did the children have the right to leave russia after the revolution?

How are Prince and Princess Mikhail Contacuzene related to Nicholas*Alexandra? Were they close to them; or were they just another part of the nobility who had the sense to see approaching danger?
Nicholas and Alexandra did have a habit of not seeing the obvious which was happening around them; though how they could not see approaching danger when they were under arrest is beyond me. Ive also read that the governments who were trying to let the IF in were having problems because of Nicholas and especially Alexandra; but if they weren't part of the ticket, it would have been a much easier sell. But knowing how dependent on each other this family was, I don't know if any of the daughters surviving while knowing their parents (and possibly brother) were dead wouldn't have been horrible for them.

But I never saw any evidence that there was a particular murderous intent towards the children. I tend to think they were collateral victims - killed because they had stayed with their parents - not because anyone lusted for their blood.

I agree with this. Yurovsky justified murdering Nicholas and Alexandra, but he grew to like the children, particularly Tatiana and Alexei, and said in his memoirs that the overall pleasantness of the family made his position difficult.

In the case of Lenin, apparently he was opposed to the killing of the Tsar's children from the beginning and hoped to try solely the Tsar for crimes against the Russian people in Moscow. Obviously that never happened.[/quote]

First of all, it was a murder, not an execution.

I understand your point, but an execution is a state-sanctioned murder, and executions are always legal by standards of the state committing them. The Romanovs were political prisoners and murder by order of the[regional] government (executed).

The Cantacuzenes were not closely associated with Nicholas and Alexandra, but simply members of the nobility. Prince C had been an ADC to Nikolai Nikolaievich and was a Major-General. The point I'm making is that some members of the nobility were able to stand back, think clearly and take decisions which, while doubtless difficult. were for the best.

Selencia
You are quite right about Nicholas and Alexandra's inability to see what was right under their noses.

As I understand it, the Provisional Government took very little interest in the wider Imperial Family, and simply allowed them to go on living quietly in Petrograd and elsewhere, though things would probably have been different if any had tried to involve themselves in politics. It was only after the Bolshevik Revolution that there was any rounding up. On that basis, the Provisional Government would probably have been prepared to allow the Grand Duchesses to go free, at any rate, and finding a country prepared to take them might not have been that difficult.

On Nicholas and Alexandra's somewhat suffocating devotion to their children, I can't help wondering how they would have reacted had Alexei been a few years older, and healthy, and reached military age during the war. Doubtless he would have been itching to get to the Front, but would his parents have let him? We know that the Duke of Windsor chafed at the bit severely at not being allowed into the front line in case he was taken prisoner, and the future George VI took part in the Battle of Jutland. Greegory P Tcherbatarioff write in 'Russia: My Native Land', that when he left school in the summer of 1916 he was keen to join up, but being only 17 he needed his father's permission. Since his father was at the time a prisoner of war in Germany this presented practical problems. But the young man and his mother cooked up a message in code, to which the father, a Colonel in the Guard Artillery, replied, stipulating only that Tcherbatarioff go to the Mikhailovsky Artillery School and then into his old unit. Would Alexandra have reacted in similar fashion or tried to keep her 'Baby' at her bosom?

Ann

Pretending that Alexei was not a hemophiliac I highly doubt his parents would have even let him join the military let alone go to the front. I admit I only have England to look at for precedence with this, and in that country the heir seems to never be allowed to go to war no matter what. Prince William apparently has shown some agitation that his little brother got to go to Afghanistan but he has continuously been denied. Seeing as how Alexei was not only the heir but the only son, it seems highly unlikely that his parents would even entertain the idea.
Now bringing back Alexei's hemophilia, it would be a combination of him a) being the heir and the only son and b) having hemophilia and possibly dying from something as little as a smack across the head (exaggeration).
I have to wonder if Alexandra and Nicholas suspected that they would be under arrest and put on trial why the heck they didn't think to get their children to safety! Yes Alexei was sickly and the daughters were recovering for an illness while the revolution was going on; but did N*A really not think that sending the children away would be in their best interest? Both parents were suffocating and stifling to their children (a habit Nicholas apparently got from his mother); perhaps they discussed it and the older children refused to leave. Then again, like I have said before, a parent can force their child to safety even if they refuse to go.
As to the original question, the children didn't seem to be prisoners during the provisional government at least; I assume when they got to the Ipatiev House they had become prisoners. 

I doubt they would have left without their parents - except maybe to safeguard Alexei.

They probably could have left while their parents were imprisioned in the Alexander Palace, but it seems that they were an extremely close family. I doubt that even if Kerensky's men had highly encouraged them to leave, they wouldn't have - if they had a choice. If they didn't . . . well, I feel certain that they would have left very regretfully. I don't know if it has anything to do with their parent's so-called over-protectiveness, or anything - IMO, they wouldn't have WANTED to leave, regardless of their parents let them.

maybe some really religious people would see a vocation in all of them to become martyrs perhaps ...

I know that Alexander III went to war with his father Alexander II while Alexander III was tsarevich.  I have asked the question in other threads as to who ruled the country while the Tsar and his heir were at the front.  I don't ever remember reading that Marie Alexandrovna ruled.

As to the illness suffered by the daughters at Alexander Palace.  I think because no one truly experiences measles anymore, we have forgotten how dangerous the disease is.  I am not defending Nicholas and especially Alexandra for not letting the young people leave, but I don't think that they were well enough to travel.

Measles can cause deafness and blindness and, of course, sterility in males.  From what I have read Tatiana was very deaf as she recovered from her measles.

Also, I believe at that time both Nicholas and Alexandra believed that they would be given asylum and there was no reason to break up the family.

Alixz, the Emperor could appoint anyone he liked for a regent in his absence.  That is not unusual in any monarchy. However, there was, as a safe guard, just as today, an "Imperial Council" that would watch and ratify any actions taken by such a regent. Of course, in the Russian Empire, the Emperor also appointed them.

As to the illness suffered by the daughters at Alexander Palace.  I think because no one truly experiences measles anymore, we have forgotten how dangerous the disease is.  I am not defending Nicholas and especially Alexandra for not letting the young people leave, but I don't think that they were well enough to travel.

Measles can cause deafness and blindness and, of course, sterility in males.  From what I have read Tatiana was very deaf as she recovered from her measles.

I can understand this. Measles seems so odd, a childish illness, but it is not. Neither nowadays. I was a premature baby (6 months and a half instead of 9) and i had a heart operation due to this. Now i'm completely fine and had no further health problems, but mypediatrician wanted me to have a vaccination against measles, because he feared that, since i was weaker than healthy babies, i would have suffered very much in case of illness. Do you know? Vaccination against measles is not like the others. You can HAVE the illness anyway; but in a less heavy way. It is really a terrible illness, IMHO.

I didn't know about sterility in males. I know this was caused by parotitis, not measles. Thanks for the info, Alixz!

About the sterility, I might have confused measles with mumps.  I have been trying to find where I read it, but so far no good.

Growing up I had measles at 14 and was terribly sick.  I had mumps when I was 8, but I don't remember too much about it.  Every child had Chicken Pox when I was a kid.  I still have the scars where I scratched.

I don't think I had Rubella which we called German Measles when I was young.

When I was 5, I lived near a river that flooded its banks due to heavy rains from a hurricane and took out the center of most of the towns that lined it.  Cemeteries gave up their coffins and the dead floated in the river along with dead animals and houses and cars and trains.  It was a huge flood.  Everyone had to get typhoid shots and injections against all kinds of other diseases that no one hears about any more.  I didn't grow up in a third world country.  This happened right here in the USA.

I think it is mumps, Alixz.
 As for the children, despite the measles, and with their squadron of  doctors and nurses, I think they could have left.
 Having said that, I do not think any of them would have wanted to.
 Those kids knew absolutely no one outside of their very isolated  social circle. They were pretty lame and way too naive.  How would they have functioned outside of the  bonded family ? What would they do ? Who would look after them ? They most likely would have been emotional basket cases and  not of much value on the royal, what was left of it, marriage market.

Measles does vary in severity. I had it when I was three and don't remember much about it, but it was certainly nowhere near life-threatening (the main thing I remember was that my father came home from work every day with a jigsaw for me, so if I was capable of doing jigsaws I couldn't have been that ill).

I suspect that it tends to be more serious nowadays because no one has any degree of natural immunity. Quite possibly the reason that Maria and Tatiana had measles so badly was that they lived isolated lives and that affected their immune systems.

Quite possibly the reason that Maria and Tatiana had measles so badly was that they lived isolated lives and that affected their immune systems.

I wonder if it's also like chicken pox, which tends to affect adults much more severely than children.

I believe that it is more severe for adults.

But the original question is "Did the children have the right to leave Russia after the revolution?"  and the answer is yes.  They were not under arrest by the Provisional Government and could have gone if they were able.

However after the second revolution the question is more complex.