Following the February Revolution in Russia, the brutal slaying and execution of the Romanovs
occured in July 1918.
The event is seen as a brutal murder of the last emperor of a country and his family,
including his children.
Tsar Nicholas II had been deposed as a monarch in March 1917, and his family were placed
under house arrest and moved to a number of different houses before they arrived inside
the House of Special Purpose in Yekaterinburg.
It was inside the basement there that the Russian royal family were shot dead in barbaric
scenes, and a number of the children of Tsar Nicholas and his wife Alexandra were finished
off with bayonets.
The scene of the execution was incredibly bloody, but what is the story behind the shocking
execution of Russia’s last monarchs and ruling family?
Join us today as we look at, ‘The Brutal execution of the Romanovs,’ and remember
to support our channel, please make sure to subscribe.
Most historians believe that the order to execute the former monarch and his family
came from Vladimir Lenin and Yakov Sverdlov, who were concerned that the family who were
being held under house arrest would be freed.
There has been no written execution warrant found but it’s claimed that they endorsed
and supported the executions.
But how did this all happen?
Following Tsar Nicholas being deposed as the monarch of Russia in the aftermath of the
Revolution, he became known as Nicholas Romanov and was held with his family under house arrest
initially inside the Alexander Palace.
He was guarded by the provisional government, and was held under a tight guard.
There was an attempt to send the royals to Britain, and after this they were moved to
Siberia to ‘supposedly protect them from the anger of the revolution.’
They were housed in comfort inside of the former governor’s mansion, but following
the Bolshevik’s coming into power, their imprisonment became tougher.
The guards controlled what he wore, and many of them drew distasteful images to cause offence
to the family, but they were then in March 1918 restricted with their food.
They were forced to ear soldiers rations, and a number of their household staff were
dismissed.
Following the support for the Bolshevik’s increasing, the government then in April 1918
moved Nicholas, Alexandra and their daughter Maria to Yekaterinburg.
At the time his other children remains in Siberia, but Alexei who suffered from severe
haemophilia was deemed to ill to go with his parents.
Later the family were reunited in Yekaterinburg, and they were held inside the house classed
as ‘The House of Special Purpose.’
It was said that, ‘All of those under arrest will be held as hostages and the slightest
attempt at counter revolutionary action in the town will result in the summary execution
of the hostages.’
There must have been fears that the family could have been broken out of their incarceration,
but things inside the prison were very tough.
They were kept very isolated and were banned from speaking to each other in different languages
that their guards could not understand.
Their luggage and belongings were kept in an outhouse and they were not allowed to have
access to their possessions including cameras also.
They regularly were searched and had their money and valuables confiscated, and the compound
was surrounded by a 4 metre high fence to ensure no-one from the streets could see in.
The guards even had to build a second fence as it was said that when Nicholas used the
swing in the garden his legs could be seen.
Inside all the windows in the rooms had been sealed shut and were kept in darkness, covered
with newspaper and then painted.
They were not allowed to look out, and on one occasion Anastasia looked out and she
was fired at by the guards.
They were kept a closer eye on as time went on, and things must have been incredibly tough.
The family were given no privacy as guards could gain access to the rooms they were in
at any time, and if they wanted to leave their rooms the Romanovs had to ring a bell when
they were escorted to the toilet for example.
The water they had was rationed and they were only allowed into the garden for half an hour
time a day, and were forced to not speak with any guards.
In terms of their food, it was very primitive and they were no longer living like royals.
They were not allowed to send letters, but doctors did regularly visit Alexei to treat
his illness.
It was clear that as time went on, things got very tough for the royal family, and their
freedoms deteriorated as time went on.
Their former loyal servants had been executed, and shot and any housemaid that was brought
in to clean was told not to speak to them.
Infact four housemaids who came into the house on the 15th July 1918 would be the final civilians
to see the Russian royal family.
In terms of the guards, they often indulged in debaucherous behaviour inside the house,
as they slept inside the basements and hallways.
The guards were permitted to bring women in from local brothels, and also drink heavily
inside, and despite the house being heavily guarded by machine guns and other weapons,
the behaviour of the guards was not what you would expect.
The amount of guards was colossal too, and its believed that in the final days of the
prisoners lives, there were around 300 based at the house.
At the time, before the executions to Czechoslovak Legion were heading towards Yekaterinburg
and it was believed by the government that they could have been trying to free the Russian
royal family.
With this its believed that hastily the execution of the Romanovs could have been pushed forward.
There had been demonstrations inside of the city also and a rebellion was violently put
down and this was all heard from the prison.
It was agreed by the Ural Regional Soviet in a meeting weeks previous that the Romanovs
should be executed.
This set the ball rolling to organise the details of the execution.
During meetings in which Lenin was involved in, it was deemed that the Tsar’s wife and
children must die also.
It was Yakov Yurovsky who would act as the chief executioner, and he took steps to work
out how the bodies of the royal family would be disposed of after the bloody event had
taken place.
Yurovsky wanted to force the Romanovs into a small room where they could not escape,
and he settled upon the basement room for this.
This would muffle the screams and shouts, and then he planned to have them shot and
stabbed at night.
He even planned to execute them possibly in their sleep, and then have their bodies dumped
in a nearby pond with them weighed down with metal.
This was ruled out, and his plan was to perform the execution of all of the 11 prisoners at
the same time, which would prevent guards from searching the bodies and stealing jewels
from their clothes.
Permission was sought from Lenin, and although no actual proof of this exists its believed
that he was consulted and gave his permission.
On the 16th July the order was given to execute, and preparations at 8pm were made by Yurovsky
to get a driver to fetch a truck to transport the bodies along with canvas to wrap them
in.
It was parked close to the basements entrance and left its engine running to hopefully he
believed conceal the sound of gunshots.
Yurosky had already selected the killers, and he assigned victims to each of them before
he gave them handguns.
He himself took a number of pistols, and his deputy was armed with rifles.
There was no meeting held as to how the killers should efficiently go about their duty.
Whilst the royal family were having dinner on the 16th July 1918, Yurovsky entered the
room and said that a young kitchen boy Alexei had been playing with was leaving.
In her final diary entry, the Tsarina Alexandra wrote how she doubted they would see the boy
again.
At midnight on the 17th July, the Romanov’s doctor Eugene Botkin was ordered to wake the
sleeping family up and to get dressed believing they would be moved yet again.
They were then forced into a small basement room, and Nicholas asked to bring in two chairs
for his wife and ill-son Alexei to sit on.
He was allowed one, and then it was announced to the royal family inside of the basement
that, ‘Nikolai Alexandrovich, in view of the fact that you and your relatives are continuing
their attack on Soviet Russia, the Ural Executive Committee has decided to execute you.’
Nicholas then turned towards his family and cried out, ‘What?’
The order was repeated and the weapons were pointed a the family.
Shooting then began, and Yurovsky took out his gun and fired into Tsar Nichola’s torso
who fell over dead, with three bullets at least entering his chest.
Alexandra was shot with a bullet wound to the head, and then Maria who ran for the doors
was shot in the thigh.
Each executioner shot over the shoulder of the other executioners, and peppered the royal
family with bullets from their weapons.
The room became shrouded in smoke and dust such was the volley of shots, and the executioners
could not see what they were firing at.
Yurovsky then asked to stop shooting, and as the smoke was clearing, the executioners
heard whimpers and moans and they realised that a number of the imperial children were
alive.
The noise from the shooting woke many in the local area, and then the executioners were
told to use their bayonets and then shoot the survivors in the head.
Alexei who was still sat on his chair was shot by a whole magazine, and the Romanovs
had jewels sewn into their clothes which caused them to be slightly protected from the shots.
Maria and Anastasia were crouched up against a wall until they were shot, and each of the
royal family were bayonetted and then confirmed that they were dead.
For 20 minutes the executions lasted, and it was said that they were performed poorly
and with great bloodshed.
It’s believed that around 70 bullets were fired, 57 were found in the basement and at
the burial place.
A number of the stretcher bearers who carried the bodies began to search the bodies for
valuables.
The bodies of the Romanovs and their attendants were then placed onto a truck, which travelled
for 9 miles down a boggy road to get to the Koptyaki Forest.
There had only been one shover brought for the burial, and many of the men were drunk.
It was hard to maintain control of the burials for Yurovsky, and a number of the men assaulted
the corpses of the family.
The bodies were laid out on the grass and undressed, and their clothes were burned whilst
inventory was taken of their jewellery.
The bodies were then dumped in a mineshaft and were covered with sulphuric acid to make
them unrecognisable.
It was then found that the pit was not even 3 metres deep and the muddy water did not
fully cover the bodies.
Yurovsky then tried to collapse the mine with grenades, and it was decided the pit was too
shallow for the burials.
Men returned back to the mineshaft on the morning of the 18th July, and the corpeses
were then out one by one.
Yurovsky ordered his men to dig a burial pit but the ground was too hard.
More trucks were sent to help move the bodies, and once taken from the mud they were transported
to deeper copper mines.
But on the way near to Porosenkov Log, the trucks got bogged down in the mud.
It was here where Yurovsky decided to then bury the Romanovs where the trucks were in
trouble.
A grave was dug an then the bodies were thrown in, and sulphuric acid was used again in an
attempt to dissolve the remains.
The truck was even driven over the grave a number of times to press them into the ground,
and the burial was finished at 6am on the 19th July.
Attempts were made to confuse those who found the graves, and Tsarevich Alexei and one of
his sisters were buried 15 metres away to confuse people who would find the remains.
They were burned in a bonfire and their bones were smashed with spades and thrown into a
small pit nearby.
The burial site remained hidden until 1979 where it was discovered by Alexander Avdonin.
The remains were not acknowledged until 1989, an the identity of the remains of the Romanovs
was later confirmed through DNA testing.
80 years after the executions, the remains of the Romanovs were interred in Peter and
Paul Cathedral in St Petersburg.
The smaller grave containing the remains of Alexei and his sister were found in 2007.
The execution of the Romanovs was a shocking part of history that signalled the end of
the royal family in Russia.
The way in which the executions were carried out was brutally shocking, and the treatment
of the remains was completely barbaric.
Despite the Tsar being known for making a number of poor decisions, the way in which
he and his family including his children were shot in the basement was incredibly terrible.
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