The Final Photo of the Romanovs: This Same Night God Left Russia

by Carole Raymer.

It is difficult to know precisely what to make of this book. The author claims to have spent thirty years researching the topic, but it is apparent from a first look that any reading she has done has been cursory at best. Her Bibliography consists of five books: The Last Romantic, by Hannah Pakula; Nicholas and Alexandra, by Robert Massie; The Last Tsar: The Life and Death of Nicholas II, by Edvard Radzinsky; The Sokolov Investigation, by John O'Conor; and The Last Empress: The Life and Times of Alexandra Feodorovna, Tsarina of Russia, by Greg King. For a book which focuses on the murder of the Romanovs in general, and the lives of Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich and his wife Victoria Melita, this short list is woefully inadequate: the author has apparently not read or referenced any of the major works on the murder of the Imperial Family, Grand Duke Kirill's autobiography, nor any of the recent biographical works which deal with Grand Duchess Victoria. Nor are there are footnotes or references to source material.

The book is largely composed of a story cobbled together from a series of letters, postcards and photographs which apparently came into the author's possession at a garage sale more than thirty years ago. The majority of these seem to have been in the possession of either Grand Duke Kirill or his wife, or a member of their Household.

It is difficult to even term this a book, in the real sense of the word. With just over a hundred pages, of which more than half consist of photographs, and a large type point used for the text, the written portion runs to just over fifteen pages. These consist largely of translations of postcards, letters, and documents, and even here, errors are replete. A letter from King Edward VII, signed "Bertie," is said to have come from some mysterious figure named "Birdie;" Grand Duchess Vladimir is called "Meachum;" and even the reproductions from cards written in English are mis-transcribed in the text.

The author contends that she has in her possession a photograph which shows the bodies of the Romanovs; she also reproduces, at some length, a document concerned with rightful ownership of money sent to the Ukraine to fight the Bolsheviks. These two topics comprise the majority of the text in the book.

Concerning the second topic, it is the author's contention that the reproduced document somehow proves that Grand Duke Kirill was involved in a deal with the German Army in Russia to assassinate the Imperial Family in Ekaterinburg. A careful reading of the actual document reveals nothing other than the issue of under whose control the money sent to the fight the Bolsheviks should fall. It appears that a third party, on behalf of Grand Duke Kirill, drafted the document, in an effort to convince authorities to hand over the money to the monarchists. There is nothing sinister in this, nor in the Grand Duke's efforts to obtain the funds to use for the monarchist cause. Ms. Raymer has done nothing to demonstrate that there is any connection between this document and the murder of the Romanovs; indeed, most of her allegations are made through insinuation. Nor does she attempt to follow these insinuations with any hard evidence to suggest a connection between Kirill and the murder of the Romanovs.

The real focus of the book, however, is on the photograph allegedly showing the bodies of the Imperial Family, which is reproduced on the front cover. The photograph is the raison d'etre for the publication of the book; unfortunately, under careful examination, it completely falls apart, and can be eliminated as what would certainly be a document of great historical value: a photograph showing the bodies of the Imperial Family in the murder room of the Ipatiev House.

There are a multitude of problems contained in the photograph. Having studied this case for twenty five years, been through all of the original Sokolov papers and Sergeyev documents (the second White invesigator who photographed the Ipatiev House and the murder room), and now owning many unpublished photos of the house including the murder room itself taken in 1918, I can state with certainty that the photo is not in fact a photograph taken in the murder room in the Ipatiev House.

The length of the murder room was seventeen feet long, by fourteen feet wide. The two long walls--one against the corridor, one against the inner storeroom, were thus seventeen feet long. Each had a set of double doors in them; the doors on the storeroom wall were placed on the right hand side, directly against the pier on which the vaulted ceiling rested, while the ones in the other wall, that between the murder room and the corridor, were placed directly in the center of that wall, not in the corner, as shown in a diagram of the room the author has included to support her contention. These two sets of doors were measured as being just over five feet wide. The piers in the four corners of the room were measured as being twelve inches on each side. Thus, on the wall between the murder room and the corridor, measuring seventeen feet long, we have two feet automatically taken at either end where the piers stick out, leaving a wall length of fifteen feet. And in the middle of those fifteen feet precisely at the center was a set of double doors, just over five feet wide, leaving just under five feet to either side of the doors. The wall space shown in the photograph reproduced is clearly more than five feet to the side of the door, as one can see at least four, if not five, bodies placed against the wall. Assuming an average body width of not more than two feet, this would equal between eight to ten feet--and if this was the murder room, the bodies closest to the photographer would therefore be lying directly in the middle of the open door; as they are not, therefore, this cannot be the cellar room in the Ipatiev House. Moreover, the doors from the corridor into the murder room only opened inward, whereas the doors out of view in the photograph are clearly opened outward, into an adjoining room.

Then, too, the piers supporting the vaulted ceiling were twelve inches on each side; these clearly are not the thin line shown in the corner of the photograph, which appears only to be a shadow. Were this the murder room in the Ipatiev House, the twelve-inch-by-twelve-inch pier would certainly be more prominent.

Against the wall containing the window in the murder room, there was a wainscot, with the lower portion of the wall being thicker than the upper portion, and this lower portion rose to a height of four feet; clearly, this is not the case in the photograph, which shows no differentiation in the wall. Moreover, the window in the murder room was set directly above this wainscot, thus, at a height of four feet, whereas the window in the photograph is much lower, perhaps two-three feet from the floor. Also, the window in the murder room was arched, with a rounded top, and not square, as is the one shown in the photograph. The floor shown in the photograph appears to be composed of dirt, as is evident from its uneven surfaces, or roughly poured and un-smoothed concrete, while the floor in the murder room was composed of yellow pine boards, laid in a horizontal pattern, and can clearly be discerned in photographs from the Sokolov and Sergeyev dossiers.

Finally, the photograph shows a light fixture hanging from the center of the room; we have now learned, from unpublished photographs of the murder room taken in August 1918, that the only light fixture in the room was an electric light with a glass shade, and that this was located high on the wall opposite the window, and did not hang from the ceiling, and thus would not have been visible in any photograph taken from the angle depicted.

Further looking at the photograph, one can see what appears to be the edge of a garden bench visible in the lower right hand corner of the window; there was no such garden bench outside the window of the murder room at the Ipatiev House. It is also clear that one can detect the top of some sort of fence or palisade, just above the lower exterior portion of the window, whereas the palisade outside the actual Ipatiev House and the cellar room rose to a height of fifteen feet, and blocked off not only views out of the basement windows but also the windows of the rooms above, where the Imperial Family slept.

The author contends that Yurovsky, whom she continually refers to as "Yakov," ordered the Fiat truck pulled round to the side of the murder room and ordered the driver to shine his headlights in through the window, thus illuminating the room. This ignores the fact that the photograph was clearly taken in daylight; not only does it appear to be sunshine spilling through the window, but also a great deal of light from the (apparent) unseen doors just beyond the right hand side of the photographic frame.

With this palisade in place, it would not be possible for the lights of a truck to shine over or through the palisade into the murder room. Further, from the ten or more previously unpublished accounts we have recently obtained from Russia written by participants in the murder, the truck itself was not parked outside the murder room, but rather backed up into the main gate to the courtyard, which was at the opposite end of the Ipatiev House. This was the only way to take the bodies out of the house, as the wooden palisade which surrounded the house, was affixed to the walls of the house with iron bars and spikes, and thus there was no entrance or exit through it on the side of the house where the murder room was located.

It is obvious that the author has a photograph which does in fact depict some corpses; there appear to be bloodstains on the walls above them, which would indicate that some violence was done in the room, though not necessarily to the bodies wrapped in sheets. If these were in fact the Romanov bodies, they would have been soaked in blood, and, as one can see from the photo, there is only a brief bit of possible bloodstaining on the lower portion of the first sheet.

On close study, it is not apparent that the stains on the floor are blood; they could be blood, but they could be water. It also seems as if one can detect, in the first body closest in the photograph, features, especially teeth, which appear somewhat skeletal, which, coupled with what appear to be skeletal limbs, suggest that the bodies might not be recently deceased.

In short, the photo could depict anyone, at any time, and not necessarily be connected to the Romanovs at all. It is certainly not taken in the murder room in the Ipatiev House. From the accounts we have, we also know that the Bolsheviks did not first wrap all of the bodies in sheets at one time, but rather that this process was done as each body was carried out to the truck.

There are any number of possibilities as to what the photo might represent. It could show the exhumed bodies of the victims shot at Perm by the Bolsheviks, which included members of the Imperial Household including Catherine Schneider, the Empress's Lectrice, Anastasia Hendrikova, one of the children's tutors, General Tatischev, an aide-de-camp to the Emperor, and several others. It could also depict the bodies of the victims at Alapayevsk, which included the Empress's sister Grand Duchess Elizabeth, and other victims belonging to the Romanov family. It could also show the bodies of the four Grand Dukes who were assassinated in the Fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul in January, 1919.

This assumes, of course, that the bodies are Romanov bodies. As they are shrouded, however, there is simply no clue as to who they might be. Thousands of people were killed in 1918 in the Civil War, and the bodies shown could simply be any number of those who lost their lives. In short, there is nothing to link these bodies with the Imperial Family. Given the fact that we can demonstrate that the photograph was not taken in the murder room of the Ipatiev House, there is no reason to believe that the bodies depicted are in any manner connected with the Romanov Dynasty.

The book does contain some interesting information and photographs, mainly of Kirill and his family, as well as previously unpublished views of their children. Several of the postcards and letters from Victoria Melita are also of interest. For the Romanov completist, the book might be a worthwhile addition to a library for these few elements. Ultimately, however, the numerous difficulties contained in the text and the main photograph undermine the value of the book for any but the most dedicated of Romanov collectors.