Alexander II_ The Last Great Tsar - Edvard Radzinsky [234]
And I had already seen a certain file in the former Archives of the October Revolution (which has abashedly changed its name to the Russian State Archives), a file with the terrible title “Envelope with a crown and the inscription ‘Anichkov Palace’” (archive 640, list 2, file 14). Inside the file, indeed, lay a small envelope with “Anichkov Palace” printed on it and an embossed crown. But there was one more inscription on the envelope, this handwritten, and in English: “Nicky hair when three years old.” And a signature: “Alix.” Actually, even without the signature it would have been easy to recognize the elegant handwriting of the last tsaritsa.
Evidently, immediately after the wedding, when Alix and Nicky were first living with the dowager empress at Anichkov Palace, his mother had given Alix this little envelope, and punctilious Alix had written it all down on the spot.
The envelope holds little Nicky’s golden curls, which you can see in that first photograph of him as a baby.
For this reason I was not listening very closely to that part of my guest’s conversation. But when he started talking about the diamonds …
He immediately sensed my agitation and said, derisively as always: “I’ll try to send you the documents. And I’ll call.”
He did send me the documents. But he never called.
Soon after I learned from the newspapers that a blood analysis had been done in England on Prince Philip, consort of the English queen. The DNA of the prince—the grandson of Alix’s sister—proved identical to the DNA taken from the bones of the alleged skeleton of the murdered tsaritsa. The prince’s DNA also matched the genetic code of three other skeletons—the alleged grand duchesses.
Is the story of the tsarist grave over?
I remembered this strange sentence from long ago: “Even opening the grave will not clear up the puzzle for us completely.”
Naturally, I waited impatiently for my guest’s phone call and usual commentaries.
But he never called me again. Actually, I’ve written that about him before. So I continue to await his call.
A few extracts from the file he sent me:
“Materials related to the search for the valuables of the family of the former tsar Nicholas Romanov in three volumes.
“Top secret. Report of the OGPU Economics Department for the Urals on the confiscation of the tsarist valuables …
“After an extensive search on November 20, 1933, in the town of Tobolsk, the valuables of the tsar’s family were confiscated. While the tsar’s family was staying in Tobolsk, the tsarist family’s valet Chemodurov had turned these valuables over for safekeeping to Druzhinina, mother superior of the Tobolsk Monastery of St. Ivan.”
This was the same monastery where they had so dreamed of living.
“Shortly before her death, Druzhinina gave them to her assistant, the deaconess Marfa Uzhentsova, who hid these valuables in the monastery well, the monastery cemetery, and several other places as well.”
Soon, however, after the monastery’s closing, the monks were driven out, and Marfa evidently had nowhere to hide the tsarist jewels. She tried to figure out what to do to keep them from falling into the hands of the authorities who had killed the tsar and his family.
“In 1924–25, M. Uzhentsova was planning to throw the valuables into the river. She was dissuaded from this step, however, by former Tobolsk fishing industrialist Kornilov, to whom she entrusted the valuables for temporary safekeeping.”
Yes, this was the same Kornilov in whose home the tsar’s suite had been housed during their Tobolsk confinement. Evidently, though, either Marfa consulted with someone about the tsarist jewels or she simply let it slip. The former deaconess did not realize that times had changed and that by then it was no longer prudent to seek other people’s advice.
“Arrested on October 15 of the same year, Uzhentsova admitted to keeping the tsarist valuables and indicated where they were located. No valuables were found in the indicated place.”
She was still