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Having read this book, the reader will hopefully ponder over his life, the life of his generation and of the previous ones. We hope for it. Anzhelika Petrovna.

CHapter I
SOURCE

Мысли у дома Ипатьева

Дорога длинная, пустая была так долго без огня

И вот пришла пора святая, которая спасла меня

Отцы и деды, поколенья восстали мигом

Рядом в ряд

И мы, как воины России, должны спасти её опять

Благая вера, где ты в людях?

Восстань, воспрянь и воскреси

В Россию веру вековую в народе нашем укрепи

Заветы предков поминая

Нельзя России изменять

О Русь!

Воскресни, созидая

Чтоб, созидая, побеждать

Oleg Filatov

October 1995

Thoughts near the Ipatiev House

A long road has long been dark

But one day the Holy Dawn has saved me. Fathers, grandfather, generations

Have risen, row upon row

We, the Warriors of Russia

Must save our land once more

Oh, good Faith, where are you?

Help the Russian people rise, liven up, resurrect

Remembering the behests of ancestors

One cannot betray one’s motherland

Oh, Russia! Resurrect and create

Through creation you will win the whole world

Когда приходит час судьбы

Когда приходит час судьбы

Мы поминаем всех усопших

И на останках тишины

Мы мысkи наши поверяем

Мы помним всё, всё, кроме снов, – История, судьба, Россия

Когда приходит час судьбы

Мы поминаем всех героев

И день и ночь, и тьма и свет

Борьба, смятение души

И горе, счастье и любовь

Нас посещают в час единый

Приходят новые огни – Огни, которых ожидали

Мы все, конечно, сплетены

И нашем горем, и печалью

Судьба и Бог, и мы – России верные сыны

Сегодня путь мы выбираем

Oleg Filatov

September 1994

When the fatal hour strikes

When the fatal hour strikes

We commemorate our dead

And in the silence the thoughts

Are crowding into our minds

We remember everything but dreams – The history, the fate, Russia

When the fatal hour strikes

We recall all our heroes

And in day light and at night

The fight, confusion, grief, happiness

And love visit us at this hour

New lights we were waiting for

Have come

Of course, we are all interlaced

With our grief and sorrow

Today the Fate and God, and we – The faithful sons of Russia – Are choosing our way

I often thought about how I coucld tell the truth about my father. After having talked with my friends, colleagues, and acquaintances I came to the conclusion that it should be written in the way he himself had told about it. He was not a historical character of a distant epoch but our contemporary born early in the XX^th century and during 84 years, together with his people, endured hunger, suffering, and repressions. It is almost impossible to imagine, how he felt, realising who he was and keeping silent for so many years. He had seen and endured a lot to save himself and his family, his children. Maybe we shall never know the whole truth but we should try. “Non progredi – estra gredi’ (“Not to go forward means to go backwards’)

Father had lived a long life. He had compensated for his physical defects by his constant desire for harmonious development and knowledge. This had given him a stimulus to live. We, his children, were born when he was far from being young, we cheered up, he sensed a new meaning in life. And when his granddaughters were born, the truth finally came out and he told their mother, my wife Anzhelika Petrovna, about his tragic fate. It was in 1983, five years before his death. Only then did we understand that Father and the boy whom he spoke of as executed on the night of 16—17 July, 1918, but not killed, in the basement of the Ipatiev house in Ekaterinburg, – was the same man, that is, he was Alexei Nikolaevich Romanov. Before, he had told us about it allegorically, piece by piece to each of us. Now we are collecting all his stories and our reminiscences of him to better understand what had happened. Part of the reminiscences of the members of our family – his children and his wife Lidiya Kuzminichna (due to her, strictly speaking, he had lived for so many years) – has been published in newspaper articles and served the basis for special investigations carried out by experts and continued until now. Unfortunately, there are many gaps in these reminiscences: he was restrained in his stories and we were children then and did not ask him any questions, we simply believed that what he had said was true. How could we not believe in our father, when we saw how he suffered and understood that his life could have been quite different! One might notice repetitions in this book, but this is not so awful. The most important thing is – to be honest (this is the basic principle) and to tell the truth as it could have been/. Of course, much could have been taken from the archives, both open and closed. But we cannot get there due to some circumstances, partly for lack of money, partly because of the fear which still lives in people. But without reading these pages, which will cause us to not allow anything like that to happen again, we will not know how the history of our country could have formed, without the revolution. If we speak about repentance, we should understand who killed Emperor Nikolas II. Why have none of the leaders of the country, specialists in forensic medicine, or laywers suggested a true version of those events in July 1918? How has the life of the participants of this tragedy in Ekaterinburg developed?

In 1988, on his death-bed, Father said: “I’ve told you the truth, and that’s what the Bolsheviks have brought Russia to.” We, his children, know that he has not deceived us. Unfortunately, he had told us little, and we still have questions. But as if his soul is still with us, we ask him questions, as if he was alive, trying to go back in time and associating with him

When one’s parents are alive, one takes them for granted, without thinking that they are not going to be with us forever. Therefore we have now to collect the crumbs of what he had said, supplementing his story with our own considerations and new facts revealed during recent times. Therefore Father’s story is sometimes interrupted by my reasoning’s. The investigation is not finished yet. Our friends, relatives, colleagues, and scientists interested in this story are helping us to carry this heavy cross that has fallen to our lot. I hope that, after all, all of us will know the truth. And this will be the real compensation

Yes, this is a fantastic and still not cleared up story. The first reaction to it of most of people is: “It can’t be so!” When children are confronted with something unknown, they cry, but grown-ups try to turn their back on it and ignore it. Apparently this is the reason, why, despite some serious examinations carried out on our initiative and voluminous, actual material now accumulated by various scientists, the official structures have not seriously investigated this story, which has a lot of blanks. There is no other explanation to the contrary. But nobody has been interested in checking up on whether it is so. And maybe the point is that such a story does not appeal to everyone… This is a form of unconsciousness, one way to forget. I am a christian and it is my opinion that only atheists have to be convinced. Of course, we, his wife and his children, simply believe in our father, but still not everything in his life is clear to us, because he had to keep out of sight in order not to expose us and the people who had helped him to danger. Therefore we are trying to find more facts to unravel the whole truth about this martyr who lived a long life, and saw and experienced so much that it would have been enough for several lives. As far as the improbability of this story is concerned, – the rescue of innocentchildren from terrible death is a miracle. God saves!

Father’s Biography

How did this all start? It began when father himself prompted us to start studying his life. He did it with his stories, when he told us what he knew about the execution of the Tsar’s family. Of particular importance for us was the fact that a boy remained alive after the execution of the Tsar’s family in Ekaterinburg, and in 1983 father gave us detailed information that the boy, i.e. Tsesarevich, was he himself. This information corresponded to the facts reported by members of the State commission to the media. Later on the family decided to be more active. Within the framework of a criminal case, prosecuted on the fact of murder, without trial or inquiry of the family of Nikolas II, it is said that the bodies of two of the Emperor’s children – Tsesarevich Alexei and his sister Maria – have not been found

We have gotten acquainted with the inquiry carried out by the investigator Nikolai Alekseevich Sokolov¹. We have studied the materials of his book. We have gotten acquainted with the evidence of Vladimir Nikolaevich Derevenko, the Heir’s doctor, with the materials of interrogations of staff-captain Simonov, later a member of Kolchakov’s counter-intelligence, as well as of investigators: I.A. Sergeev, V.F. Kirsta, and A. Nametkin. We have read the report by the public prosecutor of the Kazan forensic department Miroliubov to Minister of Justice Strynkevich on the course of inquiry into the execution of Nikolas II and his family on December 12, 1918. Tomashevsky, investigator, said that many of those mentioned above were of the opinion that not everybody had been killed on the night of July 16—17, 1918. Staff Captain Simonov’s opinion deserves special attention. The fact is that before the White Czecks occupied Ekaterinburg, Simonov had served on the third army staff under the command of Berzin. General Diterichs² mentioned in his book that he had sent the officer to the army of Kolchak. After the occupation of the town he served under Admiral Kolchak as chief of the intelligence and counter-intelligence unit. He himself reported to Admiral Kolchak that, according to the information available, the Tsar’s children had been rescued. However later on General Diterichs dropped this theme (that is, the content of the report by Staff Captain Simonov)

We should emphasize that the life and fate of the participants of the outside guard of Ipatiev house have not been mentioned in any of the published materials on the investigations of the execution of the Romanovs. We may only get detailed information on the team of executioners. And who were the soldiers from the local people, the participants of the outside guard? Who were their relatives? Where did they live? What was their occupation? What were their connections? By that time the situation had been unstable, the Soviet power had not yet been established in the Urals. The people had lived as they always had

What was to be done if the power changed to-morrow? What would life have had in store for them if the Whites came? In those days, being in contact with the Tsar’s family, could change their opinion of them and help them to regain power. They did not know how long they would guard the Ipatiev house, or what was in store for them. They exposed themselves to risk. The Whites and the tsar’s adherents could find them and they would have to answer for their service under Soviet power

One should note that the investigators have not examined the fates of those children of Nikolas II who had been executed but not killed, let alone who could have rescued them provided they remained alive, that is, Tsesarevich Alexei and Maria, Grand Duchess.From Father’s stories we, his children, knew that the rescuers were the Strekotin brothers, Alexander and Andrei, and the Filatovs, Alexander and Andrei, from the first company of the First Peasant Regiment, quartered in Ekaterinburg, as well as Vasily Nikanorovich Filatov, brother of Afanasy Nikanorovich Filatov who fathered Ksenofont Afanasyevich Filatov. Vasily Nikanorovich had lived in Ekaterinburg till 1921 and after serving in the army he returned to Shadrinsk.The respective archives of the CPSU Central Committee do not contain any information about the Strekotin brothers. There is information on the jewels in corsets handed by Yurovsky, but nothig is said about two other corsets, those of Tsesarevich Alexei and Maria Nikolaevna, Grand Duchess. Yurovsky was responsible for the delivery of the royal valuables. What did he do with these corsets? How could he allow for such a shortage? Maybe he got them as a payment for the freedom of the Tsar’s two children? Answers may be found in his biography. We should take an interest in the qualities of this man, hisstrengths and weaknesses, his vital interests. After all, he was born long before the revolution. We learned that from youth Yurovsky had loved to search for hidden treasures. He did it and was rich. From 1905 he had lived in Berlin. His biographical data can be found in a book by O.A. Platonov¹.Hardly anybody noticed the fact that he had lived in Berlin, that he had changed his religion (and this always implies one’s inner break-down and submission to another world view) and, moreover, became a man capable of carrying out other people’s orders. Having studied for only 1,5 years, in Berlin he became a professional photographer. After having lived in Germany for seven years, shortly before the First World War broke out, in 1912 he appeared in Russia, in the Urals, in the region of concentration of the defence industry of the Russian Empire. That same year he opened a photographer’s studio of his own and started working. He compiled a card-index of all the prominent residents of Ekaterinburg: administrators and heads of enterprises. We cannot rule out the possibility of his handing over the needed information to the enemy. After all, the Revolution broke out only five years later.From Father’s stories and other available facts and documents, many of the agents either sent to Russia or recruited by the German intelligence service and living in Russia both during the first World war and before World War II, handed over the lists of suspect soviet people to fascists. The consequences are obvious.For instance, a certain head physician of a regional hospital had lived and worked for 17 years in one of the frontier regions in Bielorussia. In 1941, on the intrusion of fascists, he handed over the lists of 100 activists, whom the Germans sent to the gestapo.So, Yurovsky handed over his card-index to the Emergency Commission (ChK) and, using it, the chekists made raids into the apartments of these activists. The scheme of action is the same.In 1914 Yurovsky was called up to the rear units, where, again, he was sent to study. He became a military doctor’s assistant and again served on the home front. Being constantly in contact with the staff of hospitals, with officers and soldiers coming from the front for cure, he gathered the needed information. These and other facts testify to the possibility, that probably, he was not the man he pretended to be. In 1917—1918 there were negotiations with the Germans in Brest-Litovsk. And again, there he was! He provided the guard for the hostages, that is, the family of Emperor Nikolas II. First, the Emperor, the Empress and some of the children were brought. Tsesarevich and his sister remain in Tobolsk. Why? After all, the main problem was not to leave the Emperor’s heirs alive. It means that at that time the problem of paramount importance was to negotiate with the Germans. Thus, a direct communication during negotiations with the Germans was carried out via Yurovsky. So, after the Emperor’s refusal to surrender Russia to the Germans, Yurovsky receives an order to exterminate the hostages. But how? Three weeks before the execution all the Russian-speaking guard and Doctor Derevenko were replaced by German-speaking people. Upon the execution of the Romanov family the German-speaking guards were killed – there were five of them. The Russian-speaking people are blamed for the execution, while contrary to everything they have rescued part of the family of Emperor Nikolas II. Yurovsky carried out the enemy’s order. Then he takes the jewels and three vans of royal robes and sets off for Moscow. And Tsesarevich Alexei lives in Shadrinsk at the Filatovs’. Of interest is that the Filatovs and certain Yurovskys are neighbours. Who are they? On February 24, 2000 we received an answer from the Shadrinsk municipal archive which read: in the fund of the Shadrinsk municipal uprava (administration), the sorting register to the municipal budget as of 1915 contains several real estate owners named Yurovsky. Almost all of them are former peasants, natives of the Makarov district, Shadrinsk region: Peotr Andreevich, Ivan Andreevich, Emel’an Yakovlevich, Ivan Ivanovich, Peotr Alekseevich, Ivan Osipovich, and Anna Kirillovna Yurovsky¹. It is difficult to determine to-day whether they had been that Yurovsky’s relatives, but such a coincidence does exist. Relatives? It means that they had had no contacts with that Yurovsky. Yurovsky’s ancestors had been exiled to Siberia for theft and the relatives did not like him very much for his cruelty and for his attitude towards them

In 1918—1919 Yurovsky was the chief of a regional department of Moscow ChK doing undercover work. In 1919—1920 he returned to Ekaterinburg and, again, did undercover work in ChK. In 1920 he was appointed the chief of Gokhran and again he was admitted to State secrets. In 1923 he was responsible for a secret operation on the transfer of the Russian crown, globe and sceptre to a Japanese Agency in China for their subsequent sale to America and Europe via Manchuria. He ruined this transaction. A leakage of secret information took place. Yurovsky was relieved of all his duties. He was deprived of access to State secrets. After this he worked at various enterprises not connected with any secrets. He died in 1938.Not until 1950, was there any mention of him. Then his children started talking about his deeds. Such is the fate of this figure. His biographical material can be found in the party archive of Sverdlovsk, now Ekaterinburg (f. 221, inv. 2, c. 497) as well as in the journal “Nashe Naslediye” (Our Legacy) (1991, №2, p. 40—41; №3, p. 47). In 1961 father told me about participation of Yurovsky in the execution of the Tsar’s family

It is still unclear why Yurovsky being a professional photographer, had not taken photos of the Romanov family members either before the execution or at the execution scene. And if he had done so, where are those photos? Investigator N.A. Sokolov recorded the story of the Strekotins. Both the executioners and the utside guard participants also mentioned the Strekotins. It was they who knew who stood where, and who was doing what. But neither the Whites nor the Reds interrogated them and Sokolov himself does not quote them as principal witnesses whose stories had served as the basis, apparently, for the Whites’ inquiries. The Strekotin brothers had been at Dutov’s front and then they returned to the environs of Ekaterinburg, where they lived, and later were deployed in the guard of the Special House. There remained reminiscences of Alexander Strekotin of Nikolas II’s family, a description of the appearances of the members of the stately family and their style of behaviour in everyday life. Father said that the fate of one of the brothers, Andrei, was tragic. Alexander Strekotin had told father about it during the Civil war, when he came for a short time to Shadrinsk. This testifies to the fact that he had been acquainted with the Filatov family members either before the above-mentioned events took place or that they got acquainted in Ekaterinburg. So far, there is no other conclusion

Andrei Strekotin died on July 18, 1918 from a stray bullet on River Iset. Father had told me about his death (of course, as heard from Alexander Sokolov): “It happened on July 18. They were sitting in a little trench by the Iset River. At that time the fighting was located at the approaches to Ekaterinburg. Andrei said to Alexander: “I am heavy at heart, Sasha; I feel that I will be killed today. Let’s embrace by way of farewell.” – “Andrei, what are you saying? Stop it!” – “No, Sasha, I feel it.” They embraced. Then Andrei put his head out of the trench and a stray bullet hit him straight in the forehead.”

From Alexander Strekotin’s stories, he remained alive only because he went to the forests with N.D. Kashirin, Commander of the partisan detachment, who went with him as far as Perm, and the Kungur caves. Then he worked as a stableman in the Party regional committee in Ekaterinburg. Later on he headed the Machine-tractor station (MTS). He was a family man. In 1988 his wife was still alive. On January 22, 2000 Alexander Strekotin’ relatives who lived in Ekaterinburg, called us up. They told us that uncle Sasha died a mysterious death in the early 60’s, falling out of a carwhile it eas moving. His three sons have also disappeared. All this happened when Father told me about the fate of the Tsar’s family and the execution. In the early 60’s we also left the Urals for northern Russia

They started searching for father both abroad and in Russia. I learned about it from Mr. Spelar, a publisher, secretary to Princess Irina Yusupova. It was in November, 1999, when I was in New-York. When I signed my book, he told me about it with a mysterious air. I asked him: “Why did you search for my father? Did you want to help or kill him?” There was no answer. Quite a number of discoveries and documents that are now collrcting dust on the shelves of both Russian and foreign archives, await those who investige the last days of the imperial family

A remark of Swedish writer and translator, Staffan Scott in his book, Romanovs, deserves notice: “…of a once numerous branch of Konstantinovichs no one man has remained (except perhaps two of the Romanovs, who disappeared after the Revolution but remained miraculously alive in the Soviet Union).” (Scott S., The Romanovs. 1989, Ekaterinburg: Larin Publ., 1993. P. 22). It should be noticed that this book was published in 1989 and, surprisingly, this event coincides with the publication in Russia of the book of E. Radzinsky “Gospodi… spasi i usmiri Rossiyu” (God… save and quell Russia), which also contains information about rescue of two children, the children of Nikolas II – Tsesarevich Alexei and Grand Duchess Maria. What could this be? A coincidence or an established fact? Staffan Scott does not say any more about the rescue of two Romanovs in his book. Even when writing about his meeting with a relative of these children, Vera Konstantinovna Romanova, that is, Konstantin Romanovich’s daughter. In the chapter “The Soviet Union and the Romanovs” Staffan Scott writes: “The attitude of the Soviets to the Romanovs who have survived the Revolution, has also changed compared to stock accusations of the generation of the time of the Revolution. The Soviet secret police – ChK, NKVD, KGB, etc. – have never shunned attempts on the life of Russian politicians in exile or turncoats. But nobody heard either about attempts on the life of the living Romanovs or about their kidnapping. Since they are of no political threat to the soviet system, they do not persecute them – unless we count the rare attacks against pretender Vladimir Kirillovich. We also know that there was no veto for the Romanovs to visit the Soviet Union. From the early 60’s many members of the dynasty have visited the USSR as tourists, including Nikita Nikitich, a historian. Soviet people, whom they met with, treated them with well-disposed curiosity.” (Scott S. The Romanovs. P. 272—273)

So, the executioners are packing the wide double-doors. Strekotin is close by. (What did he want to see there?). That’s what he saw. “… Yurovsky: Alexei and his three sisters, a Romanov maid, and Botkin were still alive. We had to finish them off. The bullets, surprisingly, rebounded off of something and, like hail, were jumping all over the room. – The executioners were shooting as madmen. The light from electric bulb could hardly be seen through the smoke from the gun powder… Figures lying in pools of blood —on the floor, a strangely surviving boy streached his hand to protect himself from the bullets. (Auth.: “After the execution he was not undressed, he was also in corset. His corset has never been found.”). And Nikulin, terror-struck, kept shooting him”. ¹ Later on, in checking whether Tsesarevich Alexei had a corset, it turned out that two corsets with jewels had not been handed over by Yurovsky to the depository, that is, there were neither the bodies of two of the children nor two corsets at the burial site. How’s that? If they killed the children, they ought to hand over the corsets with jewels, but did not do it. From Yurovsky’s record (GARF, f. 601, inv. 2, d. 35): “… My assistant used the whole clip of bullets (the strange survival of the Heir can probably be attributed to his inability to handle a weapon or to unavoidable nervousness caused by long trouble with Tsar daughters)”. But the most incredible thing is that the bullets could have been blank cartridges. It is unclear so far, whether the present inquiry has made a ballistic examination. The executioners are known to have given their weapons to the Revolution Museum. The investigator ought to have ordered a ballistic examination, and the experts were to have shot bullets from these weapons, and then to have compared them with those found in 1919 at the burial site near Ekaterinburg. And if they do not coincide in their characteristics, then they are not those weapons and the people were killed by the use of other weapons, or these are the bodies of other people. And the version worked out by the inquiry is wrong. Other explanations to these facts should be found rather than to follow a mistaken path. The book of investigator Sokolov N.A.² gives the interrogation of Pavel Medvedev: “Blood flooded the floor. When I entered the cellar the Heir was groaning. Yurovsky approached him and fired at him two or three times, point-blank. The Heir quietened down. It made me sick.” From the reminiscences of Andrei Strekotin cited by Platonov O.A.³ in his book: “All the prisoners were lying on the floor already, bleeding to death, but the Heir was still sitting on the chair”

A participant of the execution, 18-year old Netrebin Viktor Nikiforovich records: “The Heir still showed signs of life though a lot of shots had been made…». Recollections of Andrei Strekotin: “Then Ermakov, seeing that there was a bayonet in my rifle, suggested that I stabbed those still alive. I refused. Then he took my rifle and started stubbing them…” (Sverdlovsk Party Archive, f. 41, inv. 1, c. 149, p. 164. References to the archive have been taken from O.A. Platonov’s book). “The shooting stopped. The door was opened to clear the gun-powder smoke… They began to remove the bodies. First the body of the Tsar was removed. The bodies were piled up in a truck.” Andrei Strekotin describes how the bodies were removed, in which order, and he knew exactly when it would be the Heirs’s turn. He had told his brother Alexander that the Heir was the last one taken out and the last one laid in the truck, since that night Alexander did not return to the Ipatiev house. Was the end gate of the truck closed? How high were the sides of the truck?

“There was not enough room in the carts for all the bodies (Auth.: “The truck got stuck five miles from the town, near the Upper-Iset plant».).There were not enough carts which worked well. They were falling apart. (It was already 4:00 or 4:30 in the morning. Who was loading whom? And where to?” – author’s remark). Then it turned out that Tatiana, Olga, and Anastasia had some corsets on.“¹

When the funeral team noticed during the transfer of the bodies that some bodies were missing, they feverishly began to feel the pulse of the remaining bodies because they understood that those missing remained alive, and only at that moment did they find out that. Tsesarevich Alexei and Grand Duchess Maria were missing, as well as two corsets. That’s why nobody of the funeral team had mentioned in their memoirs that there were two missing children and two missing corsets. That’s why the truck went on to the shaft carrying only part of the bodies. It turns out that there was no post-execution search. Apparently, there was no time. But why? If the executioners knew the Romanovs by sight? Maybe, it had already grown light and they had to hurry? (They did not search Tsesarevich, his mother and other bodies). The conclusion is the following: it means that the escort had lost the bodies before the pause near the Upper-Iset plant and nobody had noticed it. That was an enigma. Father’s words were confirmed. The stealing had begun. In Radzinsky’s² book Yurovsky says: “I decided to dismiss the team immediately, leaving only some sentries as a guard and five men of the team. The rest left…” Where did the rest go? And what for? When they did not know at all what to do. Did they understand only at that moment that two were missing or was it before? Did they go searching in the dark? Apparently, the jewels were also registered in the dark… Our father was terribly maimed. His back had many scars of various sizes. The scars were 1.5 to 5 cm. The scars in the center were up to 0.8 cm high. There were also scars to 10 cm. There was a shrapnel wound on the left heel, the scar was cross-shaped. Two ribs were broken. By 40 years his left leg was withered and by 1944 became shorter than the right one. On the whole, there were up to 20 scars and bluish dents in his back. Father would buy shoes of different sizes: 40 for his left leg and 42 for his right leg. Because of the wounds, by 1944 his spine had become twisted to the right. We, when children, would ask him about his wounds and disabilities. He would tell us that he had gone to the Finnish war in a coach, but the planes had bombed the train and he, without reaching the front, returned to the hospital. And to the question what he was and why he was in the army he answered that he was a student in Leningrad and all students were called up. Or he would say that he was such from birth, or that he fell from a tree. Such were his answers until we grew up. Later on we understood that those had only been excuses and the reason of his wounds had been of quite another nature. According to the records in his serviceman’s identity card, in 1942 he was exempt from military service. There are no records for other years. So, he was not at the front. At any rate, our family has not got any relevant documents, also. There is no disability certificate. From the evidence of F. P. Proskuriakov, a guard: “… When all of them had been executed, Andrei Strekotin took off their jewels. Yurovsky confiscated them and took them upstairs…“¹. A question arises. Everything was in gunpowder smoke (the guards were sick, they ran out in the open air and vomited). There was no doctor who could confirm the deaths. Strekotin had a revolver, was he going to gather the jewels in everybody’s presence? Or, maybe, there was nobody else?