Nicholas, Alexandra and Marie arrived to a hostile atmosphere in Ekaterinburg in April 1918. They were taken to a house with a sign outside, reading “The House of Special Purpose.”  Upstairs were five rooms, their new prison.  The windows were painted white.  The downstairs housed the guards.  Kobylinsky, who had faithfully served the family for a year, was relieved of his command on May 11 and the Tsarskoe Selo detachment of soldiers was replaced with Red Guards.

Alexandra managed to get a pre-arranged coded letter to the girls in Tobolsk regarding the “medicine”.  This meant that the girls were to sew all their jewels concealed into their clothing.  Nicholas, Alexandra and Marie had left so hastily there had been no time to do it themselves.

By May 19, Alexis was well enough to travel.  He and the Toblosk party again boarded the river steamer for the reverse voyage to Tyumen and then by train to Ekaterinburg.   Upon arrival, the entourage was divided into three groups.  Olga, Tatiana, Alexis, his faithful sailor, Nagorny; the cook, one footman and a kitchen boy were taken to rejoin the family.

The second group was sent to prison.  The third group was set free, including Pierre Gillard, the loyal Swiss tutor who had been with the family since Alexis was a baby. This last group returned to Tyumen where the White Army rescued them ten days later in July.  Gillard’s chronicles of the years spent with the family proved to be a valuable insight into their lives.

Twelve people were cramped into the five rooms but they were so overjoyed to be together again, no one cared.  The guards delighted in every petty indignity they could impose on their captives.  Ever protective of his young charge, Nagorny, the sailor, protested a guard pilfering Alexis’ gold chain that had the boy’s collection of Holy Images on it.  Nagorny was arrested, taken to prison and four days later, shot.  After that it was Nicholas who carried Alexis, as the boy still could not walk.

Nicholas’ fiftieth and Alexandra’s forty-sixth birthdays in May came and went without notice.  Both were thin, becoming increasingly gray and quietly haggard.  Apparently two letters were smuggled into Nicholas detailing an escape plan.  Nicholas replied, and of course the little group clung to that hope, but nothing happened.

Moscow had not made up its mind what to do with the Imperial Family.  Trotsky still favored a public trial of Nicholas.  The propaganda possibilities were appealing to Trotsky.  He envisioned and relished himself personally taking on the role of prosecutor.

On July 4 Jacob Yurovsky as leader of a squad of ten Bolshevik Cheka, secret police of Ekaterinburg, replaced the guards.  The Ural Soviet in Ekaterinburg sent Goloshchekin to Moscow, to discuss the Imperial Family’ situation.  Goloshchekin had been a hardened revolutionary in the Baltic and had strong ties with Lenin and Svedlov. He even stayed with Svedlov while he was in Moscow.

The Bolsheviks were in a precarious position.  British and American troops had taken Murmansk in the far north.  The traditionally fierce Don Cossacks in the Ukraine had joined Kornilov and two other former monarchy generals in raising a White Army.  In Siberia forty-five thousand Czechs who had been prisoners of war from the Austro-Hungarian army had been trying to make their way to the Pacific and ultimately home.  Instead they joined forces with the anti-Bolshevik White Army that had already taken Omsk and Tyumen and were marching toward Ekaterinburg.

On July 13, Goloshchekin returned from Moscow with his orders.  On July 16, 1917 Yurovsky sent the kitchen boy away during the day.  At midnight, Yurovsky awakened the family. He told them they had to be moved because the White Army was approaching Ekaterinburg.

They quickly dressed and were led downstairs into a small room in a semi-basement to await a car.  Nicholas carried Alexis.  Alexandra, the four girls, Dr. Botkin who had tended Alexis for years; Kharitonov the cook, Trupp the valet and Demidova, Alexandra’s maid; all of them suspected nothing and quietly waited.  Anastasia carried the little family pet spaniel, Jimmy, and Demidova carried a small pillow with jewels concealed inside.

Yurovsky returned with a thug named Voikov and his Cheka squad of ten men.  Voikov later was appointed the Soviet ambassador to Poland.

They shot all the captives, bludgeoned and bayoneted some who clung to life, dismembered and burned them; and threw what remained down an abandon mineshaft.  Even the little dog, Jimmy.

When Nicholas and Alexandra were married, on their wedding night she wrote in her bridegroom’s diary, “At last united, bound for life, and when life is ended, we meet again in the other world and remain together for eternity.”₂₄