I can not say what became of the boy who stayed with the imperial family. On one of the days immediately following the murder I saw the boy from a distance; he was sitting in the room where the Sissert workmen were dining and was weeping bitterly so that his sobs were heard by me. I did not go towards him, nor did I ask him any questions. I was told that the boy learned about the murder of the imperial family and began to cry.
On July the 17th, after I became calmer, I went to Medvedeff’s room. In this room I met another man who had previously obtained the supplies for the imperial family and the guardsmen. I began to question Medvedeff about the murder. Medvedeff told me that shortly after twelve in the night, Iourovsky woke up the imperial family and said to the czar: “An attack is being prepared on the house, I must transfer you all to the lower room.” They all came down. In reply to my question who did the shooting, Medvedeff answered that it was the Letts. When I asked where the bodies were taken, he told me that the bodies were taken by Iourovsky and the Letts on an automobile to the Verkh-Issetsk Works and there in a wooded place by the swamp all the bodies were put in one hole that was previously prepared and covered with earth. I remember he said that the automobile sank and only with great difficulty arrived at the grave.
I know that Avdeieff, before being appointed commandant of the Ipatieff house, went to Tobolsk to get the czar and his family. He was accompanied by Hohriakoff, who was afterwards killed at the front and buried with great ceremony in Perm by the Bolsheviki.
I also remember that when I went to Yekaterinburg I heard in the car two workmen saying that the czar had left Yekaterinburg. All of us who were of the guards began to tell them that the czar had been shot.
I can’t explain anything else. My testimony has been read to me, and is correct.
(Signed) Anatolie Alexandrovitch Iakimoff.
N. Sokoloff.
VI
EXAMINATION OF PAVEL MEDVEDEFF
[The deposition of Pavel Medvedeff, the former workman at the Sissert Factory, reveals a more hardened character than that of Yakimoff. He regards events in the cold light of reason, and offers no comment either of pity or of dislike. As he informed the member of the District Court, the fate of the czar and his family did not “interest” him. But it is worthy of notice that this unemotional workman insists that he took no part whatever in the actual murder, which implies that the tragedy was repugnant even to a man of his type.
His account also bears the imprint of truth. It is evident from it that Medvedeff possessed no imagination, and he describes the blood-stained room, and the bleeding corpses exactly as everyday occurrences. There is no attempt to impress his interrogator. His standpoint is: “I saw these things, this is how they happened. I have nothing more to say.”
His account of the disposal of the corpses differs from that of Yakimoff. It agrees, however, that the route taken by the motor lorry was in the direction of the Verkh-Issetsk Works.—Editor’s Note.]