Olga's pistol

[Belochka]

Sorry livadiarose ...

... all I can see is a small purse and what look like a pair of gloves with a tiny spheroid shaped finish. There is a second glove placed below which has the same sized balls - of which I can see three. The item immediately below the pair of gloves is a bracelet which is on Olga's arm which seems to sit at the edge of her sweater.

There is absolutely no suggestion of any weapon. I strongly doubt that had she ever carried a weapon, and were that the case, she would never compromise herself in this way.

[moonlight_tsarina]

What's up with this? I was just like  
okay, here's an excerpt from one of Anastasia's leters to her father:
"We all have pistols now and we like to shoot them very much. in the venings after dinner we go to play in the corner room with olga, maria,alexey and i hide from each other and then shoot each other in the darkness, but alexey is sometimes scared and does not enter the room..."



were they really all that obnoxious they playd with guns?

[ferngully]

maybe they played with them like kids play with toy/water guns now?
selina                xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

[Janet_W.]

I am sure these would have been toys. I doubt very much that anyone would have allowed the Imperial Children to have actual guns, much less play with them.

The firearm described by Bob in an earlier post was a different matter, given to Olga by her father when she had attained considerable maturity, and very likely as a palliative to her own anxieties.

[Georgiy]

They had toy guns, and during the war, the Empress complained in a letter to the tsar about how noisy the children and their guns were. However, after the revolution, I imagine Olga would have had a real gun, if the story of her being armed is true.

[La_Mashka]

I think Nicholas gave Olga the gun to calm her down.

She must have felt very insecure of the situation, of the war, o possibly being assaulted or killed, and so maybe the gun worked... like a pacifier works on a baby...

[Margarita Markovna]

It's very possible.

I recently saw a play in New York called OTMA. It's historical fiction, but it was based on actual events. Olga had stolen a gun and finds out in the play that it's just a lighter.

I know it's just a play but it was based on real events and gives me reason to believe she was armed at some point.

[Abby]

She had a gun with her when they were on board the Rus, I think.
I don't blame her!

[IlyaBorisovich]

She had a gun with her when they were on board the Rus, I think.
I don't blame her!

Actually, she gave up the gun before they left Tobolsk.  It's unfortunate that she didn't have it aboard the Rus.  I don't know if Rodionov would've wanted to take the rap for killing any of them there and then, so her being armed might have made a difference.

Ilya

[markjhnstn]

Recently i read something here about Olga having a revolver in her possession at Tsarsloe selo and tobolsk until Kobylinsky persuaded her to give it up just before they left for ekaterinburg. This is a new piece of information for me. I cannot recall reading anything about this before. Anyone have any further info??

[amartin71718]

Nicholas gave it to her, I know that.

[Sarushka]

Bob Atchison heard this story from Vladimir Soloviev. Here's the original post about it:

Once when I met Vladimir Soloviev, the Attorney General of Russia and the head of the committee on the investigation of the remains he showed me the Sokolov dossier that Stalin had - I have mentioned that meeting before.  We had a long talk about what he had found in his research through unpublished materials.  I asked him if he could tell me somethings he had learned about the members of the family that surprized him.  One thing he told me was the story of the small gun Olga carried.  He said, if I remember correctly but this could be wrong, she had it in her boot and she had been given the gun by her father.  He said Koblynski begged Olga to give it to him in Tobolsk. Later I found this in writing - but I haven't been able to relocate it.

Like Bob, I'm sure I also found this story in writing elsewhere, but I haven't been able to track it down again. So to my knowledge, Bob's post is the only Western source for that information.

[markjhnstn]

Thanks. Very interesting. I recall that Pavel Medvedev had a pistol stolen at the Ipatiev house. I wonder if one of the IF could have stolen it?

[nena]

I've only heard that some guns were found in Ipatiev - pretext to murders, I can say?!
So, it might be, IF tried to escape, and they killed them. - I think it wasn't real reason.......

[Sarushka]

Thanks. Very interesting. I recall that Pavel Medvedev had a pistol stolen at the Ipatiev house. I wonder if one of the IF could have stolen it?

It seems unlikely to me. There's certainly no mention of it in Alexandra's diary, and I don't think the tsar mentioned it either. The theft is reported in the guard duty book on June 14 (NS).