I was born, father celebrated that event for a fortnight. Apparently, he had long waited for an heir. So one period of his life had ended and another period began, full of care for his hildren. He needed to earn money and worked from morning till night, like mother. Strange as it was for that time, we had “nurses”. They were Kashirins’ children from another village who studied in the Pretoria middle school and lived with us. When I grew up, I myself looked after my sisters when our parents were at school. Father dreamed that our life would not be like his. Therefore he did his very best for us and tried to pass all his knowledge on to us. It was a very interesting time. At school, where he worked, he tried to create an atmosphere of accessability to knowledge and trained the children’s interest in it. For example, Father’s stories about Kuznetsov N.I. or Gladkikh M.L. have created a life-long impression. He was always near them or they near him, days and nights, during all his life, that is, his life and their lives had been intertwined and, of course, he had learned much from them. I saw how father was cautious with people though he himself was approachable for others. Therefore later, when I observed him, and after his death examined his documents, I understood how hard it had been for him to get those documents. He had never kept diaries. Moving from place to place he had tried either to destroy or to take with himself all the necessary documents, which would be left after he died. So, as mother told it, from Tiumen and from Orenburg Province he took with him a file with his dossier. In 1955 our parents moved from Tiumen Province. As Father explained later, it was impossible to live there because due to a nuclear accident in Cheliabinsk, dead fish could be seen floating in the river Iset for a whole year after. Our parents travelled via Moscow. In Moscow they came to the Ministry of Education and tried to get work but, for some reason they failed. Mother cried, and father soothed her. Later mother recollected that father went away somewhere and sometime later the Minister appeared in the corridor and asked mother why she was crying. She answered that she could not find work. The Minister asked her: “Where would you like to work?” Mother answered, either in Altai krai or in Orenburg Province. The Minister took mother’s arm and conducted her to the personnel department, where my parents obtained a permit. So that’s how they came to live in Orenburg Province. The first seal witnessing a record in father’s work-record card appeared only in 1955. I still can’t comprehend how this could have happened, because father himself had once been Director of RONO. As if all those years he had been either in an administrative exile or on a business trip. And the most incredible thing is that he had served in the army and had had a serviceman’s identity card. Father had been exempt from military service for poor health but he was called twice to the medical commission. What for? When we appealed to the Military-medical archive of the Ministry of Defense in St. Petersburg, they said that they could not understand it either. We also failed to find his medical cards. Though the archive officers explained that medical commissions in the time of war had consisted of the medical workers of the hospitals and not of the region, and all medical records had been sent to the military districts. The districts had turned over the documents to the archives. But nothing has been found there either. Order #336 of 5.12.42, item 12 testifies to the fact that father suffered from a chronic illness of the muscular system of a neuropathic nature.
1 It’s a terrible desease. They had prescribed other medicines, while in this case strychnine ought to have been used, for example. Everything was and is strange. Father had not registered a disability certificate either. It seems that with this illness, and with any other, one should be examined, obtain a disability certificate, be registered in the polyclinic, be treated, get medicines, and go to resorts. Father had done nothing of the kind. He was already 60 and could think only of his children, about their health, but he would not do anything for himself. Was it unwillingness or a disregard for medicine, because it could not help him since he knew about the incurability of his hereditory illness? His hereditory illness had accustomed him to the thought that his life was in God’s hands, and he would live as many yearas as God gave him.And father had lived each day as if it would be his last. During his last years father would pray and repeat: “God, how long shall I suffer? When shall I die at last?” There was a single answer: “We all are in God’s hands.” He would say, that only thought, his ability to think, had made it possible for him to live. Many years later we decided to ascertain the diagnosis of father’s illness with the help of forensic genetics and medicine, that is, whether father was ill with haemophilia “A” or not
A case with our elder daughter Anastasia has marked the beginning of these investigations. During an ordinary medical examination the endocrinologist suggested that we should examine our child in the Genetic Centre in St. Petersburg. We got a permit to this Centre and medical examinations lasted from January till June, 1999. None of the hereditary illnesses have been discovered. However, Vasilyeva I. Yu., 1 specialist in genetics, gave a permit to Anastasia’s real aunts Olga, Irina, and Nadezhda to be examined for the haemophilic gene. Examinations were made in the D. O. Otto Institute, in the laboratory of prenatal diagnostics, IAG, Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, for a period of two weeks, by Candidate of Biology Aseev M.V. supervised by Doctor of Medicine, professor, chief of this laboratory Baranov V.S. One of the daughters of Filatov V.K. has a 14 year old son. He has no haemofilic gene. A conclusion: “Since Mozhaiko A.V. (V.K. Filatov’s grandson) is not ill with haemophilia “A”, a 95% probability is that his grandfather, on his mother’s side, Filatov V.K. was not ill either.“2 On March 15, 2000, Candidate of Medicine, specialist in forensic medicine, lecturer of the chair of forensic medicine and criminalistics of the St. Petersburg State University, Petrov V.V., together with Professor Egorov G.B., having analyzed the records in the diaries of Emperor Nikolas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, of Tsesarevich Alexei’s sisters and the doctors who observed Tsesarevich, stated 3 that “an analysis of literature has not revealed any manifestations of Tsesarevich Alexei’s haemophilia during the time period 1914 to 1918.” Doctor Botkin E.S. had appealed to the Ekaterinburg Executive Committee on Tsesarevich Alexei Nikolaevich Romanov’s state of health. Doctor Botkin had observed him for ten years. He wrote: “Alexei Nikolaevich is subject to pains in the joints from bumps that are completely unavoidable in a boy of his age and that are accompanied by seepage of fluids and resultant excruciating pains “…4 Chairman of the “Committee for Russian Peoples’ Culture Protection”, Dean of St. Peter and Paul’s Church, archpriest N. Golovkin has a statement from the Russian Federation State Archive (RFSA) that “The notebook of leib-medic Botkin does not contain any information either about blood group and composition or the state of the Tsesarevich, Grand Duke Alexei Nikolaevich Romanov during haemorrage.” 5 The Russian State historical archive keeps in the “File of the Office of Her Majesty Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and Management of the Files of Royal Children of Their Imperial Majesties” (General archive of the former Ministry of the Court) records of the state of health of the Tsesarevich, the Heir. “The Government Bulletin” for September, October, and November 1912 contains bulletins on the health of Tsesarevich Alexei Nikolaevich Romanov. There are hourly records of temperature, pulse, the state of swelling resulting from kicking the boat rowlock, as well as breathing, but not a word about haemophilia. Tsesarevich’s medical documents, his medical card, if one may say so, are signed by: Honorary leib-surgeon, Professor Fedorov, leib-medic E. Botkin, Honorary leib-medic Ostrogorsky. Minister of the Imperial Court baron Fredericks. When specialists in forensic medicine and genetics examined these medical records they were bewildered by such a glaring mistake in diagnostics, i.e. mixing up the state of a man after a violent bruise, that is, haemotoma, with such a serious illness as haemophilia. Involuntarily one may think that here is a political intrigue to demonstrate that the Romanov family will become extinct, and therefore it should be renewed by killing the ill representatives, exchanging them for more healthy representatives of the same family. Any means are good to serve the purpose, including information for the public about the approaching death of the Heir or about an intensified crisis in his illness, that is, the formation of a negative in the social opinion of the public. In such a way a thought could have been developed by the interested people that the Heir would not live long. The conclusion is simple as the truth: the boy could live long and
