MICHAEL had spent that Wednesday much as any other day, walking in the town and strolling by the river. However, most probably he went to Ekaterinskaya Street at some point to look at an apartment he had agreed to rent from his friends the Tupitsins, for Johnson had an appointment with them that day to conclude negotiations.11
Certainly he was back in the hotel by 6 p.m. for his old friend Colonel Znamerovsky joined him then and stayed with him until 9 p.m.12
Michael may well have then returned to his letter to Natasha, which he had started the previous day; the first pages, beginning as always with My darling, beloved Natasha, would be on his writing desk. At midnight he was in his dressing gown, talking to Johnson, when his valet Chelyshev interrupted him to tell him that his bath was waiting for him.13
What happened then in the Korolev Rooms chiefly depends on the evidence of four men. They are the accounts subsequently provided by Myasnikov and squad member Markov, as well as the statements of Michael’s valet Chelyshev, who was present throughout the scene, and of a witness called Krumnis, a guest in the hotel. On the main points they broadly agree.
Krumnis was playing cards in the hotel when he heard raised voices in the hallway. He went out to find three armed men standing in the office of Ilya Sapozhnikov, the hotel commissar. Myasnikov, Zhuzhgov and Kolpashchikov were telling the commissar that they had orders to evacuate Michael. The commissar insisted that he should first telephone the Cheka offices for confirmation, but the armed men refused to allow him to do so.14
Leaving the others in the hallway to continue their argument. Zhuzhgov approached a kitchen maid and asked her to take him to Michael’s room. The girl led him upstairs to Room 18, occupied by Michael’s chauffeur Borunov.15 Chelyshev was then in Michael’s room and when he came out, followed by Johnson, to find out what the shouting was all about, they found Borunov ‘talking to a man in a soldier’s greatcoat’ who was waving a piece of paper and demanding to know where ‘Michael Romanov lived’. Told it was Room 21, he stepped forward, brandishing a revolver when Chelyshev attempted to bar his way.16
Pushing past Chelyshev and Johnson, Zhuzhgov marched into Michael’s room and thrust the order into his hands. Michael stood up, read the paper, but refused to comply until he had spoken to the Cheka chairman Malkov. Zhuzhgov, staring up at a man eight inches taller than himself, had a gun and an order but neither seemed to impress Michael, as he continued to demand that he telephoned Malkov.17
Zhuzhgov left the room and called for help; and Kolpashchikov rushed upstairs to his aid.
Michael still stubbornly refused to go with them, and as the argument went on another of the squad arrived — Markov, who had been waiting outside the hotel, expecting Michael to have been quickly bundled downstairs and into the street.18
Even with three armed men in the room Michael continued to insist that he telephone Pavel Malkov, unaware that he was in the plot. It was the burly Kolpashchikov who ended the stand-off. Grabbing Michael roughly by the shoulder he snarled, ‘Oh, these Romanovs. We are fed up with you all.’19
Realising that it was futile to go on, Michael began to get dressed. Johnson insisted that he accompany him, and after a brief discussion between them the three men impatiently agreed. Telling Michael that his effects would be sent on afterwards, the men pushed Michael out of the room.
As they were leaving, Chelyshev remembered about Michael’s medicine and ran forward, holding out the bottle. ‘Please, Your Highness, take it with you’, he called out.20 The men roughly shoved him aside as they hauled Michael onto the stairway, motioning Johnson to follow.
Downstairs, Krumnis watched as three armed men and their prisoners came towards him in the hall. Michael and Johnson, he remembered, ‘were dressed in the everyday suits that they usually wore when they went out walking. They did not have coats with them, but carried sticks in their hands.’ He did not notice ‘any particular agitation on their faces.’21
Myasnikov, who had stayed in the lobby, led the way into the street. Chelyshev, watching from the balcony, saw Michael ‘violently pushed’ into the first phaeton22. Zhuzhgov clambered in after him, with Ivanchenko on the reins. Johnson climbed into the second phaeton, with the two other members of the squad. Because they had not allowed for Johnson’s inclusion there was no room now for Myasnikov in the three-seater phaetons. Nevertheless he told them to go ahead — ‘I will catch you up. If I don’t, then wait for me at Motovilikha.’23
As the two carriages clipped away towards the Siberian Highway, Malkov and Sorokin came running up from the Cheka offices and then went with Myasnikov into the militia office next door to the hotel, where they went over the plan they would put into operation as soon as they had telephone confirmation that Michael was dead. They would then circulate the story of his escape, and arrest his servants and associates.24 That done, Myasnikov ordered a militia carriage to take him to Motovilikha. Going at a fast trot he caught up with the others just as they arrived at the militia offices there. Zhuzhgov climbed down and came over to him. Yes, they had spades. No, there was no need for Myasnikov to follow, they could manage on their own.25
Myasnikov stood in the darkness and watched as the two phaetons set off and disappeared into the darkness. Satisfied that this was the end of Michael he then went into the militia offices and telephoned Malkov at the Perm Cheka. Malkov told him that the escape story would now be circulated, search parties organised, and telegrams sent out to the world at large to say that Michael Romanov had been abducted by counter-revolutionaries.26
By this time the phaetons had reached the paraffin stores some three miles beyond Motovilikha. Michael had sat silently on the journey to Motovilikha but when they moved off again he had begun to question Zhuzhgov about their destination. The first place that came into Zhuzhgov’s head was Mogilev, adding quickly that they were heading for a railway crossing to be put on a train there to avoid the attention they would have had in ‘a busy station’.27
It was not a reassuring answer: Mogilev was 1,400 miles to the west, and the carriages were heading east. Michael made no comment, but he ‘didn’t seem frightened’, said Zhuzhgov afterwards.
Six hundred yards past the paraffin stores28 the carriages slowed and then stopped as they reached the wood selected for the execution. Michael and Johnson were told to get out, and then led into the wood. To the obvious question of why, Zhuzhgov roughly replied that it was a short cut to the railway crossing. They did not go far before stopping, and pushing Michael and Johnson aside.
What followed was cold-blooded murder. There were no explanations, no ceremony, no macabre ritual of a last cigarette and blindfold. Zhuzhgov simply lifted his Browning and aimed it at Michael, standing a few feet away, and simultaneously Markov shot Johnson, but only wounding him. Zhuzhgov’s gun either misfired or he missed for Michael, knowing that he was about to die, ran forward his arms out wide, ‘begging to say goodbye to his secretary’.29 As he did so Zhuzhgov fired again but because he was using home-made bullets his gun jammed, as did Kolpashchikov’s gun as he attempted to fire a second bullet at the staggering Johnson. With Michael still moving forward with his arms outstretched he was shot in the head at close range. Markov later boasted that he did so; Zhuzhgov claimed that when Michael fell he ‘pulled Johnson, who had been shot by Ivanchenko, down with him. I went up to them. They were still moving. I put my Browning to Michael’s temple and shot him. Ivanchenko did the same to Johnson’.30