I spent a happy and peaceful month in the Detention House, the only
disturbing event being the so-called July Revolution, the first serious
attempt of Lenine’s party to seize the government. The Soviet already
transcended in power the old Provisional Government, most of whose
original members had by this time disappeared from politics. Kerensky
was premier, nominally, but only because a remnant of the Russian Army
still resisted the separate peace propaganda and remained on duty at the
front.
Persons in the Detention House were prisoners in the sense that they
were under guard and were not allowed to leave the house. The guards
were complacent, though, and visiting between the rooms was permitted. I
soon found that I was the only woman in the place, and that some of the
men there had suffered greater tortures than I. There were between
eighty and ninety officers, almost the last remnant of the garrison of
Kronstadt where in the first days of the Revolution the soldiers went
quite mad and murdered, in ways too horrible to relate, a great many
officers, and even young naval cadets against whom they could have had
no possible grudge. The officers in the Detention House were in a sad
state of body and mind. We talked together sometimes in the dining room,
and learning that they longed for the consolation of Holy Communion, I
remembered that my hospital in Tsarskoe Selo possessed a movable altar
and holy vessels. With the consent of Nadjaroff, commandant of the
Detention House, the altar and my own priest were brought from Tsarskoe
and the sacred ceremony was twice celebrated, the last time on July 29,
my birthday.
I ought to say of the commandant Nadjaroff that he was an excellent man,
kind to the prisoners, and conscientious in his work. The poor man had
one fatal weakness, gambling. So strong a hold had this vice on an
otherwise good man that when his money ran short he was not above
borrowing and even begging from the prisoners and their friends. It
seems almost too bad to record this blot on the character of a man who
was kind and courteous to me, but I am trying to give the psychology as
well as to portray the events of the Russian Revolution, and I must
emphasize the fact that it was the weakness and self-indulgence of the
people themselves that made the Revolution and its frightful aftermath
possible.
From my first day in the Detention House I began to recover my health
and my self-control. My windows were not barred, and through the open
casement I feasted my eyes on the beauty of grass and trees, on the
familiar little church of Sts. Kosma and Damian which stood almost
opposite, and, strangest of all to me, of people walking or driving
through the streets below. It took a few days for me to get used to a
normal state of life, and at first, when night grew near, I was seized
with such nervousness that they had to let a maid sleep in the room with
me. As the fresh air and sunshine began to bring color to my face and I
felt strength returning to my limbs I forgot my fears, and became
something like the woman I had been before I was caged like a beast in
the Fortress of Peter and Paul. Visitors were admitted both morning and
afternoon, and I had the happiness of talking privately with my father
and mother and with friends who still remained faithful. They brought me
clothes, toilet articles, books, flowers, writing materials, and, best
of all, news of what had happened during the months of my imprisonment.
I learned of the rapid disintegration of the army under the weak and
ineffectual Provisional Government, the tottering state of Kerensky’s
régime, and the threatening domination of the Soviets. What was in store
for Russia no one knew, happily for Russians. Of the fall of the Soviets
and the rise of Bolshevism no one yet had any premonition. The radical
element was already in control, and there was a great deal of
threatening talk of shooting the Emperor. However, the Imperial Family
was still alive and in Tsarskoe Selo, which was as much as I had dared
to hope.
Of the events of the July Revolution, the forerunner of the Bolshevist
triumph of November, 1917, I know rather less than others who were at
full liberty during that terrible week. It was about the 18th of the
month, a brilliant summer day, when I was startled by long-continued
shouting and bellowing of soldiers in a caserne not far from the house.
In great excitement the men were running in and out of the yard calling
on the _tovarishi_ to arm themselves and join the uprising. As if by
magic the streets filled with rough-looking people, singing wild songs,
waving their arms, and forming processions behind huge scarlet banners
on which I could read such inscriptions as “Down with the War!” “Down
with the Provisional Government!” An endless line of these paraders
passed and repassed, dirty, disorderly soldiers, equally dirty factory
workers, yelling like crazed animals. Once in a while a gray motor truck
would dash through the street, laden with shouting men and boys, rifles,
and machine guns. In the distance we could hear shots and the ripping
noise of the machine guns.
Of course we were all horribly frightened, especially the officers from
Kronstadt, who knew that in case of invasion not one of them would be
left alive. We were all advised to leave our rooms and take refuge in
the corridors, as at any time the rioters might begin firing through the
windows. But we were not out of danger even there because many of the
guards openly sympathized with the rioters, and the head guard was so
jubilant over the course of events that he went around boasting that he
was quite prepared to surrender the house and all its inmates at the
first demand of the Revolutionists. Some of the guards were better than
this man, and one of them, a wearer of the St. George cross, said that
in case of trouble he would try to get me to his sister’s house, where I
would be perfectly safe. For two nights nobody slept or even undressed.
In the room next to mine was lodged old General Belaieff, former War
Minister, whom imprisonment had left a sad wreck. He, like the other
officers, fully expected death, and I found myself in the novel rôle of
a cool and collected comforter. I, who
[Illustration: GRAND DUCHESSES OLGA, TATIANA, ANASTASIE, AND MARIE,
PRISONERS AT TSARSKOE SELO, 1917.]
[Illustration: ANNA VIROUBOVA.
A Photograph Taken Shortly after Her Release from the Fortress of Peter
and Paul, Petrograd.]
had lately been afraid to sleep in a room by myself, now went from one
old soldier to another urging them to keep up hope. The days passed, and
the firing came no nearer, and within a week troops summoned from the
front took possession of the city.
My examination under the High Commissioner Roudneff not being entirely
finished, he came once or twice to the Detention House bringing with him
on one occasion Korinsky, Procurator of Petrograd, a courteous
gentleman, who at parting expressed a hope that I would soon be free. A
few days later, August 5, if I remember correctly, M. Korinsky himself
telephoned that if my parents would call at his office they would be
given my warrant of release. Alas, my parents happened to be in Terioke
that day, but too impatient to wait until the morrow I telephoned my
uncle Lachkereff, who immediately hastened to the Procurator’s office
for the coveted warrant. Trembling with excitement, I stood at my window
with several of my good friends waiting the result of his errand. At six
o’clock we heard a drosky driven at great speed over the cobbles, and as
it came in sight we saw my uncle standing up and wildly waving the
papers in his hand. “Free!” he called out. “Anna Alexandrovna, you are
free!” The rest is confusion in my mind. There were laughter and sobs.
People kissed and embraced me. I was in the drosky driving through
Petrograd streets. I was in my uncle’s house. The tea table was spread.
It was like a dream.
After prison one gets used to freedom by slow degrees. It seems strange
at first to be allowed to move about freely, to go to church, to walk,
to drive, to go wherever one desires, through woods, along leafy
country roads. Not that I was entirely free to go where I liked. I could
not safely go to Tsarskoe Selo, even to my own house, which after my
arrest had been taken over by the police,, and not only ransacked for
evidence against me, but looted of every valuable. It was my faithful
old servant Berchik who gave me the details of the search. He, honest
soul, who had been forty-five years in the service of my family, was
offered ten thousand rubles if he would testify against the Empress and
myself. On his indignant refusal the police arrested him, while they
tore up the carpets and even the floors of my rooms, demanding of
Berchik the whereabouts of secret passages to the palace, the private
telegraph and telephone wires to Berlin, my hidden writing desks, and
all sorts of nonsense. Especially were they anxious to discover my wine
cellar, and when they found that I possessed none they were angry
indeed. They took possession of all the letters and papers they could
find, and at the end of the search ordered my cook to prepare them an
elaborate supper. Then they left taking with them the silverware.
If I could not visit Tsarskoe and those whom I loved and longed to see,
I could at least, and I did, hear from the Empress. Just before the
family were sent to their exile one of the maids smuggled out a letter
which reached me safely and which I quote here, suppressing only the
most intimate and affectionate passages.
“I cannot write much,” the letter began, “my heart is too full. I
love you, we love you, thank you, bless you, kiss the wound on your
forehead.... I cannot find words.... I know what will be your
anguish with this great distance between us. They do not tell us
where we go (we shall learn only on the train), nor for how long,
but we think it is where you were last” (Tobolsk). “Beloved, the
misery of leaving! Everything packed up, empty rooms, such pain,
the home of twenty-three years. Yet you have suffered far more.
Farewell. Somehow let me know you received this. We prayed long
before the Virgin of Znomenia, and I remembered the last time it
was on your bed. My heart and soul are torn to go so far from home
and from you. To be for months without news is terrible. But God is
merciful. He won’t forsake you, and will bring us together again in
sunny times. I fully believe it.”
With the letter the Empress sent me a box of my jewels which she had
carefully guarded, and I heard a fairly full account of how the summer
had been spent. For a time she and the Emperor had been kept apart,
being allowed to speak to each other only at table and in the presence
of guards. Revolutionary agents tried every possible means of
incriminating the Empress, whom they hated even more than the Emperor,
but finally failing in their efforts they allowed the family to be
together once more. The day after they were sent to Siberia the maid
visited me again with the story of their departure. Kerensky personally
arranged every detail, and intruded his presence for hours together on
the unhappy family. Under his orders everything was made ready for a
midnight journey but actually they did not leave the palace until six
o’clock in the morning. All night the prisoners sat in their traveling
clothes and wraps in the round hall of the palace. At five a courageous
servant brought them fresh tea, which gave them a little comfort,
especially Alexei, who stood the night badly. They drove away from the
palace with perfect serenity as if going on a holiday to Finland or the
Crimea. Even the Revolutionary newspapers, with grudging admiration, had
to admit this.
A day or two later Mr. Gibbs, Alexei’s English tutor, came to see me,
and he told me that although he was not permitted to accompany the
Imperial Family with the other tutors, M. Gilliard and M. Petroff, he
intended to follow them to Tobolsk. He took a photograph of me for the
Empress, who was anxious to see for herself if the long imprisonment had
impaired my health. As a matter of fact I was not very well just then,
as I had something very like jaundice, so I am afraid my photograph was
none too reassuring. At this time I was staying in the home of my
sister’s husband who was attached to the British Military Commission in
Petrograd. It was a cool and comfortable apartment, and I should have
been contented to stay on indefinitely. But one day my brother-in-law,
in deep embarrassment, showed me a letter from his sister, who was
expected on a visit. This lady expressed herself unwilling to live under
the same roof with a person as notorious as myself, and I, equally
unwilling to associate with her, moved back to my uncle’s hospitable
home. But even there I found no serenity. I had been acquitted of all
the crimes charged against me by the Provisional Government,[5] but now
the Government of Kerensky found new accusations to make of me. This
time I was a counter-Revolutionist, and as papers served on me in the
middle of the night of August 24 (Russian) ordered, I had to leave for
an unknown destination within twenty-four hours. As I was without money
and was really in need of a physician’s care, my relatives began at once
to petition every authority for a delay of at least twenty-four hours
more. This was finally allowed, but two soldiers were immediately placed
before my door and I was a prisoner in my uncle’s apartment. Meanwhile
my parents and friends continued to make every preparation for my
comfort in exile, and two of my hospital staff, the director and a
nurse, volunteered to go with me. The night before I left my poor
parents stayed with me, none of us going to bed. Very early on a rainy
morning two motor cars filled with police came for us. They were kind
enough to let my parents accompany me almost to the Finnish side, and
they explained that they had come so early because they feared street
demonstrations.
At the station we found a miscellaneous company of alleged
counter-Revolutionists including a few old acquaintances. Among these
was former detective Manouiloff, a tall officer named Groten, the
editor, Tanchevsky, and the curious little Siberian doctor Badmieff,
with his equally curious wife and child and a young maid named Erika
whom I came to know very well. Badmieff was the herb doctor who, it will
be remembered, was supposed to purvey the deadly poisons which I was
alleged to feed to the Tsarevitch. He was a small, round, shriveled man,
excessively old--over a hundred, they said--and in appearance resembled
a quaint carved Buddha out of an antiquarian shop. He had the smallest,
blackest eyes imaginable, set in a face yellow and wrinkled, and his
long, scraggly beard was as white as cotton. His wife, many years his
junior, and his funny little child, Aida, were as Mongolian in
appearance as himself. The maid, Erika, a girl of about eighteen, was
not uncomely with her bright eyes and short, curly hair. All the
“counter-Revolutionists” were herded together in one carriage, the one
farthest from the engine, and in charge of us was a Jewish official of
the Kerensky Government. At Terioke I parted with my father and mother,
the train moving on quickly to the Finnish town of Belieovstrov. Here we
were met by an enormous crowd of soldiers and working people, all
hostile, demanding to see the dangerous counter-Revolutionists.
Especially they demanded to see me, but I shrank back in my seat,
fearing every moment that the shower of stones against the carriage
would break the windows. But quickly the conductor’s whistle was blown
and the train moved beyond the reach of the mob.
Worse was to come. When we reached Rikimeaki we found waiting us a
larger and a still more furious crowd. Our carriage was unfastened from
the train and the mob rushed in yelling that we must all be given up and
killed. “Give us the Grand Dukes!” they shouted. “Give us Gourko!” I sat
with my face buried in the shoulder of my nursing sister fearing that my
end had come. My fears were not imaginary, for several ruffians pitched
on me shouting that they had found Gourko in women’s clothes.
Frantically the sister explained that I was not General Gourko but only
a woman ill and lame. Refusing to believe her, they demanded that I be
stripped, and I have no doubt that this would have happened had not a
motor car opportunely dashed up carrying a sailor deputation from the
Helsingfors Soviet. These men pushed their way into the carriage, and
without ceremony booted the invaders out. One man, a tall, slender youth
named Antonoff, made a speech at the top of his voice, commanding the
mob to disperse and to leave things in the hands of the Soviet. So
authoritatively did he speak that the crowd obeyed him and allowed our
carriage to be attached to another train bound for Helsingfors. Antonoff
remained with us, and in the friendliest fashion sat down beside me and
bade me to be of good cheer. He did not know why we had been sent away
from Petrograd, but the Soviet at Helsingfors, of which he was a member,
had received a telegram, he thought directly from Kerensky, saying that
we were being sent on, and when we arrived were to be placed under
arrest. Doubtless there would be explanations, and after that we would
surely be released. To my mind the thing seemed not quite so simple.
Kerensky had sent us from Petrograd, but not to be imprisoned in
Helsingfors. What he desired was that the mobs, notified of our arrival
from his office, would kill us before we ever reached Helsingfors at
all. No doubt he hoped at the same time to dispose of General Gourko and
the Grand Dukes left in Petrograd. But Gourko was too clever for
Kerensky, and made good his escape to Archangel, where he took refuge
with the British Occupational Force. As for the Grand Dukes, they were,
for some reason, at this time left undisturbed by the Revolutionists.
It was night when we reached Helsingfors and we found the station
practically deserted. The main body of the prisoners were taken away
into the darkness, but Antonoff said that I and the nurse should spend
the night in a hospital adjoining the station. We climbed several
flights of steep stairs and passed through wards crowded with
blue-gowned sick soldiers and sailors, not one of whom offered us the
slightest rudeness. A skilled Finnish nurse undressed me and put me to
bed, but unhappily not for long. Scarcely had I composed myself to sleep
when the door opened, the lights flashed up, and Antonoff, red and very
angry, entered the room. He had gone to the Soviet authorities,
confident that he could persuade them to let me remain in the hospital,
at least until word came from Petrograd of our exact status. But they
refused his request and ordered him to take me at once to the ship on
which the other prisoners were confined. There being no appeal I dressed
and limped down the long stairs to the street where a dense mob had
assembled, shouting, threatening, crowding dangerously around the motor
car. It is a horrible thing to hear a mob shrieking for one’s blood. One
feels like a cornered hare in the face of yelping hounds. With the
strength of desperation I clung to the arm of Antonoff, who for all I
knew might yield suddenly and throw me to the crowd. Unworthy thought,
for the man held me firmly, all the time demanding that the people give
room and let us reach the car. When they saw me in the car their fury
seemed to redouble. “Daughter of the Romanoffs,” they yelled, “how dare
she ride in a motor car? Let her get out and walk.” Standing up in the
car Antonoff repeated his commands that the mob disperse, and slowly at
first and then more rapidly we got away. We reached the distant water
front, and I was taken from the car to a ship. Picture my astonishment
when I found myself standing on the deck of the _Polar Star_, the light
and beautiful yacht on which I had so often sailed in Finnish waters
with the Imperial Family. With all the Imperial property the _Polar
Star_ had been confiscated by the Provisional Government, and it was but
another sign of the changing times that the yacht had later been taken
away from the Provisional Government and was now the property of the
Soviets, being the _Zentrobalt_, or headquarters of the Baltic fleet.
From the deck I was hurried past the open door of the main dining salon,
once a place of ceremony and good living, now a dingy, disordered
apartment where crowds of illiterate workmen gathered to dispose of the
rest of Russia’s ruined fleet and the future of our unhappy country.[6]
At least a hundred of these men were in the salon when I passed it
first, and during the five days I spent on the yacht their voices seemed
to go on in endless orations, ceaseless wrangling, twenty-four hours at
a stretch. It was like nothing I can describe, like an ill-disciplined
lunatic asylum. I was herded with the other “counter-Revolutionists” far
below decks in what I conjectured had been the stokers’ quarters. The
stifling little cabins were filthy, like all the rest of the yacht, and
they simply swarmed with vermin. It was so dark that night and day the
electric lights burned, and I was thankful for that because somehow the
bright light seemed to be a kind of protection against the swarm of
grimacing, obscene sailors who infested the place, amusing themselves
with discussions as to when and how we were likely to be killed. During
the whole of the first night Antonoff stood guard over us and warned the
sailors that no murder could be done without authority from the Soviet.
Over and over again they suggested that he leave the place, but he
always replied firmly that he was responsible for the prisoners and
could not go. Finally towards morning the sailors left, and afterwards
we learned that their blood lust towards us was not merely simulated.
They had gone directly from the yacht to the _Petropavlovsk_, the
flagship of the fleet, and had killed every one of the old officers left
on board.
Antonoff left us early in the morning, left us expecting to return, but
he never did return nor did we ever see or hear of him again. Such
sudden disappearances were common enough even in those early days of the
Russian Revolution, before murder became the fine art into which it has
since developed. Five days we remained on the _Polar Star_, very
miserable in our vermin-infested quarters below decks, but mercifully
allowed part of each day in the open air. They might have allowed us
longer time on deck had it not been for the hostile crowds that
constantly thronged the quays. My time was spent in the shelter of the
deckhouse near the main salon, a spot where in the old days the Empress
and I loved to sit with our books and work. Here five years before, when
the Empress Dowager visited the yacht, I had taken a photograph of her
with her arm around the shoulders of the Emperor, both smiling and
happy in the sparkling light of the fjord. Every corner of the yacht had
been exquisitely clean and white in those days. Dirty as the yacht’s
present crew appeared, I cannot say they starved their prisoners or were
cruel to them. We had soup, meat, bread, and tea, luxurious fare
compared to Peter and Paul. Our worst condition was suspense of mind as
to our ultimate fate. At every change of guard we begged news from
Petrograd, but always we received the same answer. The Kerensky
Government gave no reason or justification for our arrest. Two of the
sailors were especially friendly to me because, as they explained, they
came from Rojdestino, our family estate near Moscow. “If we had known
that you were going to be brought here,” they said, “we might have done
something. But now it is too late.” That night I found in my cabin a
tiny note, ill-spelled and badly written, warning me that all of us were
about to be transferred to the Fortress of Sveaborg in the Bay of
Helsingfors. “We are so sorry,” the note concluded. Although it was
unsigned, I knew the note must have been sent in kindness by one of the
men from my old home. But at the prospect of another imprisonment my
heart turned sick with dread.
Next evening came Ostrovsky, head of the Helsingfors Okhrana,
accompanied by several members of the main committee of the Soviet.
Ostrovsky was a very young man, scarcely eighteen I should judge, but he
had fierce eyes and all the assurance of a born leader. Turning to my
nurse, to Mme. Badmieff, Erika the maid, and her little Mongolian charge
Aida, he said roughly that they were free but that all the rest would
be taken at once to the fortress. In a sudden panic of alarm I threw
myself into the arms of my nursing sister and begged her to accompany
me. But she too was fear-stricken and drew back while all the men
laughed heartlessly. “What’s the difference?” asked Ostrovsky brutally.
“You’re all going to be shot anyhow.” At which the dauntless Erika,
putting Aida into her mother’s arms, came over to me and tucking her
hand under my arms said: “I’m not afraid. I’m going wherever the doctor
goes and I’ll stand by you both.” I gave the trembling nurse a small box
containing all the trinkets I had brought with me, gave her messages to
my father and mother, and followed my fellow unfortunates to the deck,
down a slippery gangplank to waiting motor boats on which we traveled
the half hour’s journey from the yacht to the fortress.