There had been no provision for guarding the house—another proof that the prisoners had not been intended for Ekaterinburg. After the first few days, a regular guard was organised from workmen employed at the local mills and iron works. Alexander Avdeiev received the style of “Commandant of the Special Purpose House”—such was the name of the imperial prison. His assistants were Alexander Moshkin and Pavel Medvedev, both workmen and Russians. Avdeiev and his particular friends among the guards lived upstairs in the ante room and another chamber facing the square. They were, consequently, in immediate proximity to the prisoners. No pen can describe what this meant.
The men were coarse, drunken, criminal types, such as a revolution brings to the surface. They entered the prisoners’ rooms whenever they thought fit, at all hours, prying with drunken, leering eyes into everything that they might be doing. Their mere presence was an offence; but picture the torments of the captives to have to put up with their loathsome familiarities! They would sit down at the table when the prisoners ate, put their dirty hands into the plates, spit, jostle and reach in front of the prisoners. Their greasy elbows would be thrust, by accident or design, into the ex-Tsar’s face. Alexandra was, of course, a special object of attention. They would crowd round her chair, lolling in such a manner that any movement on her part brought her in contact with their evil smelling bodies.
Prison fare of the poorest kind was provided. Breakfast comprised stale black bread from the day before, with tea—no sugar. For dinner they had thin soup and meat, the latter of doubtful quality. The ex-Empress could eat nothing except macaroni.
The table cover was a greasy oil-cloth. There were not knives or forks or even plates enough to go round. All ate with wooden spoons out of one common dish. By the Emperor’s wish the servants sat at table with the family.
The guards sang revolutionary songs devised to hurt and shock the feelings of the prisoners, containing foul words such as no man should dare to utter in the presence of innocent girls, but the revolutionary warriors delighted in wounding the modesty of the grand duchesses in this and in other still more repulsive ways, by filthy scribbling and drawings on the walls and by crowding round the lavatory—there was only one for the prisoners and the warders. They went reeling about the house, smoking cigarettes, unkempt, dishevelled, shameless, inspiring terror and loathing. They did not scruple to help themselves liberally to the clothes and other property of the prisoners whenever anything came within their reach.
Only a quarter of an hour was allowed to the prisoners in the open air. No physical work was permitted. The ex-Tsar felt this privation very much. Alexandra suffered terribly. Her son remained an invalid, unable to walk. The family seemed to be overwhelmed by grief. But their faith in God and their love for each other illuminated the gloom of this awful prison. Above the ribald songs of their tormentors might be heard the chanting of the Song of Cherubim, the Russian hymn of praise.
Now we come to the final phase that preceded the murder. It is full of significance. Every step taken by the occult powers of the Ekaterinburg chrezvychaika, which, it must be remembered, did nothing without orders from the central institutions in Moscow—Sverdlov being in direct communication with Goloshchekin—falls into its natural appointed place as part of the cruel fate reserved for the Romanov family.
The monsters who had been placed in charge of the prisoners—as if on purpose to torment them through the agency of Russians—did not fulfil their mission to the end. Even they became humanised by the spectacle of the sufferings and the patience and humility of their former sovereigns—not all of them, of course, but certainly a majority, including their commandant, Avdeiev.
One of these men afterwards related how the change came over him. He had begun with hatred in his heart. The Tsar was the head of the capitalistic system, the greatest capitalist of them all. To destroy him was to destroy capitalism itself—the Social-Democratic programme had made it all so plain to him. He watched the crowned enemy of mankind, the “drinker of the people’s blood,” as he walked about the garden, and listened to him exchanging simple, homely words with the other warders. His notions began to waver. This was not a bad man; he was so human, so kindly, just a man like other men, and even better. Then the idea occurred to him that it was wrong to desire his death. What harm could he do? Why not let him escape! Yes, it would be much better if he went away, and the children, too, they had done no harm, and the Tsaritsa also. She was proud. Not simple and homely, like the Tsar; but let her also go. If she had done harm, she had also suffered.
This man repented of the evil he and his fellows were doing. He would sing no more lewd songs, and tried to dissuade the others. Rapidly the whole of the guard—workmen from the Lokalov and Syssert companies’ plants—were becoming disaffected.