#tobolsk

[roses-of-the-romanovs]

"We are sitting now all together, pretty cozy … On Christmas we will be especially thinking of the past … How much fun we had … " (Anastasia to Ekaterina Zborovskaya, 5 December 1917, from the Hoover Institution Library & Archives, photos from Olga Nikolaevna's 1908–1910 Album)

[foreverinthepagesofhistoryy]

New Rare Photos from Tobolsk

New, extremely rare photos of the Governors Mansion in Tobolsk, 1917-1918.

Photos 1 + 2: Grand Duchesses Olga Tatiana Maria and Anastasia’s bedroom

Photos 3 + 4: Living room at Christmas time; makeshift altar and Christmas tree

Kindly shared by Ilya aka LastRomanovs on Flickr and Sledstvie on Instagram

[worldoftheromanovs]

New Photos from Ilya/Sledstvie

Anastasia’s bed at Tsarskoe Selo

The Christmas Tree in Tobolsk

OTMA’s bedroom in Tobolsk

OTMA’s bedroom in Tobolsk

ГАРФ ф.685 оп.1 д.234 лл.14,16,18,19

[adeilhistory]

Alexandra Feodorovna's christmas prayer

Alix's handwrited prayer in 1917 at Tobolsk to her childrens tutor.

I pray that Christ the Xmax King may stoop to bless, and guide you day to day holiness, Your friend in joy, Your comfort in distress, I pray that every cloud may lead you to the light, and He may raise you up from height to height, Himsef the Day-Star of your darkest night; I pray that the Christ before whose Crib you bend the knee, may fill your longing soul abundantly, with grace to follow him möre perfectly. 1917 Tobolsk - Alexandra

Nicky, Alix and Ella

Alexandra's icon and Alexandra with her oldest daughter Olga.

[otmaaromanovas]

Currently working on the database and feel a need to vent my frustrations. I am filling in the section for Anfisa, Sydney Gibbes' maid who accompanied him to Tobolsk. There is very scarce information about her, apart from Rappaport's description in Four Sisters about her as being “toothless” and “old”. No reference is given for this.

Rappaport also exaggeratedly claims that Gibbes lived in “a hastily converted stone outbuilding near the kitchen - in smelling distance of the pig-swill” whilst at Tobolsk, simply because he did not like Gilliard and didn't want to share a room with him. No reference is given for this either.

The only reference to Gibbes living outside of the Governor's House is given by Evgeny Stepanovich Kobylinski to the Sokolov Report, who stated that "the Englishman did not like to live with anybody else, so he was allowed to live outside" in a "small house near the kitchen".

Furthermore, Gibbes testified that "[o]ur stay in Tobolsk was altogether very agreeable. I did not see anything very objectionable in the conditions of our life." Therefore, even in Gibbes did live in a make-shirt house next to a pig swill, he didn't seem to mind that much.

The relationship between Gibbes and Gilliard is also plagued by a lack of sources across the board. They appear to have had a practical friendship, keeping each other updated with news via telephone and letters. Gibbes would run errands for Gilliard, and the pair teamed up in Ekaterinburg to demand answers over what was happening with the Romanov family. Neither wrote anything overtly critical about the other, though there are rumblings that Gibbes was critical of Gilliard for publishing his memoirs in the years after the Revolution. This was likely rooted in the fact that Gibbes seems to have been an intensely private person, who would not have dreamt of publishing such detailed recollections of the family. Whilst Gilliard published a couple of memoirs, wrote for newspapers, and took a large public role in debunking the Anna Anderson affair, Gibbes returned to England, converted to Orthodoxy, and settled into a deeply pious life.

Essentially, all of the info in that quote on Anfisa is either completely unreferenced, or exaggerated. Big sigh.

Sources:

📍 George Gustav Telberg, Robert Wilton, The Last Days of the Romanovs, (New York: George H. Duran Company, 1920), p. 42, 105, 106

📍 Christine Benagh, An Englishman in the Court of the Tsar: the Spiritual Journey of Charles Sydney Gibbes, (California: Conciliar Press, 2000), p. 82, 136, 203-204

Photograph of Pierre Gilliard (left) and Sydney Gibbes, ГАРФ ф611 оп.1 д.102 л.86

[marianikolaevnaromanova1899]

#otd 107 years ago, the children of the last Tsar of Russia were murdered alongside their parents and loyal servants. The children's only crimes being that they were of Imperial blood.

Remembered now as saints, the five Romanov children; Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei were just 22, 21, 19, 17, and 13 years old, respectively.

“She was a most amiable girl, and people loved her from the moment they set eyes on her. She took life seriously, and she was a clever girl with a sweet disposition. I think she possessed unusual strength of character.” - Lili Dehn, a close friend of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, talking about Olga.

“The Grand Duchess Tatiana was as charming as her sister Olga, but in a different way. She has been described as proud, but I never knew anyone less so. With her, as with her mother, shyness and reserve were accounted as pride, but, once you knew her and had gained her affection, this reserve disappeared, and the real Tatiana became apparent. She was a poetical creature, always yearning for the ideal, and dreaming of great friendships which might be hers. The Emperor loved her devotedly, they had much in common, and the sisters used to laugh, and say that, if a favour were required, 'Tatiana must ask Papa to grant it.' She was very tall, and excessively thin, with a cameolike profile, deep blue eyes, and dark chestnut hair... a lovely Rose maiden, fragile and pure as a flower.” - Lili Dehn, a close friend of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, talking about Tatiana.

“Another time all four of the girls were ill with whooping cough, and they coughed a great deal. Mrs. Eagar told them that they were to be most careful not to cough on anyone, or that person might take the disease from them. One day as little Anastasia, then still an infant, was coughing and choking away, Maria came to her and putting her face close to her said, ‘Baby, darling, cough on me.’ Greatly amazed, Mrs. Eagar asked her what she meant, and Maria said, ‘I am so sorry to see my dear little sister so ill, and I thought if I could take it from her she would be better.” - Mrs Eagar talking about Maria.

"She was also much shorter than her sisters and quite unaccountably lost all interest in her studies. Her teachers called it laziness. But I am not so sure. I think books as books never said much to her. She so wanted to come to grips with life. I know there were many things that troubled her. She hated the Cossack escort always accompanying their outings and so on, but none of it marred her gaiety. That is how I remember her—brimming with life and mischief and laughing so often— sometimes for no reason at all, which is the best kind of laughter. The child was the gayest Romanov of her generation and she had a heart of gold.” - Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna talking about her niece, Anastasia.

“Tsarevich Aleksei was an extremely handsome boy. He was svelte, elegant, intelligent, and had unusual presence of mind. He possessed, moreover, other winning qualities: a warm, happy, disposition, and a generous nature which made him eager to be of help and enabled him to quickly establish rapport with others. Despite his easy manner and outgoing personality, the Tsarevich showed a certain firmness of character and independence of mind. At least it was clear that he intensely disliked submitting to the will of others. The Imperial family unanimously considered Aleksei their favorite, and he responded to his parents’ and sisters’ love with equal tenderness and affection.” - Count Alexander Grabbe, talking about Alexei.

“I was a little boy, just twelve years old. I did not know of the evil in people’s souls. Until that sad day of July 17, 1918, my father, Gilliard, Gibbes, and others knew everything, but I knew nothing. Something terrible was going to happen, but I didn’t know what it was… In the last week of July 1918, myself, my father, Gilliard, Gibbes, and others entered the Ipatiev house. There was a terrible scene… The house was in complete chaos; diaries, letters, albums, and other things were strewn all around in the house.. “But where is Ieskela*?” I asked my father, but he stayed silent... I was confused. “Papa, where is my Ieskela?*’– I asked. “They killed him”, he said, and I started to cry. “But how?” – I replied. “They killed the Tsar, the Tsaritsa, and the Grand Duchesses too. They are all dead.” – said my father.” - Kolya Derevenko, a friend of Alexei, recounting when he learnt of the murders.

“We went up to the first floor and immediately saw the Emperor and Empress and all their children who were in the dining room, sitting around the table as though they were having a meeting. We bowed politely, and they responded with a friendly smile. The Grand Duchesses got up immediately and all four rushed into their bedroom to help move their beds for us. As I remember it, they were neither in the least scared, nor in the least sorrowful. Their bright eyes gleamed with happiness, their short hair was in disorder, their cheeks were rosy like apples. They were not dressed like princess in a fairy tale, but wore simple black dresses that weren't very short, with lightweight white silk blouses with rather high necklines.” - Evdokia Simeonova, a cleaning lady at the Ipatiev House, July 1918, recounting her first meeting of the Romanovs.

"I then went to the lower storey, the greater part of which was a basement. I entered with intense emotion the room in which, perhaps, they had died. Its aspect was most sinister. Daylight came in through a window with iron bars across it. The walls and the floor bore marks of bullets and bayonet thrusts. It was quite obvious that a dreadful crime had been committed there, and that several people had been killed. In my despair believed that the Emperor had perished, and, that being the case, I could not believe the Empress had survived him. I had seen her at Tobolsk, when Yakovlev had come to fetch the Emperor, fling herself in the most dangerous place, I had seen her after several hours of agony, when her feelings as a wife and a mother had had a desperate struggle, end by leaving her sick child, though it tore her heart in two, in order to follow her husband, whose life she thought was threatened. Yes, it was quite possible that they had both been killed. And the children? Had they also been massacred? I could not believe it. The idea was too horrible. And yet everything seemed to prove that the victims had been numerous." - Pierre Gilliard, recounting his visit to the Ipatiev House, just days after the brutal murder of the Romanovs.

[ohsoromanov]

Breakfast and lunch menu prepared for the family of Emperor Nicholas II while their were imprisoned in Tobolsk. April 13, 1918.

For breakfast, Nicholas II, his wife and children ate pea puree soup and salmon with horseradish, and for lunch - cabbage rolls with rice and fried fish.

The children's nanny Alexandra Tegleva, who followed the family into exile in Tobolsk, would late recall that:

" The daily routine was the same as in Tsarskoye. Morning tea was at 8:45 a.m. The sovereign and Olga Nikolaevna drank tea in his office. The Empress in her own. Alexey Nikolaevich and the rest of the Princesses drank tea in the common dining room. The sovereign usually read in his office after tea until 11 o'clock.

The children studied after tea: they had lessons. From 11 to 12, the children had a "change" and they usually walked. At 12, they studied again until the hour when lunch was served. At 12 o'clock after the break, the children were served sandwiches. The Sovereign usually came to them and ate with them. 

After breakfast, they usually went for a walk in the yard and engaged in physical labor. The prince sawed and chopped firewood. The Grand Duchesses also took part in this. They made a playground on the greenhouse where they liked to sit on the sunny side. If we didn't do physical labor, we just walked. It was their only entertainment. They couldn't do anything else and had nothing to have fun with.

Tea was served at 5 o'clock. An hour before tea, the Sovereign sometimes taught Alexei Nikolaevich history. After the tea, the Emperor read. The emistress went to rest and rested until lunch. The children sat down again for classes and studied until 7, had lessons, and from 7 to 8 they prepared lessons.

There was dinner at 8 o'clock. Most often, the Empress and Alexei Nikolaevich had dinner in Her Majesty's room: it was hard for her to walk up the stairs, and that's why she most often had lunch at her place. The Tsarevich, the Grand Duchesses and the retinue dined in the common dining room. After lunch, we talked most often, played some games. Alexey Nikolaevich soon went to bed. At 11 o'clock, Her Majesty had tea in the living room. After that, we went to sleep.

The table was good. Usually there was soup, fish, roast and sweet. Lunch was a repetition of breakfast. Fuits were served, but what are the actual fruits? Nothing was brought with them, and in Tobolsk it was only possible to get bad apples.

In general, life was tolerable. At first, it was better than in Tsarskoye, it was more rest. But it was a bit boring. We were sitting as prisoners and were cut off from Russia and even from the city.

But then, at the beginning of 1918, we felt it [change].

We were ordered to live at our own expense. It was decided not to give us more money from the treasury. Here the mode of our life had to be changed. Several people were fired. I had to change the table. Only two dishes began to be cooked, without sweets, and there was no coffee, cream, butter at the table. Sugar was rationed.

[Source]

[sibirsibir]

1912 original color photo of the city of Tobolsk, Siberia, taken from Assumption Cathedral looking northwest. Photograph taken by pioneering color photographer Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky.