Ipatiev House

Ipatiev House from Voznesensky Prospekt

Built in the late 1880s by a mountain official, state adviser I.I. Redikortsev, this house was a stone two-story mansion . The construction site was chosen on the western, steepest slope of the Ascension Hill - a notable hill in Yekaterinburg. In 1766-1808, on the site of the house stood a wooden Old Ascension Church ^[1] . Later, where her altar was located, a chapel was built, which lasted until the 1920s.

The architecture of the building took into account the relief of the hill. The eastern facade (facing Voznesensky Prospekt) was one-story, and the western (facing the garden) had two floors. A porch was attached to the western wall. In the eastern part of the building, which deepened into the slope of the mountain, there was a basement floor. From the basement there was access to the southern facade of the house (facing Voznesensky Lane). The house was 31 meters long and 18 meters wide. The main entrance is from Voznesensky Prospekt, on the east side of the house. The main facade of the house was parallel to the general direction of the front of houses on the avenue, which at this point had a kink to the east and went towards the Kharitonov-Rastorguev mansion, located on the highest part of the mountain. Thus, the house was somewhat buried in relation to the avenue.

The house was located at address 49/9 on the corner of Voznesensky Prospekt and Voznesensky Lane (Karl Liebknecht St. and Klara Zetkin St.) ^[2] . In the architecture of this building, pseudo-Russian elements that dominated at that time were combined with Ural motifs and modern . The house had running water and a sewage system, electricity and telephone connection were supplied to it. The interiors were richly decorated with cast iron, stucco moldings, and ceilings with artistic painting ^[3] .

Redikortsev did not long remain the owner of the house, he was accused of corruption, and in order to improve his shaky financial condition in 1898 he sold the house to the gold miner I. G. Sharaviev (known in the case of merchants with “shot gold mines”) ^[2] .

Military civil engineer Nikolai Nikolaevich Ipatiev bought a house in early 1908 ^[2] , having paid the previous owner 6 thousand rubles. The Ipatiev family lived in the premises of the upper floor, and in the premises on the lower floor there was his contract office. ^[four]

On April 27 (or 28), 1918, Ipatiev was asked to release the mansion within two days. Due to the fact that he was away, his personal belongings were locked in a pantry next to the basement, in which the royal family was later shot, the basement was sealed in the presence of the owner. ^[5] It is believed that the choice of the house was due to the fact that Nikolai Nikolaevich Ipatiev was well acquainted with the members of the Ural Council and, in particular, Yakov Yurovsky as a prominent representative of the Cadet Party, who, after the February Revolution, was a member of the local public security committee.

Machine guns were installed in the attics of neighboring buildings, the house itself was surrounded by a double fence, the height of which exceeded the windows of the second floor, with a single gate, which was constantly on duty in front of it, two security posts ^{[3] were} placed inside, eight ^[5] outside and thus completely prepared for the reception of Nicholas II, his wife and daughter Maria, who were soon delivered to Yekaterinburg.

Commissar Yakovlev arrived in Tobolsk, where the royal family was housed, deported to this city by the Provisional Government, on April 24, 1918. On the instructions of Sverdlov, he was to be taken out of the city of Nicholas II - as officially supposed, to the court, which they were going to hold over him in Moscow.

The empress wished to go with her husband, and Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna joined them. In addition, the royal train was accompanied by chamber footmen Chemodurov and Dr. Eugene Botkin .

White Army investigator N. Sokolov, who was later charged with investigating the murder of the tsar’s family and servants, believed that Yakovlev was playing a double game, assuming that he would secretly bring Nicholas II to the German army, his immediate superior, Y. Sverdlov, accordingly assumed this as one of the possibilities, leaving itself to the circumstances, the opportunity to order the physical destruction of the Romanovs. Circumstances turned so that the second version became the main one.

One way or another, the Yekaterinburg authorities did not miss the train of Nicholas II to the European part of Russia. After an unsuccessful attempt to break out through Omsk and equally unsuccessful negotiations with Moscow, Yakovlev was forced to cede his “cargo” to the Yekaterinburg authorities at the Kulomzino station.

The royal letter train, consisting of five wagons, was initially driven to the passenger station Yekaterinburg-1, despite the fact that rumors about the arrival of Nicholas, the tsarina and the Grand Duchess spread throughout the city in unknown ways, and the following scene broke out at the station: an excited crowd blaming of all her troubles, the king and the queen, was ready to commit lynching over the captives ^[5] .

As Commissioner Yakovlev later recalled :

April 30, in the morning, without any adventure, we arrived in Yekaterinburg. Despite our early arrival, the Yekaterinburg platforms were crowded with people. How did it happen that the population found out about our upcoming arrival, we did not know. Particularly large crowds of curious people were concentrated on commodity platforms, where our team was also pushed to. The train was on the fifth line from the platform. When they saw us, they began to demand that Nikolai be taken out and shown to them. There was noise in the air, now and then there were menacing cries: “They must be stifled! Finally, they are in our hands! ”The guards on the platform were very weak in holding back the onslaught of the people, and promiscuous crowds began to approach my squad. I quickly put my squad around the train and prepared machine guns for caution. To my great surprise, I saw that the station commissar somehow somehow found himself at the head of the crowd. He shouted loudly to me from afar:

- Yakovlev, bring Romanov here, I’ll spit in his face. The situation was becoming extremely dangerous. The crowd was pushing and getting closer to the train. Decisive action was needed.

Decisive measures consisted in the fact that Yakovlev sent one of his men to the station head, and trying to gain time, he loudly ordered the preparation of machine guns. The crowd really surged back, but the same station commissar began to threaten to put three-inch guns against machine guns, which Yakovlev could really see in the distance on the platform. Fortunately, the station manager acted quickly. The freight train sent to a nearby route cut off the crowd, and the tsarist train, with all haste to move off, stopped at Yekaterinburg-2 station (now Shartash station) ^{[6] [7]} .

A.D. Avdeev, for his part, clarified that it was about the Yekaterinburg-3 station (the current timber depot on Vostochnaya St.), where Goloshchekin, Beloborodov and Didkovsky, the then leaders of the Ural City Council, were already waiting for them. Around the station stood a dense cordon of Red Army soldiers. Here, Nikolai, his wife and daughter were ordered to accommodate in two cars submitted to the train. The rest should return to the main station, unload luggage and then act as directed by the authorities. ^[6] Beloborodov wrote a receipt about the “cargo”, with which Yakovlev later left for Moscow.

Of these, Prince Dolgorukov was sent to prison, according to official figures “80 thousand rubles, partly a trifle” and maps of Siberia with roads marked on them were found, and the arrested person could not clearly explain their presence - from which they concluded that he accepted participation in the planned escape. The rest were later transferred to the Ipatiev House.

According to the memoirs of Avdeev, Nicholas II and Beloborodov were placed in the first car, and he himself, more precisely then, on the way to the House of Special Purpose, as the Ipatiev House was henceforth called, Avdeev was ordered to become his first commandant ^[6] .

According to Anichkov's recollections, a crowd of onlookers also gathered at the House, who managed to find out by unknown ways that Nicholas II would be brought here. However, she was able to quickly disperse the forces of the escort detachment. Addressing Nicholas II, Beloborodov uttered a phrase that later became historical: “Citizen Romanov, you can enter” ^[7] . Following her husband, Alexandra Fedorovna entered the house, marking the door with her “Indian sign” . The last was Mary.

Here, in the house, on the pretext that when leaving Tobolsk the things of the prisoners were not inspected, they were ordered to present their luggage for inspection. This caused a sharp protest from the side of the tsarina, who was supported by her husband, announcing, as the chairman of the Urals Council P.M. Bykov recalled, “ God damn it, there has always been polite treatment and decent people, and now ... ” In response, Nikolai was reminded of his position as an arrested man, threatening to separate him from his family and send him to forced labor, as a result of which he chose to obey ^[8] .

The royal family stayed in Ipatiev’s house for 78 days, from April 28 to July 17, 1918. During their stay there, the Bolsheviks called the house of Ipatiev DON - a house for special purposes.

Nicholas II, Alexandra Fedorovna, their children, Dr. Botkin and three servants (except Sednev, a cook) were killed using cold steel and firearms without trial . The imperial family was executed in the basement of the house on the night of July 16-17, 1918 .

After the shooting, the house, in connection with the retreat of Soviet power from the city, returned to the property of N. N. Ipatiev. The same, finally deciding to emigrate, sold it to representatives of the White Army, after which the military disposed of the house (including the headquarters of the Siberian Army, General R. Gaida ) and representatives of the Russian government ^[3] .

July 15, 1919 Yekaterinburg was captured by the 28th division of Azin. Until 1921, in the Ipatiev’s house, the army headquarters was located first, then the headquarters of the labor army, and after the end of the Civil War, starting in 1922, a dormitory for university students and apartments of Soviet employees. ^[3] In particular, Andrei Ermakov, commander of the 6th regiment of the road transport department of the GPU of the Perm Railway, lived here ^[2] .

In 1923, the building was given to Eastpart , the main fund of the Regional Party Archive was located there, the Ural branch of the Museum of the Revolution and the Anti-Religious Museum was built here - they were led by Viktor Bykov, a member of the Bolshevik party from 1904 and older brother of Pavel Bykov, who was in 1917-1918 Chairman of the Yekaterinburg Council. The main exhibit of the Museum of the Revolution was a shooting room in the basement, the interior of which was restored from photographs of the white investigation and the recollections of the participants in the events. Excursions of delegations of foreign communists and Ural pioneers took them there, exposing their consciousness to proletarian communist education.

Photos of Ipatiev’s house, surrounded by a fence ^[9] , were published in many Soviet publications (for example, in the book “Yekaterinburg for 200 years”, published in 1923), accompanied by the signature “the last palace of the last king”.

The Museum of the Revolution worked every day except Monday and Thursday from 12 to 18 hours, the cost of tickets was 5 kopecks. for tourists, 10 kopecks. for union members and 25 cop. for everyone else. Schoolchildren, the disabled and the Red Army had the right to free admission ^[2] . The tour of the museum included a visit to the basement, where the Romanovs were shot. In the basement, the wall was restored, at which the Romanovs were shot (the authentic retreating white troops were taken apart and taken away with them). It was allowed to take pictures near this wall, which is believed to have been used by the deputies of the VI Congress of the Comintern. The square in front of the house was renamed People's Revenge Square and a plaster bust of Marx was installed on it ^{[3] [10]} .

After 1932, when the Kremlin decided to put the incident into oblivion ^{[2] [10]} , the area was renamed the “Ural Komsomol” and a monument was erected against the Ipatiev’s house to these builders of Soviet industry.

In 1938, it finally settled here, crowding out the Museum of the Revolution, the exposition of the Anti-Religious and Cultural-Educational Museum ^[2] .

In subsequent years, the house of the atheists, the rector of the Ural-Siberian Communist University, a dormitory for the evacuees, a department of the Institute of Culture, and the regional partarchive were in this house ^{[10] [11]} .

During World War II, the house housed exhibits of the Hermitage collection that were evacuated from Leningrad ^[3] , but the museum of the revolution continued to exist, and an exhibition dedicated to the Russo-Japanese War was placed in the basement (entrance from Klara Zetkin Street). The fate of the Second Squadron was examined in great detail and colorful images of its ships were given. In the front rooms were exhibits related to the World War, including samples of captured weapons of foreign manufacture. The dummy of a corpse of a soldier stuck in a barbed wire looked very naturalistic.

In 1946, the paintings were taken out, the Museum of the Revolution was closed, its exposition was partially transferred to the local historical museum of local lore, part of which one of the branches was opened in the Ascension Church. Some time after that, an exhibition of Soviet and captured weapons was used at the Ipatiev’s house during the Great Patriotic War.

In the same 1946, the Regional Party Archive entered the building, then the training center of the regional department of culture. Part of the premises was left to the local administration of Soyuzpechat, which remained here until 1971 " ^[3] . The basement was turned into a storage ^[2] .

In 1974, at the request of the Sverdlovsk branch of the All-Union Society for the Protection of Monuments of History and Culture , Ipatiev’s house was given the status of a historical and revolutionary monument of all-Russian significance ^[3] .

Investigator of the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation V.N. Solovyov , who has been investigating the circumstances of the death of the tsar’s family for a long time, said that KGB agents reported to their management about the events that took place around the Ipatiev’s house in the 1970s: on the day of the death of the tsar’s family, approaching the house and baptizing , they put candles, and the like. These actions were described as "painful interest" and qualified as "anti-Soviet demonstrations" ^[12] .

KGB Chairman Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov was concerned about the attention to the house of foreigners visiting Sverdlovsk. 1978 was approaching, the year of the 110th anniversary of the birth of Nicholas II and the 60th anniversary of his execution. These anniversaries were supposed to attract the attention of the foreign press and radio stations. Therefore, Andropov turned to the Politburo with the following proposal ^{[13] [14] [15]} :

Fast. CPSU Central Committee No. П185.34 Secret
August 4, 1975
July 26, 1975
No. 2004-A of the Central Committee of the CPSU

On the demolition of the Ipatiev mansion
in the city of Sverdlovsk.

Various propaganda campaigns around the imperial Romanov family are periodically inspired by anti-Soviet circles in the West, and in this regard, the former mansion of the merchant Ipatiev in Sverdlovsk is often mentioned.
Ipatiev's house continues to stand in the center of the city. It houses the training center of the regional department of culture. The mansion is not of architectural or other value; only a small part of the townspeople and tourists are interested in it.
Recently, foreign experts began to visit Sverdlovsk. In the future, the circle of foreigners can expand significantly and Ipatiev’s house will become the object of their serious attention.
In this regard, it seems appropriate to entrust the Sverdlovsk Regional Committee of the CPSU to resolve the issue of demolishing the mansion in the order of the planned reconstruction of the city.
The draft resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU is attached.
Please consider.
Chairman of the State Security Committee Andropov.

Secretly

Resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU

On the demolition of the Ipatiev mansion in the mountains. Sverdlovsk

1. To approve the proposal of the State Security Committee under the Council of Ministers of the USSR set forth in note No. 2004-A of July 26, 1975.
2. To entrust the Sverdlovsk Regional Committee of the CPSU to resolve the issue of demolishing the Ipatiev mansion in accordance with the planned reconstruction of the city.

Secretary of the Central Committee.

The decision to demolish the house was taken at a meeting of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee on July 30, 1975. Andropov’s proposal was unanimously adopted. The decision of the Politburo "On the demolition of the Ipatiev mansion in Sverdlovsk" was signed by Suslov , since Brezhnev was on vacation in Crimea at that time.

At the time of the adoption of the decision, the Sverdlovsk Regional Committee of the CPSU was headed by Yakov Ryabov . However, the final directive was postponed, and by the time of the demolition, Boris Yeltsin was already at the post of first secretary. A certain role in the postponement was played by the opposition of the All-Union Society for the Protection of Monuments of History and Culture, with some sympathy from Ryabov and Solomentsev (Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR). However, local leaders Ponomarev (Secretary of the Sverdlovsk Regional Committee of the CPSU for ideology), Mehrentsev (chairman of the regional executive committee), Manyukhin (first secretary of the city committee of the CPSU) rushed to demolition. In July 1977, a commission headed by Professor A. A. Malakhov worked in the house, which examined whether there were dungeons and hiding places in it. Finally, on August 3, 1977, the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR adopted decision No. 1221-r to exclude the mansion from the list of historical monuments of national importance. Soon after this decision, the offices that occupied his office were transferred from the house, the vacant premises were photographed and measured. Around the house was a fence. Part of the interior decor was in the storehouse of the local museum of local lore.

Yeltsin left memories of the demolition of Ipatiev’s house in the book “Confession on a given topic” (1989), which inaccurately describe the course of events: “Suddenly I get a secret package from the Politburo - destroy Ipatiev’s house. It was impossible to resist. And then they assembled the equipment and destroyed it in one night ... "

In his other book, The Presidential Marathon (2000), Yeltsin commented on the demolition of Ipatiev’s house in this way:

... in the mid-70s, I took this decision quite calmly. Just as the owner of the city. I did not want any extra scandals. In addition, I could not prevent this - the decision of the highest body of the country, official, signed and executed accordingly. Do not comply with the decision of the Politburo? As the first secretary of the regional committee, I could not even imagine this. But even if he disobeyed, he would be left without work. Not to mention everything else. And the new first secretary of the regional committee, who would have come to the vacated place, would still comply with the order.

The demolition of Ipatiev’s house was furnished as the need for reconstruction of the entire quarter - therefore, according to the “reconstruction” plans, all houses located in the whole quarter were to be demolished. The “Reconstructors” were not stopped by the fact that the houses located in the quarter were of architectural and historical value as representatives of the typical merchant buildings of Yekaterinburg in the late XIX - early XX centuries. In addition, with the demolition of only one Ipatiev house, the place of its exact location would be very easy to determine accurately in the future. With the demolition of the entire block, it became difficult to determine the exact location of each particular house. On September 21, 1977, the decision of the City Executive Committee of the Council of People's Deputies No. 351 on the demolition of the entire quarter was made, "given the urgent need for reconstruction of ul. J. Sverdlov and K. Liebknecht ... ”, signed by V. P. Bukin. Before the demolition, the house was examined by many curious people who removed historically valuable interior details (door handles, stove details, stucco walls, etc.), including opening the floor in the room where the Grand Duchesses Romanovs lived in 1918, where they found wrapped in a newspaper and shoved between the baseboard and the floor, a gold bracelet with precious stones and the monogram "T" ^[16] .

Demolition of the house began on September 22, 1977 and lasted two days. The destruction with the help of the "ball-woman" was not done at night, but during the day. The photographs ^{[17] of the} demolition of the house have been preserved.

In August 2000, Nicholas II and his family were canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church as “Royal Martyrs ”. In 2000-2003, on the site of the former house of Ipatiev, the Temple on Blood was built, opened on July 16, 2003.

• The tsarist Romanov dynasty began with the rite of calling for the kingdom in the Ipatiev Monastery (in Kostroma ) and ended with the execution of the royal family in the Ipatiev House (in Yekaterinburg ).

• Ipatiev’s house is depicted on a bill of 20 Ural francs in 1991.

• Temple on blood
• Regicide (film)

• Fomin S.V. Ipatiev House (Chronicle) (Neopr.) . Website "Orthodox Apologist". Date of treatment June 21, 2013. Archived June 24, 2013.

• Ipatievsky house (east facade). 1930s The author of the picture is photographer Robert Byron.
• Pride of regicide. The reproach of the shrine. (Orthodox newspaper)
• Nikolay Sokolov . Ipatiev House / Assassination of the Royal Family . Judicial investigation into the murder of the Imperial Romanov family in 1918
• Interview with investigator V. N. Solovyov and L. A. Anninsky . The execution house (Russian) // Dignity: Socio-political journal. - 2008. - No. 1 . Archived on May 1, 2015.
• Boris Yeltsin. "Confession on a given topic . " About the decision of the Politburo to demolish Ipatiev House
• Boris Yeltsin. "Presidential marathon . " On the history of the demolition of the Ipatiev House in 1977