Time of execution

hullo, I was wondering, what was the exact time of the execution. I have heard conflicting answers, so I was just wondering.

We have no exact time reference. The best we can do is deduce the time from the statements. We know it was "well after midnight", but also long enough before daybreak...Best estimate is probably around 230-300 am.

We have no exact time reference. The best we can do is deduce the time from the statements. We know it was "well after midnight", but also long enough before daybreak...Best estimate is probably around 230-300 am.

Actually, I was under the impression that Sokolov in his "Rapport" had actually arrived at a more-or-less confirmed conclusion that they were awoken around 02h00, dressed, herded downstairs at around 02h15 and then murdered at around 02h30.

I do not have a copy of Sokolov with me and I am just working from memory.

I do not know if Yurovsky mentioned it but frankly I would not believe it either.

There was an excellent investigation commissioned by Pope Benedict through the various Papal Nuncii, and I am wondering if anyone on this site has seen or read that "Rapport"?

Radzinsky and all of the modern authors would have only relied upon secondary sources.

So Belochka, David, Tania, Lisa, do of you have a copy of the  Sokolov Report in the original Russian?

Do any of you have a copy of, or have you read a copy, of the very detailed report submitted to Pope Benedict?  It surely must exist in the Vatican Library.


Alex P.

hullo, I was wondering, what was the exact time of the execution. I have heard conflicting answers, so I was just wondering.

Nightwatchman Peter Tsetsegov was stationed on Voznesensky Prospekt on the night of the murders. He was about half-a-mile away from the Ipatiev House. A truck approached him from the direction of the Ipatiev House and turned off towards Verkh-Isetsk and the Koptiyaki Forest at 3:00 AM exactly.

This info is from Tsetsegov's statement to Sokolov.

~Penny

Ive heard it was between Midnight and 5 am :-/

We have no exact time reference. The best we can do is deduce the time from the statements. We know it was "well after midnight", but also long enough before daybreak...Best estimate is probably around 230-300 am.

Actually, I was under the impression that Sokolov in his "Rapport" had actually arrived at a more-or-less confirmed conclusion that they were awoken around 02h00, dressed, herded downstairs at around 02h15 and then murdered at around 02h30.

I do not have a copy of Sokolov with me and I am just working from memory.

I do not know if Yurovsky mentioned it but frankly I would not believe it either.

Radzinsky and all of the modern authors would have only relied upon secondary sources.

So Belochka, David, Tania, Lisa, do of you have a copy of the  Sokolov Report in the original Russian?

Alex P.

[size=10]Dear Alex,

I will check my Russian language Sokolov and including a few very recent Russian publications written by academicians who personally sifted through the Russian Archive files.

I believe that FA is close to the mark that it was indeed soon after 2 am. After midnight struck, they were given the opportunity to change from their bedclothes into day wear.

All the best,

Margarita[/size][/color]

We have no exact time reference. The best we can do is deduce the time from the statements. We know it was "well after midnight", but also long enough before daybreak...Best estimate is probably around 230-300 am.

Actually, I was under the impression that Sokolov in his "Rapport" had actually arrived at a more-or-less confirmed conclusion that they were awoken around 02h00, dressed, herded downstairs at around 02h15 and then murdered at around 02h30.

I do not have a copy of Sokolov with me and I am just working from memory.

So Belochka, David, Tania, Lisa, do of you have a copy of the  Sokolov Report in the original Russian?

Alex P.

Hi Alex!
 
Scanning through the various eyewitness depositions in Sokolov's <<[ch1059][ch1073][ch1080][ch1081][ch1089][ch1090][ch1074][ch1086] [ch1062][ch1072][ch1088][ch1089][ch1082][ch1086][ch1081] [ch1057][ch1077][ch1084][ch1100][ch1080]>>  no exact time was given in the book.
 
What we do have are a set of times that offer us a rough estimate as to when the execution was carried out.
 
The majority of depositions who mentioned a time; concurred that soon after midnight the prisoners were awoken, whereby Dr Botkin proceeded to awake the remainder of the prisoners.
 
At 2 am Medvedev and Dobrynin approached the guards and informed them that the assassination was to take place that morning. In addition their watch was to be extended a further two hours (2 - 4 am).
 
At 3 am some of the guards were summoned by Medvedev down to the basement to wash down the floor and walls.
 
Thus from this brief sample we are able to identify that the assassination occured soon after 2 am and that the crime scene was being cleaned after the removal of all the corpses just before 3 am.
 
Critical to the timing, it was daylight at 4 am according to one guard.
 
[ch1052][ch1072][ch1088][ch1075][ch1072][ch1088][ch1080][ch1090][ch1072]

Testimony of Anatol Yakimov, Red Guard man and one of the Tsar's guards, at the inquest on the Tsar's murder held before Alexeiev, officer in the White Russian Kolchak army:
"About four o'clock in the morning I and the other sentries were woken by Kleschev, sho was shouting in great excitement: "I must give you some news. Come into the other room. Tonight the Tsar has been shot." We asked him how it had happened, and he related how Medvedev, followed by Dobrynin, had come up to them to tell them that they must remain on sentry duty after two a.m. because the Tsar was going to be shot. Kleshchev looked through the hall window leading on to the garden, while Deriabin watched the window fom which the room of the murder got its light - a window opening on to Vosnessenski Lane. It was about one in the morning by the old time or three by the new, when people entered the ground floor and Room 1; Kleshchev could clearly see them crossing the yard and going through the hall door: Yorovski and Nikulin in front, followed by the Tsar, the Tsarina, their daughters, Botkin, Demidova, Trupp and the cook Charitonov....Through his window Deriabin could see Yurovski saying something and making a movement with his hand...and at that moment shots were fired. All revolver shots. After the first of them, the moaning and groaning of women's voices could be heard.

Kind regards
ChatNoir

Testimony of Anatol Yakimov, Red Guard man and one of the Tsar's guards, at the inquest on the Tsar's murder held before Alexeiev, officer in the White Russian Kolchak army:
"About four o'clock in the morning I and the other sentries were woken by Kleschev, sho was shouting in great excitement: "I must give you some news. Come into the other room. Tonight the Tsar has been shot." We asked him how it had happened, and he related how Medvedev, followed by Dobrynin, had come up to them to tell them that they must remain on sentry duty after two a.m. because the Tsar was going to be shot. Kleshchev looked through the hall window leading on to the garden, while Deriabin watched the window fom which the room of the murder got its light - a window opening on to Vosnessenski Lane. It was about one in the morning by the old time or three by the new, when people entered the ground floor and Room 1; Kleshchev could clearly see them crossing the yard and going through the hall door: Yorovski and Nikulin in front, followed by the Tsar, the Tsarina, their daughters, Botkin, Demidova, Trupp and the cook Charitonov....Through his window Deriabin could see Yurovski saying something and making a movement with his hand...and at that moment shots were fired. All revolver shots. After the first of them, the moaning and groaning of women's voices could be heard.

Kind regards
ChatNoir

GuangZhou, PRC
2006.06.25

Bien cher ChatNoir,

Vous m'en ferez bien pardon...mais je remets en question this quotation.  Where does it come from?  Can you provide a definite source?  Alexeeiv is a rather common surname, Yakimov is a bit strange, to say the least, see clearly through a window into the basement of a building at 03h00 in the morning, with enough clarity to deduce hand movements, identify persons, recognize Yurovsky...sorry, I do not want to be impolite...but this sounds like a bit of a canard here.

Firstly, there was a barrier all around the entire Ipatiev house.  Secondly, this business about changed times...can you affirm this...when did Russia change times?  Next, down on the lane, with a thick wooden fence, a guard could clearly hear the moanings of women?  How did he know that they were the moanings of women?

This sounds like a serious piece of disinformation to me.  Please provide first-hand sources with references.

Alex P.

Mon Cher Alex P.

(Votre Francais est vraiment bien.)

The testimony comes, as stated, from the inquest on the Tsar's murder held before an officer in the white Russian Kolchak army.

The room where the execution took place, was not a "basement" as I have understood, just a low lying room across the courtyard. Deriabin apparently watched the window from which the room of the murder got its light. (Sounds a little strange to me, too, that the murderers worked in the light from a distant window. There must have been som light source in the room itself.)

As for the 2 hours time difference, the "new" and "old" time, I have seen references to it earlier, but I cannot elaborate.

The moaning and groaning of women could probably be heard across the courtyard from an open window, the night was rather still apart from the truck idling outside.

Kind regards,
ChatNoir

GuangZhou, PRC
le samedi 2006.06.26

Bien cher Monsieur,

Vous  tournez en rond comme on dit et je remarque que vous n'avez pas daigné vous préciser quant aux sources de base.....

Until you can actually produce a definitive report by an officer of the White Army named Alexeiev to a man named Yakimov, this is still disinformation as far as I am concerned.  The details simply do not mesh with what we know.  See Radzinsky, among others.  The time difference gives by a new time and an old time gives it away.

So what you are writing is what is known in Russian "adna baba skazala"....

Mes regrets, Monsieur, mais c'est de la postiche, n'est-ce pas?


Alex P.
GuangZhou, PRC

Sorry, Alex, I cannot produce anything else than I find in books. And if you have such big problems with that, you are definitely free to do your own research and prove this testimony wrong. Let's see what you can come up with.

Kind regards
ChatNoir

GuangZhou, PRC
2006.06.26

Dear Chat Noir,

Then let me ask you very politely and very plainly:

1.  What is the name of the book in which you found this information -- since you mention that it came from a book?

2.   Where was this book published and in what language and by whom?

Indeed it is good to quote books.  No doubt about that.  It is even better, I think, but I could be wrong, to be able to ascribe a name, a title and an author to a book that you are citing as a reference point.  Am I wrong?

All the best,

Alex P.

You are so right, I should have quoted my source right away.

The book is "Ich, Anastasia, erzähle" with notes by Roland Krug von Nidda. The English translation is called "I am Anastasia". It was first published in 1957 by Verlag Heinrich Scheffer G.m.b.H. in Germany.  In America, it was published in 1958 by Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York. If you are interested in obtaining it, www.abebooks.com is a good web site for finding old and out of print books. Just be aware that this book was written without Anna Andersen's approval and I have been reading it with "a grain of salt."

Kind regards
ChatNoir

You are so right, I should have quoted my source right away.

The book is "Ich, Anastasia, erzähle" with notes by Roland Krug von Nidda. The English translation is called "I am Anastasia". It was first published in 1957 by Verlag Heinrich Scheffer G.m.b.H. in Germany.  In America, it was published in 1958 by Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York. If you are interested in obtaining it, www.abebooks.com is a good web site for finding old and out of print books. Just be aware that this book was written without Anna Andersen's approval and I have been reading it with "a grain of salt."

Kind regards
ChatNoir

Well, at least we now know that your source is not not only a primary source of any kind but  is a thorougly discredited work in and of itself.  That is why there is no Admiral Kolchak, and Yakimov never existed, and as for the details of the execution, "de la fumerie".  For the rest of our readers, please lump this book together with the non-existant Maria Molchanow's Memoires.    The author of this "biography" is not determined, and supposedly it was written by Anna Anderson's lawyer, who did not write it, and just about everything in it belongs more in the movie "Anastasia" with Ingrid Berman than in real life.  Incidentally, its release followed the huge movie success of Anastasia.  What a coincidence!

I thought for a moment that you actually had access to something serious, like the Kolchak archives.