0:00:02 > 0:00:04On the 17th of July, 1918,
0:00:04 > 0:00:08these four girls in white dresses were brutally murdered
0:00:08 > 0:00:11in the bloody climax to the Russian Revolution.
0:00:11 > 0:00:15The girls' names may not be remembered, but their alluring
0:00:15 > 0:00:20mix of beauty and innocence holds an enduring fascination -
0:00:20 > 0:00:24they are emblems of a world that vanished forever in the Revolution.
0:00:28 > 0:00:32In Russia today, the Tsar's four daughters -
0:00:32 > 0:00:37Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia -
0:00:37 > 0:00:42have literally become icons and are worshipped as holy martyrs.
0:00:42 > 0:00:46The second programme in this two-part series will
0:00:46 > 0:00:49tell their story in their own words.
0:00:49 > 0:00:53'Darling, I am writing to you in semi-darkness. We have not dared to
0:00:53 > 0:00:57'draw the curtains, the whitewashed windows are too horrible.'
0:00:57 > 0:01:01And it will reveal the real girls behind the saintly images.
0:01:15 > 0:01:19By 1914, the two eldest Romanov sisters had grown from
0:01:19 > 0:01:21little girls into young women.
0:01:24 > 0:01:29Olga was now 18 and Tatiana 16, and the time had come for them
0:01:29 > 0:01:33to fulfil the ultimate duty of all royal princesses
0:01:33 > 0:01:35and be married off to eligible princes.
0:01:37 > 0:01:41With their winning combination of blue blood and beauty,
0:01:41 > 0:01:44it seemed that the world would be their oyster.
0:01:44 > 0:01:47I think there's an inherent similarity with Diana,
0:01:47 > 0:01:51being the most photographed princesses of their time, the most
0:01:51 > 0:01:56marriageable, attractive, desirable young royal princesses in Europe.
0:02:01 > 0:02:05These fairy-tale princesses seemed to lead a charmed life.
0:02:08 > 0:02:10But behind the happy family photographs,
0:02:10 > 0:02:13their childhood was far from idyllic.
0:02:13 > 0:02:17Although Nicholas was a devoted and indulgent father,
0:02:17 > 0:02:22he was an ineffectual Tsar and as opposition to his rule had mounted,
0:02:22 > 0:02:26his family had been forced to retreat to the safety and security
0:02:26 > 0:02:28of their imperial palaces.
0:02:30 > 0:02:33The girls' freedom was further constrained by their mother
0:02:33 > 0:02:36Alexandra, who maintained an iron-grip over their young
0:02:36 > 0:02:40lives and raised her daughters in the shadow of their little brother
0:02:40 > 0:02:44Alexei, who had the life-threatening condition haemophilia.
0:02:49 > 0:02:52At home in the Alexander Palace, the girls were as much
0:02:52 > 0:02:56prisoners as princesses - they rarely went out,
0:02:56 > 0:03:00had few friends, seldom saw their extended family
0:03:00 > 0:03:04and knew nothing of the real world beyond the palace gates.
0:03:08 > 0:03:12It's extraordinary that you have these four sisters growing up,
0:03:12 > 0:03:16now entering adolescence and their mother's still
0:03:16 > 0:03:20looking upon them as "girlies", as she called them.
0:03:20 > 0:03:23There's this constant infantilisation of her daughters,
0:03:23 > 0:03:26as though she couldn't accept that they were growing up,
0:03:26 > 0:03:29they needed to be out in the wide world.
0:03:29 > 0:03:32It's as though she wanted to keep them locked away from that.
0:03:33 > 0:03:37It was almost a convent-like existence.
0:03:37 > 0:03:41So, these girls, even as they were growing up,
0:03:41 > 0:03:45with Olga at 18, and Tatiana at 16,
0:03:45 > 0:03:48they were still much younger than their years.
0:03:48 > 0:03:51Because there was no outside contact.
0:03:51 > 0:03:54There was no real outside experience.
0:03:56 > 0:03:59When it came to the opposite sex, the girls had always been most
0:03:59 > 0:04:03interested in the officers of the imperial entourage and
0:04:03 > 0:04:06the sailors on their royal yacht - the Standart -
0:04:06 > 0:04:08who they had known since childhood.
0:04:09 > 0:04:13These could never be more than teenage crushes - to marry
0:04:13 > 0:04:18so far beneath themselves would have been quite unthinkable.
0:04:18 > 0:04:22But when the search for suitable husbands began in earnest,
0:04:22 > 0:04:27it soon became clear that Olga and Tatiana were ill-prepared to
0:04:27 > 0:04:32mix with the grand dukes or princes who were their social equals.
0:04:33 > 0:04:37You get this extraordinary sight of the Tsar escorting his two
0:04:37 > 0:04:41eldest daughters to these swish balls during the centenary year
0:04:41 > 0:04:44and in 1914, and they don't know anybody.
0:04:44 > 0:04:48And they gravitate towards the officers from the Standart or the
0:04:48 > 0:04:54imperial entourage and this caused an awful lot of disapproval
0:04:54 > 0:04:58in St Petersburg society. They seemed such ingenues,
0:04:58 > 0:05:04so lacking in social accomplishments, so innocent, so childish, really.
0:05:07 > 0:05:11In the summer of 1914, whilst most of Europe was preoccupied with
0:05:11 > 0:05:13thoughts of the impending war,
0:05:13 > 0:05:17the four sisters were more concerned with matters of the heart.
0:05:18 > 0:05:22The Tsar and Tsarina thought they might have found a royal match
0:05:22 > 0:05:26for Olga in Prince Carol, the heir to the Romanian throne,
0:05:26 > 0:05:30but their eldest daughter would take some convincing.
0:05:30 > 0:05:34Olga was really rather horrified that Carol of Romania had
0:05:34 > 0:05:37been suggested as a prospective bridegroom
0:05:37 > 0:05:41because he had quite a reputation as a ladies' man, he wasn't
0:05:41 > 0:05:45really ideal material so far as Olga was concerned and she was actually
0:05:45 > 0:05:49quite definite that she wasn't having anything to do with it.
0:05:49 > 0:05:54In June 1914, the Romanov family paid a visit to their Romanian
0:05:54 > 0:05:59counterparts - this was intended to be an opportunity
0:05:59 > 0:06:02for the dubious Carol to win over the reluctant Olga.
0:06:03 > 0:06:06As the families posed for an official photograph,
0:06:06 > 0:06:10Olga sat at the far right-hand side of frame,
0:06:10 > 0:06:13kept her distance from Carol at the back
0:06:13 > 0:06:18and paid far more attention to the baby on her knee than to him.
0:06:18 > 0:06:22And just in case he hadn't got the message, she and her sisters
0:06:22 > 0:06:26had concocted a cunning plan to ward off any Romanian advances.
0:06:26 > 0:06:30They had all spent time lying in the sun before going across to
0:06:30 > 0:06:33Romania and were quite sunburnt.
0:06:33 > 0:06:37And it was something that the Romanians immediately noticed
0:06:37 > 0:06:40with horror, royal princesses do not have a sunburn
0:06:40 > 0:06:43and look like sunburnt gypsies.
0:06:43 > 0:06:47And they were very disapproving of the fact, and in a way,
0:06:47 > 0:06:51the Romanov girls were triumphant because this was a deliberate
0:06:51 > 0:06:55conspiracy on their part that none of them should be attractive to
0:06:55 > 0:06:59Prince Carol and none of them should have to marry him and leave home.
0:07:03 > 0:07:07The sisters might not have felt there was much urgency to the
0:07:07 > 0:07:11hunt for a husband, but within a few weeks of their return home, any
0:07:11 > 0:07:16thought of marriage or of leaving Russia had become a distant dream.
0:07:19 > 0:07:23On the 19th of July, the German Kaiser declared war on Russia.
0:07:27 > 0:07:31The next day, Nicholas and Alexandra appeared on the balcony
0:07:31 > 0:07:35of the Winter Palace in St Petersburg to be met by a vast crowd
0:07:35 > 0:07:37singing God Save The Tsar.
0:07:40 > 0:07:43But such patriotic fervour was sorely
0:07:43 > 0:07:45tested by the scale of the bloodshed.
0:07:53 > 0:07:56In the first five days of fighting alone,
0:07:56 > 0:08:0070,000 Russian soldiers were killed or wounded.
0:08:02 > 0:08:06To deal with the unprecedented scale of casualties,
0:08:06 > 0:08:10thousands of European women, from all walks of life,
0:08:10 > 0:08:13volunteered as Red Cross nurses and the Tsarina
0:08:13 > 0:08:16and her two eldest daughters eagerly joined their ranks.
0:08:18 > 0:08:20This wasn't a matter of just donning an apron
0:08:20 > 0:08:24and mopping a fevered brow and holding hands by the bedside,
0:08:24 > 0:08:29this was real hands-on nursing, and everything it involved.
0:08:29 > 0:08:33Seeing people with horrible mutilations and wounds.
0:08:33 > 0:08:37Within a couple of weeks, the girls were observing amputations,
0:08:37 > 0:08:41and it was throwing them in absolutely at the deep end.
0:08:41 > 0:08:43These were very protected girls,
0:08:43 > 0:08:47who'd never seen anything of human suffering, really.
0:08:47 > 0:08:50The Sisters Romanova - as they were known -
0:08:50 > 0:08:54worked on a special ward of the hospital at Tsarskoye Selo,
0:08:54 > 0:08:56caring for wounded officers.
0:08:56 > 0:09:00Although it was only a short drive from the Alexander Palace,
0:09:00 > 0:09:03for the girls the hospital was another world.
0:09:03 > 0:09:07It did give them a taste of what normal people were like, really.
0:09:07 > 0:09:10In fact, one day they sent the car for them,
0:09:10 > 0:09:12without the lady-in-waiting present.
0:09:12 > 0:09:14And the girls got in the car and they decided,
0:09:14 > 0:09:17instead of going straight back to the palace, they would go shopping.
0:09:17 > 0:09:19They went into a shop
0:09:19 > 0:09:22and then realised they didn't actually know how to buy anything.
0:09:22 > 0:09:23And the next day they came back
0:09:23 > 0:09:26and asked one of the nursing sisters, "How do we go shopping?"
0:09:26 > 0:09:28And she had to explain to them.
0:09:29 > 0:09:33The irony of the war years is that it finally brought the girls
0:09:33 > 0:09:37the kind of social contact that they had been craving,
0:09:37 > 0:09:41albeit often with wounded officers as people who were suffering
0:09:41 > 0:09:43and recovering from injury.
0:09:43 > 0:09:47But they were so curious to take advantage of these
0:09:47 > 0:09:51opportunities of talking to men from the outside, you know,
0:09:51 > 0:09:56ordinary officers and soldiers, ask them about the world outside,
0:09:56 > 0:10:00the "outside life", as they called it, was something that fascinated
0:10:00 > 0:10:02all five children.
0:10:02 > 0:10:05Even Alexei constantly interrogated people
0:10:05 > 0:10:08when he visited at the hospital about the outside life.
0:10:08 > 0:10:12There was this world that they just didn't know about.
0:10:14 > 0:10:18If the war expanded the Romanovs' extremely narrow horizons,
0:10:18 > 0:10:23then it also tested the bonds of an incredibly close-knit family.
0:10:23 > 0:10:25Nicholas was often away at the front
0:10:25 > 0:10:30and Alexandra found the agony of separation hard to bear.
0:10:30 > 0:10:34The couple wrote to each other incessantly, sometimes several
0:10:34 > 0:10:38times a day and their letters reveal that 20 years of marriage
0:10:38 > 0:10:44had not dimmed their devotion to - and desire for - each other.
0:10:44 > 0:10:48'I press you passionately to my heart and lower.
0:10:48 > 0:10:51'Forgive me.'
0:10:51 > 0:10:56'Lady thanks you for the caress which she returns with great love!'
0:10:58 > 0:11:01She's very anxious that when he comes back for a... for a week
0:11:01 > 0:11:06or two that her period shouldn't be there to get in the way
0:11:06 > 0:11:08of their sexual activity.
0:11:08 > 0:11:12But she is very coy about it so she uses words like Madame Becker,
0:11:12 > 0:11:15which appears to have been a euphemism for the period,
0:11:15 > 0:11:17or the engineer mechanic, so she'll say,
0:11:17 > 0:11:20"Well, I do hope the engineer mechanic isn't going to be here
0:11:20 > 0:11:22"when you're back."
0:11:22 > 0:11:24And, "Madame Becker was here but she's just gone."
0:11:24 > 0:11:26Of course she'll also tell him about the girls.
0:11:26 > 0:11:30She tells more than you might expect a mother to tell a father actually,
0:11:30 > 0:11:34that the girls have got Madame Becker and that's why Olga's in a bad mood.
0:11:35 > 0:11:39Alexandra's letters were driven not just by a physical longing,
0:11:39 > 0:11:42but by a deep-rooted fear that at this critical moment
0:11:42 > 0:11:46in their country's history, the man to whom she was
0:11:46 > 0:11:50so passionately devoted was simply not up to the job of being Tsar.
0:11:52 > 0:11:55It's been said about Nicholas that he was essentially a pillow, that he
0:11:55 > 0:11:59sort of bore the impression of the last person that sat upon him.
0:11:59 > 0:12:03That is a source of constant concern and frustration for Alexandra.
0:12:03 > 0:12:06She loves Nicholas dearly but she sees him as a weak man.
0:12:06 > 0:12:08And if you read their correspondence,
0:12:08 > 0:12:10this comes through very clear.
0:12:10 > 0:12:13She's constantly telling him "Be strong, be strong,
0:12:13 > 0:12:16"don't be talked out of something, you need to stand up,
0:12:16 > 0:12:18"the Russians need a strong man."
0:12:18 > 0:12:21And she's forever repeating these lines over and over
0:12:21 > 0:12:23in their correspondence.
0:12:23 > 0:12:26"Be more autocratic than Peter the Great, bang your fists,
0:12:26 > 0:12:29"they just need you to bang your fist,
0:12:29 > 0:12:31"the Russians like people who bang their fists and give them a smack."
0:12:31 > 0:12:34I mean, she does talk again in a rather infantilising way,
0:12:34 > 0:12:37"Give them a smack and they'll behave themselves."
0:12:37 > 0:12:39He must have dreaded these letters arriving,
0:12:39 > 0:12:42even though he claims to be really pleased to hear from her because
0:12:42 > 0:12:45yes, she got bossier and bossier.
0:12:45 > 0:12:47And if words alone weren't enough,
0:12:47 > 0:12:50Alexandra had a secret weapon in her arsenal -
0:12:50 > 0:12:55the family's beloved spiritual advisor Grigori Rasputin.
0:12:55 > 0:13:00Rasputin's remarkable abilities to ease their son Alexei's suffering
0:13:00 > 0:13:03ensured that he was the one outsider in whom
0:13:03 > 0:13:06the imperial couple had complete faith.
0:13:06 > 0:13:11She's always sending things, trinkets and little talismans
0:13:11 > 0:13:13and things from Rasputin to Nicholas.
0:13:13 > 0:13:15There's a time when she says, you know,
0:13:15 > 0:13:18"Remember you have his comb, you have the comb from our friend.
0:13:18 > 0:13:21"Before your meeting with the ministers, with the top brass,
0:13:21 > 0:13:24"make sure you use it, this will give you the strength you need to
0:13:24 > 0:13:26"hold firm and stand your ground."
0:13:26 > 0:13:28And she's always doing this, she's sending him
0:13:28 > 0:13:31bits of fruit from Rasputin to eat. It's utterly bizarre.
0:13:34 > 0:13:38A year into the war, Rasputin wasn't just dispensing lucky charms
0:13:38 > 0:13:41but highly controversial political advice.
0:13:41 > 0:13:46By the summer of 1915, the Russian army was in retreat,
0:13:46 > 0:13:49almost a million-and-a-half Russians had been killed or wounded
0:13:49 > 0:13:54in the fighting, and troop morale was dwindling fast.
0:13:54 > 0:13:58Rasputin convinced Alexandra that the Tsar must sack his uncle -
0:13:58 > 0:14:02the highly experienced Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolayevich -
0:14:02 > 0:14:06as Commander in Chief and take charge of the army himself.
0:14:07 > 0:14:10In fact, when the Tsar told his mother, the Dowager,
0:14:10 > 0:14:14that he was thinking of getting rid of Nikolasha, she said,
0:14:14 > 0:14:17"Everyone will think this is Rasputin's bidding."
0:14:17 > 0:14:20And she writes in her diary, "And he blushed."
0:14:23 > 0:14:27With the Tsar commanding the army, he left the Tsarina at the
0:14:27 > 0:14:31Alexander Palace, with instructions to oversee
0:14:31 > 0:14:35the running of the government - she was only too happy to oblige.
0:14:36 > 0:14:41Many now believed that this was the true seat of imperial power
0:14:41 > 0:14:44and they had their suspicions about how much influence
0:14:44 > 0:14:47the Tsarina's favourite was wielding.
0:14:49 > 0:14:53Once Nicholas leaves and heads to the front permanently,
0:14:53 > 0:14:58everyone is then focused on what Alexandra is doing in the palace.
0:14:58 > 0:15:02And the fact that Rasputin remains in Petrograd leads to all sorts
0:15:02 > 0:15:07of rumour and gossip and salacious talk that the two of them are,
0:15:07 > 0:15:09in a sense, pulling all the strings,
0:15:09 > 0:15:13and these are the true powers behind the throne.
0:15:13 > 0:15:15And they are the ones that will bring ruin to the country.
0:15:19 > 0:15:23As the atmosphere at home grew increasingly claustrophobic,
0:15:23 > 0:15:27the Romanov sisters found a welcome escape in their war work.
0:15:27 > 0:15:31Hundreds of their private photographs reveal how close
0:15:31 > 0:15:34Olga and Tatiana became to their favourite patients.
0:15:36 > 0:15:41The hospital increasingly became like a second home for all of them.
0:15:41 > 0:15:44And as the years went on and more and more wounded were arriving,
0:15:44 > 0:15:46they spent longer and longer days,
0:15:46 > 0:15:48often till nearly midnight at the hospital,
0:15:48 > 0:15:50changing the dressings, making beds,
0:15:50 > 0:15:54helping boil the silk for sewing stitches, and preparing swabs.
0:15:54 > 0:15:58They had free time in the afternoons, after they went home for lunch,
0:15:58 > 0:16:01to go back to the hospital and sit with their favourites
0:16:01 > 0:16:05and look at photographs, take endless photographs of each other.
0:16:05 > 0:16:11And such became this narrow but, in a way, strangely happy life
0:16:11 > 0:16:15they had that even when they went home at the end of the day,
0:16:15 > 0:16:17they often still telephoned back
0:16:17 > 0:16:20to have one last chat with their favourites.
0:16:22 > 0:16:27Beneath their bandages, many of the wounded were dashing young men.
0:16:27 > 0:16:31And for teenage girls so starved of male company,
0:16:31 > 0:16:33they proved irresistible.
0:16:33 > 0:16:37It's rather amusing when you look at all the many photographs
0:16:37 > 0:16:40taken of Olga and Tatiana at the hospital during the war years,
0:16:40 > 0:16:43with their favourite officers, their favourite wounded.
0:16:43 > 0:16:47But most of these young men were rather dark, swarthy, Caucasian types
0:16:47 > 0:16:53with big twirly moustaches, men from Armenia or Georgia, with
0:16:53 > 0:16:57a certain kind of exoticness, some of them even, I think, were Muslims.
0:16:57 > 0:17:01They seemed to fall for those kind of dark, enigmatic,
0:17:01 > 0:17:05swashbuckling looks much more than your rather austere
0:17:05 > 0:17:07northern European Russian types.
0:17:07 > 0:17:13In May 1915, a wounded Georgian officer, Dmitri Shakh-Bagov,
0:17:13 > 0:17:16was admitted to the hospital.
0:17:16 > 0:17:18He was a sweet and bashful character and Olga
0:17:18 > 0:17:21and he were soon smitten with each other.
0:17:21 > 0:17:26But love had scarcely had the chance to blossom when disaster struck
0:17:26 > 0:17:30and Mitya recovered and was sent back to the front.
0:17:30 > 0:17:35It's kind of an irony really that he had to get seriously wounded
0:17:35 > 0:17:38again for Olga to see him later in the year.
0:17:40 > 0:17:44When Mitya Shakh-Bagov was brought back, quite badly wounded a
0:17:44 > 0:17:48second time, her world lit up again, and she was happy and she was
0:17:48 > 0:17:53smiling and she found every possible excuse to be at the hospital.
0:17:53 > 0:17:56And this was the sum of her life, her world.
0:17:58 > 0:18:02Olga filled her diary with references to her beloved Mitya.
0:18:02 > 0:18:06'13th August - Cleaned the instruments with Mitya,
0:18:06 > 0:18:09'the darling, sitting next to me.
0:18:09 > 0:18:13'29th August - Went to vespers, Mitya the darling also came.
0:18:13 > 0:18:17'Such absolute joy. Thank you, God.
0:18:17 > 0:18:21'7th October - Sat for a long time with Mitya.'
0:18:21 > 0:18:25But her position meant that there was no hope this passionate affair
0:18:25 > 0:18:27could ever be consummated.
0:18:30 > 0:18:32I think that if Olga had had her wish,
0:18:32 > 0:18:35to marry and live quietly in the country,
0:18:35 > 0:18:39she would have wanted to marry a man just like Mitya. An ordinary man.
0:18:39 > 0:18:42Rather than a prince, an ordinary Russian soldier.
0:18:44 > 0:18:47It's rather sad that the one thing Olga really wanted to do
0:18:47 > 0:18:49was hardly likely to happen.
0:18:49 > 0:18:51She was an Imperial Grand Duchess,
0:18:51 > 0:18:53she was going to have to make a grand marriage.
0:18:55 > 0:18:57Olga's thwarted romances only exacerbated
0:18:57 > 0:19:02the bouts of depression she suffered during the war, which were so severe
0:19:02 > 0:19:07that she was treated with the period cure-all of arsenic injections.
0:19:07 > 0:19:10I think part of the cause of this might have been her
0:19:10 > 0:19:11relationship with Mitya.
0:19:11 > 0:19:14The fact that she was besotted by this chap.
0:19:14 > 0:19:17And that she knew that really and truly, it wasn't
0:19:17 > 0:19:18going to go anywhere.
0:19:19 > 0:19:23Dmitri finally left the hospital at the beginning of 1916
0:19:23 > 0:19:26and Olga never saw him again,
0:19:26 > 0:19:29but to the very end of her life she carried a flame for him.
0:19:32 > 0:19:36She's clutching at straws for every shred of news about Mitya.
0:19:36 > 0:19:38How he is. And towards the end of the year,
0:19:38 > 0:19:42is thrilled to meet his mother and says, "Oh, it's wonderful,
0:19:42 > 0:19:45"I have a little piece of him. I've met his mother."
0:19:45 > 0:19:48And as late as the beginning of 1917,
0:19:48 > 0:19:51almost one of her last diary entries, she's recording his birthday,
0:19:51 > 0:19:54and when he first was admitted to the hospital.
0:19:54 > 0:19:58He did find a very special place in her heart, I think.
0:20:00 > 0:20:04Behind the scenes, private passions might get the better of
0:20:04 > 0:20:08the Sisters Romanova, but in public the Tsarina and her daughters'
0:20:08 > 0:20:11war work was meant to serve an important propaganda purpose,
0:20:11 > 0:20:16although it didn't always create quite the right impression.
0:20:16 > 0:20:22There was a need for the imperial family to put out a good message,
0:20:22 > 0:20:24good online message, you know.
0:20:24 > 0:20:27And there was a photo opportunity done
0:20:27 > 0:20:29for the Empress and her daughters.
0:20:29 > 0:20:33The basement of the Winter Palace had been turned, part of it, into a
0:20:33 > 0:20:38military hospital and the Empress had worked there as a volunteer.
0:20:38 > 0:20:43And she and her daughters were photographed in nurses' outfits.
0:20:43 > 0:20:46All sounds fine except that they hadn't taken into account
0:20:46 > 0:20:50that by this time, a British consignment of nurses outfits
0:20:50 > 0:20:53delivered to St Petersburg - Petrograd as it was then -
0:20:53 > 0:20:56had fallen into the hands of the city's prostitutes
0:20:56 > 0:20:59and the whole image of the nurse had been transformed.
0:20:59 > 0:21:04So this attempt to put out a good PR message backfired very badly.
0:21:14 > 0:21:17But it was the family's close association with
0:21:17 > 0:21:21a man of Rasputin's notorious proclivities that caused
0:21:21 > 0:21:24by far the greatest damage to their reputation.
0:21:24 > 0:21:28Amid the isolation of the Alexander Palace,
0:21:28 > 0:21:31the Tsarina seemed oblivious to rumours,
0:21:31 > 0:21:34which made a mockery of her much-vaunted morality.
0:21:34 > 0:21:38The Empress really becomes the key political figure in the capital
0:21:38 > 0:21:40and she loves this role.
0:21:40 > 0:21:44She likes the fact that...she boasts in her diary that she's the first
0:21:44 > 0:21:47woman in Russia to receive ministers since Katherine the Great.
0:21:47 > 0:21:51And maybe she sees herself playing that sort of role.
0:21:51 > 0:21:55But in reality, she's much more playing out the role
0:21:55 > 0:21:59of Marie Antoinette on the eve of the French Revolution.
0:21:59 > 0:22:03Completely unpopular, with all sorts of rumours
0:22:03 > 0:22:09circulating around society of her sexual shenanigans with Rasputin.
0:22:09 > 0:22:14All of this was very damaging because these ideas of sexual corruption
0:22:14 > 0:22:17in the court became a sort of metaphor
0:22:17 > 0:22:19for the political corruption of the monarchy as a whole.
0:22:19 > 0:22:24But Alexandra had such faith in Rasputin that she was willing
0:22:24 > 0:22:27to turn a blind eye to reports of his increasingly embarrassing
0:22:27 > 0:22:30sexual misdemeanours.
0:22:30 > 0:22:33Rasputin had a bad incident when he was in Moscow,
0:22:33 > 0:22:37where he sort of exposed himself in a nightclub.
0:22:37 > 0:22:39And he boasted that he was sleeping with the Tsarina.
0:22:39 > 0:22:43When the Tsarina heard about this particular incident,
0:22:43 > 0:22:46and other ones, she thought that there was a sort of double
0:22:46 > 0:22:50dressing up as Rasputin, pretending to be him.
0:22:50 > 0:22:52Just to discredit him.
0:22:52 > 0:22:55Because he was so close to the imperial family.
0:22:55 > 0:23:00And it wasn't just the Empress herself who was implicated in
0:23:00 > 0:23:03the gossip - her innocent children were tarred with the same brush.
0:23:03 > 0:23:07It was said that Rasputin had had his wicked way
0:23:07 > 0:23:09with the Romanov sisters,
0:23:09 > 0:23:13or as he would euphemistically put it, "rejoiced with them."
0:23:14 > 0:23:20Rumours go round St Petersburg that he's raped all the Grand Duchesses
0:23:20 > 0:23:23and that they are now mad with lust,
0:23:23 > 0:23:27having discovered sex and the joy of "rejoicing" with Rasputin.
0:23:27 > 0:23:31Cartoons appear around St Petersburg.
0:23:31 > 0:23:34Lewd cartoons of the Tsarina with Rasputin.
0:23:34 > 0:23:37Schoolchildren are singing songs.
0:23:37 > 0:23:41It's as though they're suddenly no holds barred
0:23:41 > 0:23:44in what you can say about Rasputin and the Tsarina.
0:23:50 > 0:23:53Alexandra and Rasputin were not only rumoured to be guilty
0:23:53 > 0:23:59of a sexual scandal but of the most horrifying political betrayal.
0:23:59 > 0:24:04The true allegiance of the German Tsarina was called into question
0:24:04 > 0:24:07and even ordinary Russians, whose loyalty Nicholas
0:24:07 > 0:24:10and Alexandra had taken for granted,
0:24:10 > 0:24:13now seemed to have lost all faith in their Tsar and Tsarina.
0:24:15 > 0:24:19There's a great conviction that Rasputin and Alexandra -
0:24:19 > 0:24:21remember, she is a German after all -
0:24:21 > 0:24:25are actually spying and working with the Germans to conclude a
0:24:25 > 0:24:27separate peace and sell out the Allies.
0:24:27 > 0:24:31And this is a very, very widely held belief,
0:24:31 > 0:24:33this is not some lunatic fringe.
0:24:38 > 0:24:41I think historians have tended to sort of belittle all of these
0:24:41 > 0:24:44rumours about Rasputin as a bit of tittle-tattle
0:24:44 > 0:24:48and it's interesting but not really part of the revolutionary story.
0:24:48 > 0:24:49But I don't agree with them
0:24:49 > 0:24:52because by 1915 when these rumours take off,
0:24:52 > 0:24:55of his sexual orgies with the Empress,
0:24:55 > 0:24:58of his direct connection to the Germans and so on,
0:24:58 > 0:25:02there's a revolutionary crisis. And in a revolutionary crisis, what
0:25:02 > 0:25:06matters is not what's true or not, there's no reliable information.
0:25:06 > 0:25:09Newspapers are censored, people don't know what to believe.
0:25:09 > 0:25:12What matters in a revolutionary situation is what people believe.
0:25:12 > 0:25:15And these rumours were believed, not just by ordinary
0:25:15 > 0:25:18people in the streets, not just by peasants, but they were
0:25:18 > 0:25:21believed by statesmen, they were believed by foreign ambassadors.
0:25:21 > 0:25:24Buchanan, the British Ambassador, Paleologue, the French Ambassador,
0:25:24 > 0:25:28are repeating these rumours, as if they were true, to their governments.
0:25:28 > 0:25:31So these rumours take on a real political power
0:25:31 > 0:25:33and become very damaging to the monarchy.
0:25:35 > 0:25:40Shut away in her palace, Alexandra's commitment to the man widely
0:25:40 > 0:25:44believed to be at the root of Russia's problems never faltered.
0:25:45 > 0:25:49But with the Tsarina insisting that her weak-willed husband
0:25:49 > 0:25:52follow every one of Rasputin's political pronouncements,
0:25:52 > 0:25:54the government ground to a halt.
0:25:57 > 0:26:01Minsters were no sooner appointed than they were sacked.
0:26:01 > 0:26:04In little more than a year, five different prime ministers,
0:26:04 > 0:26:07four different ministers of the interior
0:26:07 > 0:26:11and three different war ministers all came and went.
0:26:11 > 0:26:15And nobody was more conscious of the looming political crisis
0:26:15 > 0:26:18than the extended Romanov family -
0:26:18 > 0:26:21if the Tsar would not stand up to his own wife, they would.
0:26:23 > 0:26:26I think you could call the Romanov's at this point probably
0:26:26 > 0:26:29one of the great dysfunctional families of all time.
0:26:29 > 0:26:31The degree to which no-one trust anyone.
0:26:31 > 0:26:34They're talking behind each other's backs, it's a recipe for
0:26:34 > 0:26:39disaster and it's remarkable the degree to which they have allowed
0:26:39 > 0:26:43this to happen, that they don't realise that they need each other.
0:26:45 > 0:26:48On the 16th of December, 1916,
0:26:48 > 0:26:52members of the wider Romanov family finally made their move.
0:26:54 > 0:26:58That evening, Rasputin disappeared in Petrograd.
0:26:58 > 0:27:01Anastasia recorded in her diary...
0:27:01 > 0:27:03'Father Grigori went missing last night.
0:27:03 > 0:27:08'They are looking for him everywhere. It's absolutely dreadful.'
0:27:09 > 0:27:13That night, the sisters were so upset that the four of them
0:27:13 > 0:27:15shared a bed.
0:27:15 > 0:27:19Two days later, they heard the news they had dreaded -
0:27:19 > 0:27:22Rasputin had been murdered.
0:27:22 > 0:27:23It was Olga alone
0:27:23 > 0:27:27who recognised that his death might be a blessing in disguise.
0:27:29 > 0:27:32It's interesting, of the four sisters, Olga seemed always
0:27:32 > 0:27:36the most sensitive to the wider political situation.
0:27:36 > 0:27:40And she had sensed, I think, for quite a while, that there was a
0:27:40 > 0:27:44certain malevolent influence about Rasputin that was not a good thing.
0:27:44 > 0:27:49And perhaps there was a need to kill Rasputin because he'd overreached
0:27:49 > 0:27:52himself with their mother and his influence over her.
0:27:52 > 0:27:57But what upset her was the brutal way in which he was murdered.
0:27:58 > 0:28:03Rasputin was poisoned with cyanide-laced cream cakes,
0:28:03 > 0:28:08shot and then bludgeoned to death in the cellar of the Moika Palace -
0:28:08 > 0:28:12home to Felix Yusupov, the heir to Russia's greatest fortune.
0:28:15 > 0:28:19For the imperial family, it wasn't just the gruesome
0:28:19 > 0:28:21details of the murder that were so shocking,
0:28:21 > 0:28:25but the fact that his killers were intimately known to them.
0:28:26 > 0:28:31Yusupov was married to the Tsar's only niece and his co-conspirator
0:28:31 > 0:28:35Dmitri Pavlovich was even closer to Nicholas and Alexandra
0:28:35 > 0:28:39and had once been considered the ideal husband for Olga.
0:28:41 > 0:28:46Rasputin's murder is sort of a family murder, if you will.
0:28:46 > 0:28:50I mean, Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich, one of the main conspirators,
0:28:50 > 0:28:54was a cousin of Nicholas II and was practically raised
0:28:54 > 0:28:56almost as a surrogate son by Nicholas.
0:28:56 > 0:29:02This was sort of treachery at the most intimate, personal level.
0:29:02 > 0:29:05And clearly struck at the very heart of Nicholas and Alexandra when
0:29:05 > 0:29:10they learned the degree to which the people that they had allowed in,
0:29:10 > 0:29:13and very few people were allowed in to them, and to be close to them.
0:29:13 > 0:29:16These were the ones who then sort of thrust the dagger
0:29:16 > 0:29:20and struck at a person in whom they had placed all their faith and hope.
0:29:22 > 0:29:29Alexandra is completely desperate over Rasputin's murder.
0:29:29 > 0:29:31She is also very bitter.
0:29:31 > 0:29:34There was already a great divide between her
0:29:34 > 0:29:36and the rest of the family, but it must have made it
0:29:36 > 0:29:39enormously impossible to cross the divide
0:29:39 > 0:29:42when it was realised that actually members of their own family had
0:29:42 > 0:29:46been involved in the assassination. It's like assassinating her.
0:29:49 > 0:29:52The Romanov clan hoped that the murder would be just
0:29:52 > 0:29:57the first step in a palace coup - it wasn't Rasputin alone
0:29:57 > 0:30:01they wanted to see the back of, but the Tsarina herself.
0:30:03 > 0:30:06Rasputin's murder was part of a larger plan.
0:30:06 > 0:30:09It wasn't simply one murder that they were planning,
0:30:09 > 0:30:12but it was sort of a larger way of trying to neutralise
0:30:12 > 0:30:15not just obviously Rasputin but Alexandra as well.
0:30:15 > 0:30:18That there was talk that she would be sent to a convent and
0:30:18 > 0:30:21forced to take orders as a way of getting her out of the government,
0:30:21 > 0:30:26of again fighting these dark forces and thus allowing Nicholas,
0:30:26 > 0:30:29they hoped, to stand up and take complete rule of the country.
0:30:29 > 0:30:34Nicholas' own mother allied herself with her son's opponents
0:30:34 > 0:30:38and agreed that her wayward daughter-in-law should be banished.
0:30:38 > 0:30:42'If only the Lord would open poor Nicky's eyes.
0:30:42 > 0:30:45'And that he would stop following her dreadful advice.
0:30:45 > 0:30:48'What despair! All of this will end in disaster!'
0:30:48 > 0:30:51I think the conspirators believe that the monarchy will come
0:30:51 > 0:30:55to its senses, Nicholas will correct his policies
0:30:55 > 0:30:59and allow for a sort of compromise with the opposition forces
0:30:59 > 0:31:02to see the country through till the end of the war.
0:31:02 > 0:31:07But, you know, in assassinating Rasputin, they bring about
0:31:07 > 0:31:11quite the opposite because Nicholas and Alexandra withdraw even
0:31:11 > 0:31:16further into seclusion and will have no truck with any talk of reform.
0:31:16 > 0:31:21So by January 1917, we have a really hopeless situation
0:31:21 > 0:31:27in which there's no possibility for any compromise at this late stage
0:31:27 > 0:31:30and really, the monarchy is doomed.
0:31:32 > 0:31:37By February 1917, Nicholas and Alexandra's isolation was absolute -
0:31:37 > 0:31:40they were estranged from their wider family
0:31:40 > 0:31:44and totally cut off from Russia's looming political crisis.
0:31:44 > 0:31:48Nicholas is oblivious to the situation.
0:31:48 > 0:31:52He's out at headquarters and his diary, you know,
0:31:52 > 0:31:57it's still filled with the usual stuff about who was at dinner,
0:31:57 > 0:32:01games and dominos still, he's more concerned that a couple of
0:32:01 > 0:32:04his daughters have measles than with the reports that are now coming in
0:32:04 > 0:32:08in February from General Khabalov about disturbances in the capital.
0:32:08 > 0:32:13And he's not prepared to make any concessions at this late stage.
0:32:13 > 0:32:15On Sunday the 26th of February,
0:32:15 > 0:32:18the Tsar ordered the use of military force
0:32:18 > 0:32:21to put down protests in Petrograd,
0:32:21 > 0:32:25but the capital's soldiers chose instead to side with the people.
0:32:26 > 0:32:29The following day, the Petrograd garrison mutinied
0:32:29 > 0:32:32and a disturbance became a revolution.
0:32:40 > 0:32:43Out at the Alexandra Palace,
0:32:43 > 0:32:46all the children except Maria had the measles.
0:32:47 > 0:32:50From their sick beds, they heard gun fire
0:32:50 > 0:32:54and the playing of the Marseillaise coming from the town barracks,
0:32:54 > 0:32:58but the Tsarina insisted they should not be told anything was wrong
0:32:58 > 0:33:00until it was impossible to keep the truth from them.
0:33:02 > 0:33:07Alexandra refused to take the threat of revolution seriously
0:33:07 > 0:33:11even when reports were coming in thick and fast of marches
0:33:11 > 0:33:12and protests and bread riots,
0:33:12 > 0:33:17she thought it was all a storm in a teacup and it would soon blow over.
0:33:17 > 0:33:21And she refused to accept that the enemy was at the gates.
0:33:23 > 0:33:27But as the unrest in Petrograd intensified,
0:33:27 > 0:33:30events overtook the Romanov family.
0:33:30 > 0:33:34The leaders of the Duma and Nicholas' own military chiefs
0:33:34 > 0:33:38insisted that only his abdication could resolve the crisis.
0:33:38 > 0:33:41And the Tsar did not take much convincing.
0:33:41 > 0:33:45On the 2nd March, more than three centuries of Romanov rule
0:33:45 > 0:33:49came to an end when Nicholas renounced the throne
0:33:49 > 0:33:51for himself and Alexei.
0:33:51 > 0:33:54Initially only Maria was told the news,
0:33:54 > 0:33:57as the other children were still so ill.
0:33:57 > 0:34:01She seemed to be taking it well, until one of the court ladies
0:34:01 > 0:34:04discovered her crouched in a corner weeping - she was
0:34:04 > 0:34:09terrified that the revolutionaries would come and take her mother away.
0:34:09 > 0:34:11Almost a week later,
0:34:11 > 0:34:15Alexandra finally broke the news to the rest of the children.
0:34:15 > 0:34:19It was Alexei who was the most perplexed by it all.
0:34:19 > 0:34:23He was totally bewildered. He couldn't understand. He said,
0:34:23 > 0:34:27"Well, does that mean I won't be able to go and see my soldiers any more?
0:34:27 > 0:34:30"Won't we be able to go on the Standart Yacht
0:34:30 > 0:34:31"and sail round as a family?"
0:34:31 > 0:34:35No, none of that was going to happen any more.
0:34:35 > 0:34:38And then he asked the perfectly logical question, he said,
0:34:38 > 0:34:41"Well, who's going to be Tsar?"
0:34:41 > 0:34:44"Well, there isn't going to be a Tsar," he was told.
0:34:44 > 0:34:47"But if there isn't a Tsar," he asked,
0:34:47 > 0:34:49"Who's going to govern Russia?"
0:34:55 > 0:34:57On the 9th March, the former Tsar -
0:34:57 > 0:35:01or Colonel Romanov, as he was now known -
0:35:01 > 0:35:04came home to a palace that was now a prison.
0:35:05 > 0:35:08The provisional government had placed the Romanovs
0:35:08 > 0:35:10under house arrest.
0:35:10 > 0:35:13For a family who had always sought to distance
0:35:13 > 0:35:15themselves from the outside world,
0:35:15 > 0:35:18their isolation was now strictly enforced.
0:35:18 > 0:35:21They were not allowed to leave the palace,
0:35:21 > 0:35:25to receive visitors, to use the telephone or telegraph
0:35:25 > 0:35:28and their letters were even checked for invisible ink.
0:35:30 > 0:35:33For the children, life in this world turned upside down
0:35:33 > 0:35:34was a rude awakening.
0:35:37 > 0:35:41Derevenko - who was one of Alexis' sailor carers -
0:35:41 > 0:35:44lifted him, protected him from hurting himself.
0:35:44 > 0:35:48And there was a sort of role reversal, which was horrible,
0:35:48 > 0:35:51because he started shouting at Alexis, giving him orders.
0:35:51 > 0:35:53He was quite overweight, Derevenko.
0:35:53 > 0:35:56And Alexis used to shout, "Look at Fatty run."
0:35:56 > 0:36:00And then all of a sudden, Fatty turning round and saying,
0:36:00 > 0:36:02"Pick up your own things."
0:36:04 > 0:36:08The family could only go outside under armed guard and were
0:36:08 > 0:36:13not allowed to stray beyond a small area of the Alexander Park.
0:36:13 > 0:36:17This bridge marked a frontier which they could not cross.
0:36:17 > 0:36:20To compound their humiliation,
0:36:20 > 0:36:23the captives became a visitor attraction -
0:36:23 > 0:36:27hundreds of curious onlookers flocked to the park gates,
0:36:27 > 0:36:30eager for a glimpse of their fallen royals.
0:36:30 > 0:36:32But for a dethroned autocrat,
0:36:32 > 0:36:36Nicholas seemed remarkably accepting of his new life.
0:36:36 > 0:36:40In a way, abdication was an enormous relief for Nicholas.
0:36:40 > 0:36:44He accepted with an extraordinary sort of equanimity, there was
0:36:44 > 0:36:48almost a sense of indifference, one of the commandants
0:36:48 > 0:36:52at the palace said that he was like the lowest form of plant life,
0:36:52 > 0:36:57you know, unreacting, he was like a human oyster, so clamped up,
0:36:57 > 0:37:00so introverted that nothing...
0:37:00 > 0:37:04He showed nothing on the surface about how he felt about
0:37:04 > 0:37:07this momentous event in his life.
0:37:09 > 0:37:13Nicholas had always prized his private life above all else -
0:37:13 > 0:37:17now his great hope was that his family should all remain together
0:37:17 > 0:37:21and be allowed to go into exile within Russia or abroad.
0:37:24 > 0:37:28I think he felt that it would all come right in the end.
0:37:28 > 0:37:31I think you had to have a lot of faith to think that,
0:37:31 > 0:37:33but he did think that.
0:37:33 > 0:37:37Now, don't forget his family, or his connections, his cousins,
0:37:37 > 0:37:38were so widespread.
0:37:38 > 0:37:43He knew them all very well because they had spent time with him.
0:37:43 > 0:37:45He had travelled a lot.
0:37:45 > 0:37:48There were many occasions, family occasions,
0:37:48 > 0:37:50when he saw a lot of them.
0:37:50 > 0:37:53So I think they always felt that whatever happened,
0:37:53 > 0:37:56somebody would bail them out in the end, somebody would rescue them.
0:37:56 > 0:38:00I don't think they knew quite to what extent they were in danger.
0:38:01 > 0:38:04Immediately after the Revolution,
0:38:04 > 0:38:09King George V had offered his cousin Nicky asylum in Britain.
0:38:09 > 0:38:12He had this aspiration that perhaps he could come to England
0:38:12 > 0:38:16and be a gentleman farmer. As his cousin Willy - the Kaiser -
0:38:16 > 0:38:18had said, "Well, Nicholas is only good for one thing,
0:38:18 > 0:38:21"which is growing turnips and being country gent."
0:38:21 > 0:38:23That would've suited Nicholas,
0:38:23 > 0:38:29to live in obscurity and just be a modest family man.
0:38:29 > 0:38:31But such modest ambitions
0:38:31 > 0:38:35were ultimately thwarted by his children's measles.
0:38:35 > 0:38:37If they had acted quickly,
0:38:37 > 0:38:40if both the British and the provisional government in Petrograd
0:38:40 > 0:38:42had acted quickly,
0:38:42 > 0:38:45they might have got the children and Alexandra out north,
0:38:45 > 0:38:50to an ice-free port like Murmansk, and under a white flag to Britain.
0:38:50 > 0:38:54But the tragedy was, the children were far too sick to be moved.
0:38:54 > 0:38:58And that's really the ultimate 'what if'.
0:38:58 > 0:38:59If the children hadn't been ill,
0:38:59 > 0:39:03might they have been able to get them out to safety?
0:39:03 > 0:39:07By the time the children recovered, cousin George had had
0:39:07 > 0:39:11second thoughts and withdrawn his offer of asylum.
0:39:11 > 0:39:16The family's future was now more uncertain than ever.
0:39:16 > 0:39:19If Nicholas and the children were coping with the dramatic
0:39:19 > 0:39:23reversal in their fortunes, then Alexandra was not.
0:39:23 > 0:39:27Under house arrest, she grew increasingly melancholic.
0:39:27 > 0:39:30After their attack of the measles, her daughters' hair
0:39:30 > 0:39:34had begun to fall out and they had all had to shave their heads.
0:39:34 > 0:39:37Alexei joining in to show solidarity.
0:39:37 > 0:39:41But when their mother was confronted with a photograph of her
0:39:41 > 0:39:46daughters proudly displaying their bald heads, she was horrified.
0:39:46 > 0:39:49She thought they looked like those condemned to death.
0:39:51 > 0:39:55After almost five months under house arrest, the family left
0:39:55 > 0:39:59the Alexander Palace for the last time on the 1st of August.
0:39:59 > 0:40:02Nicholas wrote in his diary...
0:40:02 > 0:40:05'The sunrise that saw us off was beautiful.
0:40:05 > 0:40:08'We left Tsarskoye Selo at 6.10 in the morning.
0:40:08 > 0:40:10'Thank God we are all saved and together.'
0:40:12 > 0:40:16At the Alexandrovsky Station, they boarded a special train,
0:40:16 > 0:40:18its final destination was unknown.
0:40:18 > 0:40:22All the family had been told was to prepare for a long trip east
0:40:22 > 0:40:26and to pack plenty of warm clothes.
0:40:26 > 0:40:30For the children, this would be their first sight of a homeland
0:40:30 > 0:40:32they hardly knew.
0:40:32 > 0:40:37The empire that their father was Tsar of
0:40:37 > 0:40:42was so vast that anything beyond the limitations of White Russia,
0:40:42 > 0:40:45ie - Petersburg down to Moscow and a bit beyond,
0:40:45 > 0:40:49were unknown to the children. It was such a vast place.
0:40:49 > 0:40:54So this great hinterland of endless forests and the great flat horizons
0:40:54 > 0:40:58that they entered on that long four-day train ride
0:40:58 > 0:40:59through to Siberia
0:40:59 > 0:41:03was a whole different world that the children had never seen.
0:41:04 > 0:41:08Anastasia described the journey for her tutor, Sydney Gibbes,
0:41:08 > 0:41:10in her somewhat broken English.
0:41:12 > 0:41:15'The first day was hot and very dusty.
0:41:15 > 0:41:17'At the stations, we had to shut our window curtains
0:41:17 > 0:41:20'that nobody should see us.
0:41:20 > 0:41:22'On the way, many funny things happened,
0:41:22 > 0:41:26'and if I shall have time, I shall write to you our travel farther on.
0:41:28 > 0:41:31'Goodbye. Don't forget me.'
0:41:38 > 0:41:40She was right to worry.
0:41:40 > 0:41:45Their ultimate destination had been chosen precisely to keep the family
0:41:45 > 0:41:49so far out of sight and mind that there was little chance
0:41:49 > 0:41:51that royalists would rescue them,
0:41:51 > 0:41:55or violent revolutionaries would kill them.
0:41:55 > 0:42:02Tobolsk was a provincial backwater 1,700 miles east of St Petersburg.
0:42:02 > 0:42:06It had been by-passed by the trans-Siberian railway
0:42:06 > 0:42:09and was accessible only by boat.
0:42:10 > 0:42:14During the seven-month-long Siberian winter,
0:42:14 > 0:42:17the river froze and the town was completely cut off
0:42:17 > 0:42:19from the outside world.
0:42:21 > 0:42:26The family's new home was meant to be one of the best houses in town,
0:42:26 > 0:42:29but when an advance party went to inspect the accommodation,
0:42:29 > 0:42:34they found it dirty, smelly and stripped of almost all furniture.
0:42:36 > 0:42:41When the family are living in the former Governors' mansion in Tobolsk,
0:42:41 > 0:42:43it's clearly...
0:42:43 > 0:42:48if not a terrible prison condition, it's not pleasant.
0:42:48 > 0:42:50And Nicholas complains about the plumbing
0:42:50 > 0:42:54and the toilets keep overflowing, and it does all sound really unpleasant
0:42:54 > 0:42:56when you're used to a palace.
0:42:57 > 0:43:00Conditions in the house were cramped
0:43:00 > 0:43:03and the four sisters shared a bedroom.
0:43:03 > 0:43:06They filled it with reminders of their previous life -
0:43:06 > 0:43:09religious icons, family snaps
0:43:09 > 0:43:12and pictures of their favourite wounded officers.
0:43:14 > 0:43:18As they adjusted to their new life, what little they got to see
0:43:18 > 0:43:20of Siberia was a revelation
0:43:20 > 0:43:23and their captors were struck by the girls' naivety.
0:43:23 > 0:43:26The commissar in charge of them
0:43:26 > 0:43:29thought they were terribly badly educated.
0:43:29 > 0:43:32Of course, he was rather shocked when he noticed their
0:43:32 > 0:43:37bewilderment at seeing local Yakuts and Siberian indigenous peoples
0:43:37 > 0:43:39going around in reindeer skins.
0:43:39 > 0:43:42And the girls would be standing there at the window,
0:43:42 > 0:43:46looking in bafflement at these strange people on the streets below
0:43:46 > 0:43:48as though they were from another planet.
0:43:48 > 0:43:52And he wondered just exactly how broad their education had been.
0:43:54 > 0:43:57The family's outside space was far more limited than at the
0:43:57 > 0:44:03Alexander Palace - they had just a small kitchen garden and a yard.
0:44:03 > 0:44:07Desperate for something to do, Nicholas would pace the yard 40
0:44:07 > 0:44:12or 50 times an hour and perform daily chin-ups on a horizontal bar.
0:44:12 > 0:44:16He and his children grabbed any opportunity for fresh air
0:44:16 > 0:44:18and a view of the outside world.
0:44:19 > 0:44:22When you see photographs of them,
0:44:22 > 0:44:25and it must look a bit odd to our eyes, sitting on top of a...
0:44:25 > 0:44:28on top of a sort of what looks like a greenhouse.
0:44:28 > 0:44:29You think, what are they doing?
0:44:29 > 0:44:32Well, the answer was they're trying to get some sun.
0:44:32 > 0:44:36Because they've been sitting, stewed up in this...indoors all the time,
0:44:36 > 0:44:39so it was nice to get out, get a bit of fresh air.
0:44:39 > 0:44:41And that's the only place they could do it,
0:44:41 > 0:44:43because they wouldn't let them go anywhere else.
0:44:45 > 0:44:50As the Siberian winter set in, there was little sun left to catch.
0:44:50 > 0:44:55And by mid-December, the temperature had dropped below minus 20.
0:44:56 > 0:44:59The family tried to keep busy chopping wood
0:44:59 > 0:45:02and pulling Alexei around on his sledge.
0:45:02 > 0:45:06Inside the house it was so cold that Anastasia complained,
0:45:06 > 0:45:09"Our hands do not write properly."
0:45:09 > 0:45:13But that didn't stop her and her sisters sending endless letters,
0:45:13 > 0:45:15although they had very little to say.
0:45:15 > 0:45:18As she wrote to her friend Katya...
0:45:18 > 0:45:21'I am terribly sorry my letter turned out to be so stupid
0:45:21 > 0:45:26'and boring but nothing interesting ever happens here.'
0:45:26 > 0:45:31Her older sister Tatiana wrote to Valentina, one of the
0:45:31 > 0:45:34nurses she had worked with at the hospital in Tsarskoye Selo...
0:45:34 > 0:45:38'We feel we are living on some kind of far away island
0:45:38 > 0:45:40'where we receive news of another world.
0:45:40 > 0:45:46'The time goes quickly and the days pass completely unnoticed.'
0:45:46 > 0:45:49When they weren't writing letters, the girls were gazing out of
0:45:49 > 0:45:53the window - ironically, it was under house arrest in Tobolsk
0:45:53 > 0:45:57that they saw more of ordinary life than they ever had before,
0:45:57 > 0:45:58or would again.
0:45:58 > 0:46:02Their life became very narrow, very repetitious, very boring.
0:46:02 > 0:46:06But they did have one thing that they loved above all others.
0:46:06 > 0:46:11And that was to sit at the window and watch the world go by outside.
0:46:11 > 0:46:14This became almost a primary hobby.
0:46:14 > 0:46:17And the girls would mention it in their letters to friends and family
0:46:17 > 0:46:21how they took such pleasure in sitting and watching people
0:46:21 > 0:46:23in the street below and waving to them.
0:46:23 > 0:46:27At least they had a kind of point of contact,
0:46:27 > 0:46:30even if it was through the glass of the windows.
0:46:34 > 0:46:37In their Siberian prison, the Romanovs were
0:46:37 > 0:46:41starved of news from the outside world, but what little
0:46:41 > 0:46:45they did hear made their position seem bleaker than ever.
0:46:45 > 0:46:49At the end of October, the provisional government was
0:46:49 > 0:46:53overthrown by a Bolshevik coup led by Lenin and Trotsky -
0:46:53 > 0:46:57the family's fate now lay in the hands of their most avowed enemies.
0:46:59 > 0:47:03There's no doubt that Olga, of all the girls, the most sensitive,
0:47:03 > 0:47:08the most naturally melancholic, felt their captivity very profoundly
0:47:08 > 0:47:12in terms of the broader picture of what was going on in Russia.
0:47:12 > 0:47:15She was extremely upset by the fact that the nation had
0:47:15 > 0:47:18turned against, for her, a very loving father.
0:47:20 > 0:47:23It's clear to me that Olga, of all of them,
0:47:23 > 0:47:27sensed that there was something terrible out there.
0:47:27 > 0:47:31Something terrible that may perhaps, in the end, destroy them all.
0:47:33 > 0:47:37On the 3rd March, 1918, the Bolsheviks signed a peace treaty
0:47:37 > 0:47:41with Germany, but no sooner had one conflict ended
0:47:41 > 0:47:45than another began and the country was plunged into a bloody civil war
0:47:45 > 0:47:50between the Bolshevik Red Army and the anti-Communist White Army.
0:47:52 > 0:47:55The Bolsheviks were terrified that the Whites would attempt to rescue
0:47:55 > 0:48:00their former Tsar and they decided that the family must be moved.
0:48:00 > 0:48:03But Alexei was too ill to travel
0:48:03 > 0:48:08so he was left behind in Tobolsk with Olga, Tatiana and Anastasia,
0:48:08 > 0:48:13whilst Nicholas, Alexandra and Maria went on ahead.
0:48:13 > 0:48:18The family's greatest fear, separation, had finally been
0:48:18 > 0:48:23realised and as they said their goodbyes, the sisters wept.
0:48:23 > 0:48:27I think, in the end, their religious faith enabled them
0:48:27 > 0:48:31to deal with this terrible agony of separation.
0:48:31 > 0:48:34And it was a separation that had no end in sight,
0:48:34 > 0:48:37they didn't know when they were going to see their parents again.
0:48:37 > 0:48:41They didn't know IF they would see their parents again.
0:48:41 > 0:48:44But somehow they had to hang onto each other.
0:48:49 > 0:48:53Nicholas and Alexandra expected to be taken to Moscow,
0:48:53 > 0:48:55the new Bolshevik capital,
0:48:55 > 0:48:59but instead they found themselves in Russia's third city -
0:48:59 > 0:49:03Yekaterinburg, more than 1,000 miles east of the capital.
0:49:05 > 0:49:08They were put up in the Ipatiev House -
0:49:08 > 0:49:11or as the Bolsheviks had ominously renamed it -
0:49:11 > 0:49:13the House of Special Purpose.
0:49:14 > 0:49:18The house no longer exists, but where it once stood
0:49:18 > 0:49:20the Church on the Blood
0:49:20 > 0:49:24has been built in honour of the Romanov sainthood.
0:49:24 > 0:49:29It was consecrated in 2003 and has become a major pilgrimage site.
0:49:30 > 0:49:32Once they're moved to Yekaterinburg
0:49:32 > 0:49:36and incarcerated in the Ipatiev House,
0:49:36 > 0:49:37it's no longer house arrest.
0:49:37 > 0:49:40It must have felt much more like prison.
0:49:40 > 0:49:44The house is surrounded by a high wooden fence, there are guards,
0:49:44 > 0:49:50they have to be accompanied by them to go to the toilet, they are,
0:49:50 > 0:49:54you know, they are insulted, there is obscenity, graffiti on the walls.
0:49:54 > 0:49:58It must have been threatening. They knew that something had changed.
0:49:58 > 0:50:03They knew that their political drama was moving towards some
0:50:03 > 0:50:06sort of resolution which was not likely to be good for them.
0:50:08 > 0:50:11In Tobolsk, the sisters had at least been able to watch the world
0:50:11 > 0:50:14go by from their windows,
0:50:14 > 0:50:18but in Yekaterinburg even that small freedom was denied them.
0:50:18 > 0:50:20Maria wrote to her siblings...
0:50:20 > 0:50:24'Darling, I am writing to you in semi-darkness for we have not dared
0:50:24 > 0:50:26'to draw the curtains,
0:50:26 > 0:50:29'the whitewashed windows are too horrible.'
0:50:30 > 0:50:32On the 20th May, her three sisters
0:50:32 > 0:50:36and Alexei began the journey to Yekaterinburg by boat.
0:50:36 > 0:50:41During that trip, their English tutor Sydney Gibbes took the last
0:50:41 > 0:50:43known photographs of the children.
0:50:43 > 0:50:47A lady-in-waiting who joined them on that voyage
0:50:47 > 0:50:51was struck by the change in Olga during her time in Tobolsk.
0:50:51 > 0:50:55She had turned from, "A lovely bright girl of 22
0:50:55 > 0:50:59"into a faded and sad middle-aged woman."
0:51:01 > 0:51:04On the 23rd of May, the sisters were reunited.
0:51:04 > 0:51:08After a lifetime spent in virtual captivity,
0:51:08 > 0:51:10their imprisonment was now total.
0:51:13 > 0:51:19There is no semblance of real life at all.
0:51:19 > 0:51:25You know, the girls to try and do something about this
0:51:25 > 0:51:31unending boredom are taught by the cook to make bread rolls,
0:51:31 > 0:51:36they take great delight in washing handkerchiefs.
0:51:36 > 0:51:43The end is kind of coming closer and closer, and I can't believe
0:51:43 > 0:51:47for one moment that they didn't have some idea
0:51:47 > 0:51:48of what was going to happen.
0:51:48 > 0:51:52As they struggled to adapt to their new situation,
0:51:52 > 0:51:56the sisters found comfort from a most unlikely source.
0:51:56 > 0:51:59The girls had always been drawn to soldiers -
0:51:59 > 0:52:03whether the sailors on the royal yacht, or the wounded officers
0:52:03 > 0:52:06they had nursed - and their jailors were no exception.
0:52:08 > 0:52:11One thing becomes very apparent in the Ipatiev House
0:52:11 > 0:52:15that brief, hot summer - is that they're all going stir crazy.
0:52:15 > 0:52:22You have four hormonal young women plus a probably menopausal mother,
0:52:22 > 0:52:27and a sick brother all hemmed in, crammed in with each other.
0:52:27 > 0:52:29It's clear that those girls,
0:52:29 > 0:52:31in their frustration and their boredom,
0:52:31 > 0:52:36saw the officers surrounding them as the only kind of point of contact.
0:52:36 > 0:52:41The only form of entertainment or human association.
0:52:41 > 0:52:45Of all the four girls, Maria had always been the most open,
0:52:45 > 0:52:50the most friendly, the most engaging, she loved the company of soldiers.
0:52:50 > 0:52:54She of all the sisters seemed the most susceptible within the
0:52:54 > 0:52:59Ipatiev House to making friendships that perhaps would worry her parents.
0:53:00 > 0:53:03Maria was treading a fine line -
0:53:03 > 0:53:06one that was crossed on the 26th of June -
0:53:06 > 0:53:11her 19th birthday, when one of the guards, Ivan Skorokhodov,
0:53:11 > 0:53:13brought in a cake for her.
0:53:13 > 0:53:19Relations between captor and captive had become dangerously close.
0:53:19 > 0:53:23It was clear the fraternisation was going too far.
0:53:23 > 0:53:26That the guards were being too kind, getting to like the girls,
0:53:26 > 0:53:30developing a relationship with them and the girls with them,
0:53:30 > 0:53:33and it was at this point that there was the extreme
0:53:33 > 0:53:37clamp-down on this fraternisation between them and their captors.
0:53:39 > 0:53:42The guard was instantly dismissed and jailed,
0:53:42 > 0:53:45but Maria suffered a more subtle punishment -
0:53:45 > 0:53:47during the Romanovs' final weeks,
0:53:47 > 0:53:52the incident created a rift within this most tightly knit of families.
0:53:52 > 0:53:56It would appear that Alexandra was deeply disapproving of
0:53:56 > 0:53:59Maria's increasing friendliness with the guards
0:53:59 > 0:54:02and that at some point she was, to an extent, cold-shouldered.
0:54:02 > 0:54:05Certainly by Alexandra.
0:54:05 > 0:54:09There was a change, a shift in the family dynamic for a while
0:54:09 > 0:54:12and Maria suffered as a result.
0:54:14 > 0:54:19No news came in to the Ipatiev House and no news came out.
0:54:19 > 0:54:22With no end in sight to their imprisonment,
0:54:22 > 0:54:27Russia's former royals had nothing to do but sit and wait.
0:54:29 > 0:54:32But in the world beyond their whitewashed windows,
0:54:32 > 0:54:35the Bolshevik leadership were arguing over the family's fate.
0:54:37 > 0:54:40Trotsky wanted to put Nicholas on trial in Moscow,
0:54:40 > 0:54:44but others favoured a more straightforward solution.
0:54:44 > 0:54:49The trial, I think, was not really an option because to allow Nicholas
0:54:49 > 0:54:52to stand a political trial even though, you know,
0:54:52 > 0:54:55everybody knew what its resolution was going to be,
0:54:55 > 0:55:00would nonetheless be to admit the possibility of the Tsar's innocence.
0:55:00 > 0:55:03And if you admit the possibility of his innocence,
0:55:03 > 0:55:08that's to raise the question of the Revolution's legitimacy.
0:55:08 > 0:55:12So in a sense, to put the Tsar on trial was at the same time to
0:55:12 > 0:55:17put the Revolution on trial, and that was not revolutionary justice.
0:55:17 > 0:55:20Revolutionary justice was to carry out the will of the people
0:55:20 > 0:55:21and murder them.
0:55:21 > 0:55:26On Monday the 15th of July, four local women came to wash
0:55:26 > 0:55:29the floors of the Ipatiev House.
0:55:29 > 0:55:34They were the last civilians to see the four sisters alive.
0:55:34 > 0:55:36The washer women couldn't quite believe their eyes when
0:55:36 > 0:55:41they saw these girls in their plain white blouses and their black frocks
0:55:41 > 0:55:45and their hair, of course, hadn't yet grown back much beyond their chins.
0:55:45 > 0:55:48These were not royal princesses as they had perceived them
0:55:48 > 0:55:51from the picture books and all the stories they'd been told.
0:55:51 > 0:55:55These weren't people sort of wafting around in stately robes
0:55:55 > 0:55:58with lots of beautiful glittering jewellery.
0:55:58 > 0:56:01They were ordinary people. Just like us.
0:56:05 > 0:56:09This chapel in the Church on the Blood stands on the site
0:56:09 > 0:56:12of the basement of the Ipatiev House,
0:56:12 > 0:56:15where early on the morning of the 17th of July,
0:56:15 > 0:56:19the four sisters, along with the rest of their family,
0:56:19 > 0:56:23were shot at point-blank range and then bayoneted to death.
0:56:27 > 0:56:31After the murder, their bodies were dumped into
0:56:31 > 0:56:33a mine shaft in nearby woods.
0:56:34 > 0:56:38The order for the family's execution came from the very top -
0:56:38 > 0:56:40from Lenin himself.
0:56:40 > 0:56:43But he did not want the Bolsheviks blamed for the
0:56:43 > 0:56:47slaying of innocents so initially only Nicholas' death was announced.
0:56:49 > 0:56:52Almost immediately, rumours started to circulate that
0:56:52 > 0:56:56one of the girls had escaped - the story of the sister who
0:56:56 > 0:57:01survived became one of the 20th century's most enduring myths.
0:57:03 > 0:57:08When someone as important as the imperial family disappears like that
0:57:08 > 0:57:12and the exact fate of the children is unknown,
0:57:12 > 0:57:16there will always be speculation.
0:57:16 > 0:57:19But I don't think there was any serious doubt.
0:57:19 > 0:57:23They were shot by a ruthless execution squad,
0:57:23 > 0:57:27one shooter for every person to be shot,
0:57:27 > 0:57:31the bodies were then eradicated with sulphuric acid,
0:57:31 > 0:57:33remains dumped into mines.
0:57:33 > 0:57:39They were not going to let some teenage girl run off into the forest.
0:57:39 > 0:57:40Why would that happen?
0:57:48 > 0:57:51When they died, Olga was 22,
0:57:51 > 0:57:54Tatiana 21,
0:57:54 > 0:57:56Maria 19
0:57:56 > 0:57:58and Anastasia 17.
0:58:00 > 0:58:04The sisters are remembered as martyrs of a bloody revolution,
0:58:04 > 0:58:07but they were also the innocent victims of a mother
0:58:07 > 0:58:12and a father so divorced from reality that they unwittingly
0:58:12 > 0:58:16condemned their beloved family to a terrible fate.