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135-704: Emir Sayyid Mir Muhammad Alim Khan ( Chagatai and Persian : سید میر محمد عالم خان , 3 January 1880 – 28 April 1944) was the last emir of the Uzbek Manghit dynasty, rulers of the Emirate of Bukhara in Central Asia . Although Bukhara was a protectorate of the Russian Empire from 1873, the Emir presided over the internal affairs of his emirate as an absolute monarch and reigned from 3 January 1911 to 30 August 1920. At

270-642: A Lithuanian . In mid-July 1918, forces of the Czechoslovak Legion were closing on Yekaterinburg, to protect the Trans-Siberian Railway , of which they had control. According to historian David Bullock, the Bolsheviks, falsely believing that the Czechoslovaks were on a mission to rescue the family, panicked and executed their wards. The Legions arrived less than a week later and on 25 July captured

405-711: A monarch and addressed by the sentries as "Nicholas Romanov", was reunited with his family at the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoye Selo . He was placed under house arrest with his family by the Provisional Government , and the family was surrounded by guards and confined to their quarters. In August 1917, after a failed attempt to send the Romanovs to the United Kingdom, where the ruling monarch, King George V ,

540-417: A 6 m × 5 m (20 ft × 16 ft) semi-basement room. Alexandra requested a chair because she was sick, and Nicholas requested a second for Alexei. Yurovsky's assistant Grigory Nikulin remarked to him that the "heir wanted to die in a chair. Very well then, let him have one." The prisoners were told to wait in the cellar room while the truck that would transport them was being brought to

675-521: A British officer of the Allied Intervention Force , living out his final days in Windsor, Berkshire . Alexandre Beloborodov sent a coded telegram to Lenin's secretary, Nikolai Gorbunov . It was found by White investigator Nikolai Sokolov and reads: Inform Sverdlov the whole family have shared the same fate as the head. Officially the family will die at the evacuation. Aleksandr Lisitsyn of

810-526: A bonfire and their remaining charred bones were thoroughly smashed with spades and tossed into a smaller pit. 44 partial bone fragments from both corpses were found in August 2007. After Yekaterinburg fell to the anti-communist White Army on 25 July, Admiral Alexander Kolchak established the Sokolov Commission to investigate the murders at the end of that month. Nikolai Sokolov  [ ru ] ,

945-868: A broadcaster for VOA's Dari Service, editor, program host and producer. During his governance in Bukhara, Alim Khan also had a son named Qasem, who was killed by the Bolshevik revolutionaries. Qasem had only one son who, when he was 13 years old, escaped from Bukhara to Mashhad , Iran, with his stepfather. When he arrived in Iran, he took the name Husein Bukharaei. He married Bibimeymanat Mohsenolhoseini in Mashhad. They had 6 sons and 4 daughters. Husein Bukharaei died in 1993. Their children (Hasan, Lo'ba, Ali, Narges, Qasem, Reza, Fatemeh, Mohammad, Mahmoud, Mahboubeh) all live in Mashhad. In 2020,

1080-419: A bullet wound to the head. He then shot at Tatiana, who ran for the double doors, hitting her in the thigh. The remaining executioners shot chaotically and over each other's shoulders until the room was so filled with smoke and dust that no one could see anything at all in the darkness nor hear any commands amid the noise. Alexey Kabanov, who ran onto the street to check the noise levels, heard dogs barking from

1215-645: A cargo area measuring 1.8 by 3.0 metres (6 ft × 10 ft). Heavily laden, the vehicle struggled for 14 kilometres (9 mi) on boggy road to reach the Koptyaki forest. Yurovsky was furious when he discovered that the drunken Ermakov had brought only one shovel for the burial. About 800 metres ( 1 ⁄ 2 mile) further on, near crossing no. 185 on the line serving the Verkh-Isetsk works, 25 men working for Ermakov were waiting with horses and light carts. These men were all intoxicated and they were outraged that

1350-517: A desert wanderer for Islam, Having joined battle with infidels and Hindus I readied myself to become a martyr, God be thanked I am become a ghazi. Uzbek ruler Muhammad Shaybani Khan wrote a prose essay called Risale-yi maarif-i Shaybāni in Chagatai in 1507, shortly after his capture of Greater Khorasan , and dedicated it to his son, Muhammad Timur. The manuscript of his philosophical and religious work, "Bahr ul-Khuda", written in 1508,

1485-459: A few spent bullets, and part of a severed female finger. The corpse of Anastasia's King Charles Spaniel , Jimmy, was also found in the pit. The pit revealed no traces of clothing, which was consistent with Yurovsky's account that all the victims' clothes were burned. Sokolov ultimately failed to find the concealed burial site on the Koptyaki Road; he photographed the spot as evidence of where

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1620-524: A grave that was 1.8 by 2.4 metres (6 ft × 8 ft) in size and barely 60 centimetres (2 ft) deep. Alexei Trupp's body was tossed in first, followed by the Tsar's and then the rest. Sulphuric acid was again used to dissolve the bodies, their faces smashed with rifle butts and covered with quicklime . Railroad ties were placed over the grave to disguise it, with the Fiat truck being driven back and forth over

1755-399: A gunshot wound to the head. Maria and Anastasia were said to have crouched up against a wall covering their heads with pillows in terror until they were shot in the head. Yurovsky killed Tatiana and Alexei. Tatiana died from a single shot to the back of her head. Alexei received two bullets to the head, right behind the ear. Anna Demidova , Alexandra's maid, survived the initial onslaught but

1890-754: A legal investigator for the Omsk Regional Court, was appointed to undertake this. He interviewed several members of the Romanov entourage in February 1919, notably Pierre Gilliard , Alexandra Tegleva and Sydney Gibbes . Sokolov discovered a large number of the Romanovs' belongings and valuables that were overlooked by Yurovsky and his men in and around the mineshaft where the bodies were initially disposed. Among them were burned bone fragments, congealed fat, Dr Botkin's upper dentures and glasses, corset stays, insignias and belt buckles, shoes, keys, pearls and diamonds,

2025-526: A military commissar of the Uralispolkom in Yekaterinburg, however did not actually participate, and two or three guards refused to take part. Pyotr Voykov was given the specific task of arranging for the disposal of their remains, obtaining 570 litres (130 imp gal; 150 US gal) of gasoline and 180 kilograms (400 lb) of sulphuric acid , the latter from the Yekaterinburg pharmacy. He

2160-518: A modern borrowed pronunciation from Tatar that is not consistent with historic Kazakh and Kyrgyz treatments of these letters Many orthographies, particularly that of Turkic languages, are based on Kona Yëziq. Examples include the alphabets of South Azerbaijani , Qashqai , Chaharmahali , Khorasani , Uyghur , Äynu , and Khalaj . Virtually all other Turkic languages have a history of being written with an alphabet descended from Kona Yëziq, however, due to various writing reforms conducted by Turkey and

2295-463: A priest and deacon conducted a liturgy for the Romanovs. The following morning, four housemaids were hired to wash the floors of the Popov House and Ipatiev House; they were the last civilians to see the family alive. On both occasions, they were under strict instructions not to engage in conversation with the family. Yurovsky always kept watch during the liturgy and while the housemaids were cleaning

2430-522: A soap factory and, according to some reports, upon learning of the death of her husband, threw herself into a cauldron of boiling soap. Before the outbreak of World War II , during the " Great Terror ", the youngest of these sons of Seyid Alim Khan, Rahimkhan, who remained in the USSR , tried to flee the country, but was detained by Soviet border guards on the Soviet-Afghan border. According to some sources, he

2565-515: A technique which proved ineffective and meant that the children had to be dispatched by still more gunshots, this time aimed more precisely at their heads. The Tsarevich was the first of the children to be executed. Yurovsky watched in disbelief as Nikulin spent an entire magazine from his Browning gun on Alexei, who was still seated transfixed in his chair; he also had jewels sewn into his undergarment and forage cap . Ermakov shot and stabbed him, and when that failed, Yurovsky shoved him aside and killed

2700-463: A telegram confirming the CEC's approval of the 'trial' (code for execution) but required that both the written form and ticker tape be returned to him immediately after the message was sent. At 8 pm, Yurovsky sent his chauffeur to acquire a truck for transporting the bodies, along with rolls of canvas to wrap them in. The intention was to park it close to the basement entrance, with its engine running, to mask

2835-588: A tendency to disregard certain characteristics of Chaghatay itself, e.g. its complex syntax copied from Persian . Chagatai developed in the late 15th century. It belongs to the Karluk branch of the Turkic language family. It is descended from Middle Turkic , which served as a lingua franca in Central Asia, with a strong infusion of Arabic and Persian words and turns of phrase. Mehmet Fuat Köprülü divides Chagatay into

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2970-482: Is devoted to the description of diseases, their recognition and treatment. One of the manuscript lists is kept in the library in Budapest . Prominent 19th-century Khivan writers include Shermuhammad Munis and his nephew Muhammad Riza Agahi. Muhammad Rahim Khan II of Khiva also wrote ghazals . Musa Sayrami 's Tārīkh-i amniyya , completed in 1903, and its revised version Tārīkh-i ḥamīdi , completed in 1908, represent

3105-725: Is located in London Ötemish Hajji wrote a history of the Golden Horde entitled the Tarikh-i Dost Sultan in Khwarazm . In terms of literary production, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are often seen as a period of decay. It is a period in which Chagatai lost ground to Persian. Important writings in Chagatai from the period between the 17th and 18th centuries include those of Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur : Shajara-i Tarākima (Genealogy of

3240-424: Is not similar to...   the first two sisters: [she is] somewhat reticent and considered like a step-daughter in the family...   [h]ere the special position Maria held in the family was confirmed". Sergey Chutskaev  [ ru ] of the local Soviet told Yurovsky of some deeper copper mines west of Yekaterinburg, the area remote and swampy and a grave there less likely to be discovered. He inspected

3375-433: Is sometimes called "ancient Uyghur ". In the twentieth century, the study of Chaghatay suffered from nationalist bias. In the former Chaghatay area, separate republics have been claiming Chaghatay as the ancestor of their own brand of Turkic. Thus, Old Uzbek, Old Uyghur, Old Tatar , Old Turkmen, and a Chaghatay-influenced layer in sixteenth-century Azerbaijanian have been studied separately from each other. There has been

3510-624: Is still studied in modern Uzbekistan , where the language is seen as the predecessor and the direct ancestor of modern Uzbek , and the literature is regarded as part of the national heritage of Uzbekistan. The word Chagatai relates to the Chagatai Khanate (1225–1680s), a descendant empire of the Mongol Empire left to Genghis Khan 's second son, Chagatai Khan . Many of the Turkic peoples , who spoke this language claimed political descent from

3645-458: Is unknown. Emir Alim Khan had three official wives in Bukhara, but after settling in Afghanistan, people there sympathized with him and many gave their daughters to him as wives. Therefore, he had several more wives in Afghanistan. According to some estimates, Seyid Alim Khan's offspring numbered about 500. With the exception of only a few, almost all of his descendants were with him during

3780-709: Is written in Chagatai, as is the famous Baburnama (or Tuska Babure ) of Babur , the Timurid founder of the Mughal Empire . A Divan attributed to Kamran Mirza is written in Persian and Chagatai, and one of Bairam Khan 's Divans was written in Chagatai. The following is a prime example of the 16th-century literary Chagatai Turkic, employed by Babur in one of his ruba'is . Islam ichin avara-i yazi buldim, Kuffar u hind harbsazi buldim Jazm aylab idim uzni shahid olmaqqa, Amminna' lillahi ki gazi buldim I am become

3915-592: The glasnost period. The identities of the remains were confirmed by forensic and DNA analysis and investigation in 1994, with the assistance of British experts. In 1998, eighty years after the executions, the remains of the Romanovs were reinterred in a state funeral in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in Saint Petersburg . The funeral was not attended by key members of the Russian Orthodox Church , who disputed

4050-575: The All-Russian Central Committee of the Soviets preferring a public trial for Nicholas II with Trotsky as chief prosecutor and his family spared. A 2011 investigation concluded that, despite the opening of state archives in the post-Soviet years, no written document has been found which proves Lenin or Sverdlov ordered the executions. However, they endorsed the murders after they occurred. On 22 March 1917, Tsar Nicholas II , deposed as

4185-624: The February Revolution in 1917, the Romanovs and their servants had been imprisoned in the Alexander Palace before being moved to Tobolsk , Siberia, in the aftermath of the October Revolution . They were next moved to a house in Yekaterinburg, near the Ural Mountains , before their execution in July 1918. The Bolsheviks initially announced only Nicholas's death; for the next eight years,

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4320-592: The Perso-Arabic alphabet . This variation is known as Kona Yëziq, ( transl.  old script ). It saw usage for Kazakh , Kyrgyz , Uyghur , and Uzbek . А а Ә ә U u, Oʻ oʻ Ұ ұ, Ү ү О о, Ө ө О о, Ө ө ئۆ/ئو, ئۈ/ئۇ Ө ө, У у, Ү ү Ө ө, У у, Ү ү A a Э э, е Э э, е ئە/ئا Ә ә Ә ә Е e, I i Ы ы, І і Ы ы, И и ئى، ئې The letters ف، ع، ظ، ط، ض، ص، ژ، ذ، خ، ح، ث، ء are only used in loanwords and do not represent any additional phonemes. For Kazakh and Kyrgyz, letters in parentheses () indicate

4455-664: The Soviet Union , many of these languages now are written in either the Latin script or the Cyrillic script . The Qing dynasty commissioned dictionaries on the major languages of China which included Chagatai Turki, such as the Pentaglot Dictionary . The basic word order of Chagatai is SOV. Chagatai is a head-final language where the adjectives come before nouns. Other words such as those denoting location, time, etc. usually appear in

4590-627: The Uzbek SSR . However, when it became evident that the language was too archaic for that purpose, it was replaced by a new literary language based on a series of Uzbek dialects. Ethnologue records the use of the word "Chagatai" in Afghanistan to describe the "Tekke" dialect of Turkmen . Up to and including the eighteenth century, Chagatai was the main literary language in Turkmenistan and most of Central Asia. While it had some influence on Turkmen,

4725-527: The bell tower of the Voznesensky Cathedral aimed toward the house; a second in the basement window of the Ipatiev House facing the street; a third monitoring the balcony overlooking the garden at the back of the house; and a fourth in the attic overlooking the intersection , directly above the tsar and tsarina's bedroom. Ten guard posts were located in and around the Ipatiev House, and the exterior

4860-545: The presidium of the Ural Regional Soviet under Beloborodov and Goloshchyokin should organize the practical details for the family's execution and decide the precise day on which it would take place when the military situation dictated it, contacting Moscow for final approval. The killing of the Tsar's wife and children was also discussed, but it was kept a state secret to avoid any political repercussions; German ambassador Wilhelm von Mirbach made repeated enquiries to

4995-471: The stoves and burned. Everything was packed into the Romanovs' own trunks for dispatch to Moscow under escort by commissars . On 19 July, the Bolsheviks nationalized all confiscated Romanov properties, the same day Sverdlov announced the tsar's execution to the Council of People's Commissars . The bodies of the Romanovs and their servants were loaded onto a Fiat truck equipped with a 60 hp engine, with

5130-487: The BBC World Service made a documentary, called Bukhara , which discusses Emir Alim Khan and the fate of his family. Alim Khan's descendants include his granddaughter Nailaj Naebzadeh from his daughter Razia Alimi; his great-granddaughter Kadeij Naebzadeh; Salim Islamzada, his grandson through his mother Shamsia Alimi; and multiple great-granddaughters Sadaf, Zohra, and Fereshta Islamzada. All listed currently reside in

5265-402: The Bolsheviks concerning the family's well-being. Another diplomat, British consul Thomas Preston , who lived near the Ipatiev House, was often pressured by Pierre Gilliard, Sydney Gibbes and Prince Vasily Dolgorukov to help the Romanovs; Dolgorukov smuggled notes from his prison cell before he was murdered by Grigory Nikulin , Yurovsky's assistant. Preston's requests to be granted access to

5400-586: The Chagatai Khanate. As part of the preparation for the 1924 establishment of the Soviet Republic of Uzbekistan , Chagatai was officially renamed "Old Uzbek", which Edward A. Allworth argued "badly distorted the literary history of the region" and was used to give authors such as Ali-Shir Nava'i an Uzbek identity. It was also referred to as "Turki" or "Sart" in Russian colonial sources. In China, it

5535-637: The Cheka, an essential witness on behalf of Moscow, was designated to promptly dispatch to Sverdlov soon after the executions of Nicholas and Alexandra's politically valuable diaries and letters, which would be published in Russia as soon as possible. Beloborodov and Nikulin oversaw the ransacking of the Romanov quarters, seizing all the family's personal items, the most valuable piled up in Yurovsky's office whilst things considered inconsequential and of no value were stuffed into

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5670-401: The Cheka. He seized a truck which he had loaded with blocks of concrete for attaching to the bodies before submerging them in the new mineshaft. A second truck carried a detachment of Cheka agents to help move the bodies. Yurovsky returned to the forest at 10 pm on 18 July. The bodies were again loaded onto the Fiat truck, which by then had been extricated from the mud. During transportation to

5805-539: The Faculty of Workers and after his studies began working at a factory for the disabled. According to some reports, he spoke English. Some time later, Sultanmurad was arrested by the NKVD and declared an "enemy of the people". Among other charges, he was accused of collaborating with British intelligence. After his arrest, Sultanmurad announced a hunger strike and soon died, most likely from exhaustion. His wife at that time worked at

5940-639: The Fiat truck had become stuck on the morning of 19 July. The impending return of Bolshevik forces in July 1919 forced him to evacuate, and he brought the box containing the relics he recovered. Sokolov accumulated eight volumes of photographic and eyewitness accounts. He died in France in 1924 of a heart attack before he could complete his investigation. The box is stored in the Russian Orthodox Church of Saint Job in Uccle , Brussels . His preliminary report

6075-623: The House. A few minutes later, an execution squad of secret police was brought in and Yurovsky read aloud the order given to him by the Ural Executive Committee: Nikolai Alexandrovich, in view of the fact that your relatives are continuing their attack on Soviet Russia, the Ural Executive Committee has decided to execute you. Nicholas, facing his family, turned and said "What? What?" Yurovsky quickly repeated

6210-569: The Izvestia newspaper, where he renounced Seyid Alim Khan, accusing him and his government of grave sins and deeds. According to some reports, this was arranged by the NKVD, which pushed him to take such a step through acquaintances and friends who were NKVD informants. Subsequently, he was admitted to the V. V. Kuibyshev Military Engineering Academy in Moscow, and then taught there upon graduation. He later served in

6345-463: The Lett contingent, refused to shoot the women. Yurovsky sent them to the Popov House for failing "at that important moment in their revolutionary duty". Neither Yurovsky nor any of the killers went into the logistics of how to efficiently destroy eleven bodies. He was under pressure to ensure that no remains would later be found by monarchists who would exploit them to rally anti-communist support. While

6480-508: The Maksim Gorky Ural State University , has established that the executioners were Yakov Yurovsky , Grigory P. Nikulin , Mikhail A. Medvedev (Kuprin) , Peter Ermakov , Stepan Vaganov , Alexey G. Kabanov (former soldier in the Tsar's Life Guards and Chekist assigned to the attic machine gun), Pavel Medvedev , V. N. Netrebin , and Y. M. Tselms . Filipp Goloshchyokin , a close associate of Yakov Sverdlov , being

6615-866: The Red Army, achieving the rank of major general, and participated in World War II, when he lost a leg. He was awarded the Order of the Red Banner and, after the end of the war, again began teaching at the V. V. Kuibyshev Military Engineering Academy in Moscow, then married Lidia Mikhailovna. According to the memoirs of one of Shakhmurad's contemporaries, "when Shahmurad came to visit us with his wife Lidia Mikhailovna, he became drunk, remembered his parents, and cried." Many of Shahmurad's acquaintances and friends did not know of his origin, and he spoke about his past only to close friends. According to some reports, he died in 1985 in Moscow, at

6750-416: The Red Army. Seyid Alim Khan appealed to the Bolsheviks and the world community for the release of his children and other family members who had remained in Bukhara, to join him in Afghanistan, but the Bolsheviks refused, keeping them as hostages for personal, political, and ideological purposes. The eldest of these three sons of Seyid Alim Khan, Sultanmurad, was disabled and lame from birth. He graduated from

6885-487: The Romanov family as "victims of political repressions". A criminal case was opened by the Russian government in 1993, but nobody was prosecuted on the basis that the perpetrators were dead. According to the official state version of the Soviet Union, ex-tsar Nicholas Romanov, along with members of his family and retinue, were executed by firing squad by order of the Ural Regional Soviet. Historians have debated whether

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7020-404: The Romanovs only by their names and patronymics . The imperial family was subjected to regular searches of their belongings, confiscation of their money for "safekeeping by the Ural Regional Soviet's treasurer", and attempts to remove Alexandra's and her daughters' gold bracelets from their wrists. The house was surrounded by a 4-metre-high (13 ft) double palisade that obscured the view of

7155-605: The Romanovs were having dinner on 16 July 1918, Yurovsky entered the sitting room and informed them that kitchen boy Leonid Sednev was leaving to meet his uncle, Ivan Sednev, who had returned to the city asking to see him; Ivan had already been shot by the Cheka . The family was very upset as Leonid was Alexei's only playmate and he was the fifth member of the imperial entourage to be taken from them, but they were assured by Yurovsky that he would be back soon. Alexandra did not trust Yurovsky, writing in her final diary entry just hours before her death, "whether it's true & we shall see

7290-531: The Romanovs' gravesite to The Moscow News on 10 April 1989, much to Avdonin's dismay. The remains were disinterred in 1991 by Soviet officials in a hasty 'official exhumation' that wrecked the site, destroying precious evidence. Since there were no clothes on the bodies and the damage inflicted was extensive, controversy persisted as to whether the skeletal remains identified and interred in St. Petersburg as Anastasia's were really hers or Maria's. On 29 July 2007, another amateur group of local enthusiasts found

7425-423: The Romanovs' quarters and the sound of gunshots loud and clear despite the noise from the Fiat's engine. Kabanov then hurried downstairs and told the men to stop firing and kill the family and their dogs with their gun butts and bayonets. Within minutes, Yurovsky was forced to stop the shooting because of the caustic smoke of burned gunpowder, dust from the plaster ceiling caused by the reverberation of bullets, and

7560-413: The Romanovs' rooms; only Yurovsky's men had it. The local Cheka chose replacements from the volunteer battalions of the Verkh-Isetsk factory at Yurovsky's request. He wanted dedicated Bolsheviks who could be relied on to do whatever was asked of them. They were hired on the understanding that they would be prepared, if necessary, to kill the tsar, about which they were sworn to secrecy. Nothing at that stage

7695-448: The Soviet leadership maintained a systematic web of disinformation relating to the fate of the family, from claiming in September 1919 that they were murdered by left-wing revolutionaries , to denying outright in April 1922 that they were dead. The Soviets finally acknowledged the murders in 1926 following the publication in France of a 1919 investigation by a White émigré but said that the bodies were destroyed and that Lenin's Cabinet

7830-403: The Soviet stronghold at Tashkent . However, the emir had won only a temporary respite. As the civil war in Russia wound down, Moscow sent reinforcements to Central Asia. On 2 September 1920, an army of well-disciplined and well-equipped Red Army troops under the command of general Mikhail Frunze attacked the city . After four days of fighting, the Ark of Bukhara was destroyed, the red flag

7965-408: The Turkmens) and Shajara-i Turk (Genealogy of the Turks). Abu al-Ghāzī is motivated by functional considerations and describes his choice of language and style in the sentence ‘I did not use one word of Chaghatay (!), Persian or Arabic’. As is clear from his actual language use, he aims at making himself understood to a broader readership by avoiding too ornate a style, notably saj’ , rhymed prose. In

8100-448: The United States. They also include Nailaj Naebzadeh, who was born in United States. Just like her aunt, Shukria Alimi Raad, her mother Razia Alimi also escaped from Afghanistan during the invasion of the Soviet Army in 1979. [REDACTED] Media related to Mohammed Alim Khan, Emir of Bukhara at Wikimedia Commons Chagatai language Ali-Shir Nava'i was the greatest representative of Chagatai literature. Chagatai literature

8235-426: The age of 75. Alim Khan's daughter, Shukria Alimi Raad, worked as a broadcaster for Radio Afghanistan . Shukria Raad left Afghanistan with her family three months after Soviet troops invaded the country in December 1979. With her husband, also a journalist, and two children, she fled to Pakistan , and then through Germany to the United States . In 1982, she joined the Voice of America , working for many years as

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8370-405: The age of thirteen, Alim Khan was sent by his father Emir Abdulahad Khan to Saint Petersburg for three years to study government and modern military techniques. In 1896, having received formal confirmation as Crown Prince of Bukhara by the Russian government, he returned home. After two years in Bukhara assisting in his father's administration, he was appointed governor of the Nasef region for

8505-421: The authenticity of the remains. In 2007, a second, smaller grave which contained the remains of two of the Romanov children, missing from the larger grave, was discovered by amateur archaeologists; they were confirmed to be the remains of Alexei and a sister—either Anastasia or Maria—by DNA analysis. In 2008, after considerable and protracted legal wrangling, the Russian prosecutor general 's office rehabilitated

8640-422: The basement and at all three subsequent gravesites. Some of Pavel Medvedev's stretcher bearers began frisking the bodies for valuables. Yurovsky saw this and demanded that they surrender any looted items or be shot. The attempted looting, coupled with Ermakov's incompetence and drunken state, convinced Yurovsky to oversee the disposal of the bodies himself. Only Alexei's spaniel , Joy , survived to be rescued by

8775-419: The bedrooms with the family. The sixteen men of the internal guard slept in the basement, hallway, and commandant's office during shifts. The external guard, led by Pavel Medvedev, numbered 56 and took over the Popov House opposite. The guards were allowed to bring in women for sex and drinking sessions in the Popov House and basement rooms of the Ipatiev House. There were four machine gun emplacements: one in

8910-405: The best sources on the Dungan Revolt (1862–1877) in Xinjiang . The following are books written on the Chagatai language by natives and westerners: Sounds /f, ʃ, χ, v, z, ɡ, ʁ, d͡ʒ, ʔ, l/ do not occur in initial position of words of Turkish origin. Vowel length is distributed among five vowels /iː, eː, ɑː, oː, uː/. Chagatai has been a literary language and is written with a variation of

9045-464: The boy back again!". Leonid was kept in the Popov House that night. Yurovsky saw no reason to kill him and wanted him removed before the execution took place. Around midnight on 17 July, Yurovsky ordered the Romanovs' physician, Eugene Botkin , to awaken the sleeping family and ask them to put on their clothes, under the pretext that the family would be moved to a safe location due to impending chaos in Yekaterinburg. The Romanovs were then ordered into

9180-404: The boy with a gunshot to the head. The last to die were Tatiana, Anastasia, and Maria (however, according to Yurovsky's note, Alexei, Olga, Tatiana, and Anastasia were the last to die), who were carrying over 1.3 kilograms (2.9 lb) of diamonds sewn into their clothing, which had given them a degree of protection from the firing. However, they were speared with bayonets as well. Olga sustained

9315-436: The capture of Bukhara, the Bolsheviks discovered them and at first wanted to shoot them together with the remaining several members of the family and close associates of the emir (similar to the execution of Nicholas II with his family and close associates), but left them alive in order to further propaganda in their favor, sending all three to Moscow to be raised in an orphanage for the orphans of dead Bolsheviks and soldiers of

9450-451: The city. During the imperial family's imprisonment in late June, Pyotr Voykov and Alexander Beloborodov , president of the Ural Regional Soviet, directed the smuggling of letters written in French to the Ipatiev House. These claimed to be by a monarchist officer seeking to rescue the family, but were composed at the behest of the Cheka . These fabricated letters, along with the Romanov responses to them (written on either blank spaces or

9585-420: The corpses as he had expected. He unsuccessfully tried to collapse the mine with hand grenades , after which his men covered it with loose earth and branches. Yurovsky left three men to guard the site while he returned to Yekaterinburg with a bag filled with 8.2 kilograms (18 lb) of looted diamonds, to report back to Beloborodov and Goloshchyokin. It was decided that the pit was too shallow. The reason for

9720-554: The deafening gunshots. When they stopped, the doors were then opened to scatter the smoke. While waiting for the smoke to abate, the killers could hear moans and whimpers inside the room. As it cleared, it became evident that although several of the family's retainers had been killed, all of the Imperial children were alive and only Tatiana was injured. The noise of the guns had been heard by households all around, awakening many people. The executioners were ordered to use their bayonets ,

9855-439: The deeper copper mines on the early morning of 19 July, the Fiat truck carrying the bodies got stuck again in mud near Porosenkov Log ("Piglet's Ravine"). With the men exhausted, most refusing to obey orders and dawn approaching, Yurovsky decided to bury them under the road where the truck had stalled ( 56°54′41″N 60°29′44″E  /  56.9113628°N 60.4954326°E  / 56.9113628; 60.4954326 ). They dug

9990-512: The direction of Vasily Yakovlev in April 1918. Alexei , who had severe haemophilia , was too ill to accompany his parents and remained with his sisters Olga , Tatiana , and Anastasia , not leaving Tobolsk until May. The family was imprisoned with their few remaining retainers in Yekaterinburg's Ipatiev House , which was designated the House of Special Purpose ( Russian : Дом Особого Назначения ): All those under arrest will be held as hostages, and

10125-468: The envelopes), provided the Central Executive Committee (CEC) in Moscow with further justification to 'liquidate' the imperial family. Yurovsky later observed that, by responding to the faked letters, Nicholas "had fallen into a hasty plan by us to trap him". On 13 July, across the road from the Ipatiev House, a demonstration of Red Army soldiers, Socialist Revolutionaries , and anarchists

10260-548: The execution was sanctioned by Moscow leadership. Some Western historians attribute the execution order to the government in Moscow , specifically Vladimir Lenin and Yakov Sverdlov , who wanted to prevent the rescue of the imperial family by the approaching Czechoslovak Legion during the ongoing Russian Civil War . This is supported by a passage in Leon Trotsky 's diary. However, other historians have cited documented orders from

10395-488: The executions of the Imperial Family was carried out by a group of "Latvians led by a Jew". However, in light of Plotnikov's research, the group that carried out the execution consisted almost entirely of ethnic Russians (Nikulin, Medvedev (Kudrin), Ermakov, Vaganov, Kabanov, Medvedev and Netrebin) with the participation of one Jew (Yurovsky) and possibly, one Latvian (Ya.M. Tselms). The men who were directly complicit in

10530-447: The family were consistently rejected. Goloshchyokin reported back to Yekaterinburg on 12 July with a summary of his discussion about the Romanovs with Moscow, along with instructions that nothing relating to their deaths should be directly communicated to Lenin. On 14 July, Yurovsky was finalizing the disposal site and how to destroy as much evidence as possible at the same time. He was frequently in consultation with Peter Ermakov, who

10665-435: The family. The prisoners were required to ring a bell each time they wished to leave their rooms to use the bathroom and lavatory on the landing. Strict rationing of the water supply was enforced on the prisoners after the guards complained that it regularly ran out. Recreation was allowed only twice daily in the garden, for half an hour morning and afternoon. The prisoners were ordered not to engage in conversation with any of

10800-404: The following periods: The first period is a transitional phase characterized by the retention of archaic forms; the second phase began with the publication of Ali-Shir Nava'i 's first divan and is the highpoint of Chagatai literature, followed by the third phase, which is characterized by two bifurcating developments. One is preservation of the classical Chagatai language of Nava'i, the other

10935-446: The forest and then dumping them into the Iset pond with lumps of metal weighted to their bodies were ruled out. Yurovsky's plan was to perform an efficient execution of all 11 prisoners simultaneously, although he also took into account that he would have to prevent those involved from raping the women or searching the bodies for jewels. Having previously seized some jewelry, he suspected more

11070-527: The front vowel inflections; and, if the stem contains [q] or [ǧ], which are formed in the back of the mouth, back vowels are more likely in the inflection. These affect the suffixes that are applied to words. Murder of the Romanov family The Russian Imperial Romanov family ( Nicholas II of Russia , his wife Alexandra Feodorovna , and their five children: Olga , Tatiana , Maria , Anastasia , and Alexei ) were shot and bayoneted to death by Bolshevik revolutionaries under Yakov Yurovsky on

11205-462: The gates of Bukhara and demanded that the emir surrender the city to the Young Bukharans. As Russian sources report, the emir responded by killing the Bolshevik delegation, along with several hundred Russian supporters of the Bolsheviks in Bukhara and the surrounding territories. The majority of Bukharans did not support an invasion and the ill-equipped and ill-disciplined Bolshevik army fled back to

11340-459: The government of putting Nicholas on trial grew more frequent. Nicholas was forbidden to wear epaulettes , and the sentries scrawled lewd drawings on the fence to offend his daughters. On 1 March 1918, the family was placed on soldiers' rations. Their ten servants were dismissed, and they had to give up butter and coffee. As the Bolsheviks gathered strength, the government moved Nicholas, Alexandra, and their daughter Maria to Yekaterinburg under

11475-519: The guards. Rations were mostly tea and black bread for breakfast, and cutlets or soup with meat for lunch; the prisoners were informed that "they were no longer permitted to live like tsars". In mid-June, nuns from the Novo-Tikhvinsky Monastery also brought the family food on a daily basis, most of which the captors took when it arrived. The family was not allowed visitors or to receive and send letters. Princess Helen of Serbia visited

11610-487: The handguns. He took a Mauser and Colt while Ermakov armed himself with three Nagants, one Mauser and a bayonet; he was the only one assigned to kill two prisoners (Alexandra and Botkin). Yurovsky instructed his men to "shoot straight at the heart to avoid an excessive quantity of blood and get it over quickly." At least two of the Letts, an Austro-Hungarian prisoner of war named Andras Verhas and Adolf Lepa, himself in charge of

11745-399: The head. While Yurovsky was checking the victims for pulses, Ermakov walked through the room, flailing the bodies with his bayonet. The execution lasted about 20 minutes, Yurovsky later admitting to Nikulin's "poor mastery of his weapon and inevitable nerves". Future investigations calculated that a possible 70 bullets were fired, roughly seven bullets per shooter, of which 57 were found in

11880-681: The house in June but was refused entry at gunpoint by the guards, while Dr Vladimir Derevenko 's regular visits to treat Alexei were curtailed when Yurovsky became commandant. No excursions to Divine Liturgy at the nearby church were permitted. In early June, the family no longer received their daily newspapers. To maintain a sense of normality, the Bolsheviks lied to the Romanovs on 13 July 1918 that two of their loyal servants, Klementy Nagorny  [ ru ] (Alexei's sailor nanny) and Ivan Dmitrievich Sednev ( OTMA 's footman; Leonid Sednev's uncle), "had been sent out of this government" (i.e. out of

12015-459: The increasing influence of dialects of the local spoken languages. Uzbek and Uyghur , two modern languages descended from Chagatai, are the closest to it. Uzbeks regard Chagatai as the origin of their language and Chagatai literature as part of their heritage. In 1921 in Uzbekistan , then a part of the Soviet Union , Chagatai was initially intended to be the national and governmental language of

12150-425: The investigation prompted the Soviets to issue a government-approved textbook in 1926 that largely plagiarized Sokolov's work, admitting that the empress and her children had been murdered with the Tsar. The Soviet government continued to attempt to control accounts of the murders. Sokolov's report was banned. Leonid Brezhnev 's Politburo deemed the Ipatiev House lacking "sufficient historical significance" and it

12285-667: The jurisdiction of Yekaterinburg and Perm province). In fact, both men were already dead: after the Bolsheviks had removed them from the Ipatiev House in May, they had been shot by the Cheka with a group of other hostages on 6 July, in reprisal for the death of Ivan Malyshev  [ ru ] , Chairman of the Ural Regional Committee of the Bolshevik Party killed by the Whites. On 14 July,

12420-545: The lack of jewels in Maria's underwear was, according to Gillard and other witnesses, "these bras were on exactly those daughters on which they were supposed to be. Maria could not have [had] such a bra, since they were made in Tobolsk when she was no longer there. It would be ridiculous to think that these bras were worn by someone else." Yurovsky knew nothing about the lack of jewelry in her underwear, writing in his 1922 memoir that "she

12555-417: The landing was also used by the guards, who scribbled political slogans and crude graffiti on the walls. The number of Ipatiev House guards totaled 300 at the time the imperial family was killed. When Yurovsky replaced Aleksandr Avdeev on 4 July, he moved the old internal guard members to the Popov House. The senior aides were retained but were designated to guard the hallway area and no longer had access to

12690-433: The last years of his life. By the end of August 1920, the Red Army was surrounding and had begun to bombard Bukhara. Seyid Alim Khan hastily began to evacuate himself, his family, and some of his close associates. However, possibly due to the suddenness of the forced evacuation, his three young sons—about 8–10 years old (according to other sources, 4–6 years old), Sultanmurad, Shahmurad and Rahimkhan—remained in Bukhara. After

12825-434: The local nuns (food that was meant for the imperial family), while the remainder of Ermakov's men were ordered back to the city as Yurovsky did not trust them and was displeased with their drunkenness. Yurovsky and five other men laid out the bodies on the grass and undressed them, the clothes piled up and burned while Yurovsky took inventory of their jewellery. Only Maria's undergarments contained no jewels, which to Yurovsky

12960-466: The mineshaft at about 4 am on the morning of 18 July. The sodden corpses were hauled out one by one using ropes tied to their mangled limbs and laid under a tarpaulin . Yurovsky, worried that he might not have enough time to take the bodies to the deeper mine, ordered his men to dig another burial pit then and there, but the ground was too hard. He returned to the Amerikanskaya Hotel to confer with

13095-559: The murder of the imperial family largely survived in the immediate months after the murders. Stepan Vaganov, Ermakov's close associate, was attacked and killed by peasants in late 1918 for his participation in local acts of brutal repression by the Cheka. Pavel Medvedev, head of the Ipatiev House guard and one of the key figures in the murders, was captured by the White Army in Perm in February 1919. During his interrogation he denied taking part in

13230-412: The next twelve years. He was then transferred to the northern province of Karmana , which he ruled for another two years, until receiving word in 1910 of his father's death. At the beginning of Alim Khan's rule, there were promising signs of reform. He initially announced a rejection of personal gifts and prohibited officials from soliciting bribes or imposing unauthorized taxes. However, over time, there

13365-479: The noise of gunshots. Yurovsky and Pavel Medvedev collected 14 handguns to use that night: two Browning pistols (one M1900 and one M1906), two Colt M1911 pistols , two Mauser C96s , one Smith & Wesson , and seven Belgian-made Nagants . The Nagant operated on old black gunpowder which produced a good deal of smoke and fumes; smokeless powder was only just being phased in. In the commandant's office, Yurovsky assigned victims to each killer before distributing

13500-426: The order and the weapons were raised. The Empress and Grand Duchess Olga, according to a guard's reminiscence, had tried to bless themselves, but failed amid the shooting. Yurovsky reportedly raised his Colt gun at Nicholas's torso and fired; Nicholas fell dead, pierced with at least three bullets in his upper chest. The intoxicated Peter Ermakov , the military commissar for Verkh-Isetsk, shot and killed Alexandra with

13635-624: The order of emphasis put on them. Like other Turkic languages , Chagatai has vowel harmony (though Uzbek , despite being a direct descendant of Chaghatai, notably doesn't ever since the spelling changes under USSR; vowel harmony being present in the orthography of the Uzbek perso-arabic script). There are mainly eight vowels, and vowel harmony system works upon vowel backness . The vowels [i] and [e] are central or front-central/back-central and therefore are considered both. Usually these will follow two rules in inflection : [i] and [e] almost always follow

13770-510: The orders of the Ural Regional Soviet in Yekaterinburg on the night of 16–17 July 1918. Also murdered that night were members of the imperial entourage who had accompanied them: court physician Eugene Botkin ; lady-in-waiting Anna Demidova ; footman Alexei Trupp ; and head cook Ivan Kharitonov . The bodies were taken to the Koptyaki forest, where they were stripped, mutilated with grenades to prevent identification, and buried. Following

13905-468: The prisoners were not brought to them alive. They expected to be part of the lynch mob. Yurovsky maintained control of the situation with great difficulty, eventually getting Ermakov's men to shift some of the bodies from the truck onto the carts. A few of Ermakov's men pawed the female bodies for diamonds hidden in their undergarments, two of whom lifted up Alexandra's skirt and fingered her genitals. Yurovsky ordered them at gunpoint to back off, dismissing

14040-500: The second half of the 18th century, Turkmen poet Magtymguly Pyragy also introduced the use of classical Chagatai into Turkmen literature as a literary language, incorporating many Turkmen linguistic features . Bukharan ruler Subhan Quli Khan (1680–1702) was the author of a work on medicine, "Subkhankuli's revival of medicine" ("Ihya at-tibb Subhani") which was written in the Central Asian Turkic language (Chaghatay) and

14175-540: The security of the captives at the Ipatiev House. We like this man less and less. The Ural Regional Soviet agreed in a meeting on 29 June that the entire Romanov family should be executed. Filipp Goloshchyokin arrived in Moscow as a representative of the Soviet on 3 July with a message insisting on the Tsar's execution. Only seven of the 23 members of the Central Executive Committee were in attendance, three of whom were Lenin, Sverdlov and Felix Dzerzhinsky . They agreed that

14310-492: The shallow grave on 30–31 May 1979 after years of covert investigation and a study of the primary evidence. Three skulls were removed from the grave, but after failing to find any scientist and laboratory to help examine them, and worried about the consequences of finding the grave, Avdonin and Ryabov reburied them in the summer of 1980. The presidency of Mikhail Gorbachev brought with it the era of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (reform), which prompted Ryabov to reveal

14445-445: The site on the evening of 17 July and reported back to the Cheka at the Amerikanskaya Hotel. He ordered additional trucks to be sent out to Koptyaki whilst assigning Pyotr Voykov to obtain barrels of petrol, kerosene and sulphuric acid, and plenty of dry firewood. Yurovsky also seized several horse-drawn carts to be used in the removal of the bodies to the new site. Yurovsky and Goloshchyokin, along with several Cheka agents, returned to

14580-469: The slightest attempt at counter-revolutionary action in the town will result in the summary execution of the hostages. The Romanovs were kept in strict isolation at the Ipatiev House. They were forbidden to speak any language other than Russian and were not permitted access to their luggage, which was stored in a warehouse in the interior courtyard. Their Brownie cameras and photographic equipment were confiscated. The servants were ordered to address

14715-452: The small pit containing the remains of Alexei and his sister, located in two small bonfire sites not far from the main grave on the Koptyaki Road. Although criminal investigators and geneticists identified them as Alexei and one of his sisters, either Maria or Anastasia, they remain stored in the state archives pending a decision from the church, which demanded a more "thorough and detailed" examination. Ivan Plotnikov, history professor at

14850-515: The streets from the house. The initial fence enclosed the garden along Voznesensky Lane. On 5 June a second palisade was erected, higher and longer than the first, which completely enclosed the property. The second palisade was constructed after it was learned that passersby could see Nicholas's legs when he used the double swing in the garden. The windows in all the family's rooms were sealed shut and covered with newspapers (later painted with whitewash on 15 May). Their only source of ventilation

14985-549: The ties to press them into the earth. The burial was completed at 6 am on 19 July. Yurovsky separated the Tsarevich Alexei and one of his sisters to be buried about 15 metres (50 ft) away, in an attempt to confuse anyone who might discover the mass grave with only nine bodies. Since the female body was badly disfigured, Yurovsky mistook her for Anna Demidova; in his report he wrote that he had actually wanted to destroy Alexandra's corpse. Alexei and his sister were burned in

15120-448: The two languages belong to different branches of the Turkic language family. The most famous of Chagatai poets, Ali-Shir Nava'i, among other works wrote Muhakamat al-Lughatayn , a detailed comparison of the Chagatai and Persian languages. Here, Nava’i argued for the superiority of the former for literary purposes. His fame is attested by the fact that Chagatai is sometimes called "Nava'i's language". Among prose works, Timur 's biography

15255-680: The two who had groped the tsarina's corpse and any others he had caught looting. The truck was bogged down in an area of marshy ground near the Gorno-Uralsk railway line, during which all the bodies were unloaded onto carts and taken to the disposal site. The sun was up by the time the carts came within sight of the disused mine, which was a large clearing at a place called the Four Brothers ( 56°56′32″N 60°28′24″E  /  56.942222°N 60.473333°E  / 56.942222; 60.473333 ). Yurovsky's men ate hardboiled eggs supplied by

15390-468: The window or attempt to signal to anyone outside, on pain of being shot. From this window, they could see only the spire of the Voznesensky Cathedral located across the road from the house. An iron grille was installed on 11 July, after Alexandra had ignored repeated warnings from the commandant, Yakov Yurovsky , not to stand too close to the open window. The guard commandant and his senior aides had complete access at any time to all rooms occupied by

15525-415: Was a fortochka in the grand duchesses' bedroom, but peeking out of it was strictly forbidden; in May a sentry fired a shot at Anastasia when she looked out. After the Romanovs made repeated requests, one of the two windows in the tsar and tsarina's corner bedroom was unsealed on 23 June 1918. The guards were ordered to increase their surveillance accordingly, and the prisoners were warned not to look out of

15660-497: Was a shift in the Emir's approach to issues like bribes , taxes , and state salaries. The power struggle between traditionalists and reformists concluded with the traditionalists gaining control, and the reformist faction finding refuge in Moscow or Kazan . Some historians suggest that Alim Khan, who initially supported modernization and reforms, may have realized that the reformists' ultimate objectives excluded him and his descendants from future rule. Like his predecessors, Alim Khan

15795-600: Was a traditional ruler. He toyed with the idea of reform as a tool to keep the clergy in line, but only as long as he saw the possibility of using it to strengthen Manghud rule. One of the most important Tajik writers, Sadriddin Ayniy , wrote vivid accounts of life under the Emir. He was whipped for speaking Tajik and later wrote about the life under the Emirs in The Bukhara Executioners ("Jallodon-i Bukhara"). Alim Khan

15930-399: Was a witness but later claimed to have taken part in the murders, looting belongings from a dead grand duchess. After the killings, he was to declare that "The world will never know what we did with them." Voykov served as Soviet ambassador to Poland in 1924, where he was assassinated by a Russian monarchist in July 1927. The White Army investigator Nikolai Sokolov erroneously claimed that

16065-565: Was also with his brothers in a Moscow orphanage, but in 1922, together with several Bukhara youths, was sent by the authorities of the Bukhara People's Soviet Republic to study in Germany as part of the training of new young personnel for the young republic. Due to ideological considerations, he was given a new full name - "Alimov Shah Muratovich" (according to other sources, his full name was "Shakhmurad Alimkhanov"). After returning from studies, he

16200-482: Was demolished in September 1977 by KGB chairman Yuri Andropov , less than a year before the sixtieth anniversary of the murders. Yeltsin wrote in his memoirs that "sooner or later we will be ashamed of this piece of barbarism". The destruction of the house did not stop pilgrims or monarchists from visiting the site. Local amateur sleuth Alexander Avdonin and filmmaker Geli Ryabov  [ ru ] located

16335-562: Was detained in the territory of the Uzbek SSR , on the Amu Darya River , which separated the USSR and Afghanistan; according to other sources, he was detained in the territory of the Turkmen SSR , where the border between the USSR and Afghanistan runs through the steppes and hills. After that, a sentence of execution was read to him, and he was shot by the NKVD. The middle of the three, Shahmurad,

16470-651: Was fluent in German. He also studied at the Institute of the Coal Industry. According to Shahmurad's classmate, Khaidar Yusupov, Shahmurad dreamed of becoming a military man, but could not be admitted to study at a military school due to ideological considerations, as he was "the son of an enemy of the people." After that, on the advice of friends and acquaintances, he decided to disown his father. In 1930 (according to other sources, in 1929) he wrote an open letter to his father through

16605-455: Was hidden in their clothes; the bodies were to be stripped naked in order to obtain the rest (this, along with the mutilations, was aimed at preventing investigators from identifying them). On 16 July, Yurovsky was informed by the Ural Soviets that Red Army contingents were retreating in all directions and the executions could not be delayed any longer. A coded telegram seeking final approval

16740-412: Was in charge of the disposal squad and claimed to know the outlying countryside. Yurovsky wanted to gather the family and servants in a small, confined space from which they could not escape. The basement room chosen for this purpose had a barred window which was nailed shut to muffle the sound of shooting and in case of any screaming. Shooting and stabbing them at night while they slept or killing them in

16875-402: Was not responsible. The Soviet cover-up of the murders fuelled rumors of survivors. Various Romanov impostors claimed to be members of the Romanov family, which drew media attention away from activities of Soviet Russia . In 1979, amateur sleuth Alexander Avdonin discovered the burial site. The Soviet Union did not acknowledge the existence of these remains publicly until 1989 during

17010-399: Was patrolled twice hourly day and night. In early May, the guards moved the piano from the dining room, where the prisoners could play it, to the commandant's office next to the Romanovs' bedrooms. The guards would play the piano, while singing Russian revolutionary songs and drinking and smoking. They also listened to the Romanovs' records on the confiscated phonograph . The lavatory on

17145-401: Was proof that the family had ceased to trust her ever since she became too friendly with one of the guards back in May. Once the bodies were "completely naked" they were dumped into a mineshaft and doused with sulphuric acid to disfigure them beyond recognition. Only then did Yurovsky discover that the pit was less than 3 metres (9.8 ft) deep and the muddy water below did not fully submerge

17280-530: Was published in a book that same year in French and then Russian. It was published in English in 1925. Until 1989, it was the only accepted historical account of the murders. He wrongly concluded that the prisoners died instantly from the shooting, with the exception of Alexei and Anastasia, who were shot and bayoneted to death, and that the bodies were destroyed in a massive bonfire. Publication and worldwide acceptance of

17415-432: Was quickly stabbed to death against the back wall while trying to defend herself with a small pillow which she had carried that was filled with precious gems and jewels. While the bodies were being placed on stretchers, Anastasia cried out and covered her face with her arm. Ermakov grabbed Alexander Strekotin's rifle and bayoneted her in the chest, but when it failed to penetrate, he pulled out his revolver and shot her in

17550-573: Was raised from the top of Kalyan Minaret , and the Emir Alim Khan fled, first to his base at Dushanbe (in present-day Tajikistan ), and then finally to Kabul , Afghanistan , where he died in 1944. He is buried at the Shuadoi Solehin cemetery. He was awarded the Order of Prince Danilo I and a number of decorations. Although the emir had several children, the exact number of offspring the emir had

17685-401: Was said about killing the family or servants. To prevent a repetition of the fraternization that had occurred under Avdeev, Yurovsky chose mainly foreigners. Nicholas noted in his diary on 8 July that "new Latvians are standing guard", describing them as Letts – a term commonly used in Russia to classify someone as of European, non-Russian origin. The leader of the new guards was Adolf Lepa,

17820-410: Was sent by Goloshchyokin and Georgy Safarov at around 6 pm to Lenin in Moscow. There is no documentary record of an answer from Moscow, although Yurovsky insisted that an order from the CEC to go ahead had been passed on to him by Goloshchyokin at around 7 pm. This claim was consistent with that of a former Kremlin guard, Aleksey Akimov, who in the late 1960s stated that Sverdlov instructed him to send

17955-474: Was staged on Voznesensky Square, demanding the dismissal of the Yekaterinburg Soviet and the transfer of control of the city to them. This rebellion was violently suppressed by a detachment of Red Guards led by Peter Ermakov, which opened fire on the protesters, all within earshot of the tsar and tsarina's bedroom window. The authorities exploited the incident as a monarchist-led rebellion that threatened

18090-522: Was the mutual first cousin of Nicholas and his wife Alexandra , Alexander Kerensky 's provisional government evacuated the Romanovs to Tobolsk , Siberia , allegedly to protect them from the rising tide of revolution. There they lived in the former governor's mansion in considerable comfort. After the Bolsheviks came to power in October 1917, the conditions of their imprisonment grew stricter as talk within

18225-622: Was the only Manghud ruler to add the title of Caliph to his name, and was the last direct descendant of the Manghit dynasty to serve as a national ruler. In 1914-1916 - Nodir Devonbegi Khanaka was repaired by Olim Khan. In March 1918, activists of the Young Bukharan Movement ( Yosh Buxoroliklar ) informed the Bolsheviks that the Bukharians were ready for the revolution and that the people were awaiting liberation. The Red Army marched to

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