THE GOVERNOR’S HOUSE AT TOBOLSK WHERE THE IMPERIAL FAMILY WERE INTERNED.
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Barracks of the detachment which guarded the Czar. The guard being changed. | The Grand-Duchesses Marie and Anastasie on the balcony. |
and children spent several hours with the soldiers in the guard-house.
Saturday, February 2nd.—23° R. below zero. Prince Dolgorouky and I watered the snow mountain. We carried thirty buckets of water. It was so cold that the water froze on the way from the kitchen tap to the mountain. Our buckets and the snow mountain “steamed.” To-morrow the children can begin tobogganing.
Monday, February 4th.—The thermometer is said to have dropped last night below 30° Réaumur (37° Centigrade). Terrible wind. The Grand-Duchesses’ bedroom is a real ice-house.
Wednesday, February 6th.—It appears that on the initiative of the 2nd Regiment the soldiers have decided that Commissary Pankratof and his deputy, Nikolsky, must resign.
Friday, February 8th.—The soldiers’ committee has to-day decided to replace Pankratof by a Bolshevik commissary from Moscow. Things are going from bad to worse. It appears that there is no longer a state of war between Soviet Russia and Germany, Austria, and Bulgaria. The army is to be disbanded, but Lenin and Trotsky have not yet signed the peace.