In this way we performed duty until the first days of July, approximately until the third or fourth of July, when Avdeieff, Moshkin and the others were discharged.
This happened in the following way:
Avdeieff was a drunkard. He liked drinking and did not miss an opportunity. He drank a sort of yeast paste which he obtained at the Zlokasoff’s factory. He drank in Ipatieff’s house. His followers drank also. When the latter moved to the Ipatieff house they began stealing the emperor’s belongings. Often they used to go to the storeroom and take out various things in sacks or bags. The bags they took away in a motor car or on horses. They took the things to their houses or flats. The fact of these thefts soon became the subject of gossip. Our guards also began to speak about the stealing going on and especially Paul Medvedeff spoke about it. Thefts in the Zlokasoff’s factory were also investigated and Avdeieff and Luhanoff were pointed to as the thieves. This was certainly right, as Avdeieff and his gang were suspected by the workmen at the time they were in the factory. Even at this time all of them stuck to easy jobs in the committee or business soviet. They got plenty of money and drank yeast. They continued this behaviour after they moved to the Ipatieff house: drank yeast and stole the czar’s belongings.
About the third or the fourth of July, at the time I was on duty, Avdeieff went somewhere out of the house. I suppose he was called by telephone to the district soviet. Shortly after Moshkin also left. I know that he went to the district soviet whither he was called by telephone. Vasily Loginoff remained in place of Avdeieff. Some time after Avdeieff and Moshkin departed, Beloborodoff, Safaroff, Iourovsky, Nikoulin and two other men entered the house. Beloborodoff asked us who remained in the house instead of Avdeieff. Vasily Loginoff answered that he was staying instead of Avdeieff. At that Beloborodoff explained to us that Avdeieff was not a commandant any longer and that he and Moshkin were arrested. The reason of the arrest was not explained by Beloborodoff. As far as I remember the same thing was told by Beloborodoff to Medvedeff, who at this time came from the Popoff house. Beloborodoff also explained to us that Iourovsky was the new commandant and Nikoulin his assistant. From this moment Iourovsky began to give orders in the house in the capacity of commandant. He immediately ordered Loginoff and others of Avdeieff’s party—I can’t remember which of them, at this moment, were in the house—to “get out.”
I remember that all the people mentioned: Beloborodoff, Safaroff, Nikoulin, Iourovsky and the two men unknown to me, visited all the rooms of the house; they were in the rooms occupied by the czar and his family, but I did not accompany them to those rooms. They did not stay for a long time. I believe that Beloborodoff informed the family of the appointment of Iourovsky and Nikoulin. At that time Iourovsky questioned Medvedeff about the man who performed guard duty on posts numbers one and two. (Inside the house.) After he learned that those posts were kept by the “privileged” of Avdeieff’s party, Iourovsky said: “For the present you will have to perform duty on those posts; later I will request men from the extraordinary committee for them.”
In a few days the men from the extraordinary investigation committee arrived at the Ipatieff house. They were ten in number. Their baggage was brought on a horse. I could not identify the horse or tell the name of the coachman; but everybody at that time knew that the men came from the “Tchresvytchayka” (Institution of Secret Political Police) in the American hotel.
I can not say why, but we used to call all those men Letts. But whether they were Letts none of us knew. It is quite possible that they were not Letts, but Magyars.
They took their quarters in the lower floor of the house, and had their meals in the commandant’s room. They were in a privileged position in comparison with us. I think it would be right to say that we had three parties: the so-called Letts, the Zlokasoff and Sissert workmen. The Letts Iourovsky treated as equals. The Sissert workmen he treated a little better than us, and us worst of all. I account for the difference in his manner towards the Sissert workmen by the fact that he considered us as workmen from the Zlokasoff factory who had been discharged together with Avdeieff. Medvedeff also influenced his attitude. He ingratiated himself with Iourovsky and Nikoulin and made an effort to be very affable. That is why they had a better attitude towards the Sissert workmen.
At the beginning he increased the number of posts. He mounted another machine gun in the attic of the house and established a post in the rear yard. This post in the rear yard was number ten, the post by the machine gun, eleven, and the post in the attic twelve. Duties on posts numbers one, two and twelve, after the arrival of Iourovsky, were performed exclusively by Letts.
You ask me why I volunteered to guard the czar? I did not see at that time anything wrong in doing so. As I told you before, I read a little, different books. I read party pamphlets and had an idea about the views of the different parties. For example, I know the difference between the ideas of the social revolutionists and the Bolsheviki. The former believe that the peasants are a working-class and the latter consider them as bourgeoisie and believe that only workmen are real proletarians. My sympathies were with the Bolsheviki, but I did not believe that the Bolsheviki could build up by their methods of violence a “good” and “just” life. I still believe that a “good” and “just” life will exist only when there are not so many rich and so many poor people as there are at present; and this will only come when all the population are educated to the point where they understand that the life they are leading at present is not the true one. I believed the czar to be the first capitalist who would always play into the hands of capital and not into those of the workmen. For this reason I did not want a czar and thought that he ought to be kept under guard, or at least imprisoned, until the time when he could be judged by the nation and punished by it according to his crimes, after deciding: “Was he guilty before his people, or not?” I thought his imprisonment was necessary for the safety of the revolution, and if I had known before that he would be killed in the way he was, I never would have gone to guard him. I believed that he could be judged only by the whole of Russia, as he was the czar of the entire Russian nation. All that happened I consider a wicked deed, “unjust and cruel.” The murder of the rest of his family I consider still worse. For what reason were his children murdered? I must also state that I joined the guards as I wanted to earn money. At that time I did not feel well and joined the guards because I thought it an easy job.