Yakov Yurovsky is a professional revolutionary. Family chronicles of the regicide. continuation

Well, reader? Let's continue to deal with the circumstances of the story, in which there are many "blank spots" and inconsistencies. This is what happens with family history. Chronicles of the Yurovsky family is no exception. The geography of the wanderings of Yakov Yurovsky with his wife Maria, daughter Rimma and son Alexander abounds with the names of cities, provinces, and not only Siberian ones. The nomadic way of life of the family changed in 1905, when the future regicide again ended up in Tomsk.

During the period of the first Russian revolution, the 27-year-old watchmaker will join the ranks of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party and will be included in the Tomsk combat squad. According to eyewitnesses, during the Black Hundred pogrom in Tomsk, Yurovsky was in the building of the Administration of the Siberian railway and only miraculously survived, hiding in the basement. This fact was cited by Bolshevik veterans when they initiated a proposal to name one of the city streets after Yurovsky.

In the photo: the former building of the Siberian Railway Administration, now the main building of TUSUR.

In the photo: a memorial plaque in memory of the events of 1905 in Tomsk on the building of the main building of TUSUR

Yakov Yurovsky himself, in his autobiography about the Tomsk period of the revolutionary struggle against tsarism, wrote sparingly: “I did technical work. Stored illegal literature. He made passports and stamps for them. Looking for apartments. Had a safe house. Conducted propaganda work among artisans-workers.

At the same time, Yakov Yurovsky was a successful businessman. Let's not forget that by 1910 he owns shops, workshops, photo studios. The origin of the capital is unknown, and any assumptions without documentary evidence will remain speculation. What about his family and immediate family? In marriage, Yakov Yurovsky is quite happy. The eldest daughter Rimma attends the Tomsk Women's Primary Gymnasium. The middle son Alexander is still too small, and his wife Maria is engaged in his upbringing. In 1909, another son, Eugene, will be born.

The father and mother of Yurovsky, his many brothers and sisters, things are not going so well. Documents from the funds of the State Archives of the Tomsk Region give only a partial idea of ​​their occupation. One of Yakov's brothers - Borokh (Borukh) - lived on Nikitinskaya Street (modern Nikitin Street) in Beikov's house. At the end of 1903, he tried to get a reprieve from military service. However, having been refused, he served in the army. Boroch did not participate in the Russo-Japanese War. But during the First World War he was in German captivity.

The fate of brother Peisakh, who served as a reserve lower rank, was different. Far East during the Russo-Japanese War. Safely returned to Tomsk. Became a ladies' tailor. Owned a tailor shop. In the summer of 1913 he went abroad and emigrated to the United States for permanent place residence.

Much earlier, the older brother Meyer left Russia, who at the beginning of the 20th century settled in Harbin, where he founded his business selling semi-precious stones.

Leiba Yurovsky was a jeweler and lived with his wife and child at st. Kondratievskaya, 46 (Lermontov).

In the photo: Lermontov street, former st. Kondratievskaya

Another of the Yurovskys - Ilya, born in 1882 - worked in the watch workshop of Mr. Khaiduk at 11 Magistratskaya Street and lived in a house at 11 Irkutskaya Street (Pushkina) in one-room apartment with kitchen and veranda. This area is adjacent to the Church of the Resurrection.

In the photo: Pushkin street, formerly Irkutskaya.

However, the time has come to return to Yakov Yurovsky. The revolutionary businessman was beyond the suspicions of the security department for a long time. Apparently, he mastered the rules of conspiracy well. There is an assumption that in the period from 1905 to 1912, Yakov made acquaintances with prominent Bolsheviks: S.M. Kirov, Ya.M. Sverdlov, V.V. Kuibyshev, but I, understanding this story, did not find direct facts. It is better to deal with archival documents, they can be read.

In April 1912, in the house at 6 Tatarskaya, in Yurovsky's apartment, a search was carried out and certain Sokolov and Anna Linkevich were arrested. For the first time, the gendarmes became interested in the identity of the detainees, especially given the nature of the things confiscated from them.

Weapons, false documents, various correspondence were found in Yurovsky's apartment. Now we can remember that technical work what Yakov Mikhailovich did when he was a member of the RSDLP. The flywheel of the investigation quickly spun. It turned out that the tradesman Yurovsky had already sheltered fugitive exiles from the Narym Territory in his apartment and provided them with material assistance. Yurovsky's accomplices are very colorful. The peasant Alexander Sokolov is actually Mikhail Sorokin. By conviction - a social democrat. He went underground because of the fear of persecution for participating in an armed uprising in 1906 in Kamyshin.

His cohabitant and part-time “daughter of a Semipalatinsk merchant” Anna Linkevich was in fact Nakhama Sorina, who did not have the right to live in Tomsk.
The men are kept in custody in the First Tomsk Detention Unit, the woman in the provincial prison. What awaits them? Prison, penal servitude? A month later, Yakov Yurovsky, having received an order prohibiting settlement in 64 administrative centers of the European part of Russia, Siberia and the North Caucasus, was exiled to Yekaterinburg.

Photo from the GATO funds: Tomsk provincial prison.

In the photo: the building of the former Tomsk provincial prison, now the educational building of TPU on Arkady Ivanov Street.

Once in the Urals, Yurovsky will begin to write petitions to return to Tomsk. What for? After all, he has a whole family with him. The head of the family, as a person who has committed an "anti-state - criminal act"?, is forbidden to engage in commerce. But the wife was not forbidden. Maria Yurovskaya opened a portrait photo studio under the sign “M.Ya. Yurovskaya. Exile to Yekaterinburg ends the Tomsk period of Yakov's life. He will never again visit Tomsk. Although in the provincial capital, he continued to be listed as a tax debtor. The arrears from Yurovsky will never be recovered ...

What happened next? In 1915, at the height of the First World War, Yakov Yurovsky was drafted into the army. True, due to poor health, he serves in the rear militia. In Yekaterinburg, Yakov will finish the paramedic school. After the February Revolution political career will go up. In March 1917, he was a deputy of the Yekaterinburg Soviet of Workers and Soldiers. In October, he was appointed chairman of the Investigative Committee of the Ural Revolutionary Tribunal, became a member of the Extraordinary Commission. In July 1918, Yurovsky became the commandant of the House of Special Purpose, in which the royal family was kept.

In the Ipatiev House, Yakov will execute the family of the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II. This will go down in history.

Kolchak investigators will take measures to detain the regicide. Traces of Yakov will be searched in Tomsk, where people close to him have remained.

The detectives will interrogate the Yurovsky brothers - Ilya and Leiba, but they will show that "the connection with Yakov has long been lost." There was no reason not to believe the testimonies. Leiba had just returned home from German captivity. And Ilya never left Tomsk. Interestingly, the fate of these relatives, as well as the fate of the parents of Chaim and Esther Yurovsky, is unknown. What happened to them? The question remains unanswered...

After the Civil War, Yakov Yurovsky will not reach high officials. He worked in Gokhran, ran a factory, was director of the State Polytechnic Museum in Moscow. Died in 1938. The Soviet government, of which Yurovsky called himself an ordinary soldier, treated his descendants in a peculiar way. Daughter Rimma, a prominent Komsomol leader, was arrested shortly after her father's death as an "enemy of the people." Eight years, until 1946, she spent in the terrible Karaganda camp. She died in the 80s.

Son Alexander will become a naval artillery engineer. In 1944, he was awarded the rank of Rear Admiral of the Fleet. Alexander Yurovsky was awarded many military orders, nominal weapons. Repressed in 1952. He spent several months in Butyrka prison. Stalin's death in March 1953 saved him from the camps. He passed away in 1986.

In 1967, descendants will receive news that in Tomsk they are going to name one of the city streets after Yakov Mikhailovich Yurovsky. Local veterans of the party applied with such an initiative to the Central Committee of the CPSU. Did not happen. And on this in the family chronicle of the regicide, we will put an end to it.

In the mid-80s, I studied at the Faculty of Journalism of Moscow State University. One of our subjects was led by Alexander Yakovlevich Yurovsky, the son of the same Yakov Yurovsky, who carried out the execution of the royal family.

HIGH, already quite elderly, with short hair gray hair and military bearing, he suppressed those around him with the dryness and arrogance of his attitude towards them. However, students of the faculty of journalism could talk to anyone. When we pointed him to the right topic, Yurovsky told us very interesting details from the life of his father.

For example, the regicide was not only not tormented by remorse, but, on the contrary, was very proud of what he had done. He often and in detail told how the royal family was shot and how he personally shot Nicholas II. And yet, his father was clearly worried about something that had a direct bearing on the execution in the Ipatiev House. Probably, that's why he got a perforated stomach ulcer, from which he died. As you know, this disease occurs due to strong prolonged stress. What was Yakov Yurovsky afraid of?

When they found the secret burial of the royal family and carefully examined it, it turned out that it did not contain the skeletons of the heir to the throne Alexei and Princess Mary. Meanwhile, Yurovsky and other participants in the murder claimed that they, together with the tsar and tsarina, shot all their children. The bodies of the dead were buried in one safe place. This turned out not to be the case. It seems that the executioner and his henchmen were afraid that the daughter and son of the last Russian autocrat remained alive! And for this they themselves could easily be put up against the wall.

• If Alexei and Maria were also killed, why were they buried separately? And why did Yurovsky claim that the bodies of all members of the royal family were buried in one place? Wouldn't it be easier to admit the truth? But the truth was that two of the royal family remained alive even after the execution! Otherwise, they would have been buried along with everyone else.
• How could they survive and be saved? It is known that during the execution, the daughters of Nicholas II were dressed in strong corsets, completely stuffed with diamonds, from which revolver bullets ricocheted. Of course, while the wounds on the body of the girls were, but not fatal. That is why one of the Grand Duchesses was stabbed with a bayonet after the execution of the murderers, having removed her corset.
• The killers did not make a medical statement of the death of their victims. The only doctor of the royal family in the Ipatiev House, Botkin, was shot along with everyone else. His remains were also found in a secret burial.
• The car carrying the bodies of the dead was driving very slowly and stopped several times. Yakov Yurovsky and the people accompanying him walked ahead and examined the road washed out by the rain. In this case, the car was left unattended. Maria and Aleksey, who came to their senses, could get out of the back of the car. The night and the nearby forest would have facilitated their escape.
• The most competent researcher of the murder of the royal family, Edward Radzinsky, believes that Maria and Alexei remained alive after the execution. But then they were found, killed and buried in another place. However, he does not provide any evidence of the murder.
• The Bolsheviks did not have time to search for Maria and Alexei. They fled in a hurry, as the White Army was approaching Yekaterinburg.
• And finally, the last one. In 1960, a certain Maria Nikolaevna Guryeva was buried in a modest cemetery in Osa, who, before her death, admitted that she was the daughter of Nicholas II, Maria.

Someone will say: how many were there, impostors! Were. But all of them, by their imposture, tried to extract some benefit for themselves during their lifetime. Maria Nikolaevna from Osa did not try to do this. On the contrary, she carefully concealed her past.

As for Alexei, he could hardly survive, because he suffered from hemophilia - non-clotting of the blood. Even a small wound represented for him mortal danger. But Mary theoretically could well have been saved.

The final answer to this question could be given by the exhumation of the remains of Maria Nikolaevna Guryeva and their genetic examination. But will the government go for it?

But who was Yakov Yurovsky, the infamous commandant of the Ipatiev House, really? Investigator Sokolov, who in 1919 was assigned to handle the case of the execution of the Romanovs, characterizes him as follows:

“The direct leader of the murder was Yakov Yurovsky. But he also worked out in detail the very plan of the murder.”

And especially now, after the discovery and publication of his Notes, Yurovsky will remain in history as the direct perpetrator of this terrible crime, which he himself organized with unheard-of cruelty.

Before the revolution, Yurovsky was well known to the tsarist police. His name appears in the documents of the former, which are in Moscow, in the fund of the Special Section of the Police Department:

“To Cannes tradesman Yakov Mikhailov Yurovsky, Governor of Tomsk, in the interests of maintaining public order, on the basis of paragraph 4 of Art. 16 of the Regulations on Enhanced Protection in view of the harmful activity of the named Yurovsky, it is forbidden for him, for the entire duration of the said provision, to reside within the limits of the Tomsk province with the right to choose Yurovsky's place of residence.

Judging by the results, the orders of the tsarist police were not so cruel and not so effective if a person clearly registered by the local authorities was given the opportunity to choose his place of residence.

The document cited above, drawn up in the gendarmerie department of the city of Tomsk, is accompanied by an appendix that more accurately explains the "harmful direction of Yurovsky's activities": it is a report by the secret agent "Sidorov" about weapons - nine revolvers - owned by a local Social Democratic organization and given to Yurovsky before his departure to his sister Panya, also a party activist.

Yurovsky was a left-wing Social Democrat, and therefore a Bolshevik. To use the terminology of the time, he was a "professional revolutionary" but, as we shall see, rather atypical. Having joined the party in 1905, he immediately began to stand out for his unbending faith, and even Lenin himself called him at one time "the most devoted communist." Yurovsky has accumulated a solid "work experience", as he has been an active member of the underground organization for many years.

And here are other data about this person, collected many years later by the White Guard counterintelligence:

“Yakov Movshev Yurovsky, 40 years old, a Jew, a tradesman of the city of Kannes, Tomsk province, a watchmaker, kept electrophotography in Yekaterinburg and lived at the address: 1st Beregovaya Street, house 6.”

Like many other professional revolutionaries, and not only Jews, Yurovsky changed his real name to a Russian one: this was done by many underground workers in order to more reliably hide from the authorities. Yurovsky's patronymic was not Movshev, but Khaimovich, but the first one was quite suitable for this document, as long as it indicated the Jewish origin of the object. Such tendentiousness was characteristic of the lists that were compiled by the White Guard counterintelligence, and once again demonstrated the unshakable confidence of this organization that it was the Jews - and only the Jews - who conceived and "made" the revolution.

The future commandant of the Ipatiev House was born in 1878, and his real name was Yakov Khaimovich Yurovsky; and although the name and patronymic leave no doubt about his nationality, he was not a true Jew: the fact is that during the democratic revolution of 1905 he lived in Germany for about a year and converted to Lutheranism. All the same mysterious stay in Berlin helped him to return to his homeland almost a rich man. Yurovsky, the penultimate of eight children in the family, got on his own feet and before the revolution lived in relative prosperity, engaging in petty trade.

The general mobilization of 1914 did not bypass him: Yurovsky was drafted into the army, but he still managed to avoid being sent to the front, as he entered the courses of orderlies. Having brilliantly graduated from them, he then served in the Yekaterinburg military hospital.

Without a doubt, Yurovsky from a young age was distinguished by a strong character and a strong personality; he so subdued Kensorin Arkhipov - the doctor who taught at the courses - that he took him under his protection and provided all kinds of assistance.

But the personal doctor of the heir to Alexei Vladimir Derevenko, in his testimony, which he gave in 1919 as a witness, draws a clearly negative portrait of Yurovsky:

“On one of my visits, when I entered the room, I saw a subject sitting near the window in a black jacket, with a wedge-shaped beard, black, black mustache and wavy black, especially long, combed back hair, black eyes, a full cheeky face, clean, without special signs, dense physique, broad shoulders, short neck, voice pure baritone, slow, with great aplomb, with a sense of dignity, who together with me and Avdeev came to the patient. After examining the patient, Yurovsky, seeing a tumor on the leg of the Heir, suggested that I apply plaster cast and thereby discovered his knowledge of medicine.

It should be noted that Dr. Derevenko was granted the right to live in freedom in Yekaterinburg, and the Bolsheviks allowed him, alone of the entire imperial retinue, to regularly visit the prisoners.

In a fit of iconoclasm and seized with a thirst for blood, Yurovsky destroyed all the Romanovs, including Dr. Botkin and even the servants, but for reasons that were unclear then spared Derevenko. But he was seriously compromised, since he was suspected of mediating between Romanov and a certain “white officer” during their fictitious correspondence and, accordingly, in an effort to free the prisoners. This happened even before Yurovsky's arrival at the Ipatiev House, when Avdeev, a gloomy and cruel man, was the commandant.

Now, after the appearance of new materials already published, it can be asserted with full confidence that there has never been any "White Guard conspiracy" to free the prisoners. As we said earlier, this famous correspondence was fabricated in order to prove the guilt of the Romanovs who answered the letters, and then to justify their murder. Yurovsky, no doubt, knew the truth, and by keeping Dr. Derevenko alive, he wanted to thereby once again demonstrate to his predecessors his strength and power in decision-making.

Yurovsky was not so much oppressed by the tsarist regime; on the contrary, fate gave him a very privileged position, far from the conditions in which a significant part of the population of proletarian origin lived. For them, the revolution brought with it freedom and the beginning of a brighter future. But when the February Revolution took place, Yurovsky - in the words of General Diterichs (Diterichs Mikhail Konstantinovich (1874-1937), one of the organizers of the counter-revolution during civil war. He was a close associate of the admiral. He died in exile.) - "turned out to be the first in the ranks of those dissatisfied with everything and everyone." And further:

“Cheerful in words and in speech, picked up superficial concepts of socialism abroad, not embarrassed by lies, impudent, but popular at that time slander ...”

Yurovsky immediately managed to prove himself, rise above the crowd, and from the hospital in which he served, he was elected a delegate to the Yekaterinburg Soviet: from there his career as a political figure began.

After the October events, the "professional revolutionary" very soon became a famous figure among the local Bolsheviks. Almost simultaneously, he held various positions: he was a member of the executive committee of the Ural Council, the Commissioner of Justice of the Ural Region and the commandant of the Ipatiev House. He also continued to be one of the most prominent figures in the regional Cheka, created by his efforts, in whose ranks he continued to be active. He also had "high-ranking" friends in Moscow, in particular Sverdlov.

Such was Yurovsky during the period of his appointment as commandant: perhaps not quite a typical Bolshevik, but in any case a man who was considered a devoted to the cause of the party and a tireless activist. Not a single fact that we know about his activities before the murder of the Romanovs gives us grounds for explaining such a monstrous metamorphosis: on that July night in 1918, Yurovsky turned into a beast, seized with dark fanaticism and overwhelmed by bloodlust.