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Last of the Tsars - Ep3 - Death of the Dynasty
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Jun 22, 2025
On March, 2, 1917 an emperor Nikolay II signed the manifest about renunciation from a throne. After renunciation a former sovereign is with a wife and children, not wishing and not having the opportunity to abandon Russia and will leave for a border, in banishment, lived under a house arrest in Tobolsk, and then in Ekaterinburg. In night on July, 17, 1918, in the notorious Ipatiev house, family of Romanov was shot
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In October 1916, as World War I raged on, the children of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia
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visited him at his military headquarters. The family seemed happy and carefree despite the long years of war and internal strife
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Within six months, the whole dynasty would be swept away in the tumult of revolution
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After a year commanding his battalions in the brutal war with Germany
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Nicholas had made little headway against the enemy. The fighting was bleeding the nation dry of men, resources, and morale
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Before it was all over, his army would suffer millions of casualties
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On the home front, both food and government were bad, and in short supply
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In the Tsar's absence, his wife Alexandra ruled the country, disastrously. Born a German, the empress was widely, but wrongly believed to be a German spy
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Hatred for her was fueling the fires of discontent. In the capital, Petrograd, revolution was brewing
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From their home, the Alexander Palace outside Petrograd, Alexandra wrote to Nicholas daily, even hourly
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Be Peter the Great, Ivan the Terrible. Crush them all under you
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Remember, the Tsar rules. How long? Years? People have told me Russia loves to feel the whip
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It's their nature. I am fighting for your reign and baby Alexei's future
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We must give a strong country to baby and dare not be weak for his sake
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My dear, tender thanks for the severe scolding. I read it with a smile because you speak to me as though I were a child
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Yes, truly, you ought to be my eyes and ears there in the capital while I have to stay here
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At times when I think of how things will go, it seems my head will burst
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Your poor, weak-willed hubby, Nicky. Nicholas returned home from the front for Christmas and the new year of 1917
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More than ever before, this naturally private family withdrew into their own world
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But some of those closest to the family wrote about it, such as Lily Dane, the Empress's confidante
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Every Thursday evening, a small Romanian orchestra played in the red drawing room
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The Empress, set by the fire, staring into the glowing embers. She seemed unusually sad
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I whispered anxiously, Oh, Madame, why are you so sad tonight? The Empress turned and looked at me
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Why am I sad, Lily? I can't say really. I think my heart is breaking
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Not only her heart. The Romanov empire itself was about to crumble
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There was talk in the streets and trumps everywhere. People were saying that all our troubles come from the Tsar's court
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The Tsarina is a German, so she's a traitor. In Petrograd, rumour ruled
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Alexandra was a spy. She was giving Nicholas drugs. he was permanently drunk
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The truth was that Nicholas was exhausted, and as every decision he made worked out badly
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it was better, perhaps, to make no decision at all. The family began to realize
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that in some way the Tsar had given up. He had somehow innerly abdicated
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probably some six months before the real abdication. He didn't believe in himself anymore
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The relatives were desperate. The Tsar's brother-in-law, Grand Duke Alexander, came to plead with Nicholas on behalf of the whole dynasty
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For the first time in history, a revolution is being engineered not from below, but from above
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not by the people against their government, but by the government against the welfare of the people
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Nicholas II, Tsar of all the Russias, said simply, I was born on May the 6th, the day of Job the sufferer
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I am ready to accept my doom. The Tsar's ministers and members of the Duma, or parliament
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believed his passivity would destroy them all. The chairman of the Duma was Mikhail Rodzianco
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My grandfather liked so much the emperor that he always had on his desk, I remember it very well
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the famous Shirov's picture, and he considered him almost as a friend
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The only difficulty with him was that he inherited, but probably from his mother's side
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the kindness which was also sometimes sort of an impossibility to be forceful
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The man who would eventually emerge as the Russian people's revolutionary hero
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was still in exile. Lenin greeted the new year of 1917 in Europe
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where he addressed a group of Swiss workers. The hall was practically empty, and Lenin, drawing his conclusions at the end of his
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speech said there are revolutionary currents in Europe but I think a socialist revolution is still a long way off We old boys won live to see it You young man will but we won He didn know that in less than three months
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three months, in his own country, there would be a revolution. As Lenin continued to try to build
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his tiny Bolshevik party in Europe, in Petrograd the strikes and protests
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were multiplying daily. We wrote a declaration to the factory management asking for a rise
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If they didn't increase our wages, we would stop work and call a strike
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and that's what we did. The weather made it worse. In February, 1,200 locomotive engines froze and burst
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Food and fuel could not be transported. In Petrograd, hunger sharpened the people's anger
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At this critical point, Nicholas made a decision to leave his strife-torn capital
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and return to the headquarters at the front. He arrived on Thursday, the 8th of March
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On that very same day, crowds in the capital broke into food shops and helped themselves
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The next morning, when I went to school, I saw the destroyed bread shop
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The sign was torn off, the door was hanging just on one hinge
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Windows were broken. Everything was turned upside down. There were papers everywhere
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By Saturday, even the traditionally loyal Cossacks were assuring the demonstrators that they would not use their guns or whips
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Revolution was imminent. Alexandra wrote despairingly to Nicholas on the very eve of the Russian Revolution
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Sunday the 11th of March, the 24th of February by the old Russian calendar
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Yesterday there were rows on the Nevsky Prospect because the poor people stormed the bread shops
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They ransacked one shop completely. The Tsar cabled his response to his frantic ministers
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I command that the disorders in the capital, intolerable during these difficult times of war with Germany, be ended tomorrow
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The order was useless, a fantasy. In the very square where Nicholas had unveiled a statue to his father years before, the revolution
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brewing for days now, broke out. Spontaneously, soldiers and citizens became one
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We saw two dead horses lying across the street, and all the signs, the imperial signs, on
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the shop were being taken down, and many of them already lying on the street
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It's a revolution, they said. She was about seven or eight and was determined to become a social hostess
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and give parties and balls. I said, well, now what now? There won't be any society
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I won't be able to be a social hostess anymore. The Russia of labor was marching towards power without suspecting it
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The Russia of the ruling class had lost without realizing it. So wrote Alexander Kerensky, who was to become one of the leaders of the new provisional government
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I saw soldiers surrounded by civilians lining up on the opposite side of the street
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They wanted to know what we intended to do with the members of the Tsar's family
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and they demanded harsh treatment for them. I said that the most dangerous of them would be
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kept in custody, but that under no circumstances was the crowd to take the law into its own hands
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I insisted that bloodshed be avoided. Isolated from the capital, the Empress Alexandra's main concern
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was that four of her children had developed measles, in those days a serious disease
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My own angel love. Well, now Olga and Alexei have the measles
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Olga's face all covered, and baby more in the mouth and coughs very much and eyes ache
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In the palace, Alexandra stayed up all night to greet her husband
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now on his way back to his family and capital. But he did not arrive
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Lily then remembered the anxious hours. The Empress was told he had been delayed
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Perhaps the blizzard detains him, she said and lay back on her couch
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Anastasia was instantly alarmed and turned to me. But Lily, the train is never late
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Oh, if only Papa would come quickly. But Papa was trapped. With revolutionary troops blocking the railway lines
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the Tsar's only option seemed to be to head for the small town of Pskov
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where loyal troops were said to remain. On Wednesday, the 14th of March
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the imperial train slipped into a siding outside Pskov. Nicholas appealed to his generals for support, in vain
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The weakened Nicholas would have to go. It was time to pass on the throne
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The most bitter words came from Nicholas's uncle Nikolai, whom the Tsar had removed as head of the army
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As a loyal subject I consider it my duty to beg you your majesty on my knees to save Russia and your heir Cross yourself and pass the throne to your son There is no other way out
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Grand Duke Nikolai could not quite bring himself to say the word
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abdicate. From the capital, two Duma representatives, Guchkov and Shulgin, came to deliver the order of abdication
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The 85-year-old Shulgin himself, the sole surviving witness, appears in this film about
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the events of that fateful March day in the carriage of Nicholas's imperial train
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15th of March
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For the sake of Russia, I decided to take this step. All around me I see treason, cowardice, and deceit
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Alexandra had no way of knowing that her husband had lost the throne
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My own beloved precious angel, light of my life. My heart breaks thinking of you all alone, going through all this anguish, anxiety
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And we know nothing of you, nor you of us. To protect his invalid son Alexei, Nicholas had insisted on abdicating in favor of his
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brother, Grand Duke Michael. Back at the Duma, Shulgin and Guchkov duly reported on their historic mission
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The soldiers gathered and questioned them about how the Tsar had abdicated his throne
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I abdicate in favor of Grand Duke Michael. Why not Alexei? No, he said, my son is ill
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I'm not going to give him up. We will go to the Crimea and grow flowers
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When they said the Tsar abdicated, we rejoiced. I remember my father coming in and saying
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you can taste some champagne, because the Tsar abdicated with rank champagne
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But it wasn't that we were glad that the Tsar had abdicated. It was a question of another government, which was going to be better
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I remember people who came out onto the streets and were kissing each other, hugging each other
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They were saying that autocracy is all finished. there will be a democratic republic now, freedom, equality
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My grandfather, when he heard that the Tsar abdicated not only for himself, but also for his son, Alexis
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he became pale like snow and started having tears and even sobbed and said
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well, now Russia is finished. just like that. No one saw the once imperial family as a priority
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Alexandra did not learn of her husband's abdication until the next day
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In the palace, both water and electricity had been cut off. And not only had her adored Nicky been forced to abdicate
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but also his brother Michael had rejected the throne. Now there was no Tsar at all
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The tutor, Pierre Gilliard, spoke to his student, the former heir Alexei, about the terrible turn of events
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You know, your father does not want to be Tsar anymore, Alexei
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He looked at me in astonishment, trying to read in my face what had happened
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What do you mean? Why? Who's going to be Tsar then? I don't know. Perhaps nobody now
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There was a silence. And then he said, but if there isn't a Tsar, who's going to rule Russia
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By the time Nicholas returned home, the Alexander Palace was in the hands of the Revolutionary Guards
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No one was present when the ex-zar met his wife Alexandra. They themselves never wrote about it
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It was said by the courtiers that Nicholas sank into his wife's arms and wept
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Some time afterward, Ludmila Krasina and her sisters walked past the palace, which was
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now patrolled by revolutionary guards. And one of these men, dressed in khaki, looked like a soldier, was shoveling the
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snow away from the footpaths. I looked and I thought, this is not a soul, this is the
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Tsar himself cleaning the paths of his garden What is he doing Mademoiselle I asked He can be the Tsar Yes she said You see he been deposed
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It's the revolution. He's a prisoner in his own palace, and he's not allowed to go out
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He is guarded. And he's doing this to get some exercise. What amazed me, I was a little girl then
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was that the Tsar was dressed in an old coat, which was all stained
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It wasn't even clean. There were no decorations, nor epaulets. Many years have passed
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I'm 90 now, but I still remember it. I still remember the Tsar's expression
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There was such pain and suffering and tears in his eyes. The family's situation at the Winter Palace
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was house arrest rather than imprisonment. but it was still a far cry from their previous life
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Still, the family retained its humor and humanity. The teacher, Gilles d'Art, wrote of the girls' reaction
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to a humiliating treatment for the measles from which they had just recovered
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The grand duchesses have had their heads shaved as a result of their illness
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When they go out in the park, they wear scarves arranged so as to conceal the fact
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Just as I was going to take their photograph, at a sign from Olga, they all suddenly removed their hats
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I protested, but they insisted, much amused at the idea of seeing themselves photographed like this
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The leaders of the new provisional government were nervous about having the former czar so
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close to the capital. The simplest solution would have been to send the family abroad to one of their European relatives
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But they could hardly go to their cousin the Kaiser, with whom Russia was still at war
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So the new government requested and received asylum in Great Britain for the Romanovs
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But the English king, George V, the cousin of both Nicholas and Alexandra
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was unprepared for the public outcry. Inside England, of course, tempers were running against the Tsar
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and his German spy wife. All nonsense, of course, she was not a German spy
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She was more English than anything else. But that was the situation in England
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George V, in 1917, is very worried about the threat. to conservatism in general, but to the dynasty in particular
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from the socialist movement, from the working class. He doesn't want his dynasty to be associated with the hated Romanovists
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let alone the hated and fallen Romanovists. So King George withdrew the offer of asylum
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His cousin, the former czar, was now an international pariah. I am certainly not ready to criticise King George
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for withdrawing an invitation to come to the Tsar. Secondly, I am sure, and a grandmother used to tell me that
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the Tsar never wanted to leave Russia. He would have left only if his wife would have asked him to leave
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But there is no record of such a request from Alexandra. For the time being, the family stayed at Tsarskoe Selo
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But the world had not stopped. Russia was still at war with Germany
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But the Germans had a secret weapon, the banned radical Vladimir Lenin, whom they now sent
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back to Russia on a sealed train
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The Germans knew they could count on a favor from Lenin if he took power
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A legend has grown up around his triumphant return to Petrograd's Finland train station
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But in fact, there was a scramble to find people to greet him
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I met Lenin at the Finland station. It was the second day of Easter
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Lenin's sister Maria produced his telegram saying, I will arrive tonight at 11
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She said, how are we going to manage to collect people to meet Lenin
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to give him a fitting welcome? And they answered, that's all right
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The soldiers are on leave, and at the meetings taking place all over the town
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they will be informed that Lenin is arriving. Lenin's trick was to say what many wanted to hear
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and what the Germans had sent him back to say. Lenin had the populist's touch
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Peace and land for the people, he proclaimed. You soldiers, and there were about 200,000 soldiers in Petrograd
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none of you will have to go to the front if you support the Bolsheviks
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And they all supported Lenin. Who'd want bloody and dirty trenches when it was much better here in the capital
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Lenin's true hour of glory was still to come. First he had to tackle Kerensky, who was becoming a leader of the new provisional government
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Lenin's propaganda machine went to work on Kerensky. But Lenin's ultimate focus was on the Romanovs
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who had been responsible for the hanging of his older brother years before
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Lenin wanted them all dead. Even though the deposed Tsar and his family were becoming a liability
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the moderate revolutionary Kerensky felt responsible for the Romanov's safety. I had the thankless task of telling the former Tsar
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a czar he would have to move away. The Bolsheviks are after me, I said, and soon they will be after you
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Contrary to my expectations, he took the news calmly and expressed his wish to go to the Crimea
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Instead, I chose Tobolsk in Siberia, which was without railway communications. I knew that the governor's house was fairly comfortable and could provide decent accommodation
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for the imperial family. As the sun rose on August the 14th
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the moment came for the once imperial family with their many trunks and cases
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and at least two dozen members of the Tsarist household to leave
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It got quite light, we drank tea, and finally at 5.15, Kerensky said we could go
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The sunrise that saw us off was beautiful. We left Sasuke Selo at 6.10 in the morning
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The journey into exile was long and slow
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Four days in a train, two more on a paddle steamer. On the evening of the 20th of August, they finally reached Tobolsk
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Nicholas had once visited the Kremlin here a quarter of a century before. He had stayed in the governor's house
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and it was in this very house, renamed Freedom House since the Revolution
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that the Romanov family were now to be prisoners. We examined everything in the house from bottom to attic
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Many rooms have an unattractive view. And then went to the so-called garden, nasty
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The sense of being locked up is much stronger than at Saskia Silo. By the late fall of 1917, Lenin and his Bolsheviks were poised to seize power
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On November 7th, by the Western calendar, the Bolsheviks headed for the Winter Palace
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now the stronghold of Kerensky's seven-month-old government. It is one of Soviet history's most legendary moments
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The location is genuine enough, but the film's depiction of the famous storming
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is remembered differently by some. There was no storming as such
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Well, there was a storming, but there was no bloodshed, because all the young cadets, they were just boys
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They were just boys, really. They just threw down their arms and surrendered
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Vladimir Antonov Avsienko was in charge of the famous storming of the Winter Palace
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My father called it a coup, a takeover, and that's why there were practically no casualties
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He could have been shot, and his sailors too, but nothing like that happened
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and fell like a ripe pear from the tree. The provisional government was destroyed
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but the damage to the palace consisted of chipped paintwork and a broken window
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Kerensky managed to flee Petrograd, never to return. Lenin and the Bolsheviks were now the rulers of Russia
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Lenin, whose return to Russia had been engineered by Germany, pushed for peace. In one stroke of the pen, he conceded great tracts of the Russian Empire's
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western borderlands, nearly half a million square miles and more than one-third of the
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population. Peace was popular enough with the demoralized soldiers, who fraternized with German soldiers at the front. But it split the country. In the south, an anti-Bolshevik
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white army came into being. It was immediately countered by a Bolshevik Red Army
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A civil war was brewing in which the Bolshevik's main weapon was coercion
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the Red Terror. In Terbolsk, Nicholas eventually heard of the disintegration of his Russia
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The tutor Gilliard, still part of the household, saw the intensity of the effect it had on him
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I then for the first time heard the Tsar regret his abdication
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It now gave him pain to see that his renunciation had been in vain
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I frequently heard Nicholas muttering, Disgrace! Suicide for Russia! And to think that they called Her Majesty a traitor
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The family had now spent more than six months as prisoners in Tobolsk
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in the shadow of its ancient Kremlin and cathedral. New harsher guards had taken over and Alexandra and her daughters secretly sewed into their bodices all that was left of the Romanov riches Their jewelry
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I make everything now. I am knitting stockings for Alexei. His father's trousers are torn and darned
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The girls under linen all in rags. I am sad because they are allowed no walks except in front of the house
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inside the high fence. But at least they have fresh air and we are grateful for anything
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I would say that the Romanov's fate was sealed from the moment that the Bolsheviks came to power
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The new regime seized power in what was a coup d'etat. The Bolshevik regime then went on to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
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with Germany and signed away everything that Russia had gained for 300 years
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Having done that, civil war was a certainty. And once you had civil war, Lenin and his party were going to react ruthlessly
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I think at that point there was no hope for the Romanovs
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They were bound to die. On top of everything, Alexei, now nearly 14 years old
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was to suffer another serious bout of haemophilia. He would never walk again
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He is frightfully thin and yellow. I sit with him all day
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Yesterday, he said to me, Mama, I would like to die. I am not afraid of death
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but I am so afraid of what they will do to us here. In late April 1918
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the Bolshevik High Command, now established in the Kremlin and Moscow, issued new orders
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The Romanovs were told to get ready to leave, but not where they were going
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Across the road from the governor's house lived the Tsar's much reduced retinue
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including Dr. Bortkin, the family physician, and his daughter Tanya. Shortly before Easter, a small gift arrived for Tanya
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and with it, a note. It is dated 1918 and signed OR, Olga Romanov, Easter 1918
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just a few days before their departure for Ekaterinburg, three months before their death
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Christ has risen. My dear Tania, here are two eggs from all of us
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It's very sad we can't all be together. With fondest kisses, Olga Romanov
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This fragile family heirloom is the last surviving letter from any of the Grand Duchesses
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Under guard, Nicholas and his family were sent on yet another exhausting journey
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En route, their train was hijacked by a band of hardened revolutionaries
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their new wardens took them to the town of Ekaterinburg in the Urals
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they arrived on April 18th 1918 and were installed in the former house of a merchant named Ipatiev
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it was renamed the house of special purpose Nobody knows for sure whether the family realized their fate
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There were rumors of escape plans, but it is now known that they were spread deliberately by the Bolsheviks
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Lenin, in his Kremlin citadel, faced enemies on all sides. The White Army was threatening Ekaterinburg
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and the German Kaiser, Alexandra's cousin, was now expressing concern for the safety of his relatives
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Enter Yakov Yorovsky, the Romanov's new warden. One summer day he was seen wandering in the forest
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He and his cronies located an abandoned mine shaft. They bought drums of gasoline and sulfuric acid
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They arranged for a truck. Back at the Epatyev house, Alexandra continued to write in a diary
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which had been given to her by her daughter Tatiana. To my sweet darling Mama dear, with my best wishes for a happy new year
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may God's blessings be with you and guard you forever. your own loving girl, Datsyama
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The 46-year-old Alexandra dated her diary through to the end of the summer but the last entry is on July the 16th Grey morning after lovely sunshine
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Tatiana started to read from the prophet Obadiah. Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle
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and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord
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Played bazique with Nicholas. 10.30 to bed. 15 degrees. At 1.30 a.m. on July 17th
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the family was woken up by Jurovsky and told to prepare to move once again
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They were led into a small basement room. There, the 11 prisoners, the family and a small retinue
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were suddenly confronted by 11 armed men. There had only been time for incoherent exclamations
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Both Yurovsky and one of the guards, Medvedev, recorded in legal depositions their versions of what had happened
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Pavel Medvedev. All the members of the Tsar's family were lying on the floor
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very severely wounded. The blood was running in streams. Yakov Yurovsky. I myself killed Nicholas point blank
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Alexandra Fyodorovna died immediately
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Alexei and three of his sisters were still alive we had to finish them off
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We tried to bayonet one of the girls, but the bayonet would not penetrate her corsage
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We undressed the girl and found a corset torn in places by bullets through which diamonds could be seen
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Pavel Medvedev. The heir to the throne was still alive and mourning a little
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Yurovsky fired two or three times at him. Then the air was still
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This telegram to the bosses in Moscow announced in a prearranged code
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that the whole family was dead. Nicholas has been shot and his family sent to a safe place
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The bodies of the Romanov family were taken by truck to the mine
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hacked to pieces, soaked in sulfuric acid, burned on a bonfire, and then thrown down the shaft
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But Urofsky worried that his efforts had been rather too public. The next night, in deepest secrecy
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the fragments of skeleton and burnt flesh were exhumed and buried elsewhere
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For half a century, the Romanovs and their mortal remains would disappear
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The White Army took Ekaterinburg within a week of the assassination. They had no doubts about what had happened
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And the Tsar's family was not alone. Every Romanov the Bolsheviks could find
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they murdered. Nicholas's brother, Michael, nine uncles and cousins, and Alexandra's sister, Ella
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18 Romanovs in all. For years it was debated what part, if any
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Lenin had played in ordering the execution of Nicholas and his family
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Long secret Bolshevik papers have now revealed the following. Lenin, Trotsky and Sverdlov worked out this very cunning plan
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empowering the Yekaterinburg Soviet to liquidate the family, using as a pretext all sorts of fabricated plots
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attacks and attempts to rescue them. And I have documentary proof of this
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For example, Goloshokin, head of the Yekaterinburg Soviet, went to Moscow twice, just before the killings
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Twice he was in Moscow for instructions, for meetings with Lenin, Sverdlov and others
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It was all pre-planned. The foul act of annihilating Nicholas II was not accidental
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The local Bolsheviks appeared to have carried out the murders on their own initiative
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But it now seems clear that it was on orders from Lenin. Lenin took great care however to hide the truth Even from his ambassador to Berlin Adolf Iofe In 1918 when my father was Soviet ambassador in Berlin
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he received a communication down the line from Moscow that the former Tsar, Nikolaus II, had been shot
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He asked, and what about the family? He got no reply, and somehow the question was hushed up
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And when Dzerzhinsky, head of the secret police, passed through Berlin, father leaned on him and said
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why did you not reply to my queries when everyone was asking me
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from the Kaiser down, all Alexander's relatives, you know? Dzerzhinsky replied, it was a special order from Lenin
46:29
He said, let Joffa be told nothing. It would be easier for him to lie about it there in Berlin
46:40
For over half a century, Lenin and his lies held sway. No one even knew where the remains of the imperial family were buried
46:50
Until 1979, when years of private and top-secret research pinpointed a certain submerged bridge not far from the original mine
47:02
One morning, at the beginning of May, we came here at 6 o'clock when there was no one around
47:11
We removed a few planks and immediately, buried not very deep, we found some human remains
47:22
There were several of us when we found the remains. We were all in a state of shock. It was terrible
47:29
It was really frightening because the remains were mutilated by sulfuric acid
47:35
and the bones were all black and green. This heap of bones filled us with horror
47:46
We were lucky in that we found three skulls almost immediately. We covered everything up straight away
47:55
but kept the skulls with us as we wanted to have them identified
48:06
Identification was to become the key issue. In 1991, the remains were exhumed yet again, officially
48:14
But two skeletons were missing. So were these bones truly those of the last Tsar and his family
48:21
The latest DNA ysis would provide the answer. by comparing the Romanov bones with tissue from living relatives
48:36
Exactly 100 years to the day after the accession of Nicholas II to the Romanov throne
48:43
Queen Elizabeth II of Britain visited the Peter and Paul fortress, traditional burial place of all the other Romanov czars
48:50
It was the Queen's husband, Prince Philip, one of the closest living relatives of both Nicholas and Alexandra
49:01
who gave the crucial blood sample for DNA comparison. After exhaustive testing and squabbling
49:11
the results proved, with 99% accuracy, that the remains are indeed those of some of the Romanovs
49:20
One daughter and the son have not been accounted for, so rumors of Romanov surviving the assassination live on, however unlikely
49:32
Even the DNA results failed to convince the Russian church to consecrate the remains, however
49:38
because Nicholas's skull was not tested. They forbade burial until still further tests were complete
50:19
Thank you
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