The Unknown Tsesarevitch. Reminiscences and Considerations on V. K. Filatov’s Life and Times. Oleg Vasiljevitch Filatov

in the dark… Our father was terribly maimed. His back had many scars of various sizes. The scars were 1.5 to 5 cm. The scars in the center were up to 0.8 cm high. There were also scars to 10 cm. There was a shrapnel wound on the left heel, the scar was cross-shaped. Two ribs were broken. By 40 years his left leg was withered and by 1944 became shorter than the right one. On the whole, there were up to 20 scars and bluish dents in his back. Father would buy shoes of different sizes: 40 for his left leg and 42 for his right leg. Because of the wounds, by 1944 his spine had become twisted to the right. We, when children, would ask him about his wounds and disabilities. He would tell us that he had gone to the Finnish war in a coach, but the planes had bombed the train and he, without reaching the front, returned to the hospital. And to the question what he was and why he was in the army he answered that he was a student in Leningrad and all students were called up. Or he would say that he was such from birth, or that he fell from a tree. Such were his answers until we grew up. Later on we understood that those had only been excuses and the reason of his wounds had been of quite another nature. According to the records in his serviceman’s identity card, in 1942 he was exempt from military service. There are no records for other years. So, he was not at the front. At any rate, our family has not got any relevant documents, also. There is no disability certificate. From the evidence of F. P. Proskuriakov, a guard: “… When all of them had been executed, Andrei Strekotin took off their jewels. Yurovsky confiscated them and took them upstairs…“¹. A question arises. Everything was in gunpowder smoke (the guards were sick, they ran out in the open air and vomited). There was no doctor who could confirm the deaths. Strekotin had a revolver, was he going to gather the jewels in everybody’s presence? Or, maybe, there was nobody else?

      At that time, if Andrei Strekotin, feeling Alexei’s pulse, understood that he was alive, he could have put his revolver into Alexei trousers pocket, in the boot or slippped it into his bosom. Father would tell us that there was an understanding in their family – if they were faced with a military threat, somebody would hand him over either a weapon or a knife should the opportunity arise. On that day a sign will be made with a white handkerchief. It was to be made by whoever would chance to be on the outside guard during the walk of the family: usually Andrei Strekotin would stand at the watch-tower by the machine-gun. Later on father told me that after the truck had stopped near the Upper-Iset Lake, the boy regained consciousness? He was lying on the ground and it was raining. He decided that it was necessary to crawl from that place, as far away as possible. The boy crawled under the little bridge and, lying there, tried to think out where he should go to. Searching himself he found a weapon. This lent him vigour and energy. Reaching the railway branch the boy hobbled towards the station Shartash. Father went on: “By the morning he was already at the station and here the patrol saw him. They were seven. Remember, Oleg, they were seven. And they urged him on stabbing him with bayonets in his back. They did not understand Russian, apparently, they were “nekhristi”. And here father suddenly said: “You know, it hurt very much.” I listened to him without saying a word because he ought not to be interrupted. Otherwise he could fall silent and say not a word, ask him as you might, till he himself wanted to tell something new. Of course, I understood that he was speaking about himself. Then father said that he could not resist them anymore but said to his tormentors that he would not give himself up alive. A switch woman, who was at that time at the station, saw the patrol took the boy away from the station, in the direction of the forest, and cried after them: “Where are you taking the boy to, monsters?” In answer they threatened that they would shoot. They threw him into a shaft. It was not deep. The boy hit his head against a log and slipped down. Where to go to? Then he saw a horizontal shaft and dove there. The tormentors threw a grenade after him, and some shrapnel hit his heel. So the scar on his left heel was caused by that shrapnel. Four hours later the Strekotin brothers came after him on the hand-car carried him out of the shaft and took him to the hospital. After they gave him first aid they took him to Shadrinsk. How could it happen? It’s simple – nobody had searched for the bodies. Apparently, Alexander Strekotin was not in the house at that time. Nobody mentioned him. Where was he? Radzinsky E.S.¹ gives Andrei Strekotin’s recollections in his book: “When the bodies had been removed and the truck had gone, only then were we dismissed.” It was at 3:00 a.m. on July 17, 1918

      What did Alexander Strekotin do at that time? He was mentioned first in the case of investigator Sergeev (Sokolov’s book “Ubiistvo tsarskoi sem’i’– The Murder of the Tsar’s Family). In E.S. Radzinsky’s ² books Medvedev, the son of the Chekist, says: “In the morning, when my father arrived at the market, he heard the story in detail from local market-women, where and how the bodies of the Tsar’s family were hidden. That’s why the bodies were re-buried.” In means that information from the Ipatiev house appeared in the town either at night or in the early morning and so, the Strekotin brothers, the Filatov brothers, and Mikhail Pavlovich Gladkikh had known everything beforehand, let alone Kleshchev and Shulin, who were in the Ipatiev house at that time. It is of interest that Andrei Strekotin described in detail both the family and the execution; hence, he had been deeply impressed by everything. Besides, he had a good memory. The White investigators did not find Alexander Strekotin because he did not stay in the town but went away to the forests. Alexander was outside the Ipatiev house. That night the time factor was very important, i.e. time was needed to send Tsesarevich to Shadrinsk and it was necessary to cover their tracks so that nobody would know that he, Strekotin, helped him, together with other soldiers. It should be emphasized that the officers of the Russian army General Staff were at that time, from May 1918, in Ekaterinburg and took an active part in the preparation of the Romanov’s rescue. Facts are given in the book “Tainy Koptiakovskoy dorogi” (Secrets of the Koptiakov Road) ¹. “In May 1918 the former Nikolas Academy of General Staff was moved to Ekaterinburg. It was quartered not far from Tikhvin Monastery located within the town. The senior grade had 216 students, only 13 of them later fought for the Soviets. Most of them considered the Treaty in Brest treason. In Ekaterinburg they found themselves in hostile surroundings. Besides, comissars: S.A. Anuchin and F.I. Goloshchekin, of the Urals regional Soviet, considered the presence of “an organized center of counter-revolution”, under the guise of an Academy, in the very center of the Urals, inadmissible. By June 1918 the Academy had 300 students, 14 professors and 22 teachers on the staff. With an advance of the Czechoslovak troops the Academy was moved to Kazan by the order of Trotsky. But less than half of the students, declaring“neutrality”, moved there. Later almost all of them went over to Kolchak’s army, and the Nikolas Academy existed no more. It seemed that the 300 regular officers, who were in Ekaterinburg in June-July 1918, could not form a striking force to rescue the Tsar’s family. But today it is questionable. Where is the documented evidence of what the “uncovered” organization of officers did for the rescue and who else did they include in the rescue? And if it did save somebody, nobody would say a word about it. For he, who states it, not only did not serve in the army, but also knows neither operational work nor the methods used by the tsar’s secret service, let alone practical knowledge of secrecy. The level of training of the Russian officers was too high, especially of those who graduated from this Academy

      So, after the town was annexed it turned out that there was a secret military organization of the officers among the students of the Acedemy. The following captains were in this organization: D.A. Malinovsky, Semchevsky, Akhverdov, Delinzghauzen, Gershelman, Durasov, Baumgarden, Dezbinin. Via Dmitriy Apollonovich Malinovsky the organization had made contact with the monarchists in Petrograd. It was systematically in great need of money. Captain Akhverdov’s mother, Maria Dmitrievna, took part in this organization. The officers contacted Doctor Derevenko. They tried to get the plan of the Ipatiev house. Lieutenant-colonel Georgiy Vladimirovich Yartsov, chief of the Ekaterinburg instructor’s school of the Academy, testified the following on June 17, 1919: “There were five officers among us to whom I frankly spoke about taking some measures to rescue the Royal Family. These were: Captain Akhverdov, Captain Delinzgausen, Captain Gershel’man. We tried via Delinzgauzen to get the plan of the Ipatiev apartment where the Royal Family was kept.” (He succeeded in getting the plan via Doctor