The night of July 16, 1918, in Yekaterinburg was heavier than usual. Thick clouds smothered the sky, no stars visible on the horizon. Inside the modest house later known as the "House of Special Purpose," a strange silence prevailed, as if the walls themselves were holding their breath.
Upstairs, Empress Alexandra was brushing Anastasia's hair for the last time, while Olga whispered passages from the Book of Psalms. Alexei, now thirteen years old, lay on his bed, breathing slowly, his eyes wandering absently toward the ceiling.
He was no longer a child, but not yet a man. Alexei had grown up in captivity; his voice had deepened slightly, his gaze carrying a sorrow too heavy for his age. His health had improved recently, but his spirit bore a weight even his parents couldn't understand.
Downstairs, the guards exchanged glances as they received final orders. Yakov Yurovsky, in charge of the operation, read the paper once again. The orders were clear:
"Execute them all. Leave no one alive."
At two o'clock in the early hours of July 17, the family was awakened under the pretense that they would be moved to a safer place. Nicholas II carried Alexei in his arms; everyone lined up silently and descended into a narrow, damp cellar with no windows. The Empress trembled but kept composed. The family sat on simple wooden chairs while the servants stood beside them. Then Yurovsky entered with a group of armed men.
Nicholas spoke calmly:
— What is happening? Has the transfer arrived?
Yurovsky looked at him with a cold face, then read the statement:
— Nicholas Alexandrovich, the Ural Soviet Executive Committee has decided to execute you and your family.
Before he could finish, the first bullet pierced Nicholas's heart, and he fell without a word.
Alexandra screamed. The room erupted into chaos—random gunfire, screams, blood, and collapse. But strangely, some bullets failed to penetrate the girls' bodies; heavy jewels hidden in their corsets acted as armor of diamonds and sapphires.
The jewels were hidden inside the Romanov daughters' clothing as a means of survival and escape, not mere decoration. When signs of their downfall began looming, Empress Alexandra knew deep in her heart the fate would be dark. In the final months of their lives, after being forced to move to the "Ivanov House" in Yekaterinburg, the family lived in suffocating isolation, every step watched, every word recorded. During those days, they began sewing precious jewels—what little remained after nearly everything was taken—into the lining of their clothes, especially the daughters' dresses.
It wasn't out of pride, but a desperate plan:
Either to use them later for bribes if they managed to escape,
Or to preserve some royal legacy for the day Russia would rise again,
Or as a last refuge to buy freedom in exile... if anyone would have mercy.
The Empress and her servants carefully stitched diamonds, sapphires, emeralds into corsets, belts, and inner linings—each piece a last remnant of past dignity. What they did not know was that these very jewels would cause their daughters' deaths to be delayed in a horrific way.
Shots were fired repeatedly. The guards had to use rifles, then knives, then rifle butts. The scene lasted twenty minutes of hell; the girls' screams echoed against the walls—one after another—as soldiers' knives pierced and were resisted, deflected from their marks… stab, scream, blood, then a temporary silence... then another stab.
Blood splattered on the floor, walls, soldiers' faces. The sight of them beating savagely, cursing and shouting turned the room into a slaughterhouse. But the sisters' bodies did not fall easily; they twisted, screamed, then stilled.
Alexei...He was in the corner, unable to stand, his frail body not allowing him to run or defend himself. His eyes widened in terror, mouth open but soundless—just watching... watching his sisters slowly slaughtered before him,.. His eyes were full of questions with no answers. His tears never fell; they were locked inside him, as if his entire soul froze at that moment. And finally...
After silence spread and the last breaths left bloodstained mouths, a guard approached him holding a spear...,But the scene stopped here—not because mercy appeared, but because hatred prepared for one last, heavy stab.
The air in the room was suffocating—not just from smoke, but from terror thickened in the corners... from the muffled sound of death, when there is nowhere left to scream.
Alexei stood in the corner, motionless, his fragile body unable to stand long. His legs trembled as if his bones were melting from fear... but he was not afraid for himself. His eyes clung to his sisters, watching them as one watches the heart's last beats with dread.
No one screamed, not even when Olga was stabbed first. She did not scream, only gasped, as if swallowing life in one moment. Tatiana, who was holding her mother's hand, was stabbed in the abdomen. She fell whispering her mother's name:
"Mom… Mom! I'm scared."
But the Empress had already fallen and could hear no one... Alexei remained motionless. The heavy jewels sewn inside his shirt prevented him from breathing freely. When the first soldier approached him and tried to shoot, the gun misfired. Another came closer and stabbed him—but the blade did not pierce his skin. His mother's jewels protected him—how much she loved him, even in death!
One of them grew angry and began beating him with the rifle butt—strike, then another, then a third. Each blow made a horrible cracking sound as if something fragile was breaking… until Alexei fell.
But his eyes remained open, staring at the ceiling as if asking the sky:
"Why?"
Silence lingered long after. In the corner, on the cold floor, Alexei's small body lay among the blood, surrounded by the bodies of his sisters, mother, and father. He looked as if sleeping in the middle of the story... but the story was over, and no one would finish it.
The bodies were dragged, wrapped in cloth, loaded into a truck, and taken to a remote forest where they were partially burned and buried in scattered graves. No one knew then that the whole world would remember this night—not just as a crime, but as the end of an era, the extinguishing of a light once thought eternal.
After the massacre, a dense silence filled the basement like never before—the silence of death that leaves behind only terror and shame. The soldiers were exhausted, their breaths heavy, clothes soaked in blood. Some sat on the floor, avoiding looking at the small faces extinguished, as if refusing to admit what they had just done. Some stabs had missed precisely, making death slow and painful. With every passing minute, the smell of iron and blood grew heavier, nearly suffocating all present.
Yakov Yurovsky, commander of the execution squad, stood watching the chaos. He had not expected the operation to be this disorderly. The jewels sewn inside the princesses' clothes deflected bullets and stabs, forcing multiple brutal blows. He had wanted to end it "quietly," but nothing in this scene was quiet.
Hours later, some men came and transported the bodies at night in a covered truck. The goal was to erase every trace. They were taken to a forest several kilometers from Yekaterinburg, where the attempt to bury the truth began. At first, they tried to bury them in an abandoned mine, but the graves were too shallow. They moved the bodies again, then burned some and poured acid over them in an attempt to obliterate them completely.
Alexei, the little prince, had no clear grave—he was just part of the "heavy burden" they wanted to get rid of at any cost. A child who did not carry a sword, yet whose shadow they feared. The truth was buried in the earth as their bodies were, and silence was decreed. The crime was not announced to the public immediately; it took years before the world uncovered what happened on that July night.