He was born in the small town of Kainsk and, as if by the will of fate, committed a crime comparable in heinousness to the actions of the biblical Cain

Exactly one hundred years ago, on the night of July 16-17, 1918, the Bolsheviks committed a monstrous crime, shooting without trial all members of the imperial family Romanovs, as well as their associates and servants. The main organizer and executor of this execution was a security officer. Yakov Yurovsky.

Any revolution is accompanied by the commission of bloody crimes against the people and individuals. But the destruction of the Romanov family even here stands apart. Quite deliberately, the killers shot at defenseless women and children in the name of an idea they alone knew.

Members of Yurovsky's "firing squad" pose after the murder royal family. Source: wikimedia.org

Dark spots in the biography of little Yankel

Yankel Khaimovich Yurovsky born on July 3, 1878 in the city of Kainsk (present-day Kuibyshev, Novosibirsk region) Tomsk province and became the eighth child in a large Jewish family. In total, the parents, who soon moved to the provincial Tomsk, had 10 children.

Little Yankel was not diligent in his studies and was able to complete only 3 grades at the Talmateiro school opened at the local synagogue. At the age of 14, the boy leaves his father’s house and settles in Tobolsk, where he works as an apprentice to a watchmaker.

At the age of 20, Yurovsky receives his first sentence for committing an accidental murder in Tomsk. The story is dark and not fully explored, but he conscientiously served his two years.

The next dark spot in the biography of Yakov Yurovsky is that after his release he unexpectedly became rich and became the owner of a haberdashery store in Novo-Nikolaevsk. Some sources claim that he simply received a “payoff” from the man for whom he was in prison.

Realizing that it is not very easy for a Jew to do business in Russia, he moved to Germany in 1903-1904, where he underwent the baptismal ceremony. He specifically adopted Lutheranism so as not to have anything to do with Orthodoxy, and from Yankel Khaimovich he turned into Yakov Mikhailovich.

Businessman and revolutionary

Yakov Yurovsky joined revolutionary activities in 1905. At first he actively supports the Jewish Bund party, but soon defects to the Bolsheviks, whom he considers more promising. At the same time, he has his own watch workshop and a store selling semi-precious stones. But gradually his business declines, and Yakov himself turns into a fiery revolutionary. He keeps weapons at home, hides illegal immigrants and distributes banned literature.

In 1912, following a tip from an “informer,” Yurovsky was arrested, but they could not prove his involvement in terrorist activities. Nevertheless, he was sent from Tomsk to Yekaterinburg.

In Yekaterinburg, he opens a photo salon and almost completely withdraws from revolutionary activities. Life is getting a little better, but the first one has begun World War turns life upside down.

Despite the regular bribes that Yakov gave " to the right people", in 1916 they wanted to draft him into the active army. The only way the patrons could help was to place him in a paramedic school, after which Yurovsky entered service at the Yekaterinburg military hospital.

A fiery communist with a cold calculation

With the beginning of the February Revolution of 1917, Yurovsky again intensified his revolutionary activities. Some sources claim that he aroused discontent against the existing government by feeding rotten meat to the sick from the infirmary.

October 1917 brought to the top a lot of various evil spirits, among which was Yakov Yurovsky, who knew how to understand the political situation very well.

In just one year he managed to serve new government in many positions, but he took the main one on July 4, 1918, becoming the commandant of the “House of Special Purpose” (Ipatiev House), where the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II and members of his family were kept.

Kingslayer by choice

It is he who is considered the main organizer and executor of the murder of the royal family, for which Lenin And Sverdlov, who was friends with Yurovsky, Yakov was subsequently only “scolded a little.”

The last Russian Emperor Nicholas II.

Yakov Yurovsky, whose biography will be the topic of our article today, was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet statesman and party leader, and security officer. He directly supervised the execution of Nicholas II, the last Russian emperor, and his family.

early years

Yakov Mikhailovich Yurovsky (his real name and patronymic is Yankel Khaimovich) was born on June 7 (19), 1878 in the city of Kainsk (Kuibyshev since 1935). He was the eighth of ten children and grew up in a large Jewish working-class family.

Mother was a seamstress, father was a glazier. Yakov studied at primary school in the river area, and in 1890 he began to learn a craft. Then he worked as an apprentice in Tomsk, Tobolsk, Feodosia, Ekaterinodar, Batumi.

The beginning of revolutionary activity

Yakov Yurovsky (photo below) joined revolutionary activities in Tomsk in 1905. There is some indirect evidence that at first he took part in the military organizations of the Bund, and after that, following the example of his close friend Sverdlov, he joined the Bolsheviks.

Yurovsky distributed Marxist literature, and when the underground printing house failed, he was forced to leave Russia and settled in Berlin, where he converted to Lutheranism along with his entire family (three children and his wife Maria Yakovlevna).

Homecoming

In 1912, Yakov returned to Russia illegally, but he was tracked down and arrested by agents. Yurovsky was expelled from Tomsk for “harmful activities,” but was allowed to choose his place of residence. That's how he ended up in Yekaterinburg.

In the Ural city, Yakov Yurovsky opened a watchmaking and photography workshop, and, as he himself describes it, “the gendarmerie found fault with him,” forcing him to take photographs of prisoners and suspicious persons. Nevertheless, at the same time his workshop was a laboratory for the production of passports for the Bolsheviks.

Yurovsky in 1916 was called to serve as a paramedic at a local hospital. So he became an active agitator among the soldiers. Afterwards, Yakov sold the photo workshop and used the proceeds to organize a Bolshevik printing house called “Ural Worker”. Yurovsky became a prominent Bolshevik, a member of the Council of Soldiers' Deputies and Workers, and one of the leaders of the revolution in the Urals.

Execution of the royal family

Yakov Yurovsky went down in history as the leader and one of the main participants in the execution of the sentence of execution of Tsar Nicholas II and his family. In July 1918, he was appointed commandant and, by decision of the Ural Council, on the night of July 16-17, he directly led the execution of the royal family.

There is a version that Yakov Yurovsky drew up a special document to carry out the execution, including a list of executioners. However, the results of historical research indicate that such a document, provided at one time by the Austrian, former prisoner of war I. P. Meyer and published in 1984 by E. E. Alferyev in the United States of America, is most likely fabricated and does not reflect the real list of participants in the execution.

Later years of life

When the Whites entered Yekaterinburg on July 25, 1918, Yakov Yurovsky moved to Moscow and became a member of the Moscow Cheka, as well as the head of the district Cheka. After the Bolsheviks returned to Yekaterinburg, he was appointed chairman of the Ural GubChK. Yurovsky settled almost opposite the execution house - in the rich mansion of Agushevich. In 1921, he was sent to manage the gold department at Gokhran with the goal of “bringing the valuables stored there into a liquid state.”

Then Yakov worked in the foreign exchange department of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, where he was the chairman of the trading department, and in 1923 he took the post of deputy director of the Krasny Bogatyr plant. Since 1928, Yurovsky worked as director of the Moscow Polytechnic Museum. He died in 1938 from a perforation of a duodenal ulcer (according to the official version).

Yakov Yurovsky: descendants

Yurovsky had a large family. He and his wife gave birth to three children: daughter Rimma (1898), sons Alexander (1904) and Eugene (1909). They lived comfortably and kept servants. The head of the family, who was constantly employed in the service, did not particularly participate in the upbringing of his offspring, but if something happened he punished them severely. All heirs received higher education.

Yakov loved his daughter very much - an excellent student, a black-haired beauty. She gave him a grandson, Anatoly. But, apparently, the descendants really have to pay for the sins of their fathers. All of Yurovsky’s grandchildren, by a fateful coincidence, died (one burned in a fire, another was poisoned by mushrooms, a third hanged himself, another fell from the roof of a barn), and the girls generally died in infancy. Grandson Tolya, adored by his grandfather, died right behind the wheel of the car.

Misfortune also overtook Rimma. She, a major Komsomol leader, was arrested in 1935 and sent to the Karaganda camp for political prisoners. She served her sentence there until 1946. She died in 1980.

Son Alexander was a rear admiral in the Navy. In 1952 he was repressed, but was soon released. He died in 1986.

The youngest son was a political worker in the Navy, a lieutenant colonel. Died in 1977.

Where is Yakov Yurovsky buried?

It is in vain to look for the burial place of the odious “hero of the revolution” in the capital’s popular churchyards - Vagankovsky, Novodevichy... For a long time it was unknown where the grave of Yakov Yurovsky was located. As it turned out, his body was cremated and the urn with ashes was carefully hidden from prying eyes in a special cemetery area - in a special columbarium on Novy in the historical district of Moscow.

There is information that this separate mausoleum-columbarium was organized thanks to the assertiveness of Paul Dauge, a prominent party member and the first creator of ORRIK. They set up a “VIP burial” site in a former church building. In Stalin's hard times, urns were placed here with the ashes of honored individuals who, by some miracle, managed to avoid complete repression and died their own deaths.

Many cells are now “nameless”, because the glass tightly embedded in the wall has fogged up from the inside and is covered with a cloudy coating, which makes it impossible to see anything.

In the depths of the structure, in a niche, there are two urns, draped with red and black mourning ribbons so that no inscriptions are visible. These are the ashes of Yurovsky and his wife. Around the urns there are several artificial flowers with faded fabric - neglect is visible throughout, it is noticeable that the burial has not been renovated for a long time.

They say that fire erases all traces. But for the regicide, whose remains ended up in a special columbarium, this law did not work: his trace went nowhere. At one time, Yurovsky did everything to hide forever the corpses of the imperial family, but his own grave ultimately turned out to be carefully hidden from people. The former hero-commissar is now forever reincarnated as an outcast.

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

“The immediate leader of the murder was Yakov Yurovsky. But he also developed the murder plan itself in detail.”

And especially now, after the discovery and publication of his “Note”, Yurovsky will remain in history as the direct perpetrator of this terrible crime, which he 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 located in Moscow, in the fund of the Special Department of the Police Department:

“To the Cannes tradesman Yakov Mikhailov Yurovsky by the Tomsk governor, in the interests of maintaining public order, on the basis of clause 4 of Art. 16 of the Regulations on enhanced protection in view of the harmful direction of activity of the said Yurovsky, he is prohibited from living within the Tomsk province for the entire duration of the said provision 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 with the local authorities, was given the opportunity to choose his place of residence.

The above document, compiled in the gendarmerie department of the city of Tomsk, is equipped with an appendix, which more precisely explains the “harmful direction of Yurovsky’s activities”: we're talking about about a report from secret agent "Sidorov" regarding weapons - nine revolvers - that belonged to a local Social Democratic organization and which Yurovsky gave to his sister Pana, also a party activist, before his departure.

Yurovsky was a left-wing social democrat, and therefore a Bolshevik. Using the terminology of those times, he was a “professional revolutionary”, but, as we will see later, rather atypical. Having joined the party in 1905, he immediately began to stand out for his unbending faith, and even Lenin himself called him “the most devoted communist” at one time. Yurovsky has accumulated a solid “working record”, as he was an active member of an underground organization for many years.

And here is other information about this man, collected many years later by White Guard counterintelligence:

“Yakov Movshev Yurovsky, 40 years old, Jew, tradesman of the city of Cannes, Tomsk province, watchmaker, ran an electrophotography shop in Yekaterinburg and lived at the address: 1st Beregovaya Street, building 6.”

Like many other professional revolutionaries, and not only Jews, Yurovsky changed his real name to the Russian style: this was what many underground fighters did in order to more reliably hide from the authorities. Yurovsky’s patronymic was not Movshev, but Khaimovich, but the first was quite suitable for this document, as long as it indicated the Jewish origin of the object. Such bias was characteristic of the lists compiled by the White Guard counterintelligence, and in Once again demonstrated the unshakable confidence of this organization that it was Jews - and only 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 his name and patronymic leave no doubt about his nationality, he was not a devout Jew: the fact is that during the period of the democratic revolution of 1905, he lived in Germany for about a year and converted to Lutheranism. The same mysterious stay in Berlin helped him return to his homeland almost a rich man. Yurovsky, the penultimate of eight children in the family, stood on his own feet and before the revolution lived in relative prosperity, engaging in small 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 enrolled in a course for orderlies. Having completed them brilliantly, he then served in the Yekaterinburg military hospital.

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

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

“On one of my visits, entering the room, I saw a man sitting near the window in a black jacket, with a wedge beard, black, black mustache and wavy black hair, especially long, combed back, black eyes, full, high-cheeked face, clean, without any special features. marks, dense build, broad shoulders, short neck, clear baritone voice, slow, with great aplomb, with a sense of dignity, which Avdeev and I came to the patient with. Having examined the patient, Yurovsky, seeing a tumor on the Heir’s leg, suggested that I apply a plaster cast and thereby revealed his knowledge of medicine.”

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

In a fit of iconoclasm and gripped by a thirst for blood, Yurovsky destroyed all the Romanovs, including Dr. Botkin and even the servants, but for reasons that were then unclear, he 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 arrived at the Ipatiev House, when Avdeev, a gloomy and cruel man, was the commandant.

Now, after the appearance of new materials that have already been published, we can say with complete 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 responded to the letters, and then justify their murder. Yurovsky undoubtedly knew the truth and, by leaving Dr. Derevenko alive, he wanted to 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 granted 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 bright future. But when the February Revolution occurred, Yurovsky - in the words of General Diterichs (Mikhail Konstantinovich Diterichs (1874-1937), one of the organizers of the counter-revolution during the civil war. He was a close associate of the admiral. He died in exile.) - “was the first in the ranks of those dissatisfied with everything and everyone." And further:

“Loose in words and in speech, having picked up superficial concepts about socialism abroad, not embarrassed by lies, blatant, 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 as a delegate to the Yekaterinburg Council: from there his career as a political figure began.

After the October events " professional revolutionary“very soon became a famous figure among local Bolsheviks. Almost simultaneously, he held various positions: he was a member of the executive committee of the Urals 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 through his efforts, in whose ranks he continued to be active. He also had “high-ranking” friends in Moscow, in particular Sverdlov.

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

Well, reader? Let’s continue to understand the circumstances of the story, which has many “blank spots” and inconsistencies. This happens with family chronicles. The chronicles of the Yurovsky family are no exception. The geography of the wanderings of Yakov Yurovsky with his wife Maria, daughter Rimma and son Alexander is replete with the names of cities, provinces, and not only Siberian ones. The family's nomadic lifestyle changed in 1905, when the future regicide again found himself in Tomsk.

During the first Russian revolution, the 27-year-old watchmaker joined the ranks of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party and was included in the Tomsk fighting squad. According to the recollections of 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.

On the picture: 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 carried out technical work. Kept illegal literature. He made passports and stamps for them. I was looking for apartments. Had a safe house. Conducted propaganda work among artisan workers.”

At the same time, Yakov Yurovsky was a successful businessman. Let's not forget that by 1910 he owned shops, workshops, and a photo studio. The origin of the capital is unknown, and any assumptions without documentary evidence will remain speculation. What about his family and immediate relatives? In marriage, Yakov Yurovsky is quite happy. Eldest daughter Rimma attends the Tomsk Women's Primary Gymnasium. The middle son Alexander is still too young, and his wife Maria is raising him. In 1909, another son will be born - Evgeniy.

Things are not going so well for Yurovsky's father and mother and his many brothers and sisters. Documents from the funds State Archives Tomsk region give only a partial idea of ​​the type 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 deferment 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 found himself in German captivity.

The fate of brother Peisakh, who served as a reserve lower rank in the army, was different. Far East during Russo-Japanese War. Returned safely to Tomsk. Became a ladies' tailor. He owned a sewing workshop. In the summer of 1913, he went abroad and emigrated to the United States for permanent residence.

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

Leiba Yurovsky was a jewelry maker and lived with his wife and child at the address st. Kondratyevskaya, 46 (Lermontov).

In the photo: Lermontov street, former st. Kondratievskaya

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

In the photo: Pushkin Street, former Irkutsk.

However, the time has come to return to Yakov Yurovsky. Revolutionary businessman for a long time was beyond the suspicion of the security department. Apparently, he has 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 when I looked into this story, I couldn’t find any direct facts. It is better to deal with archival documents; they can be read.

In April 1912, in the house on Tatarskaya, 6, Yurovsky’s apartment was searched and certain Sokolov and Anna Linkevich were arrested. For the first time, the gendarmes became interested in the identities of the detainees, especially given the nature of the things seized from them.

Weapons, false documents, and various correspondence were found in Yurovsky's apartment. Now we can remember the technical work that Yakov Mikhailovich performed as a member of the RSDLP. The flywheel of the investigation was quickly spinning up. It turned out that the tradesman Yurovsky had already sheltered fugitive exiles from the Narym region in his apartment and provided them with financial assistance. Yurovsky's accomplices are very colorful. Peasant Alexander Sokolov is actually Mikhail Sorokin. By conviction he is a social democrat. He went underground due to 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 Nahama Sorina, who did not have the right to live in Tomsk.
The men are being held in custody in the First Tomsk Prison Department, the woman in the provincial prison. What awaits them? Prison, hard labor? 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 deported to Yekaterinburg.

Photo from 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. For what? After all, his family is with him in full force. The head of the family, as a person who has committed an “anti-state - criminal act”?, is prohibited from engaging in commerce. But the wife was not forbidden. Maria Yurovskaya opened a portrait photography studio under the sign “M.Ya. Yurovskaya". The Tomsk period of Yakov’s life ends with exile to Yekaterinburg. He will never have the opportunity to visit Tomsk again. Although in the provincial capital he continued to be listed as a tax debtor. They will never collect the arrears from Yurovsky...

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 graduate from paramedic school. After February revolution political career will grow. In March 1917, he was a deputy of the Yekaterinburg Council of Workers and Soldiers. Appointed chairman in October Investigative Committee Ural Revolutionary Tribunal, became a member of the Extraordinary Commission. In July 1918, Yurovsky became commandant of the Special Purpose House, where the royal family was kept.

In the Ipatiev House, Yakov will shoot 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 for in Tomsk, where people close to him remain.

Detectives will interrogate Yurovsky’s brothers, Ilya and Leiba, but they will show “that they lost contact with Yakov long ago.” There was no reason not to believe the testimony. Leiba had just returned home from German captivity. And Ilya never left Tomsk. It is interesting that the fate of these relatives, as well as the fate of the parents of Chaim and Esther Yurovsky, are unknown. What happened to them? The question remained unanswered...

After Civil War Yakov Yurovsky will not achieve high ranks. He worked at Gokhran, headed a plant, and 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 major Komsomol leader, was arrested as an “enemy of the people” shortly after her father’s death. She spent eight years, until 1946, in the terrible Karaganda camp. She died in 1980.

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 and personalized weapons. Repressed in 1952. He spent several months in Butyrka prison. Stalin's death saved him from the camps in March 1953. 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 party veterans approached the CPSU Central Committee with such an initiative. Did not happen. And this is where we will put an end to the family chronicle of the regicide.

Descendants of Yakov Yurovsky, who shot Nikolai’s familyII, die under mysterious circumstances

The great-great-uncle of the builder Vladimir YUROVSKY led the execution of the last Russian emperor. According to him, the “iron commandant” Yakov YUROVSKY left a sad mark not only on the history of our country, but also brought a terrible curse on their entire family.

Marina KUZMICHEVA

U Yakov Yurovsky there was a big family. They lived comfortably, even kept servants. The head of the family, always busy at work, did not take much part in raising his offspring, but if anything happened, he punished them severely. He gave all his heirs a higher education. At one time, he only trained to be a paramedic, but never worked by profession - he plunged headlong into politics.

Yakov Mikhailovich madly loved his daughter Rimma, a black-haired beauty, an excellent student, says Vladimir Yurovsky. - Rimma gave him a grandson, Tolenka. By a fateful coincidence, all of Yurovsky’s grandchildren died tragically, and the girls died in infancy.

One died in a fire, another fell from the roof of a barn, someone was poisoned by mushrooms, another hanged himself... Tolya’s grandson, whom Yakov Mikhailovich doted on, died while driving a car.

Misfortune also overtook Rimma,” continues Vladimir. - In 1935, she was arrested and thrown into a camp for political prisoners. Yakov Mikhailovich was very worried about his adored daughter, but did not lay a finger on her to get her free.

I sacrificed Rimma to the idea! - he said to those around him in moments of revelation.

Disowned my niece

The girls in the Yurovsky family could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Yakov treated all of them with great reverence. He adored his flirtatious niece Mashenka. And he willingly told the girl how he dealt with the Romanovs. One day Marusya, who knew that Yakov Mikhailovich was experiencing panic fear in front of any weapon, she innocently told her uncle: “I don’t believe that you were the first to fire a bullet at the Tsar!” The offended Yurovsky did not speak to her for a whole month.

But the final break occurred when 16-year-old Maria fell head over heels in love with a visiting gypsy and ran away with him to the village of Yurovka, Kurgan region. Upon learning of this, Yurovsky became furious: “Marusya has disgraced me! So that she doesn’t set foot in our house again!”

Soon the fugitive gave birth to a son. Alas, the young father immediately abandoned her. Yakov Mikhailovich threatened to tear off the sensitive part of the flighty gypsy child. But he still declared the main culprit to be “the unlucky Masha.”

Marusya, abandoned by the hahal, is my grandmother, and her first-born Boris is my father,” Vladimir explains, smiling embarrassedly.

For unemployed Maria, the child was a burden, and she assigned Borenka to Orphanage. The adoptive parents, picking up the baby, noticed a tearful girl on the porch. They took pity on the unfortunate mother and took her on as a housekeeper. True, they weren’t allowed to see Bori.

But when it turned out that Maria was the niece of Yakov Yurovsky himself, the childless couple, out of harm’s way, still allowed her to communicate with their son.

Forgotten Grave

Life has not been easy for Boris. While still a boy, he nursed and then personally buried his brothers and sisters, whom his mother gave birth to. different men. They all died of cold and hunger.

In total, the grandmother gave birth to 11 children, Vladimir continues the story. - Surprisingly, they were all somewhat similar to Uncle Yasha. However, Yurovsky, to whom Maria repeatedly turned for help, renounced her.

Over time, Boris got on his feet, became a tractor driver and started his own family. He blew away specks of dust from his son Volodya - he was afraid that the curse of the Yurovsky family would befall him. Fortunately, various disasters bypassed Vladimir. He grew up and became the father of two children. Whom he prefers not to talk about his famous relative, considering Yakov Mikhailovich a villain.

What Yakov Yurovsky did to the Romanovs cannot be redeemed for centuries either by good deeds or by the honest work of his descendants, Vladimir Borisovich is sure. - I am seriously worried about the future of my son and daughter. By the way, I am also haunted by mystical coincidences. For example, my friend and work colleague has the last name Romanov.

…IN last years Throughout his life, Yakov Yurovsky constantly complained of chest pain. He was tormented by shortness of breath, insomnia, high blood pressure. The regicide died completely alone from lung cancer. Apparently, many years of smoking took its toll.

Vladimir Borisovich does not know where the ashes of Yakov Yurovsky rest. Apparently, the grave has already been razed to the ground, since no one has looked after it for more than 60 years.