Here’s How The Romanovs Spent Their Final Days Before Their Tragic Execution
By Natalie Zamora
The slaughter of the Russian Royal family, the Romanovs, was a shock all over the world. It still is today, even though it took place all the way back in 1918.
A book documents the final days of the Romanovs, and it’s heartbreaking in every way.
In The Last Day Of The Romanovs by Helen Rappaport, she details when the Russian Imperial Family was deposed by the Soviet revolution. The Romanovs were set to make their final journey.
Four young girls, their mother Tsaritsa Alexandra, a small boy, and their father Nicholas Alexandrovich Romanov were all on a train to Moscow or a foreign exiled place.
However, the family was being taken to Ekaterinburg, the historic hub of Russia’s at the time penal system. It is there where they would meet their untimely death.
So how did they get to that awful day?
To start, Nicholas was an unlikely king since the beginning. He did not have political ability, and physically, he was 5ft 7in. And unfortunately, he could not complete the job, ending up giving Alexandra political control.
Alexandra was absolutely spellbound by Grigory Rasputin, as she believed he was a “holy man” who could save her haemophiliac son Alexey.
With continuing political turmoil, Nicholas decided it would be best to leave Russia in 1917.
They hid out in a cottage in Ekaterinburg, advised to keep inside and not peek out the windows. Daily life become excruciating for the family, as Alexey’s health plummutted.
The then 13-year-old had been suffering from a recurring haemorrhage in his knee, and doctors had already claimed he would not reach the age of 16.
And things weren’t getting better outside of the cottage, either. The civil war was fully on, which was increasingly gaining on Ekaterinburg.
On Tuesday, July 16, Yakov Yurovsky’s men were putting their plan together for the execution of the Romanovs. Some saw the children and said they wouldn’t kill them. They were sent away and replaced.
After evening prayers, they went to bed. In the early hours of the following day, they were woken up and told the White Army was coming and would have to go hide downstairs. They all got ready to either be saved or to run.
The Tsar was heard to turn and say to his daughters, “Well, we’re going to get out of this place.” Many have theorists this proves he was indeed a martyr, and knew all along of what was about to happen.
Their assassins drank tons of vodka and then came downstairs, reading out their death sentence. As the family looked confused and shocked, one man shot the Tsar at a point-blank range in the chest.
Other guards fired, and because they were drunk, shot very clumsily. The next shot was to the Tsaritsa in the left side of her skull. Their clumsiness caused the daughters to suffer a long and painful death.
Alexey was the last to die, wearing an undergarment sewn with jewels that protected him. He was finally shot in the head and killed.
July 17, 2018 will mark the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik murder of the Romanov Royal Family.
Pictured: The Romanov Grand Duchesses (from left) Olga, Tatiana, Marie and Anastasia. pic.twitter.com/TlxVEFVK20
— Jake (@s_decatur) January 2, 2018
