Photos at Ipatyev House?

[Guinastasia]

Well, I can't really imagine them wanting any photos to remember of that time, even if they didn't know they were going to die.

And two, the guards probably didn't want any photos taken-no records?

I think I saw a "last known photo" that was supposedly the last known recorded picture of the girls and Alix, but I don't remember which book.

As for the bodies, I've only seen concept sketches and the famous picture of the basement after the murders.

[Jmentanko]

I've always thought that the last known photo was the one of Alexei in Ekaterinburg. He's got his hands up in the air, cops and robbers style.

[Sunny]

JM, that is the one I always thought of as the last.

Sunny

[Mark_Byron]

I know the photo you are referring to. It's actually one of my favorites. But that's another thread, I think.
Looking through my books I could only find it in Peter Kurth's "The Lost World" included in the Tobolsk chapter. I don't think that was the book I came upon it first. So where was it published first and or describing it as a photo taken at the Ipatyev House?

[Jmentanko]

Gee, I just don't know Penny. There seems to be a different caption everywhere you look. Oh well, I'll just go with Rus.

[Belochka]

As I mentioned earlier the folder did appear to be touched up and is very old publication. It could very well depict bodies from the Civil War or from the famine of the 1920's. The image portrayed however did ascribe the pile of bodies belonged to the Imperial Family, and they were not draped, making the image even more gruesome.

What is important to consider is that the folder was certainly a Soviet tool used for the purposes of propaganda. Whether its distribution within the Soviet Union was widespread is now a moot point. While its existence cannot be denied, its credibility can.  

[frankie]

Hi:
I think theres a little of confussion here about that pictures that are suposed to be the Romanovs that show dead people covered with white blankets.
I think they are Romanovs  not the imperial family though  but the ones that died in Alapayevsk  This pictures were taken by the investigators who found the bodies. ( you can see that pictures in : " The Sokolov investigation" book where he says who they are)
I have just seen drawings of the executions that som bolshevik artists made. I have seen 3 of that drawings.
I hope this help.

[Chris Snyder]

I just love this site and have been following it since its creation.  I have also contributed several threads.  I do this as it lets me air my "opinons" on the matter and at the same time it allows me to view others "opinions" which is  the basis of a free society, and allows me to see other ideas which I might not have known or seen otherwise.

This thread has me puzzled though, and therefore, I feel compelled to post a reply which might be challenged or replied upon.  

I do not recall ever seeing or for that matter, hearing, about any photos publised about OTAA during thier stay aboard the "Rus".  Can anyone direct me to these photos, as I would love to  view them?

Also, there are arguably two or three photos which , may, show the Romanovs at the Ipatiev House during thier captivity.  But, as it has been shown,  the Communists penchant for "hiding" or "falsifying" any materials relating to the Romanovs, how can we know if there were any real photos?  We only recently learned (1990's) of lists of jewels and items that were found at the Ipatiev house that were kept secret for decades. And not to mention documents and articles relating to the last Czars reign.   I am at this point, not inclined to believe ANYTHING that Communist records show towards the Imperial Family's stay at Ipatiev.  Let alone photos or other such documents.  I prefer to remember them as they were, beautiful and Imperial.

[Belochka]

Perhaps GARF will reveal other new material in due course, including a few photographs from the Ipatiev period. I find it very difficult to believe that all photography of the Family ceased right at this point. One thing the Soviets were good at and that was maintaining meticulous records.

Chris there are 3 photographs taken by Gibbes onboard the Rus in Kurth's book: Tsar The Lost world of Nicholas and Alexandra @ pp 188-9.

There is another photograph with Alexei's arms extended upwards. From memory it was taken several feet away in half light. It is located in another book, which I am unable to find it at the moment. Will keep searching...

[Belochka]

There are a number of photographs taken of some of the personal effects found at the Ipatiev House in the reference listed below. Also included is a color photograph of the blade from a Winchester Rifle which was used to murder the Family. In addition there are photographs of some of the rooms inside the house. A color plan of the Ipatiev house is also provided.

All these images were derived from an exhibition in the U.S. in 1998 and can be found in the companion book:

Nicholas and Alexandra The Last Imperial Family of Tsarist Russia G. Vilinbakhov et al. pp 369 -385.  

[Greg_King]

Perhaps GARF will reveal other new material in due course, including a few photographs from the Ipatiev period. I find it very difficult to believe that all photography of the Family ceased right at this point.

The problem, as I posted earlier, is that their cameras were taken away on arrival in Ekaterinburg.  When the Grand Duchesses asked for them back, they were refused.  It's therefore not that the family simply ceased to take pictures, it's that they couldn't-they had no equipment with which to do so, unless someone smuggled a camera to them.

Greg King

[Belochka]

Greg, I am not refering to any of the cameras which were in the possession of the Imperial Family or any of their retainers which were indeed confiscated.

I find it very difficult to believe that to date there have not been any published photographs which were taken by a person of authority within the Ural Regional Soviet and/or by the local Cheka for the purpose of official documentation. By virtue of their status as political prisoners newly arrived in Ekaterinburg, the verification of their presence in that city would surely have necessitated this procedure to be carried out?

There is one photograph in Steinberg and Khrustalev's book between pp 124 - 5 (# 29) which provides an image of the Ipatiev house with sentries standing infront of the wooden palisade allegedly taken a few days after the arrival of the Imperial Family. It would not seem unreasonable to believe that there there must have been photographs taken inside the containment.    

[Pravoslavnaya]

Perhaps GARF will reveal other new material in due course, including a few photographs from the Ipatiev period. I find it very difficult to believe that all photography of the Family ceased right at this point. One thing the Soviets were good at and that was maintaining meticulous records.

Chris there are 3 photographs taken by Gibbes onboard the Rus in Kurth's book: Tsar The Lost world of Nicholas and Alexandra @ pp 188-9.

There is another photograph with Alexei's arms extended upwards. From memory it was taken several feet away in half light. It is located in another book, which I am unable to find it at the moment. Will keep searching...

As to that particular photograph of the suffering Alexei:  It appears in Radzinsky's book as 'the last photograph taken of Alexei before his death',  but also on page 102 of J. C. Trewin's  'The House of Special Purpose'  (AKA 'Tutor to the Tsarevich') where it is described as 'a faded photograph', and from the context most likely taken at Tobolsk.  Please correct me with any better information on this!  Incidentally: that photo, with the Heir holding his hands up, has elicited a well-written sequence in Robert Alexander's 'The Kitchen Boy'.

[Belochka]

Hi Pravoslavnaya.

The photograph you mention in Trewin's book is found in the chapter titled Last Journey which deals with the Gibbes' final journey onboard the Rus before his separation from the Imperial children.

The same photograph which appears in Radzinsky's book (between pp 336 - 7) is captioned differently. He believed that same photograph was taken at the Ipatiev house, which is obviously an incorrect assessment. Also of interest is Radzinsky's photograph of the Ipatiev house. It was taken during winter, some time either before or after the presence of the Imperial family. There is no evidence of an enclosure which was constructed during the relevant period.

All the photographs provided in both these books and similarily in all other publications covering this period do not provide us with images inside the Ipatiev House or its compound during the actual time the Imperial Family resided there. We can only glimpse inside this house in the absence of the Imperial family.

[Greg_King]

We have probably a hundred or so photographs of the Ipatiev House itself, taken from May 1918 onward, including some unusual views, unpublished interiors, and quite a few given to us by a scholar in London from the 1950s, but we had so little in "Fate of the Romanovs" that it was impossible to use more than a handful.  To the best of my knowledge, no photographs were taken during the period of captivity inside the house or showing the prisoners.  There is certainly no mention of this in any of the minutes of the Presidium of the Ural Regional Soviet that we have, nor in the various accounts left by Avdayev, Yurovsky, a number of guards, the guard duty book-which recorded everything that happened, down to reporting "nothing happened"-or the diaries and letters of the prisoners themselves.  Had this been done, I think there would be some mention somewhere.  I don't say it's impossible, but based on the evidence so far available I think it's most unlikely.

Greg King