In the second half of May we arrived altogether at Yekaterinburg. At first we were all quartered in the new “Gostiny-Dvor” (bazaar house), where the soldiers of the Red army also were located. We stayed there a few days without doing any work. At the end of May we were transferred to the Ipatieff house, where the czar’s family lived. We were placed in the rooms of the lower floor.
Alexander Moshkin, a workman from the Zlokasoff’s factory, was in charge of the house and our guard detachment was under his orders. Medvedeff was the senior in our party. He was our chief. Nobody had elected him, but he was in charge of the enlistment of our party from the beginning; he paid the wages and changed the sentries. Our salary was four hundred roubles per month; Medvedeff received six hundred. Avdeieff remained all the time in the house and occupied the commandant’s room. Generally he arrived at nine o’clock a.m. and left at nine o’clock p.m. Moshkin stayed all the time in the commandant’s room, where he lived. Medvedeff also always stayed with those two in the same room and spent the night there.
The sentry posts were as follows: (1) By the sentry-box near the gate. (2) By the sentry-box near the chapel. (3) Between two fences, by the window of the house. (4) In the front court, near the entrance to the house. (5) In the back court. (6) In the garden. (7) In the entrance room of the upper floor, by the commandant’s room. (8) Near the lavatory, where the watercloset and bath room were located. Besides that there were three sentry posts with machine guns: (9) Beside the window of the attic. (10) On the terrace that faced the garden. (11) In the middle room of the lower floor.
We were performing our duties for about a week when Avdeieff brought up about fifteen more men—all workmen of the Zlokasoff factory. I suppose he did it because he thought we were overworked, as we were obliged to be on duty four hours at a time; it was raining, and we were not accustomed to this sort of duty.
The Zlokasoff workmen lived with us in the upper floor. There were not any women in our detachment. We had our own male cooks, who prepared our food. At first Ivan Kategoff was the cook, later he was replaced by Andrew Starkoff.
At the end of June or maybe at the beginning of July Moshkin was arrested by Avdeieff, as he was suspected of stealing a small gold cross belonging to the czar. At the same time Avdeieff was also dismissed and replaced by Iourovsky. Nikoulin was appointed as his assistant.
Positively I do not know who Iourovsky and Nikoulin were. Both of them arrived at the house together. They always remained in the commandant’s room. Iourovsky arrived in the morning at eight or nine o’clock and left at five or six in the afternoon. Nikoulin practically lived in the commandant’s room and spent the night there. Medvedeff also continued to spend the night in the same room. About a week after Iourovsky and Nikoulin assumed their duties all the Sissert and Zlokasoff workmen were transferred to Popoff’s (or Oboukoff’s) house, which was opposite the Ipatieff house. Instead of us the lower floor of the Ipatieff’s house accommodated Letts, who were about ten in number.
Before the arrival of the Letts all the sentry duties were performed exclusively by the Sissert workmen. After their arrival all the posts on the upper floor, where the czar’s family lived, were taken up by Letts. We, Russian workmen, were not allowed to go to the upper floor. Such were the orders of Iourovsky.
The machine gun teams, who performed no other duty than at the machine guns, were composed of our Sissert workmen.
At the time when Avdeieff was the chief all the other posts were occupied by the rest of the workmen. But after the arrival of Iourovsky and of the Letts, we workmen began to occupy only the posts outside of the house. All posts inside of the house were assigned to the Letts. Before the arrival of the Letts I, as well as other workmen, performed my sentry duties inside the house about six times, keeping guard by the commandant’s room and the lavatory. I performed this duty in the morning, daytime, evening and night. During this time I saw all the imperial family: The emperor, the empress, czarevitch, as well as the daughters: Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia. I saw them very closely when they went for a walk or to the lavatory or passed from one room to another. They all used to walk in the garden, except the empress. I never saw her walking in the garden. The czarevitch I saw only once, as he was carried by the oldest daughter of the emperor—Olga. The czarevitch was ill all the time.