Never speak of what has taken place here. Forget all you’ve seen
towards them, they scramble to get away. Anastasia fights ermakov as best she can, but within seconds they are all shot and stabbed, the diamonds and pearls sewn into their camisoles only prolonging their agony.
Alexandra’s maid, Anna Demidova, tries to get up, screaming ‘thank god! god has saved me!’ As ermakov turns on her, she fends him off with one of the jewel-filled cushions, until it is snatched from her. she is the last to be killed.
2.45AM
the remains of the Romanovs are being wrapped in their bedroom sheets. suddenly Anastasia sits up, covering her face in her hands. she is quickly stabbed and shot.
Makeshift stretchers are then brought in to carry the bodies up to the truck. A Bolshevik official stoops down to look at the dead former tsar. ‘so this is the end of the Romanov dynasty, is it?’
the guards start stripping the bodies of wedding rings, pearl necklaces and gold watches. guards from other parts of the house arrive to see the carnage, and many weep at the sight of the mutilated bodies.
2.50AM
Upstairs in his office, Yurovsky is lying down exhausted with a cold cloth over his head. he doesn’t trust the drunk and manic ermakov to dispose of the bodies before the czech mutineers arrive, so decides to go with him to the Four Brothers mine. on Yurovsky’s desk are blood-stained valuables that his men have looted from the family but which he has confiscated from them.
3AM
the Fiat truck carrying the dead, Yurovsky, ermakov and a small number of guards pulls out of Ipatiev house. Yurovsky was right to be concerned about ermakov’s competence: he has brought only one shovel with him.
5AM
In the middle of the Koptyaki i Forest the truck comes to a halt. It has taken the laden vehicle two hours to travel only nine miles. Blocking their way are about 30 men on horseback with h wooden carts who ermakov v has asked to help dispose of f the bodies.
they, too, are drunk and had hoped to molest the Romanov v girls before killing the whole family. ‘We thought you would deliver them to us alive!’ they y shout angrily at ermakov.
Back in the basement room at Ipatiev house, the vast amount of blood on the floor is being g swept away by guards with h brooms. In Yurovsky’s first floor r office, there are about half a dozen of his men fast asleep. they had refused to stay in the basement guardroom so close to where the killings took place.
5.30AM
the Fiat truck has got stuck in marshy ground. Yurovsky orders ermakov’s men to load the bodies onto the carts. As they carry the bodies they start pulling at the girls’ clothes and discover the pearls and jewels.
Yurovsky realises now why they had taken so long to die. ‘no one is responsible for their death agonies but themselves,’ he said later. Yurovsky draws his pistol to stop the men looting.
6.45AM
All the bodies are now loaded onto the carts and ermakov is leading them in the direction of the Four Brothers mine, but he is too drunk to remember the way. they are running out of time — it is getting light.
7AM
BY A miracle, ermakov has found the mine. But there is a problem — a group of peasants has made camp here. Yurovsky orders d th them t to l leave and d cordons d off the area. he hands out to the men the eggs brought by the nuns the previous morning and they all sit by the peasants’ fire to eat them.
the nuns are arriving at Ipatiev house with their daily supplies for the household. the guards tell them to ‘go away and don’t bring any more!’
7.15AM
Yurovsky doesn’t trust ermakov’s men, so he orders them back to ekaterinburg.
he then watches as his guards strip the bodies naked, searching for any remaining jewellery and making an inventory of all they recover. Jewellery weighing 18lb is placed into sacks.
the family’s clothes are then burned on two huge fires. the guards look at the naked, mutilated bodies lying on the grass.
‘there was no beauty to see in the dead,’ one said later. Another touches th Alex an dr al d—she hi is still warm.
8.30AM
the corpses of the Romanovs and their servants are being thrown one by one into a waterfilled mine shaft. But to Yurovsky’s horror the mine isn’t as deep as he thought — the water barely covers the bodies.
this operation is becoming a farce. to destroy the mine shaft he throws in two grenades, but the sides don’t cave in.
Yurovsky starts to panic: ‘even a blind man could find them.’ he gets his men to cover the mine with branches and to stand guard while he heads back to ekaterinburg.
9AM
British consul thomas Preston lives only four houses away from Ipatiev house. he has heard rumours of the horrific events of the previous night and is in the telegraph office to send a message to Foreign s secretary Arthur B Balfour: ‘ the tsar n nicholas the second w was shot last night.’ Preston is recognised b by a Bolshevik official who snatches the telegram and writes on it t in red pencil: ‘the hangman tsar nicholas the second was shot today — a fate he r richly deserved.’ the s shocked consul has no choice but to send the altered message.
3PM
Back in ekaterinburg, Yurovsky is t telling an emergency meeting of the Regional soviet executive c committee the humiliating news that he has failed to dispose of the bodies. they listen, speechless.
FRIDAY, JULY 19, 4AM
the Fiat truck that carried the bodies of the Romanovs into the Koptyaki Forest two days earlier is now bringing them out. Yurovsky has found a new location to dump the bodies — a remote and deep copper mine to the west of ekaterinburg.
the remains were retrieved from the Four Brothers mine shaft by two men who stood waist-deep in water and attached ropes to the mangled limbs of the dead.
Members of the local soviet executive committee watched to make sure this time the job was done properly.
the truck suddenly lurches to a halt in a place called Pig’s Meadow; the Fiat has sunk into deep mud and can’t move. Yurovsky hasn’t slept for 70 hours and has had enough. It’s almost dawn and he hasn’t got time to get the bodies to the new location unseen and before they are intercepted by the counterrevolutionary czech soldiers.
Yurovsky decides not to take his grisly cargo any further.
6AM
A grave is being dug 6ft by 8ft. As Yurovsky’s men work, the hole slowly fills with peaty water. Yurovsky wants to bury only nine corpses to deceive anyone looking for the victims from Ipatiev house, so 200ft away the bodies of young Alexei and his sister Maria are burning on a bonfire.
7AM
the nine bodies are being thrown into the grave and sulphuric acid poured over them. earth is then shovelled over the dissolving corpses and wooden railway sleepers are dragged over the mass grave.
the Fiat truck drives over the sleepers to level the ground. the burnt remains of Alexei and Maria are buried in separate graves some distance away.
At Ipatiev house the Romanovs’ belongings are being boxed up to be sent by train to Moscow. there are seven large items of luggage containing icons, jewellery, bibles and diaries.
8PM
At pig’s Meadow, Yurovsky gathers his men together and tells them: ‘never speak of what has taken place here. You must forget all you have seen.’
JONATHAN MAYO is the author of The Assassination Of JFK: Minute By Minute (Short Books, £12.48).