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A case with our elder daughter Anastasia has marked the beginning of these investigations. During an ordinary medical examination the endocrinologist suggested that we should examine our child in the Genetic Centre in St. Petersburg. We got a permit to this Centre and medical examinations lasted from January till June, 1999. None of the hereditary illnesses have been discovered. However, Vasilyeva I. Yu., ¹ specialist in genetics, gave a permit to Anastasia’s real aunts Olga, Irina, and Nadezhda to be examined for the haemophilic gene. Examinations were made in the D. O. Otto Institute, in the laboratory of prenatal diagnostics, IAG, Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, for a period of two weeks, by Candidate of Biology Aseev M.V. supervised by Doctor of Medicine, professor, chief of this laboratory Baranov V.S. One of the daughters of Filatov V.K. has a 14 year old son. He has no haemofilic gene. A conclusion: “Since Mozhaiko A.V. (V.K. Filatov’s grandson) is not ill with haemophilia “A”, a 95% probability is that his grandfather, on his mother’s side, Filatov V.K. was not ill either.“² On March 15, 2000, Candidate of Medicine, specialist in forensic medicine, lecturer of the chair of forensic medicine and criminalistics of the St. Petersburg State University, Petrov V.V., together with Professor Egorov G.B., having analyzed the records in the diaries of Emperor Nikolas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, of Tsesarevich Alexei’s sisters and the doctors who observed Tsesarevich, stated ³ that “an analysis of literature has not revealed any manifestations of Tsesarevich Alexei’s haemophilia during the time period 1914 to 1918.” Doctor Botkin E.S. had appealed to the Ekaterinburg Executive Committee on Tsesarevich Alexei Nikolaevich Romanov’s state of health. Doctor Botkin had observed him for ten years. He wrote: “Alexei Nikolaevich is subject to pains in the joints from bumps that are completely unavoidable in a boy of his age and that are accompanied by seepage of fluids and resultant excruciating pains “…⁴ Chairman of the “Committee for Russian Peoples’ Culture Protection”, Dean of St. Peter and Paul’s Church, archpriest N. Golovkin has a statement from the Russian Federation State Archive (RFSA) that “The notebook of leib-medic Botkin does not contain any information either about blood group and composition or the state of the Tsesarevich, Grand Duke Alexei Nikolaevich Romanov during haemorrage.” ⁵ The Russian State historical archive keeps in the “File of the Office of Her Majesty Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and Management of the Files of Royal Children of Their Imperial Majesties” (General archive of the former Ministry of the Court) records of the state of health of the Tsesarevich, the Heir. “The Government Bulletin” for September, October, and November 1912 contains bulletins on the health of Tsesarevich Alexei Nikolaevich Romanov. There are hourly records of temperature, pulse, the state of swelling resulting from kicking the boat rowlock, as well as breathing, but not a word about haemophilia. Tsesarevich’s medical documents, his medical card, if one may say so, are signed by: Honorary leib-surgeon, Professor Fedorov, leib-medic E. Botkin, Honorary leib-medic Ostrogorsky. Minister of the Imperial Court baron Fredericks. When specialists in forensic medicine and genetics examined these medical records they were bewildered by such a glaring mistake in diagnostics, i.e. mixing up the state of a man after a violent bruise, that is, haemotoma, with such a serious illness as haemophilia. Involuntarily one may think that here is a political intrigue to demonstrate that the Romanov family will become extinct, and therefore it should be renewed by killing the ill representatives, exchanging them for more healthy representatives of the same family. Any means are good to serve the purpose, including information for the public about the approaching death of the Heir or about an intensified crisis in his illness, that is, the formation of a negative in the social opinion of the public. In such a way a thought could have been developed by the interested people that the Heir would not live long. The conclusion is simple as the truth: the boy could live long and did live in defiance of everything

Examining father’s complicated biography, I paid attention to the map of his life we had drawn from the places where he had been during the Civil war and after it. Considering that father and Alexei are one in the same man and this is clear from his words, and since he had been wounded, then, after he had been drawn out of the shaft, he ought to have got qualified medical aid. I thought: “Who could have done it?” It could have been done by a man who was close to him and who knew how to treat him. At that time Doctor Derevenko V.N. lived in Ekaterinburg. In his memoirs he writes that three weeks before the execution he was sent by the order of Goloshchekin (comissar of Ekaterinburg) to serve the neighbouring garrisons near Ekaterinburg. It is also known from the description by Derevenko V.N. and investigator Sokolov N.A. that in Ekaterinburg at Shartash station there was a train where the hospital was organized. Golubeva ² was the chief of this hospital. From father’s words, they took him to Shartash station where the surgeon wanted to amputate his leg, but he would not permit it. Probably, Derevenko V.N. was that surgeon who knew that it ought not to be done. Though, maybe, doctor’s first thought that there was no way out of the situation, but he had also known before that Alexei had repeatedly been on the brink of life and death and each time he had emerged from the crisis and continued to live. If it had been another surgeon, the results for Alexei could have been disasterous. He could have lost his leg, but nothing like that happened. To-day we know about it from he himself. After all his moves father finally found himself in the North. I’ve written about it already. He left Shadrinsk late in the summer of 1918 and little is known about his movements until late in 1919. But we do know that Derevenko V.N. lived in Ekaterinburg till the Whites left the town and took doctor along to Tomsk in the fall of 1919. In January 1919 the Russian White army South front was formed, the German expeditionary force landed on April 20, 1918 and then that of the Allies. From 1917 in the Caucasus, Georgia, Abkhazia and Armenia the mensheviks came to power, in Azerbaijan were the Turks, the Germans and the English. On September 15, 1918 Baku was taken by the Turks. On January 20 the General Denikin’s volunteer army took the following towns in the Nourth Caucasus: Essentuki, Kislovodsk, and Piatigorsk. Poltava was taken by the Whites on June 31, 1919, freed by the Reds on December 11, 1919. Kastornaya was freed by the Reds on November 15, 1919, Kharkov – on June 24, 1919, Ekaterinodar – on August 15, 1919, Novocherkassk was taken by the Whites on April 7, 1918, freed by the Red 9^th army on January 7, 1920. Kiev was taken by the Whites on July 31, 1919, freed by the Reds on December 16 1919. Kursk was taken by the Whites on September 20, 1919, freed by the Reds on November 17, 1919. Orel was taken by the Whites on October 13, 1919, freed by the Reds on October 20, 1919. Tsaritsyn was taken by the Whites on June 30, 191, freed by the Reds on January 3, 1920. Voronezh was freed by the Reds on October 24, 1919. Tomsk was taken by the Reds on July 15, 1919. Shadrinsk was taken by the Whites on July 25, 1918, Zlatoust – on May 26, 1918, Perm’ – on December 25, 1918. Perm’ and Kungur were freed by the Reds on July 1, 1919, etc.¹. As he said, father hoped for a long time that everything would be restored. This period was sufficiently long: from 1918 till 1921. The Widow Empress Maria Feodorovna (the wife of Emperor Alexander III), mother of Emperor Nicolas II, was in the Crimea. There were mud resorts there. From father’s words, Konstantin, a relative on the side of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, lived in Tiflis. To-day it is difficult to relate him to the Grand Duke, since father had not dwelled on this fact. He could have been the grand-grandson of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, Prince Konstantin, born in 1890

I draw a conclusion that father had wanted to be there but could not get there alone. He would have had to have crossed the front line and known where, with whom and how to find his relatives. Who could welcome him there? Besides, he needed information about the course of events. If he went in early 1919, the question arises: how could he roam about the country and eventually find himself in the Crimea? There was no unbroken line of the front strictly corresponding to the idea of the war. One had to go by railroad to the places occupied by the Whites in order to have a guaranteed successful crossing of the front line with the help of Gladkikh Mikhail Pavlovich and his people. As father said, the help of Gladkikh? M.P. was the only guarantee that they would not arrest him and let him move on. Father’s movement over the country was miraculously combined with an occupation by the Whites of the towns in the south and central Russia. And this movement could have taken place in early 1919 and back – in late 1920, when it became clear that the White army had lost (when the White towns were abandoned?). Then father returned to Shadrinsk in 1921 where he met with Alexander Strekotin and learned of the details of his sister Maria’s rescue. Here, in Shadrinsk, he entered the leather-processing course of the polytechnic school on February 8, 1921 and on the same day, i.e. February 8, 1921, he went on holiday and no information about his studies anywhere has been found in the State archive up to 1933. It should be mentioned that in this school, M.P. Gladkikh’s younger brother – Grigory Gladkikh, studied (see Appendix, documents from the Shadrinsk State archive). In this polytechnic there were leather-processing, gardening, electricians, land communication, and junior nurses’ courses. The teachers were from Ekaterinburg and many of them, according to the archive data, were highly educated. In his biography of 1937 father wrote that in 1918 he graduated from the fourth grade of the parish school. “I lived with my father until 1921. That year my father died and I was left alone, since at that time I had no family, although I had had two uncles. They had joined the Red Guard while my father was still alive and disappeared without a trace. Between 1921 and 1930 I worked as an apprentice at shoe factories in various cities of the Union.” In his biography of 1967 he wrote that he was born in 1907. (Here we should digress. The point is that neither the Shadrinsk ZAGS nor the archive has records of issueing Vasily Filatov’s birth certificate to any of his parents. There is only a record that a boy Vasily was born in the Filatov family. A question arises: how could Vasily Filatov get work without his birth certificate? From his words, Father had lost his birth certificate during the Civil war. He, as a homeless child, was sent to an orphanage in Kaluga. The medical commission determined his age with a 3-year difference. But they ought to have given him a document certifying him and to have indicated his age. His birth certificate was probably of the 1940 pattern. Person, who made out father’s birth certificate, did not date the document. On the back of the page there is a seal that the passport was issued in 1940 in the village of Isetskoe, Tiumen Province. There are no records that before 1940 Filatov V.K. had received any other certificates including a passport. There are no other records as of to-day. Though there is a possibility that information about Filatov V., having changed one document for another, is contained in the passport department of the village of Isetsk, Tiumen Province. This has yet to be checked.) Further he wrote that during his father’s life time he finished the primary school and entered the Shadrinsk Polytechnicum, where children were taught various trades. (To-day it is known from the archival data that grown-ups, up to 40 years old could also study there for a period of six months. But, according to the Shadrinsk archive, Vasily Filatov was there only one day). Then father wrote that he was unable to finish up there due to his father’s death in 1921. (His foster father really died on September 22, 1921 due to the famine that began in their district after a failed harvest.) These circumstances in 1922 forced father to abandon his studies and to work. (In the first biography he worked from 1921 in various cities of the Union) and had to leave his native region in order to save himself from starvation. From 1922 to 1928 he worked in various towns west of the Ural Mountains. Doctor Derevenko V.N. had been in Perm from the fall of 1920. Had father visited him? It’s unknown. In November 1923 Doctor Derevenko moved to Dnepropetrovsk, the south Ukraine, near the Crimea. In late January father went to Moscow to try his last chance to declare himself. He went to the British Embassy on Diplomaticheskaya Street where John was waiting for him in February of 1924. Who was that John? One cans supposr that it was sir John Henbery-Williams. Sir John Henbery-Williams was a British general, chief of the military mission of Great Btitain at the Headquarters of the Russian Army in the period 1914—1917, quartered at Mogilev. It was only he who could wait for father at the Great Britain Embassy. Father had not the habit of misleading us, his children. He was not going to do that because, first of all, he was worried about the safety of his family, i.e. his heirs. The fact of the planned meeting can probably be reflected in the materials archived in the Great Britain Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The British Embassy was the first one opened immediately after Lenin’s death. It was opened on February 2, 1924. One can read about it in M. Paleolog’s book¹. But after a failure with this visit he left for the Crimea and lived there for some time. After Baron Vrangel’s White troops abandoned the Crimea he returned to the Urals and lived in different places of the Urals, including Perm Province. The locals taught him how he should treat his illness using natural remedies, the people’s healing knowledge, the climate, and diets. Judging from his knowledge of the komi-permyak language, he had close contacts with the locals and knew their life, rituals and traditions. As a child, I often listened to him singing komi-permyak chastushki (humorous folk ditties). I then understood that with one’s wish, one can become a harmonically developed personality and with one’s aim set correctly one can learn any language. Besides, he then had friends there whom Strekotin and Gladkikh had acquired from the times of the Urals army campaign, when they were in the detachment of Kashirin and Bliukher. Both Strekotin and Gladkikh had made certain attempts to legalize the Heir in those places. He had to accustom himself to a new system, and life style. As he would say, “to save his life by all means”

In 1930 Doctor Derevenko V.N. was sentenced to five years of camps. Once, during the Civil war, father took a job on a ship cruising from Nizhnii Novgorod to Astrakhan and back. He did the job of a sailor, and cook’s assistant. He did everything he was told to do. (an experience on “Standart”). And, of course, any moment father could disappear and move to the North Caucasus via Astrakhan, to the Crimea via Novocherkassk, or Rostov-on-the-Don. He had fought with querulous old sailors, but he had the advantage of being comfortable, he had a place to sleep and to work. He worked both on deck and in the galley. While in port, father could obtain information from the talk on the street, about who was where, i.e., where the Reds were, where – the Whites. Besides, it was difficult to break his cover, while he was on board a ship

From 1921 he worked as a piano-tuner in Kaluga, Moscow and other cities of central Russia, as well as a shoemaker’s apprentice on hire. As a piano-tuner he, respectively, called on the families who could afford to have a piano, that is, the families of intellectuals. He could communicate with educated people who had information on the current events; many of them were military men. Besides, in his time, Nikolas II had intended to move General Headquarters to Kaluga and, of course, father had been there before the Revolution and had known many people who served under the Tsar. Also, he had been to Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Torzhok, and Tver. He was acquainted with the priests who helped him. Specifically, he had been treated in the island monastery on Lake Seliger. There were salt caves there, where he took treatments according to home remedies. Once he lived with monks in Tsar Ioann III’s house, in the forests near Moscow, near Serpukhov. In winter he longed to go south. It was warm there and the border was nearby. He lived in the mountains near Sukhumi

Our family was there in the summer of 1989 in the region of Pitsunda

Father was a man with a broad outlook and a vast circle of people who had known him while he lived. He would tell us much about some interesting facts which he knew for various reasons. For example: where the state storehouses and special repositories were located, as well as the reserve command posts of defence objectives organized before the Revolution. So, when he lived in Ekaterinburg, the Staff Military Academy was quartered there and he knew many of the officers. Part of these officers went over to the Whites, part – to the Reds, and during World War II they already held high posts. These people knew him as Tsesarevich Alexei Nikolaevich Romanov, after the tragedy, even with changing his name, he needed no proof as to who he was. Not all of them but some could have helped him.¹

Of course, it is difficult to-day to describe all his connections because he was doomed to silence both by his origin and by the age. For some time during the Civil war he did not reveal his name and age because he could keep them concealed because of the unrest. And later, when the Soviet Republican Government declared that children are the future of the country, homeless children were gathered into orphanages, and father declared himself an orphan. At that time he was already 16—17. But one should say that he was always young-looking. He was not tall and had physical defects. Strange as it may be, the defects helped to conceal his age and origin. But he could not conceal his age completely, he could only forget who he was and when he was born, since, as he would say, he was 4 when his mother died, then his father died, too, and by 1921 none of his relatives remained alive. So, when, as a result of a round-up, he turned out to be in an orphanage, the doctor determined his age approximately from his teeth. He had not taken along any documents, let alone his birth certificate record, when crossing the front lines. He would try to keep out of sight. Some years later he made an inquiry about his birth certificate at Shadrinsk. We should dwell upon father’s style of life, his behaviour, his established habits, his special ability to adapt himself to life, and the environment where he would happen to be. With these facts left out of our account, one would not understand how he became who he was, the man we knew, and we knew only the second half of his life, i.e., beginning from 1953. Really how did he become? Who he became?

Chapter II
RELATIONS WITH OTHER PEOPLE

When I was 5—6 years old, we lived in the village of Pretoria, in a large house of cut limestone, with an enormous roof. The front part of the house was occupied by our family, the Urbanovichs lived behind us. They were also teachers in our school. Across the street lived our former director of studies Yakov Yakovlevich Kliver. The Trunovs lived next door. Trunov was the music teacher in our school. I observed that father associated with him both at work and after work. Father loved music and played various instruments, both keyboard and stringed. At school the music teacher Trunov Alexander Alexandrovich had bayans. Father would often take the school bayan, play it and sing songs. He did it in the following way: he would take the bayan, run his fingers over the buttons and then start playing. Especially popular were the war-time waltzes and the war-time songs – with lingering melody, sad, about the people’s lives, even sorrowful, one might say. I tried to understand then, what the matter was with him, why he was singing them if all of us were alive. But he would sing looking into the distance and suddenly would break off the song, sigh and lay the bayan aside. You could see how sad he was

It was very interesting to see how he, pressing the buttons, derived a melody from a special mosaic of black and white buttons. I myself tried to repeat this mosaic, but it was difficult. I was little and could derive nothing but a cacophony of sounds. Father saw it and later took me to Trunov A.A. He listened to me and said that “a bear had trod on my ear”. Father took it to heart, and even though I tried to persuade him to buy me a bayan, he never did it. Though many a boy whom I knew had bayans, Petia Peters, in particular

But father would try to develop my love of music since he considered that Trunov A.A. should not have said those words in my presence. Father showed us how to chord, how to press the bass buttons to harmonize them with the melody. Father would often sing the songs about “Orenburg down kerchief”, “River Volga”, “At an Unnamed Height”, “In a dug-out”, “Song about anxious youth”, about Maria, whom he was going to come to. He also sang chastushki. He was not a professional poet, but sometimes he wrote poetry. We have in our family a greetings card wrote by him for his younger daughter on August 31, 1985

В день рождения с любовью посылаем Вам привет

Желаем счастья и здоровья, и славных трудовых побед

Мы поздравляем Вас до срока, чтоб не забыли Вы о нас

И чтоб хорошая погода стояла в городе для Вас

Чтоб всё сбылось, о чем мечтали, в годину трудную для Вас

И чтобы нас не забывали, не проклинали бы подчас

Бывает в жизни часто трудно, без этого прожить нельзя

Но закаляться в этом нужно, тогда легко пойдут дела

Here is an English version

With love on your birthday we send you best regards

And wish your health and happiness, and great labour feats

We send congratulations beforehand so you do not forget us, And wish a spell of fine weather continuing for you

Let everything you’ve dreamed about in times of stress be realized

We ask you, do remember us and do not curse us much sometimes

Life’s often difficult to people, and no one avoids his fate

But steel your will, then all the problems will be solved

While reading a book on the murder of the Tsar’s family, I discovered a poem named “Pray”

Пошли нам, Господи, терпенья

В годину буйных, мрачных дней

Сносить народные гоненья

И пытки наших палачей

Дай крепость нам, о, Боже правый

Злодейства ближнего прощать

И крест тяжелый и кровавый

С твоею кротостью встречать

И в дни мятежного волненья

Когда ограбят нас враги

Стерпеть позор и оскорбленье

Христос Спаситель, помоги

Владыка мира, Бог Вселенной

Благослови молитвой нас

И дай покой душе смиренной

В невыносимо страшный час

И у преддверия могилы

Вдохни в уста твоих рабов

Нечеловеческие силы

Молиться кротко за врагов

Holy God, give us patience to bear the persecution and tortures

By our butchers in time of trouble

Do give us, God, the ability to pardon the evil deeds of our

Neighbours and to meet meekly the heavy bloody cross

Christ, Saviour, help us endure insults and disgrace

When enemies are robbing us. God, bless us and restrain our souls at an unbearably horrible hour

And at our mortal hour give us the superhuman power

To pray for our enemies

Of course, the poems are not of equal value and have been written on different occasions. But it seems to me that even a self-trained reader will find in them a consistence in style and form of expressing oneself. I deliberately cited these poems at the beginning of the chapter, because these poems seem to explain splendidly father’s state of mind and his ability to adapt to another life, even one built by his enemies who had killed his family, and, having adapted to it, to live in a fitting manner. Forced to conceal his real origin, he had to disguise his knowledge and breeding, to make himself as inconspicuous as possible

He lived as if everything around him was a sort of mirage, i.e., everything was different, not his. My sisters and I were close by and felt his inexplicable force and influence. We believed that his whole life is some other life, unknown to others

What was it? Probably, a mirage of his former life

Being alone with him, somewhere, like simply in a field, one could often observe how he would suddenly stop (and we were going to the management board of the kolkhoz, the chairman of which was a friend of his) and start counting the birds flying above. Suddenly, as if he recollected something, he would recite Esenin’s poem: “You’re still alive, my little old woman, and I am still alive. My kind regards to you, my greetings. Let the in extinguishable light stream above your hut…”

Then, as if he recollected something, he would look at me and say: “Come along, Oleg, We should go to the Board now.” I later understood that he was grieving over his mother, fair-haired, beautiful and kind

He associated with people easily. He would come to the Board with me. The chairman would say: “A-a, Ksenofontovich, do come in.” Entering the room, father would stand just inside the doors, look to see who was where and only then would he move on, and I with him. Father wore his cap on one side. He would take it off and keep it in his right hand. When he put on the cap, he would take its vizor by his left hand and with his right hand he would put it onto the back of his head and, holding it with his right hand he would pull the vizor down to the forehead, as if fixing it. Before putting on his cap, he would always shake it. Another thing he did was check his boots for comfort. He would put on his boots in the following way: he would put his right foot on a low stool, tie up the lace with a seaman’s knot, first showing it to me, then he would do the same with his left boot, straighten his back, shake himself, and take along his field bag and – out he went. At that time I thought that he had been a military man. He would leave for work early, 30 minutes before the beginning of lessons, though the school was 300 m from our house. He would sit in the teachers’ room and take his time to prepare to his lessons

His whole life was given to school and to his family. He was an authority at school. He would always find a simple form of expression for the material. The children loved and respected him. One time he taught geography in the 6^th grade. I saw how he tried to help the pupils even if they hardly knew the material. He did not let them know their marks. At the end of the lesson they would come up to him to ask about their marks for the lesson, but he first put dots in the class register and then would say either “a satisfactory” or “learn better”, but he never gave a “two”

At the next lesson he would simply ask, for instance, Andrei Yancher, whether he was ready to answer or not. If Andrei could answer the new material then he would not ask him about the old. He did not ask me until I raised my hand. I would come to the blackboard and answer the questions. He would listen to me without interrupting and then say: “Well, Filatov, you know the lesson, I’ll give you a “five”. But I felt confused: he was my father, after all. Of course, I did my best not to let him down in order that others would not think that I got “fives” because I was the teacher’s son

When father lectured on the material, he never looked at the pupils, but if anybody made a noise, he, without looking at the pupil, would call him by name, and it was effective, the pupil stopped immediately. Father would go about the classroom, leaning on the pointer

If the noise continued, father would glance once at the pupil and silence fell immediately, because the look of his eyes was special. He gave the pupil a piercing glance – and he would shrivel up. When Father brought films on geography and showed them, many pupils from other grades would come to see the films. For instance, a film about the conquest of the North he showed in the assembly hall during a long break. Father did everything himself, like the projectionist

He would come home very tired. He would change his clothes, go to the kitchen, have dinner, then go to the room where the desk was, sit down and read the newspapers, and listen to the radio. In the evening we would come home having had plenty of running about the fields where the steppe tulips bloomed in the spring, the grasshoppers chirped, butterflies flew the in summer, and gophers often ran about. We spent our time on the river Gusikha, on the first lake. When we came home we first drank milk and ate wheat-bread which had been baked in the oven which stood in the street. We baked bread from our own flour. We ground wheat in the mill which had stood in our village from the times of Catherine II. Our district was famous. Tatishchevo was close by, where Suvorov had captured Pugachev. The environs of Tatishchevo had been described by Pushkin in his “Captain’s daughter”. During the Civil war the Strekotin brothers, Tsesarevich’s rescuers, had fought there. Kashirin headed the Urals army march to Perm, to the Kungur coves. Chapaev, my father showed me his death place, located there. They were virgin lands in the 50’s and 60’s. All those years, the years of Khrushchev N.S., we lived at Pretoria

It was the time when the world was on the brink of nuclear war, the time of changing the way people thought

At that time father read the newspapers attentively, listened to the radio and told me much about the presidents of other countries and about the international situation