became more limited.
The major obstacle to rescue was always lack of leadership. There were too many groups, each jealous of the others. The Dowager Empress Marie, assuming that she should take precedence in arranging the rescue of her son, sent an officer to Bishop Hermogen of Tobolsk, proudly demanding his aid. “My lord,” wrote the Tsar’s, mother, “you bear the name of St. Hermogen who fought for Russia. It is an omen. The hour has come for you to serve the motherland.” An equal claim was made by members of the Petrograd group which had clustered around Rasputin and Anna Vyrubova. Feeling the Empress to be their special patroness, they demanded leadership of the effort to save her. Count Benckendorff and a group of former government officials were active in raising money and interest. Acting independently, each of these groups dissipated its energy in milling about, squabbling over money and arguing who was to have the honor of conducting so glorious an enterprise as the rescue of the Imperial family.
Eventually, a leader seemed to appear in the person of Boris Soloviev. Establishing himself in Tyumen, Soloviev gathered into his hands all the threads of the various rescue enterprises. So clear was his authority that monarchists arriving in Tyumen to assist the Imperial family automatically reported to Soloviev for instructions. His mandate, it appeared, came from the Empress herself. In fact, this was true; Alexandra trusted Soloviev implicitly for what seemed to her an overwhelming, unchallengeable reason: he was the son-in-law of Gregory Rasputin.
Boris Soloviev, the adventurous son of the Treasurer of the Holy Synod, had studied in Berlin and then become private secretary to a German tourist who was traveling to India. Once there, Soloviev left his employer and entered a school of mysticism founded by a Russian woman, Mme. Blavatskaya. For a year, Soloviev trained himself in hypnotism.
During the war, as an officer of a machine-gun regiment, Soloviev managed to avoid serving at the front. In Petrograd, where he was stationed, his background in mysticism provided splendid credentials for entering the occult gatherings which still amused society. In 1915, he became friendly with Rasputin and Anna Vyrubova. At the time, he showed little enthusiasm for their august Imperial patrons. On the second day of the March Revolution, Soloviev led his entire unit to the Tauride Palace to pledge his allegiance to the Duma.
Neither Rasputin’s death, the fall of the Tsar nor Anna’s imprisonment disturbed the faith of those who believed in Rasputin’s mystical powers. During the spring and summer of 1917, groups of fervent admirers continued through spiritualistic prayer meetings and seances to attempt to converse with the departed
In August, immediately after the Imperial family was transferred to Tobolsk, Soloviev now acting as agent for this group in Petrograd, went to Siberia to explore the situation. He returned to Petrograd and on October 5, 1917, married Maria Rasputin in the Duma chapel. With Maria, he returned to Siberia and lived for several weeks in her father’s house in Pokrovskoe.
Upon arriving in the region, Soloviev quickly established contact with the Empress through one of her maids, Romanova, who had an apartment in Tobolsk. Through her, he passed on notes and a part of the money with which he had been entrusted. More important, Soloviev used Romanova to raise the captives’ hopes by promising that “Gregory’s family and his friends are active.”
It was impossible, given Soloviev’s family connection, for Alexandra to doubt his word. Confident that plans were proceeding for their liberation, she even passed along to him her choice for the name of the rescue organization which he was building. It was to be “The Brotherhood of St. John of Tobolsk” in honor of the town’s famous saint. Frequently, when her family became gloomy, she cheered them with the reminder that “three hundred faithful officers” of the Brotherhood were disguised in the vicinity, only waiting for Soloviev’s signal.
Before long, however, Soloviev’s behavior began showing odd twists. He left Pokrovskoe and settled not in Tobolsk, where the prisoners were, but in Tyumen, where he could keep watch on the railroad and monitor all contact between Tobolsk and the outside world. In time, his careful scrutiny of every north-bound traveler became unnecessary; those who were involved in anything to do with the Imperial family came straight to him, handed over the money they had brought and asked for instructions. Soloviev operated with ruthless efficiency. He insisted that all agents and funds be channeled through him. When other conservative monarchist groups attempted to operate outside his control, he announced that any additional attempts to contact the Imperial family would jeopardize the efforts which were already going forward. Occasionally, when necessary, Soloviev went so far as to declare that the Empress herself believed that the work of groups other than his was endangering their chance of escape.
In time, of course, the other groups began to ask for evidence of Soloviev’s rescue plans. He replied that he had converted eight regiments of Red soldiers in the area to monarchism. To prove it, he took skeptics to watch the cavalry of the Tyumen garrison at drill. There, just as Soloviev had promised, the officer at the head of the squadron made a prearranged hand signal, indicating his adherence to the plot. When skeptics proved unusually stubborn, Soloviev sent them to Tobolsk to stand in the street near the governor’s house. As arranged through Romanova, a member of the Imperial family would step onto the balcony and make a carefully prescribed gesture.
Despite these persuasive indications, there remained four stubbornly suspicious officers who still did not trust Soloviev. Why, they asked, was he passing his messages through a parlormaid when Dr. Botkin—more intelligent, more devoted and more trusted by the Imperial family—was available? Why, because a single officer responded at drill to Soloviev’s presence, did it follow that eight regiments stood ready to fight for the Tsar? Why did Soloviev continually assure Petrograd and Moscow that no more men should be sent but that they should show their support by advancing more money? The officers put these questions to Soloviev in January after the Bolsheviks had seized control of Tyumen. Immediately, three of the four officers were handed over to the Bolsheviks and shot; the fourth escaped.
Needless to say, no rescue attempts occurred under Soloviev’s command. A few months later, when the Imperial family was moved from Tobolsk, Soloviev was conveniently arrested by the Bolsheviks, held for a few days and then released, thus providing him with a suitable alibi for doing nothing to prevent the transfer. During the civil war, he wandered with his wife through Siberia in the rear of the White armies, eventually reaching Vladivostock. From there, he made his way to Berlin, where he was hailed by unknowing Russians as the man who had tried to save the Imperial family; some of these grateful folk made him the manager of a restaurant.
Subsequently, a number of isolated facts relating to Soloviev came to light. The cavalry officer who supplied hand signals at his squadron’s drill admitted that, of all his men, he alone had had anything to do with Soloviev. A Petrograd banker declared that he had raised 175,000 roubles and given them to Anna Vyrubova for transmission to the Imperial family. Of this sum, Soloviev had delivered only 35,000 roubles. As soon as the Imperial family left Tobolsk, Soloviev hurried there to talk to the maid Romanova; later, Romanova was to marry a Bolshevik commissar. In Vladivostock, Soloviev was arrested by the Whites and found to be in possession of documents indicating that he might be a German agent. However, his reputation as the gallant—if unsuccessful—“savior” of the Imperial family was strong, and he was released.
Soloviev’s motives during his adventure in Tyumen have remained cloudy. He may have been only greedy. Having established an enormously profitable enterprise—in effect, a tollgate at Tyumen for everyone concerned with helping the Imperial family—he may have wished to extract what he could before he was forced to flee. But many believe that his intrigue was far more sinister. Kerensky later wrote, “In the Tobolsk region … the royalists were captained by the traitor Soloviev … who was sent there … to save and protect the family, but who was actually betraying to the Bolsheviks the royalist officers who came to Tobolsk.”
It is possible that Soloviev was working for both the Bolsheviks and the Germans. It may be that his eager acceptance by Rasputin’s devotees, his introduction and marriage to Maria and his mission to Siberia were all arranged by the same shadowy people who lurked around Rasputin before his death. Unquestionably, this marriage was the surest way to gain the Empress’s confidence and persuade her not to seek other avenues of escape. With the Empress convinced that a strong, secret “Brotherhood” operating in the name of Rasputin stood ready to help, she naturally assisted Soloviev in discouraging other monarchists from making conflicting plans. In the end, whatever Soloviev’s motives, the effect was the same. When the moment came for the laboriously constructed, lavishly financed escape machinery to swing into action, it did not do so because it did not exist.
In March, spring brought hope with the first warming rays of the sun. Sitting on her balcony in the sunshine, Alexandra closed her eyes and dreamed of English gardens. As Easter approached, she began to hope that some
