there and the shots will be heard.’

“He walked out and heard the shots. By the time he returned to the house, two or three minutes had passed. Walking into the room he saw all the members of the tsar’s family lying on the floor with numerous wounds to their bodies.

“The blood was gushing … the heir was still alive—and moaning. Yurovsky walked over to him and shot him two or three times at point blank range. The heir fell still. The scene made me want to vomit.

“… The corpses were brought out to the truck on stretchers made of a sheet stretched on shafts taken from the sleigh standing in the yard. The driver was Sergei Lyukhanov. The blood in the room and yard was washed off. By three o’clock it was all over.”

The investigator asked him about Strekotin.

“I do remember—he really was at the machine gun. The door from the room where the machine gun was into the entry was open, and so was the door from the entry into the room where the execution was carried out,” stated Medvedev.

From this the investigation concluded that Strekotin and Kleshchev really could have seen what happened—witnesses of the Apocalypse.

Medvedev denied that he himself had done any shooting, but his wife established his guilt:

“According to Pavel, all those awakened got up, washed, dressed, and were led downstairs, where they were put into a room where a paper was read to them that said: ‘The revolution is dying, and so shall you.’ After that they started firing, and they killed them, one and all. My husband fired, too.”

Proskuryakov, to whom he had also recklessly recounted how he fired at the tsar and “emptied two or three bullets into him,” also established Medvedev’s guilt. He must have told his wife as well that he had fired at the tsar. But