was necessary to finish Kerensky. Unsuccessful in raising help, Kerensky never returned to Petrograd. In May, after months in hiding, he appeared secretly in Moscow, where Bruce Lockhart issued him a false visa identifying him as a Siberian soldier being repatriated home. Three days later, Kerensky left Murmansk to begin fifty years of restless exile. Trotsky later, in exile himself, scornfully wrote Kerensky’s political epitaph: “Kerensky was not a revolutionist; he merely hung around the revolution.… He had no theoretical preparation, no political schooling, no ability to think, no political will. The place of these qualities was occupied by a nimble susceptibility, an inflammable temperament, and that kind of eloquence which operates neither upon mind or will but upon the nerves.” Nevertheless, when Kerensky left, he carried with him the vanishing dream of a humane, liberal, democratic Russia.
From distant Tobolsk, Nicholas followed these events with keen interest. He blamed Kerensky for the collapse of the army in the July offensive and for not accepting Kornilov’s help in routing the Bolsheviks. At first, he could not believe that Lenin and Trotsky were as formidable as they seemed; to him, they appeared as outright German agents sent to Russia to corrupt the army and overthrow the government. When these two men whom he regarded as unsavory blackguards and traitors became the rulers of Russia, he was gravely shocked. “I then for the first time heard the Tsar regret his abdication,” said Gilliard. “It now gave him pain to see that his renunciation had been in vain and that by his departure in the interests of his country, he had in reality done her an ill turn. This idea was to haunt him more and more.”
At first, the Bolshevik Revolution had little practical effect on far-off Tobolsk. Officials appointed by the Provisional Government—including Pankratov, Nikolsky and Kobylinsky—remained in office; the banks and lawcourts remained open doing business as before. Inside the governor’s house, the Imperial family had settled into a routine which, although restricted, was almost cozy.
“Lessons begin at nine,” the Empress wrote in December to Anna Vyrubova. “Up at noon for religious lessons with Tatiana, Marie, Anastasia, and Alexei. I have a German lesson three times a week with Tatiana and once with Marie.… Also I sew, embroider and paint, with spectacles on because my eyes have become too weak to do without them. I read ‘good books’ a great deal, love the Bible, and from time to time read novels. I am so sad because they are allowed no walks except before the house and behind a high fence. But at least they have fresh air, and we are grateful for anything. He [Nicholas] is simply marvelous. Such meekness while all the time suffering intensely for the country.… The others are all good and brave and uncomplaining, and Alexei is an angel. He and I dine a deux and generally lunch so.
“… One by one all earthly things slip away, houses and possessions ruined, friends vanished. One lives from day to day. But God is in all, and nature never changes. I can see all around me churches … and hills, the lovely world. Volkov [her attendant] wheels me in my chair to church across the street … some of the people bow and bless us but others don’t dare.… I feel old, oh, so old, but I am still the mother of this country, and I suffer its pains as my own child’s pains and I love it in spite of all its sins and horrors. No one can tear a child from its mother’s heart and neither can you tear away one’s country, although Russia’s black ingratitude to the Emperor breaks my heart. Not that it is the whole country though. God have mercy and save Russia.”
A few days later, she wrote again to Anna: “It is bright sunshine and everything glitters with hoarfrost. There are such moonlight nights, it must be ideal on the hills. But my poor unfortunates can only pace up and down the narrow yard.… I am knitting stockings for the small one [Alexis]. He asks for a pair as all his are in holes.… I make everything now. Father’s [the Tsar’s] trousers are torn and darned, the girls’ under-linen in rags.… I have grown quite grey. Anastasia, to her despair is now very fat, as Marie was, round and fat to the waist, with short legs. I do hope she will grow. Olga and Tatiana are both thin.”
In December, the full force of the Siberian winter hit Tobolsk. The thermometer dropped to 68 degress below zero Fahrenheit, the rivers were frozen solid, and no walls or windows could keep out the icy chill. The girls’ corner bedroom became, in Gilliard’s words, “a real ice house.” A fire burned all day in the drawing-room grate, but the temperature inside the house remained 44 degrees. Sitting near the fire, the Empress shivered and suffered from chilblains, with her fingers so stiff she could hardly move her knitting needles.
For Alexis, the winter weather and the family coziness were an exhilarating treat. “Today there are 29 degrees of frost, a strong wind and sunshine,” he wrote cheerfully to Anna. “We walked and I went on skees in the yard. Yesterday, I acted with Tatiana and … [Gilliard] a French piece. We are now preparing another piece. We have a few good soldiers with whom I play games in their rooms.… It is time to go to lunch.… Alexis.”
Through the winter, the Tsarevich was lively and in excellent health. Despite the cold, he went out every morning, dressed in boots, overcoat and cap, with his father. Usually his sisters, in gray capes and red and blue angora caps, came too. While the Tsar walked back and forth with his fast military step from one side of the yard to the other with his daughters hurrying to keep up, Alexis wandered through the sheds attached to the house, collecting old nails and pieces of string. “You never know when they might be useful,” he explained. After lunch, he lay on a sofa while Gilliard read to him. Afterward, he went out again to join his father and sisters in the yard. When he returned, he had his history lesson from his father. At four, tea was served, and afterward, Anastasia wrote to Anna, “We often sit in the windows looking at the people passing and this gives us distraction.”
For the four Grand Duchesses, all active and healthy young women—that winter Olga was twenty-two, Tatiana twenty, Marie eighteen and Anastasia sixteen—life in the governor’s house was acutely boring. To provide them with entertainment, Gilliard and Gibbs began directing them in scenes from plays. Soon, everybody was eager to participate. Both Nicholas and Alexandra carefully wrote out formal programs, and the Tsar acted the title role of Smirnov in Chekov’s
After dinner, the little group all huddled near the fire, drinking tea, coffee and hot chocolate, trying to keep warm. Nicholas read aloud while the others played quiet games and the grand duchesses did needlework. “In this atmosphere of family peace,” said Gilliard, “we passed the long winter evenings, lost in the immensity of distant Siberia.”
At Christmas, the group became especially intimate. “The children were filled with delight. We now felt part of one large family,” recalled Gilliard. The Empress and her daughters presented to the suite and servants the gifts on which they had been working for many weeks: knitted waistcoats and painted ribbons for use as bookmarks. On Christmas morning, the family crossed the public garden for early Mass. At the end of the service, the priest offered the prayer for the health and long life of the Imperial family which had been dropped from the Orthodox service after the abdication. Hearing it, the soldiers became angry and thereafter refused the family permission to go to church. This was a great hardship, especially for Alexandra. At the same time, soldiers of the guard were posted inside the house, ostensibly to make certain that the same prayer was not uttered again. Their presence led to closer surveillance and stricter supervision.
One night after the inside watch had been established, the guard on duty reported, “at about 11 p.m.… I heard an extraordinary noise upstairs where the Romanovs lived. It was some family holiday with them, and dinner had lasted until far into the evening. Finally the noise grew louder, and soon a cheerful company, consisting of the Romanov family and their suite in evening dress came down the staircase. Nicholas headed the procession in Cossack uniform with a colonel’s epaulets and a Circassian dagger at his belt. The whole company went into the room of Gibbs, the tutor, where they made merry until 2 a.m.” In the morning, the guard reported the incident and the soldiers grumbled, “They have weapons. They must be searched.” Kobylinsky went to Nicholas and obtained the dagger.
The same minor episode led to the affair of the epaulets. As the meaning of the Bolshevik Revolution penetrated through to Tobolsk, the soldiers of the 2nd Regiment became increasingly hostile. They elected a Soldiers’ Committee which encroached increasingly on Kobylinsky’s authority. Soon after Nicholas was seen wearing epaulets, the Soldiers’ Committee voted 100–85 to forbid all officers, including the Tsar, to wear epaulets. At first, Nicholas refused to comply. He had been awarded his colonel’s epaulets by his father and he had never taken a higher rank, even as Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army. Kobylinsky did what he could to override the order, telling the soldiers that Nicholas could not be humiliated in that manner, that even if he no longer was Tsar he remained the cousin of the King of England and the Emperor of Germany. The soldiers brushed Kobylinsky rudely aside, threatening violence. “After dinner,” Gilliard wrote, “General Tatishchev and Prince Dolgoruky came to beg
