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By Root 2182 0

moves from town to town. Immediately after the execution he quit Ekaterinburg with the retreating Bolsheviks, but after the return of Soviet power to Ekaterinburg Lyukhanov did not go back there but went to Osa—which he soon quit as well. There followed frequent moves, as if he were dashing about the Urals, forever changing places. No sooner did he get used to a place then look out, he refused a good position and off he went! It was as if he were afraid of something. But the most interesting part was his relationship with his wife, Avgusta.

“The schoolteacher Avgusta was the sister of the first Ipatiev house commandant, Avdeyev. In 1918, she joined the ruling powers. By the way, in the cemetery she lies under a star rather than a cross—one of the first in the Ekaterinburg cemetery. Soon after the execution, this “ideological atheist” left Lyukhanov and returned to Ekaterinburg, where she held a party position administering all the children’s homes and died from typhus in 1924. Before her death she forgave her husband, her son Alexei told me.

“So, our Charon did something that made her leave him with four children! And for which she had to forgive him before her death. (We can exclude any other romantic entanglement for him at the time—he did not remarry until two years later.) No, something else was going on here, something the ‘ideological’ sister of the former Ipatiev house commandant could not brook. Evidently fearing what he had done—Lyukhanov dashed around the country and later hid himself away so well that he was even afraid to apply for a pension. I saw a 1918 photograph of him—a gentleman! And his last—a poor, pathetic old man.”

THE SECRET

“Enough omissions!” My guest chuckled. “I will tell you what—in my opinion, I emphasize—in my opinion happened.

“This could have happened only in one place, where the truck drove up to railway booth 184, where the watchwoman was sleeping. It drove up and got stuck. Somewhere not far from this booth (as Yurovsky wrote) they were supposed to be met by a picket of Ermakov’s men. By this time Ermakov must have passed out drunk—worn out from the bumpy road. Yurovsky woke him up, and the two men went off to look for Ermakov’s detachment. At this point the driver Lyukhanov went to the booth to wake the watchwoman and ask for water for his overheated engine.

“The stranded truck stayed where it was, as did the Red Guards accompanying it. How many were there? Three or four, probably. And the half gloom of dawn. Can you picture the situation? The Whites were about to take the town. Soviet power, it seemed, would be done and gone. The officers would be hanged for the tsar’s family. So it was no simple matter for them to have gone in the truck. After all, the tsar’s slain family was lying under the tarpaulin. While Ermakov was passed out, they must have heard … those moans from under the tarpaulin. And when the dazed Ermakov went off into the woods with Yurovsky to look for his men and Lyukhanov went to wake the watchwoman—that is when it could have happened.

“Here was a chance for the Red Guards left with the truck. Participation in this terrible affair had condemned them to death, but here—to save some of the family! Had they already agreed on this on the way, when they heard the moans? Or did they understand each other without saying anything? How did they drag the two who had not been killed from the truck? How did they carry them off into the forest, for there was dense forest all around? Did Lyukhanov see this from the window of the booth? Or did he not, continuing to quarrel with the watchwoman? All this I can only guess. As I can the rest. Did those Red Guards run away immediately? Probably not. That would be suspicious. More likely they returned to the truck and started laying boards over the swampy spot. Then Ermakov and Yurovsky appeared: they had found Ermakov’s men.

“What happened to the Red Guards later? Did they manage to escape on the way to the mines? Or return to the forest to the two they had rescued? Did the rescued pair die immediately—there in the forest? Or did