The Last Tsar (43 page)

Sverdlov handed Commissar Yakovlev the ominous mandate of a Central Executive Committee plenipotentiary, a mandate bearing the signatures of Lenin and Sverdlov that obligated everyone to facilitate the plenipotentiary’s mission—or be shot for failure to obey orders. The powerful mandate said not a word, however, about the mission’s purpose.

Sverdlov explained Yakovlev’s task to him orally: the tsar’s family must be brought to Moscow.

Sverdlov asked Yakovlev his plan of action. Yakovlev proposed the typical plan of that insane period: without explaining anything to anyone (citing state secrecy), he would take the tsar’s family out of Tobolsk and down the frozen Tobol to Tyumen, where there was a railroad. He would put the family on a train and start out in the direction of Ekaterinburg, so as not to provoke any hostility on the part of the Uralites. But once he was well out of Tyumen he would turn toward Omsk—eastward. He would take the tsar’s family to Moscow via Omsk, which was at odds right then with Ekaterinburg. Should circumstances intervene, he would take the tsar’s family to
his own Ufa, where there were people loyal to him and where it would be quite simple to continue on with the family to Moscow whenever necessary.

Sverdlov suggested keeping a
third
plan in reserve: if all else failed, Yakovlev could take the family to Ekaterinburg. The former terrorist was quite sure of himself, however. In his previous high-risk escapades he had always triumphed, and he would triumph this time as well: the tsar’s family would be in Moscow.

Yakovlev had two telegraphists put at his disposal—he must maintain constant contact with Moscow and Sverdlov. The telegrams were to use a code of sorts: “cargo” and “baggage” meant the tsar’s family; the “old route” was the Moscow route; the “new route” was the Ufa route; and finally, the “first route” was the Ekaterinburg route.

Having received his assignment, Yakovlev immediately left for Ufa to assemble a detachment. Ufa was his home, he had old friends there. The local Cheka formed a detachment of reliable men, the majority of them former comrades who had taken part in seizing the Miass gold. Yakovlev referred to them affectionately as the Miass robbers.

In Ufa, Yakovlev summoned the leader of the Ekaterinburg Bolsheviks, Military Commissar Filipp Goloshchekin.

Yakovlev presented his mandate and demanded that Goloshchekin write orders subordinating all the Ekaterinburg men in Tobolsk—the head of the Tobolsk Soviet Pavel Khokhryakov, Avdeyev, and so on—to Yakovlev.

Certainly, Goloshchekin was prepared to give him the paper, but first he demanded that Yakovlev disclose the purpose of his mission: after all, the Central Executive Committee had already promised the tsar’s family to Ekaterinburg. Yakovlev explained that the tsars family would be brought to Ekaterinburg, just as the Central Executive Committee had promised, but no one must know that yet. Especially in Tobolsk. Why the secrecy? Yakovlev had a likely explanation: otherwise the Omsk detachment in Tobolsk would make trouble and matters might go as far as open conflict. Moreover, the old guard could mutiny as well. They had a long-standing dislike for the Ekaterinburg Bolsheviks from the Tobolsk Soviet—it was no accident that they refused even to let them into Freedom House. That was why Yakovlev asked Goloshchekin to order the Ekaterinburg men to obey him without question.

Goloshchekin gave him his written order.

All this was a game. Of course, Goloshchekin, Sverdlov’s old
friend, had had information about the true purpose of Yakovlev’s secret mission for a long time, and he had prepared for it.

What was Lukoyanov doing while Yakovlev and his detachment were leaving for Tobolsk?

After the middle of March, after Khokhryakov and Avdeyev and their detachment entered the town, he evidently left for Perm. In any event, on March 15, 1918, Feodor Lukoyanov was named head of the Perm Cheka. At the end of April, however, he left Perm again—“to put down kulak disturbances.” In fact, he evidently returned to Freedom House: Goloshchekin had declared that the decisive moment was near.

Meanwhile, in Freedom House, life went on as usual.

Nicholas’s diary:

“7 [20] April. Saturday.… Vespers at 9. An excellent bass sang.”

As always, vespers on Saturday. An electric light burned dimly in the large hall, and the icon of the Savior shone in the half-dark.

Alix entered the empty hall and covered the lectern with her own embroidery. And left. At eight the priest, accompanied by four monks from the monastery, entered the hall with a chasuble. Candles were lit. Dolgorukov, Tatishchev, and Botkin formed a line to the left of the lectern, and then came the ladies-in-waiting of the former court and the various “people.”

Finally a tiny door in the wall opened, and in walked the family.

The chorus and the “excellent bass” began to sing: “Glory to God from on high.” The family knelt, whereupon everyone else dropped down as well.

Thus they greeted their favorite day, April 8, the twenty-fourth anniversary of their engagement. That night, as always, they reminisced … brother Ernie, Wilhelm, Georgie, Ella. Where were they now? Grandmother Queen Victoria was long since in her grave. Nevertheless, all that had happened. There had been a kiss in Coburg Castle. And there had been a young man and a young woman—insanely happy. Or rather, happy and insane, for, “Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars….”

But on this special anniversary Nicholas learned he was no longer allowed to wear his epaulets. Nor was “Little One” either. His
epaulets were a kind of connecting thread: he wore epaulets with his father’s initials, and his son wore his, Nicholas’s.

I can imagine how impatiently Matveyev and the “spy” waited for him to go on his walk—to read what he had written in his diary.

Evidently, the usual ritual took place: Matveyev roamed the halls, keeping watch, and Lukoyanov entered the room.

On the desk, as usual, all was compulsively in place: pencils, a few watches—part of his collection—and, finally, the diary.

Lukoyanov read:

“8 [21] April. Sunday. The 24th anniversary of our engagement!… Mass at 11.30, after which Kobylinsky showed me a telegram from Moscow that confirmed the detachment committee’s decision to take our epaulets away from me and Alexei. My decision: not to wear them for walks but wear them only at home. Shall not forget this beastliness!”

Lukoyanov finally understood: the tsar was stubbornly writing
everything
in the diary. Even assuming (he had to assume!) the possibility of the diary’s being read by his enemies. Herein lay Nicholas’s contempt for them.

That was when the “spy” got an idea!

He could not carry out his idea in Tobolsk, though, for the next day everything changed.

On an April morning in 1918, Avdeyev, a member of the Tobolsk Soviet of Ekaterinburg Bolsheviks, was on his way from Tobolsk to his native Ekaterinburg. Avdeyev was pleased because he was carrying the long-awaited documents: information (the tsaritsa’s correspondence and so on) about the monarchist plot of Rasputin’s son-in-law Soloviev, obtained by the “spy,” and a resolution of the Tobolsk Soviet: in view of the threat of escape by Nicholas the Bloody from Tobolsk, begging the Ural Soviet to transfer the tsar’s family to Ekaterinburg.

On the platform where Avdeyev was waiting for his train, he saw a military unit disembarking. The sight of unfamiliar armed men greatly disturbed him. He counted fifteen cavalry and twenty infantry. This was a time of furious hostility between Omsk and the Urals, which made him think another Omsk detachment had arrived, so he
decided to ferret out information about what kind of soldiers they were.

He walked over to the train, asked for the officer in charge, and was led to a man wearing a sheepskin coat over a sailor’s shirt and a big fur hat. Avdeyev presented the man his papers from the Tobolsk Soviet. The man read them, got very excited, announced, “You’re just the man I need,” and showed the Ekaterinburg man his mandate with the signatures of Lenin and Sverdlov. He also showed him the written instructions signed by Goloshchekin ordering all Ekaterinburg Bolsheviks in the Tobolsk Soviet to obey Central Executive Committee plenipotentiary Yakovlev without question.

Avdeyev had to return to Tobolsk with the detachment.

Avdeyev and Yakovlev were on horseback. Yakovlev was asking Avdeyev about Freedom House. Avdeyev replied listlessly: he did not know the details, the guard would not let them inside the house.

After traveling some 20 versts (13 miles), they noticed chains of soldiers up ahead. At first they thought: White Cossacks! Fortunately, matters did not go so far as firing: through binoculars they saw a red flag and red ribbons on fur hats. The horsemen galloped toward one another.

It turned out to be the detachment sent from Ekaterinburg to Tobolsk … for the Romanovs!

This was Ural Military Commissar Goloshchekin’s first surprise. Yakovlev was shocked to realize that Ekaterinburg was controlling him.

Now they proceeded together, the two detachments. Yakovlev galloped on his horse flanked by two Ural horsemen—Avdeyev and the detachment commander, the Uralite Busyatsky.

One of the Miass robbers recorded in his memoirs their amazing conversation en route. Busyatsky suggested a plan to Yakovlev: when Yakovlev took the tsar and his family out of Tobolsk, en route, near the village of Ievlevo, Busyatsky’s detachment could stage an ambush on Yakovlev’s detachment, as if they were trying to free the tsar and his family. In the crossfire they could do away with all the Romanovs. “We should be finishing off the executioner, not wasting our time on him,” said the Ekaterinburg man.

In reply Yakovlev silently showed Busyatsky his mandate: that all should obey him, the plenipotentiary of the Central Executive Committee, in everything. Busyatsky only chuckled. He was silent the rest of the way.

Thus, on April 22, 1918, both detachments entered the town of Tobolsk.

In Tobolsk there was one more surprise: another detachment from Ekaterinburg, led by the Bolshevik Zaslavsky, was waiting for Yakovlev.

Thus from the very first day Yakovlev found himself surrounded by two detachments of Uralites. Goloshchekin had prepared for his encounter with the Central Executive Committee’s plenipotentiary.

Yakovlev stayed in Kornilov’s house, where the Nicholas’s “suite” was housed. That very night he went to the Tobolsk Soviet to present his mandates.

The Ekaterinburg Tobolsk men listened to Yakovlev’s short speech. He informed them of the goal of his secret mission: to take the tsar and his family out of Tobolsk.

To the natural question, Where? Yakovlev replied that “it was not for them to discuss that, as prescribed in the mandate.” In response Yakovlev heard the furious words of Zaslavsky, the Ural detachment’s commander: “We shouldn’t be wasting our time on the Romanovs, we should be finishing them off!”

From Yakovlev’s memoirs:

“I told him just one thing: all your detachments must obey me and fulfill my instructions! I hope you understand?”

Zaslavsky muttered through his teeth: “Yes.”

In conclusion Yakovlev announced a change of the guard for tomorrow. Local Red Guards were to take up all the posts in Freedom House. Yakovlev appointed his friend from the platform, Avdeyev, Freedom House’s new commandant. This was a nod in the direction of the Uralites.

As soon as Yakovlev left, however, the Uralites passed a resolution—to keep a sharp eye on the plenipotentiary from Moscow!

Goloshchekin had prepared well for Yakovlev’s arrival.

Once he realized that the Uralites in the Tobolsk Soviet were his enemies, Yakovlev had to exercise supreme caution with the guard and Kobylinsky. If that did not work out, the mission would fail.

In the morning he called in Kobylinsky.

The Moscow commissar’s unusually gracious manner won the colonel over. Yakovlev explained that he had come to take the tsar and his family away. Unfortunately he could not announce the secret
route, but the colonel could be assured he would learn everything, and very soon.

Kobylinsky repaid a confidence with a confidence. He informed Yakovlev of all the difficulties in store for his mission. Alexei was very sick, and there was no possibility of moving him.

Lately the boy had been amazingly healthy and had played endless games in the house, including a desperate game: riding a wooden boat down the stairs from the second floor. His boat whooshed down with a crash that made the inhabitants of the house cover their ears. It was as if he were trying to prove something to himself. There was another game, too—swinging on a log swing. “I do not know during which of these games he bruised himself and, as always, was taken to his bed,” recalled Dr. Botkin’s daughter.

What a bruise meant for Alexei given the conditions of their confinement was described by Dr. Botkin himself:

“Alexei Nikolaevich is subject to a disease of the vessels under the influence of insults utterly unavoidable for boys of his age, attended by … the severest pain. In such instances, the boy can suffer so inexpressibly day and night that none of his closest relatives, to say nothing of his mother, who has a chronic heart ailment, not sparing themselves for him, can bear caring for him for very long. My waning powers are also insufficient. N. G. Nagorny, who has remained with the patient through several sleepless and torture-filled nights, is wearing thin and would be in no condition at all to hold out if not for being spelled and assisted by Alexei Nikolaevich’s teachers, Mr. Gibbes and especially his tutor Gilliard.… Taking turns reading and exchanging impressions, they distract the patient during the day from his sufferings” (from the statement of E. S. Botkin before the Tobolsk Executive Committee).

On April 23, Yakovlev, accompanied by the new commandant, Avdeyev, and Colonel Kobylinsky, went to Freedom House. The night before, however, the family had prepared for this meeting.

Nicholas’s diary:

“9 [22] April. We learned about the arrival of the special plenipotentiary, Yakovlev, from Moscow. He is staying in the Kornilov house. The children imagine he will come today to make a search and burn all the papers, and Marie and Anastasia even burned their diaries….