It was then settled that the party with the Tsar should include: Alexandra, the Grand Duchess Maria, Prince Dolgoruky, Dr. Botkin, and the servants Chemodurov, Demidova, and Ivan Sednev. On receiving the list, Yakovlev said: “It is all the same to me.” The soldiers were again assembled on the evening of the 25th to be informed of the Tsar’s removal. To forestall any objections, a number of them were selected to accompany the party.
. . . . . .
The vehicles that were to convey the travellers to Tiumen, where they would find a train, did not differ from the ordinary Siberian tarantass—a large basket swung upon long flexible poles uniting two springless axles, the baskets being filled with straw. Into these vehicles the travellers tumbled and disposed themselves as best they could. Alexandra had a troika, the others a pair of horses. She beckoned to the Tsar to mount with her, but Yakovlev sent Maria to join her mother, and shared his tarantass with Nicholas.
The roads were terrible. No traveller who has not experienced springtime travel in Russia can have any idea of them. At some places the party had to alight and walk through deep slush. The Empress was better off than the others as she had a stronger team. Yakovlev was hurrying as fast as horseflesh could go. Relays waited at stated intervals. The travellers passed from one tarantass into another. It was better to lose no time as every day the roads became worse, but there was another reason: Yakovlev was evidently afraid of being stopped by the local soviets and wished to rush past before they had had time to oppose him.
Throughout the trip he conversed with the ex-Tsar on politics, endeavouring to talk him over to a certain point of view—but the Tsar would not give way. This much the coachman who drove them could swear to, although he could not catch all the details of the conversation. He noticed that Nicholas did not “scold the Bolsheviks,” but somebody else.
They reached Tiumen on the 28th at 9 p.m. A special train was in waiting. They started westward, but had not travelled far when at a wayside station Yakovlev heard that Ekaterinburg would intercept him. What he feared had happened. The only hope lay in circumventing Ekaterinburg. For this purpose it was necessary to return, go east as far as Omsk-Kulomzino, and thence switch on to the Cheliabinsk-Ufa railway. But he was too late. The soviet at Ekaterinburg had wired to Omsk that the ex-Tsar was escaping eastward, and a cordon of Red guards stopped the train at Kulomzino. Yakovlev detached the engine and went across the Irtysh to Omsk, and there, with the help of his private telegraphist, spoke with Moscow. He was ordered by Sverdlov to proceed via Ekaterinburg. As might be expected, they were met by a strong force of fanaticised Red guards at the station at Ekaterinburg (April 30th). Yakovlev’s authority was flouted and the escort and guards that were with him imprisoned till he had departed empty-handed on his way to Moscow. The unfortunate Romanovs thus came into the hands that were to massacre them and take their belongings.
Yakovlev had no hand in this foul conspiracy. He had been quite sincere and consistent in his efforts to bring the whole family safely to Moscow. There is no indication whatever, in all he said, that the object of this removal was to bring the Tsar to trial. On the contrary, the conversations with the Tsar, continued in the railway carriage, where, again, he was separated from Alexandra, gave additional colour to the version already given by Nicholas himself—that it was intended to restore the monarchy under certain conditions.[8] Speaking of Yakovlev, the ex-Tsar afterwards said: “Not a bad sort—evidently sincere.” Alexandra did not cease to bewail her misfortunes, weeping over her son and her husband.
On reaching Moscow, Yakovlev must have had some doubts about the sincerity of the Tsik. Anyhow, he resigned his commissaryship and eventually joined the White forces, and then mysteriously disappeared. An interview with him, published in a Red organ at the time of his journey in charge of the Imperial captives, contains some very instructive features. It passes over in silence the attempt to evade Ekaterinburg and falsifies the dates of arrival and departure at Tiumen so that the glaring discrepancy between this and the arrival at Ekaterinburg (two days instead of half a day) should not be noticed; ignores, in fact, all the local soviet intrigues and protests, quite needlessly, that he did not mention politics in his conversation with Nicholas. Vasily Vasilievich Yakovlev had been a naval officer and was therefore of Russian noble blood. He had committed some political offence, had spent many years abroad—in Berlin. Who were his real chiefs? It is not difficult to guess.
Two other commissaries went to Tobolsk to remove the remainder of the family—Tatiana had been left in charge of the invalid and household. Olga, the eldest daughter, did not enjoy her mother’s confidence in the same degree. She took far more interest in literature than in the practical affairs of life, and would hide herself in a corner with a book or tell stories to the soldiers, utterly forgetting domestic trifles. Anastasia, still a child, and rather backward, could be left in Tatiana’s care. Maria went with the Imperial couple because she was too grown-up to remain under her sister’s care. She was a very attractive girl, and it used to be rather a joke among the grand duchesses to twit her on her “conquests” among the Komisars.
The two successors of Yakovlev were:—A sailor named Hohriakov and a certain Rodionov. The latter was afterwards identified as a former gendarme officer. He used to inspect the passports at the German frontier, and served some time in the Russian Embassy at Berlin as a spy on Russian revolutionaries. When taxed with it, he admitted the impeachment. The sailor, a typical good-natured peasant, soon made friends with all the children. Rodionov, on the contrary, went out of his way to torment and ill-treat them. He forbade the grand duchesses to lock their doors at night, informing them with a leer that he had a perfect right to come into their rooms whenever he liked. With every appearance of enjoyment, he announced that in Ekaterinburg they would have to observe stricter rules, which he himself had devised. Hohriakov was nominally senior to Rodionov, but the latter did what he pleased.