The Last Tsar (33 page)

During this period Alexander Blok wrote in his
Notebook:
“The tragedy has yet to occur, it will either not happen at all or it will be horrible, and they shall stand face to face with the enraged people.”

What were their royal relatives doing at the time?

For instance, the English Georgie, King George to the rest of the world, Nicholas’s ally in war who looked so like Nicky.

It all began quite reasonably. Immediately after the tsar’s arrest the British ambassador warned the Provisional Government that every
measure must be taken to ensure the family’s safety. The Provisional Government readily entered into talks with George’s government about their departure for England. Agreement was reached in a few days. After the arrest, they informed the British ambassador on March 23. Ambassador George Buchanan wrote that “the representative of His Highness and the King will be pleased to receive,” etc.

That was in March, and it was already July—and they were still at Tsarskoe Selo. Why?

Subsequently British Prime Minister Lloyd George would blame the Provisional Government for being unable to overcome the resistance of the Petrograd Soviet. But there is another point of view: “Prime Minister Lloyd George himself advised King George to decline the Romanovs’ arrival in order to buy popularity among leftist England at the price of his own relatives’ lives.” For from the very beginning of the revolution Russian society had pronounced an implicit sentence on the tsar’s family. That is why the Special Commission, which investigated the accusations against the tsar and tsaritsa of betraying the homeland and their allies’ interests, was created. How could George provide a haven for those whom his own country was getting ready to accuse of being traitors in their common struggle? How could Kerensky release this family, which embodied “treason” and the “damned old regime”? So all these talks were just a game—a game of good intentions for the purpose of salving consciences.

“We sincerely hope that the English government does not have any intention of providing a haven for the tsar and his wife.… This would profoundly and justly hurt the feelings of the Russians, who have been forced to bring about a great revolution because of being constantly betrayed to our present enemies,” wrote the
Daily Telegraph
at the time.

The tsar’s family was becoming an increasingly dangerous card in the struggle between the Soviet and the Provisional Government. A decision was finally made: remove the family from Petrograd. They dreamed they would be sent to sunny Livadia, but the Provisional Government did not dare. Kerensky found an effective solution: send the tsar’s family to Siberia—to the same place where the tsar had exiled the revolutionaries. They chose Tobolsk, where their fateful favorite, the holy man, had been from. Herein lay both a hidden joke and a cunning trap. Kerensky understood that she would take this as an omen and would submit without a murmur.

The departure date and destination were kept secret; Kerensky
was afraid of the Soviet and the crowd—their hatred for the family was too great.

On July 30 they sat for the last time at the formal table in the deserted palace.

Nicholas’s diary:

“30 July, Sunday. Today dear Alexei turned 13. May the Lord grant him health, patience, and strength of spirit and body in our present trying times! We went to Mass and after breakfast to prayers, where we brought the icon of the Znamenskaya Mother of God. Somehow it felt especially warm to pray to her holy face with all our people.… Everything is packed, and only paintings remain on the walls.”

Their departure was set for the following day. But the hour was kept secret. Toward evening a car arrived at the palace—Kerensky had brought Michael.

“31 July.… Our last day at Tsarskoe Selo. Marvelous weather.… After dinner waited for the departure hour to be set, which they kept postponing. Unexpectedly Kerensky arrived and declared that Misha would arrive soon. Indeed, at about 10.30 dear Misha walked in accompanied by Kerensky and the chief of guards. It was very nice to see him, but awkward to talk in front of outsiders.”

During the meeting with Misha, Kerensky was sitting in the corner, demonstratively shutting his ears to show that he was not listening to the conversation.

There was no conversation, though: “awkward to talk in front of outsiders.” They stood facing each other in silence, shifting from leg to leg, holding hands for some reason, touching each other’s buttons—as if they were trying to remember for all time, as if they felt that they were about to vanish from each other forever.

As he was leaving, Misha asked to say goodbye to the children, but Kerensky would not allow it. And he tried to make the fact known: it was popular to persecute the Romanovs.

Nicholas’s diary:

“31 July [continued].… When he left, the riflemen from the guard staff began hauling our baggage into the circular hall. Already sitting there were Benckendorff, the ladies-in-waiting, the girls, and our people. We walked back and forth, waiting for the trucks to arrive. The secret of our departure was observed to the point that both the cars and the train were ordered after the appointed departure hour. We were colossally exhausted. Alexei wanted to sleep, and he kept lying down and getting up, there were several false alarms
when we got on our coats, went out onto the balcony, and again returned to the halls.”

Between the vacant walls Alix wrote to Anya. Leaving Tsarskoe, she thought about her and about the holy man. Alix knew how to be a friend.

“They aren’t telling us where we are going or for how long—we shall only find out on the train, but we think its where you just went—the Holy Man is calling us there, our Friend.… Dear one, what suffering our departure is; all is packed, empty rooms—it hurts so much: our hearth for 23 years, but you, my angel, have suffered much more.”

Nicholas’s diary:

“31 July [continued].… It got quite light, we drank tea, and finally, at 5.15, Kerensky appeared and said we could go. We got into our two cars and drove to the Alexander Station. A cavalry unit galloped behind us from the park.”

The car stopped in a field by the Alexander Station. By the tracks stood three or more companies of soldiers—the detachment being sent along to guard and protect the tsar and his family. These were all St. George’s Cross holders, brave lads all, riflemen from the First, Second, and Fourth Guards regiments. All in new tunics and new greatcoats. For their future service they had been promised pay as well as travel compensation. At the head of the entire detachment was Colonel Evgeny Kobylinsky of the Life Guard Keksgolmsky Regiment, a fighting officer who had been at the front since the war’s outset, had been wounded many times, had returned to the front, and had been taken to the hospital again by wounds. He had lain in the hospital at Tsarskoe Selo in September 1916, when the “most august Sisters of Mercy”—Alix and her daughters, the grand duchesses—made the injured colonel’s acquaintance for the first time. “We visited him in hospital & took our picture together.” Later he was a “true soldier”—so Alix wrote to her friend. Now the former wounded officer was master of their fate.

Among the guard’s riflemen was Sergeant-Major Peter Matveyev. His “Notes and Reminiscences About Nicholas Romanov” are kept in the Sverdlovsk Party Archives.

From Matveyev’s Notes:

“We saw that from the tsar’s branch line a train of international cars, with ‘Red Cross Mission’ written on them in red letters, was pulling in.… We still didn’t know where we were going or where we were taking them.”

Two trains were made up. In the breaking sun a string of people walked over to the train cars.

One train carried the guard, the other the family, the guard, their “people,” and the suite. The “people and suite” comprised forty-five people. More “people”—their servants—and many fewer of the suite had agreed to share their exile. Even then, in early March, their closest friends had made themselves scarce at the Tsarskoe Selo station—K. Naryshkin, head of the imperial chancellery; von Grabbe, commander of the imperial convoy; Nikolai Sablin, an aide-de-camp and one of the tsar’s and tsaritsa’s closest friends; the Prince of Leuchtenberg; and Colonel Mordvinov. Their loyal suite took to their heels.

“How they all betrayed him,” Nicholas Romanov said biliously and curtly.

Traveling with them were Valya (Marshal of the Court Prince Dolgorukov), the tsar’s aide-de-camp General Tatishchev, and several of the tsaritsa’s ladies-in-waiting—all that remained of their brilliant court—and their “people.”

Kerensky was nervous. He himself was directing the loading—the endless trunks, suitcase, and boxes, the furniture. Commissar Makarov entered the car; he was to accompany the family into exile for the Provisional Government (he already had experience, having brought the arrested Nicholas from Headquarters to Tsarskoe Selo in early March).

Two trains under the Red Cross flag. They would pass through large stations with curtains drawn, and at each of them Commissar Makarov would have to send a telegram to Prime Minister Kerensky. Even the riflemen of the guard did not yet know the direction of their route.

Nicholas and Alexandra were walking along the tracks to their car. The recession from Tsarskoe Selo was almost complete.

A certain Colonel Artabolevsky was present at this recession and recorded in detail how they walked to their train across the approach tracks, along the rails, how he led her, supporting her, toward the car (she had weak legs), how he helped her climb the high step, supporting her by the elbow, how she struggled up and how easily and boldly (a guardsman!) yesterday’s tsar jumped up to the step of the train car.

This was the sleeping car of the same Chinese-Eastern Railway for which countless years before, while still heir to the throne, he had helped lay a foundation stone in Vladivostok. Now he was taking this route into exile.

As dawn was breaking, they were still loading the many suitcases into the cars.

Aide-de-camp General Ilya Leonidovich Tatishchev; Marshal of the Court Vasily Alexandrovich Dolgorukov; the children’s tutor Pierre Gilliard; Alexei’s English teacher Charles Gibbes; Court Physician Evgeny Sergeyevich Botkin; the tsaritsa’s personal lady-in-waiting Anastasia Gendrikova; her reader Ekaterina Schneider; her lady-in-waiting Baroness Buxhoeveden; the two friends, the parlormaids Anna Demidova and Elizaveta Ersberg; the children’s servant Ivan Sednev; the heir’s companion, the sailor N. G. Nagorny; the cook Kharitonov; and the valet Alexander Volkov entered the car. Servers, lackeys, scribes, a hairdresser, a wardrobe attendant, a wine steward—the string of retainers took their places in the train.

Nicholas’s diary:

“The sunrise that saw us off was beautiful.… Left Tsarskoe Selo at 6.10 in the morning.”

The entire family stood at the windows of the train and looked at Tsarskoe illuminated by the rising sun.

Tsarskoe vanished—and along with it their entire past life.

From Matveyev’s Notes:

“Only when we turned away from Petrograd did we realize from the station names that we were following the direct northern route and taking the former tsar into the forests and steppes of Siberia.”

i1.1
. Nicholas and the grand dukes on parade at Krasnoe Selo.

i1.2
. Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, uncle of Nicholas II.