On July 18, 1918, the day after the execution of the royal family, 18 km from the city of Alapaevsk near the Nizhnyaya Selimskaya mine, another sentence was secretly carried out.
Victims
In the spring of 1918, following the imperial family, the remaining members of the Romanov dynasty were transferred to Yekaterinburg. Among the prisoners were: Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich - the son of the youngest son of Nicholas I, Mikhail Nikolaevich; the empress's own sister - Elizabeth Feodorovna, princess of Hesse-Darmstadt, widow of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich; princes of imperial blood John Konstantinovich Romanov with his wife Elena Petrovna Romanova, Konstantin Konstantinovich, Igor Konstantinovich, Paley Vladimir Pavlovich. According to the historian Khrustalev, the concentration of all representatives of the imperial dynasty in the Urals made it possible to keep them at a considerable distance from external enemies - Germany and the Entente, and also made it possible to quietly destroy the Romanovs at the slightest pretext.
On May 1, all the Romanovs, with the exception of representatives of the royal family, were taken to the provincial town of Alapaevsk, and a month and a half later, on July 18, they "disappeared."
Spectacle
Promotional video:
In Soviet Russia, high-profile repressions and executions were often accompanied by dramatization in order to “wash off the guilt”. In the case of the Alapaevsk execution, the city executive committee played a whole performance with explosions and shootouts, after which the Romanovs' escape was officially announced. Perhaps this was done due to the fact that the Germans pointed to the need for the safety of the princesses of "German blood", to which Elizaveta Fyodorovna belonged. New conflicts with Germany could lead to the rupture of the Brest Peace and the collapse of the new government.
From a telegram to the Ural Administration from the Alapaevsk executive committee of July 18, 1918, the day after the execution of Nikolai in the Ipatiev house: “a gang of unknown armed people attacked the outdoor school where the Grand Dukes were housed. During the shootout, one bandit was killed and apparently there are wounded. The princes with their servants managed to escape in an unknown direction. When a detachment of Red Army men arrived, the bandits fled towards the forest. It was not possible to detain. The search continues. The fate of Elizabeth herself was silent, although obviously the telegram refers to all the prisoners.
Announcements of the escape of the Romanovs were posted around the city. An investigation was even carried out, which, of course, did not yield results and declared the fugitives missing.
The bodies of the "escaped" were found only in early October 1918, after the capture of Alapaevsk by Kolchak's army. The Belys managed to find witnesses who reported about the "horse train" heading on July 18 towards the mines of the local Verkhne-Sinyachikhinsky plant. Soon, the bodies of all the "missing" were removed from the mines.
Who's guilty?
There are no less mysteries around the Alapaevsk execution than around the tragedy in the Ipatiev house. According to the testimony of the participants in the murder, the decision on the execution was taken by the Bolshevik party organization of Alapaevsk without the approval of the Ural Regional Council. It is simply impossible to believe in this, especially taking into account the fact that the day before in Yekaterinburg they dealt with the royal family. According to the memoirs of the investigator Nikolai Sokolov, whom Admiral Kolchak entrusted with the investigation, the Yekaterinburg and Alapaevsk murders are "a product of the will of some persons." The only question remains, whose will it was. There is a version, which is adhered to by Vladimir Soloviev, senior investigator for especially important cases of the Investigative Committee, who took part in the last investigation of the Romanov case, that Lenin was not involved in the massacre of members of the dynasty. The murder of the German princesses could turn into a new international crisis, intervention and a new war with Germany.
According to Solovyov, responsibility for the murder of the Romanovs lies with the Ural Regional Council, in particular with a member of the Presidium of the Ural Regional Committee of the RCP (b), Georgy Safarov and Chairman Beloborodov, who adhere to radical views.
And yet, the assertion that the Kremlin, which advocated a preliminary trial of the Romanovs, is simply presented with a fact looks dubious. In particular, given the fact that the "arbitrary rule" was not followed by the repressions usual for that time.
Alapaevsk-Beijing-Jerusalem
A forensic medical examination, carried out immediately after the discovery of the bodies, confirmed the martyrdom of the august persons and their entourage. Almost all prisoners, with the exception of Sergei Mikhailovich, were thrown into the mine alive, and then pelted with bombs and stones. The position of the bodies of some of them, as well as the blindfolds torn from their eyes, indicate that the victims were still alive for some time.
Bad fate did not leave the deceased even after his death. As a result of the offensive of the Red Army on Alapaevsk, it was decided to take the bodies to Transbaikalia, to Chita, and from there across the border to Beijing. There, outside the city limits, a secret burial of the dead took place. Now this place is the Youth Lake Park. Perhaps the remains of the Alapaevsk martyrs, the great dukes of the Russian Empire, are somewhere under the golf course, where the Orthodox Church of Seraphim used to stand.
Today, only the exact burial place of Elizabeth Feodorovna and the sister of the nun Varvara, who were canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church, is known. Their remains were transported to Jerusalem, to the Church of the Equal-to-the-Apostolic Mary Magdalene, where they rest to this day.