The Last Tsar (44 page)

“10 [23] April. At 10.30 in the morning Kobylinsky and Yakovlev appeared with his suite.

“Received him with my daughters. We had expected him at 11, which is why Alix was not ready. He entered, clean-shaven, smiling and embarrassed, asked whether I was content with the guard and the quarters. Then almost ran into Alexei’s room, not stopping to inspect the other rooms, and excusing himself for the disturbance, went downstairs. He stopped in at the others on the other floors just as cursorily.

“Half an hour later he appeared again to be introduced to Alix. Again he hurried in to see Alexei and went downstairs. That so far has been the extent of the search of the house.”

How sympathetically all this was written in the tsar’s diary: “excusing himself for the disturbance,” “smiling.” The former master of half the world had already forgotten about smiles and excuses.

Chekist Yakovlev knew how to get along with people.

Twice that day the commissar from Moscow viewed the sick boy. He kept trying to imagine whether it was possible, after all, to move him—and realized it was not. His task had become even more complicated.

The Uralite Avdeyev, appointed commandant of the house, was bringing about a change of the guard. Instead of the soldiers from Tsarskoe Selo, Red Guards took up the posts. On one side there was a platoon of handsome mounted soldiers in formation, dressed in uniform. On the other, the Red Guard—the comrades—some in greasy sheepskin coats, some in woolen coats, some in faded overcoats. Instead of riding boots they wore sewn and patched felt boots. Their weapons corresponded. One had an ammunition belt across his shoulder, another a rifle, still another a revolver. Their lineup was unusual, too: the Red Guard formed up according to friendship, not height.

Both detachments regarded each other with astonishment. A fragment of an empire and the army of the revolution—a great photograph of the era.

The next day Yakovlev did not come to the house.

Nicholas’s diary:

“A fine day and rather warm. Sat a lot on my favorite greenhouse
porch, the sun warms up marvelously there. Worked by the hill and clearing out a deep ditch.”

While the tsar was clearing out the ditch and reflecting on the porch of the hothouse, Yakovlev was faced with his hardest task—his encounter with the tsar’s guard. They had meekly allowed themselves to be replaced by Red Guards, but as of yesterday they were already starting to grumble.

Gathering the guard, Yakovlev spent a long time flattering the sharpshooters. Then came the important part: he triumphantly handed them their unpaid salaries for six months of Soviet power and informed them of wonderful news: their service was at an end, and they could go home to their families at last. In the evening he called a meeting of the guard’s soldiers’ committee, where he announced his purpose: he must take the tsar and his family out of Tobolsk. To the recurring question Where? Yakovlev answered with the same sentence: “This is not a subject for discussion.” They began to grumble and he immediately capitulated: he proposed including eight sharpshooters from the former guard in the guard that was going to accompany Nicholas and the family to the designated place, to convince themselves that the tsar and his family would be safe.

Yakovlev had been told back in Moscow that he could rely on the committee chairman, Matveyev.

From Matveyev’s Notes:

“Yakovlev calls me in and asks me a question: have I ever had to carry out secret military instructions. Upon receiving an affirmative answer, Yakovlev announces he’s been given the task of
transferring the former tsar to Moscow
. He suggests I choose eight men from my detachment to escort Nicholas Romanov en route.”

One can only guess whether Matveyev shared this astonishing news with his friend, the “spy.”

That evening, at Yakovlev’s quarters, the main meeting was held, with Kobylinsky. In his conversation with the colonel, Yakovlev made his move. He informed Kobylinsky that he must take the tsar to Moscow for trial, although naturally there would not be a trial; the tsar and his family would be sent straight to Scandinavia. He extracted a promise from the colonel not to spread this secret, knowing full well he would. He needed it spread. To calm the family and the tsar and the suite so that all would go smoothly.

That same night Kobylinsky secretly informed Botkin, and Botkin his daughter.

His daughter wrote:

“Father has told us important news.… Yakovlev has come here on Lenin’s order to take Their Excellencies to Moscow for trial, and the issue is whether to let the guard go unimpeded. Despite the terrible word ‘trial,’ everyone has taken this cheerfully, since they are convinced it does not mean a trial at all but departure abroad. Yakovlev himself must have talked about this, since Kobylinsky was walking around very happy saying, ‘What trial? There’s not going to be any trial, they’re going to take them straight from Moscow to Petrograd—and on to Finland, Sweden, and Norway.’”

Kobylinsky did not manage to inform the tsar of all this, however.

Early on the morning of April 25, Yakovlev showed up again at Freedom House.

He told Nicholas he had to take him away from Tobolsk, but he did not have the right to disclose where.

Nicholas was stunned. He had not expected this; he had been certain that Yakovlev was just the new commissar, replacing the departed Pankratov. Such a “little man in a big fur cap.” The situation heated up: Nicholas refused to leave—Alexei was too ill, he must not be touched.

Yakovlev went down to the commandant’s room, where Avdeyev and Khokhryakov were sitting. Yakovlev was distraught. (A new game!) He conferred with the Uralites about what to do. In fact, he was still trying to involve the Uralites in his mission.

Once again Yakovlev went up to the tsar’s room. He declared: resistance was useless; if Nicholas did not agree to go peacefully, he would be taken by force. Of course, he said all this gently, again endlessly begging his pardon. He suggested to Nicholas that he go alone. “Alone!” Naturally, it occurred to the tsar: a way out! After all, without him,
they
would probably be freed immediately.

Then Nicholas agreed.

Yakovlev left to prepare for the departure. An immediate departure, at dawn. He realized the departure rumor could not be confined to the house now.

Nicholas returned to his family, where something unexpected awaited him: Alix! She had already found out from Kobylinsky that they were taking the tsar to Moscow. She was horrified. Her first thought was the Treaty of Brest. The trial was a ploy, of course. They were taking him there to sign that dishonorable peace. They wanted
to sanctify that loathsome paper with his name. The Germans must be demanding it. Only a peace signed by the tsar would have any value. That was why they wanted to take him to Moscow without her! Without her, he had always been forced to make dreadful decisions. No, she would not allow that. There was the duty of a sick child’s mother, and there was the duty of a tsaritsa. Her duty before the people and God.

He went out for a walk, and she, who could not stand for even five minutes because of her weak legs, paced restlessly around his office for an entire hour. Her thoughts were leaping about, she was going mad.

Alix’s diary:

“This is the first time in my life I have no idea how to act. Until now God has shown me the way. Right now tho’ I cannot hear His instructions.”

When the tsar got back from his walk she said determinedly: “I am going with you.”

Then she went to see her son. She took herself in hand and explained to the boy very calmly that she and the sovereign must leave. When he was better, he and his sisters would join them.

In the evening the boy cried out in pain, calling to her, but she would not go to him in his room again. She was afraid she would not have the strength to say goodbye to him one more time. She wept, repeating: “No, this is impossible, something has to happen.… No, I am certain something will have happened by morning.… God will send an ice floe—and this trip will not take place.”

Gradually she calmed down; she had made her final decision. But the boy kept crying and calling out to her.

She decided to split up the family; she could not travel alone. But which of her daughters to take? Tatiana—the most reliable—had to take care of Alexei and run the household. Olga’s health was too fragile—it was 300 kilometers to Tyumen in an open cart. Anastasia was too small, and Alexei loved her so much. “I will go,” said Marie.

Thus witnesses (Gilliard and others) recounted this scene.

But Alix and Nicky too described the whole drama in their diaries.

He: “12 [25] April. Thursday. After breakfast Yakovlev came with Kobylinsky and announced he had received an order to take me
away, not saying where. Alix decided to go with me and take Marie: no point protesting. Leaving behind the other children, with Alexei sick, and given the present circumstances, was more than difficult. We have already begun packing the essentials. But then Yakovlev said he would come back for O., T., An., and A.… We spent a sad evening, that night, naturally, no one slept.”

She: “I had to decide to stay with ill Baby or accompany him. Settled to accompany him as can be of more need & too risky not knowing where or for what (we imagine Moscow). Horrible suffering.… Took leave of all our people after evening tea with all. Sat all night with the children. Baby slept & at 3 went to him till we left. Started at 4¼ in the morning.”

Thus the entire family sat in the sleeping boy’s room.

Yakovlev did not sleep that night either. While Avdeyev was rushing around town scavenging horses and carts, Yakovlev was preparing for the trip. As if for battle. He called in the commander of the second Ural detachment, Busyatsky.

From Yakovlev’s memoirs:

“ ‘I charge you with the task of guarding the road out of Tobolsk.… It is your responsibility to guard my passage. You and your detachment will answer with your heads for our safety.… If anything happens, you will be the first shot.’ Busyatsky was standing in front of me as white as a sheet.”

Busyatsky was broken for the time being.

Yakovlev had ordered one of his most desperate Miass robbers to guard the exit from Tobolsk. He and his men must occupy the Tobol crossing and try to keep the other, very dangerous Ural detachment—Zaslavsky’s—from leaving town for as long as possible.

Dawn. The readied “carriages” stood in the yard. They were Siberian carts, called
koshevy
—woven baskets set on long poles—no seats; one sat or lay directly on the bottom.

There was only one covered cart, which Commandant Avdeyev had managed to find in the town, in which the tsaritsa was to ride. A mattress was put in there and hay thrown on top.

At five in the morning they started carrying out their things.

From Yakovlev’s memoirs:

“Sobs were heard from every corner of the house. The Romanov daughters and their entire staff had gone out on the porch. Nicholas was going from one to another, making the sign of the cross over his
daughters with convulsive movements. His proud wife bore up to her daughters’ tears. Each of her gestures said: you must not display weakness before the ‘Red enemy.’”

A long, hard journey lay ahead of them: to traverse the 300 kilometers to Tyumen in these carts with the roads so bad, switching back and forth from sleighs to wagons (in many places the sun had already melted the snow) and back again to sleighs. Farther on by train—into the unknown where Commissar Yakovlev was supposed to take them.

They seated themselves in the carts. Alix wanted to ride with Nicholas, but Yakovlev explained gruffly that he himself must sit with the former tsar. She got in silently with Marie. She would “maintain this persistent silence” nearly the entire terrible way.

Three servants were sent along with them: the tsar’s valet Chemodurov, the parlormaid Demidova, and the lackey Sednev. Also taking their seats in the carts were Dolgorukov, from the suite, and Botkin, as the physician. This was all Yakovlev would allow.

The tsaritsa had begged Gilliard not to see them off, so he was sitting in the darkness by the sleeping boy.

“Is it really possible that no one has made the slightest attempt to save the tsar’s family? Where, finally, are those who remained loyal to their sovereign?” Thus this strange Swiss, loyal to the Russian tsar to the very end, exclaimed in his diary. Now he realized there was no one.

From a neighboring house, yet another witness looked on: Dr. Botkin’s daughter.

She was seeing her father for the last time. He had blessed his daughter in parting and kissed her, but she kept watching as he crossed the street in his civilian coat and felt hat. Previously her father had worn a general’s greatcoat. But after the order to remove the epaulets, he had not wanted to remove Nicholas’s initials, so he exchanged his greatcoat for a civilian coat (and immediately changed once he put his civilian’s coat on, as Baron Tuzenbakh had in Chekhov’s
Three Sisters)
.

The night before, they had come for his suitcases and his fur-lined fur coat. And here was the dawn and she saw the carts in Freedom House yard and her father wearing Prince Dolgorukov’s rabbit fur coat. They had wrapped the empress and Marie in her father’s fur. Yes, they turned out not to have an adequate fur coat for the savage morning frosts, for this penetrating wind in the cart racing over the ice.

Six in the morning. For the last time she saw her father’s face, Marie’s sweet face, the empress’s mournful face. And Nicholas’s calm face.

The carts got under way. Gilliard’s three pupils ran down the halls of Freedom House—three sobbing girls.

Avdeyev galloped alongside the cart where the tsar and the Central Executive Committee’s plenipotentiary were sitting. Up ahead were carts carrying Red Guards and three cannon. Cavalry detachments rode in the lead and at the rear of the sleigh train. Way up ahead galloped the scouting party.