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forgotten, promised to take the latter upon himself, but he left without keeping his promise. We wanted to burn A[lexei] and A[lexandra] F[eodorovna], but by mistake instead of her we burned the lady-in-waiting and Alexei. They buried the remains right there under the fire and then scattered the fires in order to cover up completely any trace of digging. Meanwhile a common grave was dug for the rest. At about seven in the morning a pit two and a half arshins [6 feet] deep and three and a half arshins [8 feet] square was ready. The bodies were put in the hole and the faces and all the bodies generally doused with sulfuric acid, both so they couldn’t be recognized and to prevent any stink from them rotting [it was not a deep hole]. We scattered it with dirt and lime, put boards on top, and rode over it several times—no trace of the hole remained. The secret was kept—the Whites did not find this burial site.”

At the end of his Note, Yurovsky added a notation indicating the precise location of that secret grave:

“Koptyaki, 18 v[ersts] [12 miles] from Ekaterinburg to the northwest. The railroad tracks pass 9 versts between Koptyaki and the Upper Isetsk factory. From where the railroad tracks cross they are buried about 100 sazh[ens] [700 feet] in the direction of the Isetsk factory.”

DID THIS GRAVE EXIST?

The guest chuckled. “You tell the burial story the way Yurovsky described it in his Note. But after all, there was one other equally important witness, my friend Peter Zakharovich [Ermakov], After all, he too described how the burial came about. So two descriptions exist. True, in the 1950s yet a third description by a witness appeared in the West.”

“You’re talking about Iogann Meyer’s pamphlet?”

“Absolutely correct. But that’s a fake, full of mythical people who never existed.… So Peter Zakharovich’s manuscript is one of two existing authentic documents attributable to the pen of actual participants. Moreover, not just participants, but the men in charge of that terrible burial, if you can call the horror they undertook a burial.”

After this tirade my guest again opened his briefcase and gave me the conclusion to Ermakov’s memoirs laboriously copied out by hand:

“When this operation was over, the vehicle with the bodies set out for the forest through Upper Isetsk in the direction of the Koptyaki road, where I had chosen a site for burying the bodies.

“I had considered in advance, however, the fact that we shouldn’t dig, for I was not alone, but had comrades with me. Generally speaking, I could scarcely entrust anyone with this matter, especially since I had told everyone beforehand that I had decided to burn them, for which I had gotten together sulfuric acid and kerosene; I had anticipated everything. Without tipping anyone off, I said: ‘Let’s drop them into the mine shaft,’ and that was what we decided. Then I ordered them all undressed, so we could burn the clothes, which was done. When they started taking their dresses off, medallions with a picture of Rasputin inserted were found on ‘herself’ [Alexandra Feodorovna] and the daughters. Further under their dresses, next to their bodies, were specially altered double corsets inside the padding in which precious stones had been placed and stitched in. This was for ‘herself’ and her four daughters. All this was handed over piece by piece to Yurovsky, the Ural Soviet member. I really wasn’t interested in what was there right then for I had no time. The clothing was burned then and there. The bodies were carried about 50 meters and dropped down a mine shaft. It wasn’t deep, about 6 sazhens [14 yards], for I know all those mines well. So we would be able to pull them out for further operations with them. All this I did in order to hide my tracks from any extra comrades of mine present. When all this was over it was already full dawn, about four o’clock in the morning [July 17]. This place was located about 3 versts [2 miles] off the road.

“When everyone was gone, I remained in the forest, which no one knew. On the night of July 17–18, I went to the forest again, brought