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It remains to mention the tragedy of Alapaevsk, which is closely connected with that of Ekaterinburg, and caused the death of several other members of the Imperial family.
The Grand-Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, sister of the Czarina, the Grand-Duke Sergius Michaïlovitch, cousin of the Czar, Princes Jean, Constantin, and Igor, sons of the Grand-Duke Constantin, and Prince Palée, son of the Grand-Duke Paul, had been arrested in the spring of 1918 and taken to the little town of Alapaevsk, situated 150 versts north of Ekaterinburg. A nun, Barbe Yakovlef, the Grand-Duchess’s companion, and S. Remes, secretary of the Grand-Duke Sergius, shared their captivity. Their prison was the school-house.
In the night of July 17th-18th, twenty-four hours after the Ekaterinburg crime, they were fetched and, under pretext of being removed to another town, were driven about twelve versts from Alapaevsk. There, in a forest, they were put to death. Their bodies were thrown into the shaft of an abandoned mine, where they were found, in October, 1918, covered with the earth thrown up by the explosion of hand-grenades by which the sufferings of the victims had been terminated.
The autopsy revealed traces of death by shooting only on the body of the Grand-Duke Sergius, and the enquiry has failed to establish exactly how his companions were killed. It is probable that they were beaten down with rifle-butts.
This crime of unexampled brutality was the work of Commissary Safarof, member of the Ekaterinburg Presidium, who, however, was acting entirely on the orders of Moscow.
Some days after the capture of Ekaterinburg, when order was being restored in the town and the dead buried, two bodies were found not far from the prison. On one of them was found a receipt for 80,000 roubles made out to Citizen Dolgorouky, and, according to the descriptions of witnesses, it seems certain that this was the body of Prince Dolgorouky. There is every reason to believe that the other was the body of General Tatichtchef.
Both died, as they had expected, for their Czar. General Tatichtchef said to me one day at Tobolsk: “I know I shan’t come out alive. I only ask one thing, not to be separated from the Czar and to be allowed to die with him.” Even this supreme consolation was denied him.
Countess Hendrikof and Mlle. Schneider were removed from Ekaterinburg a few days after the murder of the Imperial family and taken to Perm. There they were shot in the night of September 3rd-4th, 1918. Their bodies were found and identified in May, 1919.