From Alexander Strekotin’s stories, he remained alive only because he went to the forests with N.D. Kashirin, Commander of the partisan detachment, who went with him as far as Perm, and the Kungur caves. Then he worked as a stableman in the Party regional committee in Ekaterinburg. Later on he headed the Machine-tractor station (MTS). He was a family man. In 1988 his wife was still alive. On January 22, 2000 Alexander Strekotin’ relatives who lived in Ekaterinburg, called us up. They told us that uncle Sasha died a mysterious death in the early 60’s, falling out of a carwhile it eas moving. His three sons have also disappeared. All this happened when Father told me about the fate of the Tsar’s family and the execution. In the early 60’s we also left the Urals for northern Russia
They started searching for father both abroad and in Russia. I learned about it from Mr. Spelar, a publisher, secretary to Princess Irina Yusupova. It was in November, 1999, when I was in New-York. When I signed my book, he told me about it with a mysterious air. I asked him: “Why did you search for my father? Did you want to help or kill him?” There was no answer. Quite a number of discoveries and documents that are now collrcting dust on the shelves of both Russian and foreign archives, await those who investige the last days of the imperial family
A remark of Swedish writer and translator, Staffan Scott in his book, Romanovs, deserves notice: “…of a once numerous branch of Konstantinovichs no one man has remained (except perhaps two of the Romanovs, who disappeared after the Revolution but remained miraculously alive in the Soviet Union).” (Scott S., The Romanovs. 1989, Ekaterinburg: Larin Publ., 1993. P. 22). It should be noticed that this book was published in 1989 and, surprisingly, this event coincides with the publication in Russia of the book of E. Radzinsky “Gospodi… spasi i usmiri Rossiyu” (God… save and quell Russia), which also contains information about rescue of two children, the children of Nikolas II – Tsesarevich Alexei and Grand Duchess Maria. What could this be? A coincidence or an established fact? Staffan Scott does not say any more about the rescue of two Romanovs in his book. Even when writing about his meeting with a relative of these children, Vera Konstantinovna Romanova, that is, Konstantin Romanovich’s daughter. In the chapter “The Soviet Union and the Romanovs” Staffan Scott writes: “The attitude of the Soviets to the Romanovs who have survived the Revolution, has also changed compared to stock accusations of the generation of the time of the Revolution. The Soviet secret police – ChK, NKVD, KGB, etc. – have never shunned attempts on the life of Russian politicians in exile or turncoats. But nobody heard either about attempts on the life of the living Romanovs or about their kidnapping. Since they are of no political threat to the soviet system, they do not persecute them – unless we count the rare attacks against pretender Vladimir Kirillovich. We also know that there was no veto for the Romanovs to visit the Soviet Union. From the early 60’s many members of the dynasty have visited the USSR as tourists, including Nikita Nikitich, a historian. Soviet people, whom they met with, treated them with well-disposed curiosity.” (Scott S. The Romanovs. P. 272—273)
So, the executioners are packing the wide double-doors. Strekotin is close by. (What did he want to see there?). That’s what he saw. “… Yurovsky: Alexei and his three sisters, a Romanov maid, and Botkin were still alive. We had to finish them off. The bullets, surprisingly, rebounded off of something and, like hail, were jumping all over the room. – The executioners were shooting as madmen. The light from electric bulb could hardly be seen through the smoke from the gun powder… Figures lying in pools of blood —on the floor, a strangely surviving boy streached his hand to protect himself from the bullets. (Auth.: “After the execution he was not undressed, he was also in corset. His corset has never been found.”). And Nikulin, terror-struck, kept shooting him”. 1 Later on, in checking whether Tsesarevich Alexei had a corset, it turned out that two corsets with jewels had not been handed over by Yurovsky to the depository, that is, there were neither the bodies of two of the children nor two corsets at the burial site. How’s that? If they killed the children, they ought to hand over the corsets with jewels, but did not do it. From Yurovsky’s record (GARF, f. 601, inv. 2, d. 35): “… My assistant used the whole clip of bullets (the strange survival of the Heir can probably be attributed to his inability to handle a weapon or to unavoidable nervousness caused by long trouble with Tsar daughters)”. But the most incredible thing is that the bullets could have been blank cartridges. It is unclear so far, whether the present inquiry has made a ballistic examination. The executioners are known to have given their weapons to the Revolution Museum. The investigator ought to have ordered a ballistic examination, and the experts were to have shot bullets from these weapons, and then to have compared them with those found in 1919 at the burial site near Ekaterinburg. And if they do not coincide in their characteristics, then they are not those weapons and the people were killed by the use of other weapons, or these are the bodies of other people. And the version worked out by the inquiry is wrong. Other explanations to these facts should be found rather than to follow a mistaken path. The book of investigator Sokolov N.A.2 gives the interrogation of Pavel Medvedev: “Blood flooded the floor. When I entered the cellar the Heir was groaning. Yurovsky approached him and fired at him two or three times, point-blank. The Heir quietened down. It made me sick.” From the reminiscences of Andrei Strekotin cited by Platonov O.A.3 in his book: “All the prisoners were lying on the floor already, bleeding to death, but the Heir was still sitting on the chair”
A participant of the execution, 18-year old Netrebin Viktor Nikiforovich records: “The Heir still showed signs of life though a lot of shots had been made…». Recollections of Andrei Strekotin: “Then Ermakov, seeing that there was a bayonet in my rifle, suggested that I stabbed those still alive. I refused. Then he took my rifle and started stubbing them…” (Sverdlovsk Party Archive, f. 41, inv. 1, c. 149, p. 164. References to the archive have been taken from O.A. Platonov’s book). “The shooting stopped. The door was opened to clear the gun-powder smoke… They began to remove the bodies. First the body of the Tsar was removed. The bodies were piled up in a truck.” Andrei Strekotin describes how the bodies were removed, in which order, and he knew exactly when it would be the Heirs’s turn. He had told his brother Alexander that the Heir was the last one taken out and the last one laid in the truck, since that night Alexander did not return to the Ipatiev house. Was the end gate of the truck closed? How high were the sides of the truck?
“There was not enough room in the carts for all the bodies (Auth.: “The truck got stuck five miles from the town, near the Upper-Iset plant».).There were not enough carts which worked well. They were falling apart. (It was already 4:00 or 4:30 in the morning. Who was loading whom? And where to?” – author’s remark). Then it turned out that Tatiana, Olga, and Anastasia had some corsets on.“1
When the funeral team noticed during the transfer of the bodies that some bodies were missing, they feverishly began to feel the pulse of the remaining bodies because they understood that those missing remained alive, and only at that moment did they find out that. Tsesarevich Alexei and Grand Duchess Maria were missing, as well as two corsets. That’s why nobody of the funeral team had mentioned in their memoirs that there were two missing children and two missing corsets. That’s why the truck went on to the shaft carrying only part of the bodies. It turns out that there was no post-execution search. Apparently, there was no time. But why? If the executioners knew the Romanovs by sight? Maybe, it had already grown light and they had to hurry? (They did not search Tsesarevich, his mother and other bodies). The conclusion is the following: it means that the escort had lost the bodies before the pause near the Upper-Iset plant and nobody had noticed it. That was an enigma. Father’s words were confirmed. The stealing had begun. In Radzinsky’s2 book Yurovsky says: “I decided to dismiss the team immediately, leaving only some sentries as