“It is difficult to write anything pleasant,
because there is very little of it here to report. But on the other hand, God does not abandon
us, the sun shines. and the birds sing.” By 1914, the two eldest Romanov sisters, had
grown from little girls into young women. Olga was now 18, and Tatiana 16. The time had come for them to fulfill the
ultimate duty of all royal princesses, and be married off to eligible princes. With their winning combination of blue blood
and beauty, it seemed that the world would be their oyster. When it came to the opposite sex, the girls
had always been most interested in the officers of the Imperial entourage, and the sailors
on their royal yacht, the “Standart”, who they had known since childhood. However, these could never be more than teenage
crushes, because to marry so far beneath themselves would have been quite unthinkable. But when the search for suitable husbands
began in earnest, it soon became clear that Olga and Tatiana were ill-prepared to mix
with the grand Dukes or princes, who were their social equals. They seemed very lacking in social accomplishments,
very innocent, and even childish. In the summer of 1914, just before the war,
the Tsar and Tsarina thought they might have found a royal match for Olga, in Prince Carol,
the heir to the Romanian throne. But their eldest daughter would take some
convincing. Olga was really rather horrified that Carol
of Romania had been suggested as a prospective bridegroom, because he had quite a reputation
as a ladies’ man. He wasn't really ideal material, so far as
Olga was concerned, and she was actually quite definite that she wasn't having anything to
do with it. Furthermore, she could not accept the idea
that she would have to live outside Russia. In June 1914, the Romanov family paid a visit
their Romanian counterparts. This was intended to be an opportunity for
the dubious Carol, to win over the reluctant Olga. As the families posed for an official photograph,
Olga sat at the far-right hand side of frame, kept her distance from Carol at the back,
and paid far more attention to the baby on her knee than to him. And just in case he hadn't got the message,
she and her sisters had concocted a cunning plan to ward off any remaining advances. Before going across to Romania, they had all
spent time lying in the sun, and were quite sunburned. This was something that the Romanians noticed
immediately with horror. Royal princesses were not supposed to have
a sunburn and look like sunburn gypsies. This way, the Romanov girls were triumphant,
because this was a deliberate conspiracy on their part, so that none of them would be
found attractive by Prince Carol, and none of them would have to marry him, and leave
home. The Romanov sisters might not have thought
there was much urgency for any of them to find a husband. However, within a few weeks of their return
to Russia, any thought of marriage, or of leaving Russia, would become a distant dream. On July 19, 1914, the German declared war
on Russia. The next day, Tsar Nicholas and his wife appeared
on the balcony of the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg. There, they were met by a vast crowd chanting
the Imperial Anthem “God save the Tsar.” However, the patriotic fervor of the Russian
people was profoundly tested by the scale of the bloodshed. In the first five days of fighting, 70,000
Russian soldiers were killed or wounded in battle. To deal with the enormous scale of casualties,
thousands of European women from all walks of life, volunteered as Red Cross nurses. The Tsarina with her two eldest daughters,
Olga and Tatiana, joined their ranks. Their service as nurses was not a matter of
just donning an apron and mopping a fever brown, or just holding hands by the bedside. This was real nursing. It involved seeing people with horrible mutilations
and wounds. Within a couple of weeks, the girls were observing
amputations, and it was throwing them in the deep end. It was the first time the girls had seen real
human suffering. The sisters worked on a special ward of the
hospital at Tsarskoe Selo, caring for wounded officers. Although it was only a short drive from the
Alexander Palace, for the girls, the hospital was another world. The experience gave them a taste of what normal
people were like. One day, they sent the car for them without
the lady-in-waiting present. The girls got in the car, and they decided
instead of going straight back to the palace, they would go shopping. They went into a shop, and then realized they
didn't actually know how to buy anything. The next day, they came back and asked one
of the nursing sisters, how they should go shopping, and she had to explain to them. The irony of the war, was that it finally
brought the girls the kind of social contact that they have been craving, albeit often
with wounded officers, and people who were suffering and recovering from injury. But they were so curious to take advantage
of these opportunities of talking to men from “the outside”, and ask them about the
world. The “outside life”, as they called it,
was something that fascinated all five children. Even Aleksey, when he visited at the hospital,
he constantly interrogated people about the outside life. There was this world, that they just didn't
know about. If the war expanded the Romanovs’ extremely
narrow horizons, it also tested the bonds of an incredibly close-knit family. Nicholas was often away at the front, and
Alexandra found the agony of separation hard to bear. The couple wrote to each other incessantly,
sometimes several times a day, and their letters reveal that 20 years of marriage, had not
dimmed their devotion and desire for each other. The language they used, indicates very strongly,
that throughout the marriage, right from the time they met, to the day that they died,
they didn't stop loving one another. By the summer of 1915, the Russian army was
in retreat. Almost a million and a half Russians had been
killed or wounded in the fighting, and troop morale was dwindling fast. Nicholas decided to remove his uncle, the
highly experienced Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolayevich, as Commander in Chief, and take charge of
the army himself. Having taken command of the army, the Tsar
left the Tsarina at the Alexander Palace, with instructions to oversee the running of
the government. Once Nicholas leaves and goes to the front
permanently, everyone is then focused on what Alexandra is doing in the palace, and the
fact that Rasputin remains in St. Petersburg, leads to all sorts of rumor, gossip, and salacious
talk, that the two of them are, in a sense, pulling all the strings, and that the two
of them are the true powers behind the throne, and they are the ones that will bring ruin
to the country. For the four sisters, their war-work proved
to be an escape from the increasing claustrophobic atmosphere at home. The vast collection of their private photographs,
reveal how close the girls became to their favorite patients. Hospitals increasingly became like a second
home for all of them. And as the years went on, and more and more
wounded soldiers were arriving, the girls spent longer time at the hospitals, often
until nearly midnight, changing dressings, making beds, helping boil silk for sewing
stitches, and preparing swabs. In the afternoons, after they went home for
lunch, they had free time to go back to the hospital, and look at photographs with their
favorites. Even when they went home, at the end of the
day, they often still telephoned back, to have one last chat with their favorites. When one looks at all the many photographs
taken of Olga and Tatiana at their hospital, during the war years, with their favorite
officers, he can see that most of these young men, were rather dark swarthy Caucasian types,
with big twirly mustaches. They were mostly men from Armenia or Georgia,
with a certain kind of exoticness. The girls seemed to fall for those kinds of
dark enigmatic swashbuckling looks, much more than the rather austere Northern European
Russian types. In May 1915, a wounded Georgian officer, Dimitri
Shagbagov, was admitted to the hospital. He was a sweet and bashful character, and
Olga and he, were soon smitten with each other. But love had scarcely had the chance to blossom,
when disaster struck. Dimitri recovered, and was sent back to the
front. It was kind of an irony that he had to get
seriously wounded again, for Olga to see him later in the year. When Dimitri was brought back, quite badly
wounded the second time, Olga’s world lit up again, and she was immensely happy. She found every possible excuse, to be at
the hospital. Olga filled her diary with references to her
beloved Mitya: “August, 13th: Cleaned the instruments with
Mitya the darling sitting next to me. August, 29th: went to Vespers. Mitya the darling also came. Such absolute joy. Thank you, God. October, 7th: sat for a long time with Mitya.” Nevertheless, her position meant that there
was no hope this passionate affair could ever be consummated. If her wish could be granted, she would have
married and lived quietly in the country. She would have wanted to marry a man just
like Mitya, an ordinary man, rather than a prince. It's rather sad that the one thing Olga really
wanted to do, was hardly likely to happen. She was an imperial Grand Duchess, and she
was going to have to make a grand marriage. Olga’s thwarted romance, only exacerbated
the bouts of depression she suffered during the war, which was so severe, that she was
treated with a period cure rule of arsenic injections. Dimitri finally left the hospital, at the
beginning of 1916. Olga never saw him again. But to the very end of her life, she carried
a flame for him. She was clutching at straws for every shred
of news about Mitya, and towards the end of the year, it was surreal to meet his mother. She said, “Oh, it's wonderful! I have a little piece of him. I've met his mother!” As late as the beginning of 1917, in one of
her last diary entries, she's recording his birthday. He did find a very special place in her heart. In the meantime, the family's close association
with Rasputin, kept causing the greatest damage to their reputation. Alexandra became completely unpopular, with
all sorts of rumors circulating around society, of her sexual shenanigans with Rasputin. All of this was very damaging, because these
ideas of sexual corruption in the core, became a sort of metaphor for the political corruption
of the monarchy as a whole. Alexandra and Rasputin were not only rumored
to be guilty of a sexual scandal, but of the most horrifying political betrayal. The true allegiance of the German Tsarina,
was called into question. There was a great conviction, that Rasputin
and Alexandra were actually spying and working with the Germans, to conclude a separate peace,
and sell out the allies. By 1915, when these rumors take off, there's
a revolutionary crisis. And in a revolutionary crisis, what matters
is not what's true or not. There's no reliable information. What matters in a revolutionary situation,
is what people believe. And these rumors were believed not just by
ordinary people in the streets, but they were believed by States, they were believed by
foreign ambassadors. Buchanan, the British ambassador, and Palaeologue,
the French ambassador, were repeating these rumors, as if they were true, to their governments. Subsequently, these rumors took on a real
political power, and became very damaging to the monarchy. On the 16th of December, 1916, members of
the wider Romanov family finally made their move. That evening, Rasputin disappeared in Petrograd. Anastasia recorded in her diary: “Father Gregory went missing last night. They're looking for him everywhere. It's absolutely dreadful.” That night, the sisters were so upset, that
the four of them shared a bed. Two days later, they heard the news they had
dreaded. Rasputin had been murdered. It was Olga alone, who recognized that his
death might be a blessing in disguise. Of the four sisters, Olga seemed always the
most sensitive to the wider political situation. And she had sensed, for quite a while, that
there was a certain malevolent influence about Rasputin, that was not a good thing. And perhaps, there was a need for what happened,
because Rasputin had overreached himself with their mother, and his influence over her. But what upset her, was the brutal way in
which he was murdered. Rasputin was shot, and then bludgeoned to
death, in the cellar of the Moika Palace, home to Felix Yusupov, the heir to Russia's
greatest fortune. For the imperial family, it wasn't just the gruesome
details of the murder that was so shocking, but the fact that his killers, were intimately
known to them. Yusupov was married to the Tsar's only niece,
and his coconspirator, Dimitri Pavlovich, was even closer to Nicholas and Alexandra,
and had once been considered the ideal husband for Olga. Therefore, this was considered by the Imperial
family as treachery at the most intimate, the most personal level. The Romanov clan, hoped that the murder of
Rasputin, would be just the first step in a palace coup. It wasn't Rasputin alone they wanted to see
the back of, but the Tsarina herself. Rasputin’s murder, was part of a larger
plan. It wasn't simply one murder that they were
planning. All this, was a way of trying to neutralize
not just Rasputin, but Alexandra as well. There was a plan to abduct Alexandra, and
shut her in a convent. They believed that with Alexandra out of the
government, Nicholas would stand up and take complete rule of the country. Even Nicholas’s own mother allied herself
with her son's opponents, and agreed that her wayward daughter-in-law, should be banished. “If only the Lord would open poor Nikki's
eyes, and that he would stop following her dreadful advice. What despair. All of this will end in disaster.” However, Rasputin’s assassination brought
about quite the opposite. By January 1917, Nicholas and Alexandra were
estranged from their wider Romanov family. In February, while Nicholas was at the Military
Headquarters, he received reports about disturbances in the capital. The capital soldiers chose to side with the
looters, instead of suppressing the riots. Eventually, the Petrograd garrison mutinied,
and a disturbance became a coup. At the Alexander Palace, all the children
except Maria, had the measles. From their sickbeds, they heard gunfire, and
the playing of the Marseillaise was coming from the town barracks. Their mother chose not to tell anything to
the girls, until it was impossible to keep the truth from them. As the unrest in Petrograd intensified, events
overtook the Romanov family. The leaders of the Duma, and Nicholas's own
military chiefs, insisted that only his abdication could resolve the crisis. On the 2nd of March, more than three centuries
of Romanov rule came to an end, when Nicholas was forced to renounce the throne for himself
and Aleksey. Initially, only Maria was told the news, as
the other children were very ill. She seemed to be taking it well, until one
of the court ladies discovered her crouched in a corner, weeping. She was terrified that the revolutionaries
would come and take her mother away. Almost a week later, Alexandra finally broke
the news to the rest of the children. It was Aleksey who was the most perplexed
by it all. He was totally bewildered. He couldn't understand, and he asked the perfectly
logical question. “If there isn’t a Tsar, who’s going
to govern Russia?” On the 9th of March, the former Tsar, or Colonel
Romanov, as he was now known, came home to a palace that was now a prison. The Provisional Government had placed the
Romanovs under house arrest. They were not allowed to leave the palace,
to receive visitors, to use the telephone or telegraph, and their letters we're even
checked for invisible ink. For the children, life in this world turned
upside down. It was a rude awakening. Derevenko, who was one of Aleksey’s sailor
carers, started shouting at the young boy, giving him orders. The family could only go outside under armed
guard, and were not allowed to stray beyond a small area of the Alexander Park. This bridge marked a frontier, which they
could not cross. To compound their humiliation, the captives
became a visitor attraction. Hundreds of curious onlookers, flocked to
the park gates, eager for a glimpse of their fallen Royals. Immediately after the revolution, King George
the 5th had offered his cousin Nicky asylum in Britain. But this plan was ultimately thwarted by the
children's measles. If both the British and the Provisional Government
in Petrograd had acted quickly, they might have got the children and Alexandra out north,
to Murmansk, and from there, under a white flag, to Britain. But the tragedy was the children were far
too sick to be moved. By the time the children recovered, King George
had had second thoughts, and withdrawn his offer of asylum. The family's future was now more uncertain
than ever. Under house arrest, Alexandra grew increasingly
melancholic. After their attack of the measles, her daughters’
hair had begun to fall out, and they all had to shave their heads, Aleksey joining in,
to show solidarity. But when their mother was confronted with
a photograph of her daughters, proudly displaying their bald heads, she was horrified. She thought they looked like those condemned
to death. After almost five months under house arrest,
the family left the Alexander Palace for the last time, on the 1st of August. At the Alexandrovsky station, they boarded
a special train. Its final destination was unknown. All the family had been told, was to prepare
for a long trip east, and to pack plenty of warm clothes. For the children, this would be their first
sight of a homeland they hardly knew. The empire that was once under their father’s
rule, was so vast, that it was unknown to the children. This great hinterland of endless forests and
great flat horizons, that they entered on that long four-day train ride through to Siberia,
was a whole different world, that the children had never seen. Anastasia described the journey for her tutor
Sydney Gibbes, in her somewhat broken English: “The first day was hot and very dusty. At the stations, we had to shut the window
curtains, that nobody should see us. On the way, many funny things happened. If I still have time, I shall write to you. I travel further on. Goodbye. Don't forget me.” She was right to worry. That ultimate destination, Tobolsk, had been
chosen precisely to keep the family so far out of sight and mind, that there was little
chance that royalists would rescue them, or violent revolutionaries would kill them. Tobolsk was a provincial backwater, 1700 miles
east of Saint Petersburg. It had been bypassed by the Trans-Siberian
Railway, and was accessible only by boat. During the seven-month-long Siberian winter,
the river froze, and the town was completely cut off from the outside world. The family's new home, was meant to be one
of the best houses in town. But when an advanced party went to inspect
the accommodation, they found it dirty, smelly, and stripped of almost all furniture. The family’s outside space, was far more
limited, than at the Alexander Palace. They had just a small kitchen garden, and
a yard. Desperate for something to do, Nicholas would
paste the yard 40 or 50 times an hour, and perform daily chin-ups on a horizontal bar. He and his children, grabbed any opportunity
for fresh air, and a view of the outside world. When one sees photographs of them, it looks
a bit odd. They were sitting on top of a greenhouse,
in order to get some sun, because they've been sitting indoors all the time, and it
was nice to get out, to get a breath of fresh air. And that was the only place they could do
it, because they wouldn't let them go anywhere else. On the 6th of September, Anastasia wrote to
a friend: “Thank you so much my darling Vera for the
letter. I’m not sending photo cards, as they can
get lost on the way. And so how are you? We remember very very often our cozy infirmary. Do you still go to the infirmary? We are all healthy, everyone thanks you for
the greetings, and send their regards. We settled cozily, and the view is rather
pretty. The weather, luckily, is hot, sunny almost
every day. I apologize for the horrible handwriting. Just now I returned from the little garden,
where we played, and now my hands are shaking. In the garden we have a swing, made it ourselves,
on which we swing a lot. We also have chickens, ducks, and a little
pig, which eats a lot of rotten cabbage. How is Nina and her sister? Give them regards from us. Kiss Katya, and tell her that we think about
her a lot. I am writing to you on the balcony, and the
sun is warming me. Regards to all who remember us. All the best darling. I kiss you firmly. Anastasia.” On that same letter, Maria added the following: “We congratulate you warmly, dear Vera,
on your birthday. From all our hearts, we wish you happiness
and health. I was happy to hear from you. Thank your sister for the greetings. It is probably nice for you to ride and to
work together with your sister now. Did you get our letter before our departure? And what are you doing now? I kiss you and Lili very firmly. All the best. Maria.” Conditions in the house were cramped, and
the four sisters shared a bedroom. They filled it with reminders of their previous
life: religious icons, family snaps, and pictures of their favorite wounded officers. As they adjusted to their new life, what little
they got to see of Siberia, was a revelation. And their captors were struck by the girls’
naivety. The commissar in charge of them, was rather
shocked, when he noticed their bewilderment at seeing local Yakuts and Siberian indigenous
peoples, going around in reindeer skins. The girls would be standing at the window,
looking in bafflement these strange people on the streets below, as though they were
from another planet. But this was a result of their very narrow
and very repetitious life there at Siberia. The girls mentioned in their letters to friends
and family, how they took such pleasure in sitting and watching people in the street
below, and waving to them. At least they had a kind of point of contact,
even if it was through the glass of the windows in their Siberian prison. On September 18, Tatiana wrote to her godmother,
Grand Duchess Olga, the sister of Nicholas: “It is fun to sit there and watch the street,
to see the people walk by. That is our only amusement. From our windows we have a beautiful view
of the mountains, and the upper part of the town, where there is a large Cathedral. We play a game, something like tennis, but
of course without a net, but just for practice. Then we walk back and forth, in order not
to forget how to walk. On Sundays we have a service in the hall. We went to church twice. You can imagine what joy it was for us, after
6 months! I will wait for letters from you. All the best. May the Lord bless you all. We kiss you all very affectionately. We pray for you. Your very loving goddaughter, Tatiana.” As the Siberian winter set in, there was little
sun left to catch, and by mid-December, the temperature had dropped below minus 20. The family tried to keep busy, chopping wood
and pulling Aleksey around on his sledge. Inside the house, it was so cold that Anastasia
wrote that their hands could not write properly. But that didn't stop her and her sisters from
sending endless letters, although they had very little to say. On December 10, Maria wrote to one of her
friends: “The other day it was very cold. You must still have warm weather? I am so envious that you can look at the wonderful
sea! This morning, at 8, we went to Liturgy. We are always so happy when they let us go
to church. Of course, one cannot compare this church
with our Cathedral at Tsarskoe Selo, but still, it’s better than in the rooms. Right now, we are all sitting in our rooms. The sisters are also writing, the dogs are
running around and begging to sit on our laps. I remember Tsarskoe Selo so often, and our
merry concerts at the infirmary. Do you remember how much fun it was when the
wounded used to dance? It all seems so long ago, doesn't it? Well, it's time for me to end. I wish you all the best, and kiss you affectionately. Heartfelt regards to all your family. Maria.” In the meantime, at the end of October, the
Provisional Government was overthrown by a Bolshevik coup, led by Lenin and Trotsky. The family's fate now lay in the hands of
their most avowed enemies. There's no doubt that Olga, the most sensitive
and most naturally melancholic of the girls, felt their captivity very profoundly, in terms
of the broader picture of what was going on in Russia. She was extremely upset by the fact that the
nation had turned against her father. But all of them sensed that there was something
terrible out there, something that may perhaps in the end, destroy them all. On the 3rd of March, 1918, the Bolsheviks
signed a peace treaty with Germany. But no sooner had one conflict ended, than
another began. The country was plunged into a bloody civil
war, between the Bolshevik Red Army, and the anti-communist White Army. The Bolsheviks were terrified that the Whites
would attempt to rescue their former Tsar, and they decided that the family must be moved. However, Aleksey was too ill to travel, and
so he was left behind in Tobolsk, with Olga, Tatiana, and Anastasia. Nicholas, Alexandra, and Maria, went on ahead. The family's greatest fear, separation, had
finally been realized. On April 26, as they said their goodbyes,
the sisters wept. In the end, their religious faith enabled
them to deal with this terrible agony of separation. And it was a separation that had no end in
sight. They didn't know when, or if, they were going
to see their parents again. But somehow, they had to hang on to each other. Nicholas and Alexandra expected to be taken
to Moscow, the new Bolshevik capital, but instead, they found themselves in Ekaterinburg,
more than 1000 miles east of the capital. Back in Tobolsk, the children would pass their
first Easter separated from their parents. It would also be their last. In expectation of the midnight Easter Service,
the girls and the staff decorated the makeshift iconostasis, in the corner of the parlor,
with flowers and fir branches. In the evening, a priest came and held the
service for the small group of prisoners. However, the absence of their parents, and
the lack of any news from them, did not leave them room to especially enjoy the feast. Gilliard wrote, “Saturday, May 4th. A sad Easter eve. We are in low spirits.” Regardless of the fact that they had no news
of their parents, the girls started writing letters to them, hoping that the guards would
pass them on to wherever they were taken. On the 5th of May, Olga wrote: “Dear beloved ones. We would love so much to know how you celebrated
your Easter. Dear Mama, when will we finally be together? May God look after you. The midnight service and the liturgy afterwards
were well done. It was beautiful and intimate. We put on all the sidelights, except for the
chandelier, and there was enough light. The Little One slept during the service, and
did not participate in the Easter supper, and did not even notice that we moved him
to his bedroom. The candles were beautiful with the golden
stripes, and it was for you that we lit them in turns, during the Easter service. Mama, my little soul, how are things with
you? I feel sad when I think about you. Dear and beloved Mama, how I would love to
see you and kiss you!” In Ekaterinburg, the rest of the family were
incarcerated in a house, ominously named by the Bolsheviks “House of Special Purpose”. It was no longer house arrest. Now it was a real prison. The house was surrounded by a high wooden
fence, there were numerous guards, and the prisoners even had to be accompanied by them,
to go to the toilet. The overall atmosphere was extremely threatening. They knew that something changed. They knew that their drama was moving towards
some sort of resolution, which was not likely to be good for them. At Tobolsk, the sisters had at least been
able to watch the world go by, from their windows. But in Ekaterinburg, even that small freedom
was denied them. When the children finally started receiving
letters from Ekaterinburg, the descriptions of the life there was anything but pleasant. In one of her letters, Maria wrote: “We miss the quiet and peaceful life in
Tobolsk. Here we have unpleasant surprises almost daily. Just now the members of regional committee
were here and asked each of us how much money we had with us. We had to sign off on it. Who would have thought that after 14 months
of captivity they would treat us this way? I write to you in semi-darkness as we do not
have any light because the windows have been whitewashed. The white color is very unpleasant. It is, above all, bad for Mama because she
suffers constantly from headaches.” As time passed, the severe monotony, the absolute
confinement in Ekaterinburg, and the unpleasant surprises began to take their toll. These difficult hours required great spiritual
reserves to keep mental equilibrium, and the family in Ekaterinburg revealed their hidden
treasure: their great faith in God. In a letter to Aleksey, Maria wrote, “It is difficult to write anything pleasant,
because there is very little of it here to report. But on the other hand, God does not abandon
us, the sun shines, and the birds sing. This morning we heard the church bells. That was the only pleasant, and agreeable
event. My dear, how I would love to see you. I hope you feel better quickly and start running
around again. I hold you very tightly in my arms, my dear
little brother. May Christ protect you. Your Masha.” On the 20th of May, the three sisters and
Aleksey, began their journey to Ekaterinburg by boat. During that trip, their English tutor, Sydney
Gibbs, took the last known photographs of the children. A lady-in-waiting who joined them on that
voyage, was struck by the change in Olga during her time in Tobolsk. She had turned from a lovely bright girl of
22, into a faded and sad middle-aged woman. On the 23rd of May, the family was reunited. But they felt that the end was now coming
closer. All communication between the guards and the
prisoners, was strictly forbidden. There were very few instances when the prisoners
exchanged a few words with the guards. Most of the guards were truly deeply poisoned,
with the revolutionary zeal of the time, and used every opportunity to display it. Years after, one of the guards related: “It is a shame to admit it, but all of us,
to the last man, we were more or less guilty as to those unfortunates. It was difficult for these young, boorish
peasants, elevated to this role of guards, to stop themselves, if only in their heads,
from the temptation to satisfy their animal instincts. They made fun of the defenseless girls. They would keep on continually offending those
young girls, and watched their every move. I often pitied those girls. If, for example, they were playing dancing
music on the piano, they smiled, but tears from their eyes dropped onto the keys.” Some of the guards, devoted their time of
service to drawing and writing whatever was most shameful on the walls of the hallways
and bathrooms. Even though the guards wrote and drew these
where it was impossible for the prisoners not to see them, they found it especially
pleasing to ask the girls, if they had noticed them. The worst annoyances of this sort, were mainly
by the guards who stood in the halls, outside the bathroom. One of the servants who was initially kept
in the house with the family, but was later released due to illness, related the following: “When one of the girls went to the bathroom,
the guard began to amuse himself, by asking where she was going and why. When the girl went inside, the guard turned
toward the door of the bathroom, and waited until the girl came out.” Another guard confirmed the truth of these
events. Remembering these sorrowful events, he said
that he and his companions had allowed themselves the lowest, and the most unhealthy curiosity,
when they stood guard at the door of the bedroom of the grand duchesses, or near to the family
boudoir. One day, Grand Duchess Tatiana, pale as death,
gave them a look so rude, that they were ashamed. They turned on their heels and did not continue
their attempts at insolent debauchery. Another time, Grand Duchess Maria, silenced
two of the crudest persecutors, when she said boldly, glaring at them: “How can you stomach repeating these shameful
words? Be polite and decent people!” In the meantime, no news came into the Ipatiev
House, and no news went out. With no end in sight to their imprisonment,
Russia's former royals had nothing to do, but sit, and wait. But in the world beyond their whitewash windows,
the Bolshevik leadership were arguing over the family's fate. Finally, on the morning of the 17th of July,
the four sisters, along with the rest of their family, were shot at point-blank range, and
then bayoneted to death. After the murder, their bodies were dumped
into a mineshaft in nearby woods, and eradicated with sulfuric acid. When they died, Olga was 22, Tatiana 21, Maria
19, and Anastasia 17. The sisters are remembered as martyrs of a
bloody revolution, and together with their brother and parents, are now venerated as
holy martyrs by the Orthodox Church worldwide.
