Tomorrow is Papa’s birthday but he says we mustn’t fuss. We’ll work in the garden again.
22 May/4 June 1917
The seeds are planted, and the weeds haven’t yet begun to spring up. We were outside, gazing at our handiwork, when this foolish incident happened: Papa had gone off to saw up some dead trees for firewood for next winter (his latest project), and Alexei began marching around with a toy rifle. Some of the soldiers saw him and thought it was a real gun and started shouting, “They’re armed!” and took it away. How stupid they all are.
29 May/11 June 1917
At last a story with a happy ending. Alexei’s toy rifle was turned over to Colonel Kobylinsky, who took it apart and has been bringing a piece of it to Alexei each time he comes to visit. He made Alexei promise he would play with it only in his own room. This cheered up Alexei. And when Alexei is happy, Mama is, too. She had been so sad since her birthday four days ago. Now Tatiana can have a nice birthday. Today she is twenty.
1/14 June 1917
Some of the first sprouts have begun to appear in our garden. Radishes, I think, and carrots.
5/18 June 1917
My sixteenth birthday, the year Grandmother promised to take me to Paris. Everyone is trying to be cheerful for my sake. There was even a small cake. I was actually thinking about the necklace that I’m supposed to have, when Mama mentioned it, very quietly. We’re sure to be leaving here soon, and we’ll need all our jewels — Mama’s, my sisters’, and mine — to sell later, when we need money. Best gift of all: a new puppy, a spaniel. I’m calling her Jimmy.
17/30 June 1917
We still have no idea when we’re leaving, or where we’re going. One possibility is England, but that means getting first to a Finnish port, which is very dangerous, because we would have to travel through territory controlled by revolutionary soldiers. Or maybe we’ll go to Livadia to be near Grandmother and our other relatives. We’d love that — even the horrid cousins!
Count Benckendorff says we absolutely must stop talking about going to Livadia, because it could be a bad thing if the soldiers overheard us. Meanwhile, Papa counsels patience: He’s sure we will be rescued.
29 June/12 July 1917
Our garden looks terrific! We carry water to it in barrels and pull lots of weeds. I’m getting huge muscles. Jimmy follows me everywhere.
No word yet on our future.
7/20 July 1917
Still no word, but we’ve begun to pack secretly.
11/24 July 1917
Ratface Kerensky was here an hour ago to talk to Papa. We’re leaving soon, but he refused to tell us when or where! All he would say is that we must take plenty of warm clothes. That means we’re not going to Livadia. Papa says we have to trust this man.
Now he and Mama are deciding who will go with us. I hate to leave our dear home at Tsarskoe Selo, and I’m also frightened. Where can we be going?
30 July/12 August 1917
Alexei’s thirteenth birthday. No party, but a procession of clergy came from the village with a holy icon, and many prayers were said for a safe journey.
31 July/13 August 1917
We’re leaving at one o’clock in the morning, and there’s much to do to get ready. Papa has instructed Count Benckendorff (who must stay behind because his wife is ill) to distribute the vegetables from our garden and his piles of firewood to the servants who helped with the work. My sisters and Alexei and I made one last trip to our favorite island in the pond. People keep coming up to us and bidding us farewell. We might as well be going to the moon.
3/16 August 1917
On a train
Not to the moon, but to Siberia. Ratface says we’ll be quite safe there, which I guess is something. This is not our imperial train, but it’s very nice. There’s room for servants and for Alexei’s dog, Joy, Tatiana’s Ortino, and my Jimmy (not that we would consent to leave without them). Eira is staying with Count Benckendorff.
We waited all night and finally left at six in the morning. Yesterday we crossed the Ural Mountains. It’s much cooler here.
Colonel Kobylinsky is on the train with us, and there’s another train behind this one carrying three hundred soldiers who will guard us. When the train goes through a village, all the blinds are drawn so that no one can see us (and be shocked by the sight of four girls whose hair is still very short). There are signs on the cars that say JAPANESE RED CROSS MISSION. Can the people really hate us so much that we must travel in disguise?
5/18 August 1917
On the Rus
We left the train yesterday, and now we’re going up the Tura River on this little steamer. Once in a while we pass a cluster of cottages. One of these villages was Father Grigory’s. Mama reminded us that long ago Father Grigory predicted that she would one day see his village. That made me shudder.
15/28 August 1917
Tobolsk, Siberia
When we arrived last week, the house where we’re to stay was a mess — not even any furniture. But Colonel Kobylinsky hired workmen to repair and paint, and now we’re nicely settled in. We sisters share one big corner room on the second floor, and it’s very cozy. The colonel even got a piano for us. There isn’t space for everyone here, so some of our staff stay in a house across the street. We’re determined to make the best of this.
21 August/3 September 1917
What a shame. The soldiers got upset when we went across the street to visit our staff — “too much freedom,” they said — and so a high wooden fence has been built around our house. We have only a very small (and very muddy) space for exercise.
Good news, though, is that Mr. Gibbes has come out from Petrograd. We were all very glad to see him.
10/23 September 1917
We’re allowed to attend early Mass at the church down the street. The soldiers form long lines, and we walk between them. Still, the people of Tobolsk seem friendly and have even sent us gifts of butter and eggs.
We’re getting acquainted with the soldiers. They’re no happier than we are about being here! Mashka has learned the names of at least a dozen, as well as their wives and children. And Papa and Alexei sometimes go into the guardhouse to play games with the men. They’re especially nice to Alexei. Only Mama is completely miserable. She doesn’t complain, but I see it on her face.
21 September/4 October 1917
It’s already much colder here than at Tsarskoe Selo. By midafternoon the sun has set, and we’ve turned on the lamps. I try not to think about Livadia!
Papa’s only complaint is that he doesn’t get his mail regularly. He hasn’t seen a newspaper and doesn’t know what’s happening. I wonder if he still writes in his diary every day. What is there to write when there’s nothing to write?!
27 September/10 October 1917
We’ve settled into a routine not much different from the one at Tsarskoe Selo, at least for us children. Papa no longer has endless meetings, but we still have endless classes, starting at nine o’clock. Mama is constantly busy sewing our clothes, especially mine. I’m ashamed to say why: Olga and Tatiana get thinner and thinner, but I’m doing the opposite. Also, she’s knitting stockings for Alexei because we know that the winter is going to be fiercely cold.
9/22 October 1917
Mama has a letter from Anya. She’s been released from the fortress, thank God. She says it was terrible and she didn’t think she’d survive. I hope Anya will be able to find a way to get us out of here.
2/15 November 1917
Papa finally got some news, and it truly shocked him. Kerensky, the one I call Ratface, is out of power, and the Provisional Government has been overthrown by a revolutionary group called the Bolsheviks. Papa says they want the government to be run by the workers! But one of their leaders, Vladimir Ilyitch Lenin, is a traitor who betrayed Russia for his own gain. For the first time, Papa is sorry he abdicated, which he did for the good of the Russian people, if the res
ult is that Russia has fallen into the hands of evil men.
3/16 November 1917
Olga’s birthday. A dismal day.
24 November/7 December 1917
Our room has turned into an icebox, and we wear layer upon layer of clothing to keep warm. Jimmy sleeps on my feet, which helps. But poor Ortino shivers all the time.
Worse than being cold, we are absolutely bored to tears. We can go nowhere, and hardly anyone can come here. We get no exercise but marching up and down behind Papa in the little enclosure. The only thing that’s keeping us busy is making Christmas presents for the servants and Mama’s ladies and Papa’s suite. I’m in charge of painting ribbons to use as bookmarks, and my sisters knit waistcoats until their fingers ache.
26 November/9 December 1917
Ortino is ill. Tatiana is frantic.
30 November/13 December 1917
Mr. Gibbes and M. Gilliard have come up with a grand idea: We’re forming a little theater company, and we’re planning to put on plays for whomever we can convince to be our audience. Mama has agreed to write our programs, and Papa is cast in the title role of our first production, Chekhov’s The Bear. (What a coincidence that the play I wrote on the Standart had the same title.)
The most enthusiastic of our actors is Alexei, who loves the idea of putting on a false beard and speaking in a growl. (His voice has begun to change, but it tends to squeak when he least wants it to. Too funny, but we dare not laugh.)
1/14 December 1917
Ortino seemed to be improving but this morning took a turn for the worse. This evening he died. Tatiana weeps.
25 December 1917/7 January 1918
The day started off the way Christmas should, and then something happened that ruined everything. As usual we went to the little church on the far side of the public garden for Mass, and at the end of the service the priest said a prayer for the health and long life of the imperial family. Huge mistake! That prayer had been dropped from the Mass after Papa’s abdication, and the soldiers got angry when they heard it. So we’ve been told that’s the last time we’ll be allowed to attend the little church. From now on we must have our services here in the house. As if that wasn’t bad enough, we’re going to have guards inside the house, as well as outside.
8/21 January 1918
We’re building a snow mountain, like the ones we always had at Tsarskoe Selo. We’ve been working like slaves, shoveling tons of snow and carrying gallons of water from the kitchen to pour on the mountain to make it icy. It’s so cold that the water nearly freezes in the bucket before we can get it to the top!
20 January/2 February 1918
Our mountain is finished, and my sisters and I have made up all kinds of races and games that always seem to end up with me facedown in the snow.
30 January/12 February 1918
A new problem: money. The soldiers are not being paid, and they’re upset and angry, as though it were our fault! Also, when the cook tries to shop for food, the merchants won’t give him credit. No one speaks to me about this, of course, but I hear the talk.
12/25 February 1918
We’ve been notified that we’re to be put on soldier’s rations, beginning next week. The first items to go will be butter and coffee. We won’t miss butter too much, because it’s nearly time for Lent, and all of us prefer tea to coffee, anyway. One of our nicest servants, Sonia Petrovna Izvolsky, has promised to smuggle us eggs for Alexei from her henhouse.
But Papa has also decided that we must dismiss some of our servants. This will be hard because many of them brought their families here to Tobolsk, and now these loyal servants will have no way to earn a living. I hope he doesn’t dismiss Sonia.
22 February/7 March 1918
I’m so furious, I could scream. Our snow mountain has been destroyed by soldiers with picks, for a very stupid reason.
A regiment of soldiers we’d grown fond of were leaving (we knew not only their names but also their wives and children), and Papa and Alexei climbed to the top of the hill to salute them. Someone saw them and announced that it was “dangerous.” So our mountain is no more. Alexei stared at the wreckers silently, with big, sunken eyes.
4/17 March 1918
It’s Butterweek, for everyone but us. We’re stuck in this old house, half frozen, while beneath the windows we can hear the troikas dashing by, pulling sleighs with their little bells jingling. People out there are having fun, and we’re in here covered in gloom.
Papa tells us not to be gloomy, that we have many loyal friends who will certainly find a way to rescue us. But when?
Mama believes God will send us help at Easter, the time of the Resurrection.
6/19 March 1918
Papa has just received terrible news: Two weeks ago the Bolshevik government led by Vladimir Ilyitch Lenin signed a peace treaty with the Germans. It’s called the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and the Bolsheviks agreed to surrender Poland, Ukraine, the Crimea (Livadia!), and other Russian territory. Papa is completely overwhelmed with grief. It’s as though the country he loves so much has died. I don’t know what to do to console him.
12/25 March 1918
A terrible accident. Alexei, his snow mountain destroyed, took it into his head to ride his sled down the stairs inside the house. He fell and hurt himself in the groin. Now he’s bleeding inside and is in horrible pain. I can hear his screams from my room. He says he wants to die. I just can’t bear it.
17/30 March 1918
Alexei is a little better. The pain is less, although he still can’t walk. We all take turns staying with him, reading to him, playing cards.
New troops are arriving every day. I don’t know what this means. I thought the war was over. Why are all these soldiers here?
22 March/4 April 1918
Spring does come, even in Siberia. It would be so much more enjoyable if we could have some real exercise. For some reason I’ve been dreaming about riding a horse.
3/16 April 1918
All sorts of rumors are buzzing that someone very important is coming here from Moscow. Papa thinks it might even be Leon Trotsky, another Bolshevik leader. He says Trotsky is just as bad as Lenin.
9/22 April 1918
Our important visitor is here — not Leon Trotsky, but Commissar Vassily Yakovlev, sent by Vladimir Lenin. The commissar arrived at the head of 150 horsemen, and he brought a private telegraph operator so that he can send wires directly to the Kremlin in Moscow. (It’s now the capital, not Petrograd.) The commissar is very polite to Mama, bows to Papa, and so on, and they all seem to like each other. We’re not sure why he is here. There is even a rumor that he’s really come to rescue us. Baroness Buxhoeveden thinks we’ll go to Norway, but I heard Dr. Botkin whispering something about Japan. How exciting that would be!
12/25 April 1918
So far we’ve been wrong about everything. The reason Commissar Yakovlev is here is to take Papa away, to Moscow for trial. (But he has not committed any crime!) At first we thought we would all go with him. But Alexei is worse again, very thin and in great pain, much too ill to make a long journey. I won’t describe the tearful scene that followed, but here’s what was decided: Mama will go with Papa, and take Mashka with her! The rest of us will stay here until we find out what’s next.
We all agreed, as awful as it is, because Olga is in very low spirits, and Tatiana is the one who must look after Alexei. I’m to stay here because, as Mama and my sisters decided, “Anastasia is too young.”
Too young! That made me feel even worse, but I said nothing because it’s all too horrible, anyway. We’ve never been separated, except when Alexei was with Papa at Stavka, and I don’t know how we’ll bear it.
I am nearly seventeen years old — hardly a child. Perhaps this is the time to prove to my parents that I am no longer a shvibzik, an imp, but a person who has earned their confidence.
13/26 April 1918
They’re gon
e. They left in a string of filthy peasant carts this morning before it was light. Mama was riding on a bed of straw, with Dr. Botkin’s fur cloak over her. The doctor and several others went with them.
Olga, Tatiana, Alexei, and I sit and stare at each other. We dare not wonder aloud when we will see them again.
17/30 April 1918
A telegram from Mama: They’re in a place called Ekaterinburg. This is a total surprise to us, because we were told they were going to Moscow. We can’t imagine what’s going to happen.
22 April/5 May 1918
Easter, but no celebration — just four of us with our servants, praying together. Sonia brought us four eggs and some tasty cheese, which we devoured. She’s so kind!
Anastasia Page 10
