On the 30th of May, 1896, a lavish public banquet was laid on for the citizens of Moscow,
Russia, to celebrate the coronation of their new Emperor, Nicholas the Second.
Tsar Nicholas was keen for the celebration to be a moment of hope and stability for his
people – an occasion that they would look back on fondly, and that would help to unite
and uplift the nation at the start of his reign.
Ultimately, however, the banquet at Khodynka Field would be remembered by those who survived
it in a very, very different way.
When Nicholas was born, his grandfather, Alexander the Second, was Emperor of Russia, and his
father was seen as a likely heir.
In 1881, however, Alexander the Second was assassinated in front of the teenage Nicholas.
His father was now the Emperor, and he was heir to the throne.
It was a sudden and huge step up… but at the same time the dangers of the position
he was destined to hold had been made horribly clear to him.
His father, Alexander the Third, did little to prepare Nicholas to be Emperor.
When Alexander the Third died suddenly in 1894, Nicholas was just 26 years old.
Overwhelmed, Nicholas wrote to his cousin, saying:
“What is going to happen to me…to mother, to all of Russia?
I am not prepared to be a Tsar.
I never wanted to become one.
I know nothing about the business of ruling.”
Nicholas was incredibly close to his family.
When his father died, he brought forward his planned wedding to Princess Alix of Hesse
and by Rhine, as he was desperate for her to be at his side throughout the entire process.
He had relatives in kingdoms all over Europe, largely because most of the ruling class of
the time were in some way related to Queen Victoria of Great Britain.
Nicholas was cousin of George the Fifth of the UK, and bore a striking resemblance to
him.
But despite these many relationships throughout Europe, when he came to power he felt helpless
and alone.
One person he decided to rely on was his uncle on his father’s side, Grand Duke Sergei
Alexandrovich.
At the time that Nicholas came to power, Sergei was Governor General of Moscow – a powerful
position which made him answerable only to the Emperor.
He took Nicholas under his wing.
As General Governor of Moscow, Sergei was responsible for organising the coronation
ceremonies for Nicholas and Alix, which were to be held in the city.
The coronation itself took place on the 26th of May, 1896, and was followed by days and
weeks of grand public celebrations, one of which was to be a huge banquet for the people
of the city.
The venue for the banquet was to be Khodynka Field – a huge open space in the city that
had been used for large-scale festivals since the time of Catherine the Great.
The field had a ravine, and was surrounded by many ditches, and was sometimes used as
a military training ground.
But it was spacious enough for a celebration befitting the occasion, so Sergei approved
the plans.
The plans were very ambitious indeed.
A temporary town square was installed, and around it were set up miniature theatres,
150 buffets and 20 different drinking establishments.
Gifts were to be handed out to everyone who attended, including a bread roll, a sausage,
some pretzels, some gingerbread and a commemorative cup.
There was a lot of excitement in the leadup to the event.
On the evening of the 29th of May, the day before the banquet, people had already begun
to gather in Khodynka Field.
The setup for such a big event was an attraction in and of itself: families gathered to watch
cart after cart laden with beer, food and gifts heading into the grounds.
People came from all over the Russian empire to the Khodynka Field – as many as 500,000
were estimated to be there by the early hours of the morning of the 30th of May.
Rumours began to spread amongst the crowd about what gifts were on offer.
Some claimed that the commemorative cups would contain real gold coins, a possibility that
caused great excitement.
At around 6:00am, rumours quickly spread that some booths had opened up and were already
handing out gifts.
This information passed through the crowd at incredible speed, and then, almost as one,
the crowd began to surge towards the booths.
Further rumours spread as people rushed across the field.
It was said that some special prizes were on offer: if you were lucky you might be given
a cow, a horse or even a house – although, of course, these prizes were limited in number,
and would soon run out.
The excitement grew to a frenzy.
As the crowds began to surge, the workers handing out the gifts became worried.
Some started to throw gifts into the crowd in an effort to calm people down and reduce
the pressure in the immediate vicinity of the booths.
Ultimately, though, this only added to the chaos.
The movement of the crowd swept up every man, woman and child in the area, with many tripping
and falling as they were pulled along.
The ground was uneven, and the people were so tightly packed in places that those in
the crowd couldn’t even see the ground beneath them.
The ravine and several drainage ditches were situated close to the booths handing out gifts.
As the movement of the crowd became uncontrolled, people were swept into these in their hundreds,
one on top of the other.
Many people in the crowd fainted, but they weren’t able to fall to the ground, so were
carried along, upright but unconscious.
Famed Russian writer Leo Tolstoy was deeply affected by the events that day, and would
later write a short story featuring them.
Though it is, of course, fiction, it gives some insight into what it may have been like
to experience the catastrophic crush:
“He fell.
A woman in a headscarf fell upon him.
He shook her off his back, wanting to return, but others pressed from behind and he didn't
have the strength.
He leant forward, but his feet set on something soft – on people.
They grabbed him by the legs and screamed.
He saw nothing, heard nothing and moved forward, treading on people.”
There was a police force of around 1,800 present in Khodynka Field that day, but they had no
chance of controlling a crowd of half a million.
Thousands of people were tossed into ditches and the ravine, piled up on top of each other,
with no hope of survival for those at the bottom.
There was also a well on the field, into which 27 people fell.
Only one of them would survive.
Gradually, the crowd calmed and began to disperse.
The police were ordered to clear the area and remove the bodies of the dead, so that
the festivities could continue as planned.
With this as a priority, little attempt was made to aid the injured and dying.
At the same time, there were parts of the massive field that were so far removed from
the worst parts of the crush, that some attendees were entirely unaware of what had happened.
The celebrations did indeed carry on, while nearly 1,300 corpses were removed from the
scene, and around 9,000 injured people left to seek medical attention.
A valet for the court of Nicholas the Second, Aleksei Volkov, later recalled his experience
of walking around the area as people left the celebration, in an account which highlights
both the scale of the celebration and the confusion:
“I met many groups of people coming back from that site and carrying the Tsar's gifts.
The strange thing, though, was that not one person mentioned the catastrophe, and I did
not hear about it until the next morning”
Tsar Nicholas the Second was informed of the tragedy.
He and his wife went that same day to the site in order to pay their respects to the
dead… but by the time they arrived at around 2:00pm, there was no sign at all that a tragedy
of any kind had taken place.
That evening, the French ambassador had arranged a ball for Nicholas, as part of the coronation
celebrations.
It is thought that Nicholas may have been uncertain about attending such a lavish ball
in the wake of the disaster, but as France was such an important ally to Russia, his
advisors persuaded him to attend.
Conflicting reports also emerged, highlighted by those that opposed the monarchy, that Nicholas
was warned not to attend by some advisors, but did so anyway.
China’s Imperial Commissioner was present at the ball – and remarked that a Chinese
Emperor would have never gone to a ball after such a tragedy.
Whether he was reluctant to attend the ball or not, the fact that he did left a sour taste
in the mouths of the people of Moscow.
It was seen as a disrespectful act: the Tsar feasting and dancing while the people mourned
their dead.
The Tsar did pay compensation to the families of the victims out of his own pocket.
He also played an active role in the resulting investigation.
The findings of this investigation lead him to dismiss his Uncle Sergei, who had gained
the nickname the Duke of Khodynka for his role in the disaster
It is indicative of this period in history that most of the reporting on the Khodynka
Crush was focused on the impact on the Tsar and the ruling class, rather than the thousands
of people that died and were injured that day.
The tragedy became a talking point for those seeking to take or retain power, while the
general public that had suffered in it were left, largely unaided, to deal with the tragic
consequences.