The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion and the Fall of Imperial Russia

On May 3, Yakovlev telegrams the younger Romanovs, telling them that their parents have arrived in Ekaterinburg, in the Ural Mountains, a change from their original plan to hold Nicholas in Moscow. Ekaterinburg, with its “fierce anti-tsarist sentiments” (215), has urged the Bolsheviks to bring the Romanovs there, and the town hopes to “’finish […] off the butcher [Nicholas II]’” (215).

A few days later, the daughters receive a letter from Alexandra telling them that their “‘medicines’” (216)—a code word for jewels—have been searched. As a result, the younger Romanovs now sew their own “medicine”—nearly 14 million dollars’ worth of jewels, and all that remains of the family’s wealth—into skirt hems, under hat rims, in pillows and undergarments. While Alexandra continues to write of the “‘nasty surprises’” in Ekaterinburg (216), a new commissar also arrives in Tobolsk: Nicholas Rodionov, a “‘right snake of a man’” (216), as one courtier puts it. His duty is to escort the remaining Romanovs to Ekaterinburg, once Alexei can be moved. In the meantime, he takes pleasure in “humiliat[ing]” the grand duchesses (216).

Finally Alexei is well enough to travel, and on May 23, the young Romanovs reach Ekaterinburg, where they’re greeted by a mob crying, “‘Hang them! Drown them in the lake!’” (218).