#kolya derevenko

[worldoftheromanovs]

Alexei Nikolaevich, Pierre Gilliard and Kolya Derevenko on the porch of the governor's house in Tobolsk, 1918

[foreverinthepagesofhistory]

Kolya Derevenko + Alexei Nikolaevich edit

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

— Kolya Derevenko, Alexei Nikolaevich’s best friend and son of his physician Doctor Derevenko

*Kolya and Alexei used to have special nicknames for each other where they spelled their names backwards. Kolya was Aylok and Alexei was Ieskela.

Credits to overlay here

[foreverinthepagesofhistoryy]

Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich of Russia with his best friend Kolya Derevenko (son of Imperial Physician Vladimir Derevenko), 1912

(Source: Baroness Sophie “Isa” Buxhoevden’s 1910-1912 album shared by Ilya aka LastRomanovs on Flickr)

[krasivaa]

Once Kolya was persuaded by his friend and another man who went to high school in Tsarskoe Selo to write a book about his life with the Romanovs. He jumped up from the place where he was sitting and, in a voice mixed with anger and sadness, said: "How can you not understand?!! How can you not understand that I've been trying my whole life to bloody forget about that horror!??!"

[enamoredpast]

Execution of the Romanov Family and their Retainers - July 16th/17th 1918

"In the following years, I thought about him. 'Why did they kill you? In the USSR, there was no place for my Ieskela. We will be friends forever, my dear Tsarevich... If I could see you just one more time, then I can die in peace...'"

Nikolai "Kolya" Derevenko

"I rest with the dead only civilly, my children may still have hope that we will see each other sometime in this life, while I [...] do not humour myself with illusions, but look directly into the face of the unadorned reality."

Evgenii Botkin to his brother Alexander

"Goodbye, don't forget me."

Anastasia Nikolaevna

[otmaaromanovas]

Romanov myths part one: Alexei being injured by sledding down the stairs

Although Alexei was given more freedom than is assumed by many people, and certainly had a rambunctious personality, the long-standing story of him sledding down the stairs and then crashing, causing a haemophilia attack in Tobolsk is a myth.

Both Nicholas and Alexandra do not mention this in their diaries, and surviving letters from the Grand Duchesses also do not record Alexei’s rumoured ill-fated sledding adventure. This especially is unusual, as their letters from Tobolsk included a lot of detail about them having fun sledding and on the snow mountain they constructed, so this omission is telling. Alexei did, however, have a sled and a boat which he, his friend Kolya Derevenko, and sister Olga sometimes rode down the stairs and onto the pond (which appears to be mostly small pools of water with a lot of imagination) outside (Olga apparently lost her balance and then fell out once!)

From Alexei's diary (note how he does not mention crashing or having a haemophilia attack):

Sunday 25/7 March [1918]

At eight o'clock there was a religious service, Mama and the sisters sang because the choir was busy. Kolya came at two o'clock. We played in the garden in the afternoon. We shot at a target with bows and arrows [there is a photo of this - see below]. It's very interesting. After tea, we played hide and seek. I received a sleigh and a boat as a gift from a local trader, models of the sleds and boats of the region. Kolya and I played with them a lot and we went down the stairs in the boat. He left at nine o'clock.

Alexei’s sister Anastasia writes about the boat and ‘pond’ here:

4/17 April 1918

Thank you very much, dear Dalechka, for the letter. It took a long time to get here – since December! But it is good it arrived. How are you? We think of you often. It is more or less quiet here. The weather has been divine, but not very warm the last few days. We continue to chop and cut up firewood, and it turns out pretty good. We fixed up our swing, and started to use it again, but probably the ropes will break soon as it has been done poorly. Our garden is a mass of water and mud. My brother has a little boat in which we, so to say, take a ride (it is a big imagination.) There is still not enough water, so we push it of the tracks with sticks and of course get completely soaked. Well, it is a little bit of fun! And how do you pass the time? Well, we are off for a walk so I must finish. I wish all of you the very best. Big greetings to all! I kiss you firmly. Greetings to your Papa and Seryozha.

Anastasia.

In reality, Alexei injured himself after contracting a bad cough. This was most likely caught off one of the visiting children to the house who kept him company, probably Kolya. The repeated coughing unfortunately triggered internal bleeding, leading to a haemophilia attack which left him unable to walk.

It was this attack that meant Alexei, Olga, Tatiana, and Anastasia were not moved to Ekaterinburg with their parents and sister Maria, as the Heir was too ill to move across the country. However, he did make some sort of recovery, at least to the point of being able to be safely transported to Ekaterinburg, and he is photographed sat upright on the Rus steamer, although looking thin. Despite this slight recovery, he was still unable to walk for the rest of his life. The night of the execution he was given a chair to sit on due to being unable to stand independently for any length of time.

A staircase at Tobolsk

So - where did this myth of Alexei sledding down the stairs causing his last haemophilia attack come from?

Robert K. Massie’s 1967 book ‘Nicholas and Alexandra’ appears to be the origin of the story in popular history. On page 490, Massie wrote:

‘[Alexei] was devising new and reckless games which no one seemed able to inhibit. One of these — riding down the inside stairs  on a boat with runners which he had used on the snow mountain — led to calamity. He fell and began to bleed into the groin.’

Whilst Massie’s book is a cornerstone in Romanov historical works, it was released 56 years ago, when there was still a fair amount of mystery and rumour surrounding the Romanovs and their final months. The 1971 film, also named ‘Nicholas and Alexandra’, adapted the book into a three-hour epic film dedicated a whole scene to re-enacting this myth, giving it more publicity.

VIDEO CREDIT: Nicholas and Alexandra, Franklin J. Schaffner, 1971, Columbia-Warner Distributors, Archive.org, uploaded by Olga Movie Man on December 26, 2019, https://archive.org/details/1971nicholasandalexandra. Alexei played by Roderic Noble. They make Tobolsk look a LOT rougher and barren than it actually was!!

A floor plan of the Governor's Mansion, Tobolsk, drawn by Prince Vasily Dolgorukov. Translated in red by Helen Azar.

To summarise: although Alexei did have a boat and a sled whilst at Tobolsk and did ride them down the stairs, these games never caused a haemophilia attack and he never crashed them to the point of causing serious injury. Rather, he contracted a cough which caused internal bleeding. Robert K. Massie mistakenly put this in his book 'Nicholas and Alexandra', and the myth became more popular due to its inclusion in the 1971 film of the same name.

SOURCES:

Diary and letters quoted available here

Alexei: Russia's Last Tsesarevich - Letters, diaries and writings, by George Hawkins

Anastasia Romanov: The Tsar's Youngest Daughter Speaks Through Her Writings (1907 - 1918), by Helen Azar and George Hawkins

Nicholas and Alexandra - film, directed by Franklin J. Schaffner - free to watch here

Nicholas and Alexandra - Robert K. Massie - free to read here

Floorplan of Tobolsk - Helen Azar's website

Tour of Tobolsk in its current form as a museum - (Russian language!)

Photos: public domain, toptyumen

[n-rnova]

KOLYA DEREVENKO’S STORY

I was a little boy, just twelve years old. I did not know of the evil in people’s souls. We were living at the Popov house near the Ipatiev house. In the middle of the summer of 1918, I was afraid and worried for Alexei. I wanted to see him and at the same time I am sure he wanted to see me too. Until that sad day of July 17, 1918, my father, Gilliard, Gibbes, and others knew everything, but I knew nothing. Something terrible was going to happen, but I didn’t know what it was… In the last week of July 1918, myself, my father, Gilliard, Gibbes, and others entered the Ipatiev house. There was a terrible scene… The house was in complete chaos; diaries, letters, albums, and other things were strewn all around in the house.. “But where is Ieskela*?” I asked my father, but he stayed silent. Ieskela’s diary was found by a White guard, I think his name was Nemetkin, I am not sure. But Leonid Sednev… I saw him. He cried. His cries were so loud… so loud!

I was confused. “Papa, where is my Ieskela?” – I asked. “They killed him”, he said, and I started to cry. “But how?” – I replied. “They killed the Tsar, the Tsaritsa, and the Grand Duchesses too. They are all dead.” – said my father.  “But I don’t understand. Where… where are their bodies?”  “We don’t know, maybe we will never find them”.  I then realized brutal life could be… I found Ieskela’s last letter written to me. One sentence in particular in that letter – “I hug you tightly” – made me cry so much. I thought “and I hug you tightly too, my dear friend, my Tsar…”I was in shock. In the following years, I thought about him. “Why did they kill you? In the USSR, there was no place for my Ieskela. We will be friends forever, my dear Tsesarevich… If I could see you just one more time, then I can die in peace…

*In their letters, Alexei and Kolya would refer to each other by their names read backwards – Alexei was “Ieskela”, while Kolya was “Yalok”.

Kolya Derevenko died in 1999 without ever finding out exactly what happened to his best friend Alexei. 

[imperial-russia]

Do you know who other people alexei is close with besides his sisters and parents.

His tutors, particularly Pierre Gilliard and Charles Sydney Gibbes.

His carers, the "dyadkas" Derevnko and Nagorny. He would often play with Derevenko´s sons, as well as the son of court physician Vladimir Derevenko, Kolya.

Among his cousins, his favourite was Rostislav Alexandrovich, son of Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich and Grand Duchess Xenia.

[kootyl]

Alexei Nikolaevich Romanov smiling and arm around Kolya Derevenko aboard the Standart.

[mashkaromanova]

Nicholas II with his children and Kolya Derevenko, February 1916 

Left to right (1st picture): Kolya, Alexei, Tatiana, Maria, Olga, Anastasia and Nicholas

Left to right (2nd picture): Alexei and Kolya (2nd row), a man (top row), Olga, Tatiana (jumping), Anastasia and Maria

“Rode with A[nastasia] and Shura [Alexandra Tegleva]. Walked-skipped with A. Breakfast 5 with Papa and Mama and 2 Englishmen. In the afternoon [we] built the [snow] tower 4 [her sisters] with Papa and the sailors. Went to our infirmary with A. Sat with Sh.[akh]-N[azarov]. Had tea with Papa, Mama and Uncle Pavel. Went to Vsenoshnaya 4 with Papa. Had dinner with the same with Mama on the couch. Papa read, Anya [Anna Vyrubova] was here.”

- Maria’s diary entry, 20th Feb 1916

“Had lessons. The went to church 5 with Papa. Breakfast with same, with Vikitsky and Mama on the couch. In the afternoon went to our infirmary with A. Sat with Sh. N. Walked 5 [all of her siblings] with Papa, built and jumped off the tower. Had tea in the playroom. Had an English lesson. Went to church 5 with Papa and Mama. Had dinner with same except AL. Papa read, Anya was here.”

- Maria’s diary entry, 22nd Feb

[otmacamera]

Photo 1 : Pierre Gilliard, Tsesarevich Alexei Nikolaevich, Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna and Andrei Derevenko in Sevastopol, 15th May 1916. Photo 2-3 : The Imperial Family on the way to the St. George Monastery.

"15th May. Sunday. Sat in the sun by the pier. Were at obednya in the Vladimir Cathedral, then went to the panorama. At breakfast sat with Grigorovich and Nilov. Went to the St. George Monastery and on the way examined the forts, were in the Church of John the Warrior. Drank tea. There were Ivan and Mikhail (Kolya's brother). At dinner sat with Grigorovich and played like yesterday. Drank tea."

(1916 Diary of Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna)

Photos from: Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna's 1916 Album Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna's 1915 - 1916 Album Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna's 1916 Album

[annalaurendet70]

The kindly Professor Pyotr Vasilievich Petrov seemed to have been a favourite with the Imperial children.He was ailing when the Imperial Family went into house arrest and exile as he died in 1918.

Below is a letter from Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich Romanov of Russia to Pyotr Petrov dated 7 January 1918 (20 January 1918 N.S.)

Dear Pyotr Vasilevich.

I am writing You a third letter already. I hope that You are receiving them. Mama and the rest send regards. Tomorrow the lessons start. The sisters and I had rubella, and Anastasia was the only healthy one and walked with Papa. It’s strange that we are not getting any news from You. Today was 20 deg. of frost, but until now it was warm. While I am writing to You, Zhilik is reading a newspaper, and Kolya is sketching a portrait of him. Kolya is being rowdy and therefore distracting me from writing to You. Dinner is soon. Nagorny is sending You warm regards. Give regards to Masha and Irina. May the Lord God keep You!

Your loving,

Alexei

📌 Zhilik ~ Pierre Gilliard

📌 Nagorny ~ Klementy Grigorievich Nagorny

📌 Kolya ~ Nikolai Vladimirovich Derevenko

[foreverinthepagesofhistory]

When you finally learn how to recognize Konya Derevenko’s face in photos but you realize all of the photos with Alexei that he is in 😭😭😭

[wifeofbath]

There are a lot of references and quotes in Fragments, and I decided it would be a good idea to put them all down in one place. Originally, I was going to add footnotes, but I thought they interrupted the flow of the story (also, this is a fanfic, not one of my term papers!). So I made a special page here.

“Imp,” he begins, relieved that his voice has not been stolen too, “I am looking for my heart.”—One of Anastasia’s nicknames, shvibzik, is often translated as “imp.”

  “She’s a big bow-wow, but she’ll help you.”—One of Maria’s nicknames was “fat little bow-wow.” Ouch!

  “All of us kiss you.”—Letter from Anastasia to Nicholas, March 7, 1915

  Before Ivan can say anything, she gathers up her skirts and makes a mad dash for the cherry trees.—The setting of Russia’s dream vision of Maria is inspired by Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard.

  “My darling beloved, how are you?”—Letter from Maria to Anya Vyrubova, January 12, 1918

  “Do you want me to go to Sverdlovsk, sir?-- In 1924, Yekaterinburg was renamed Sverdlovsk after the revolution leader Yakov Sverdlov. It became Yekaterinburg again after the fall of the Soviet Union. In 1960, the Ipatiev House was still standing, hence Khrushchev’s desire to keep Russia from going there, lest the sight of it brings up unwanted memories.

  “That American pilot?”—The U-2 Spy Incident

  “Olga’s having a little bit of a hard time, but I am doing all right.”—Olga eventually had a nervous breakdown during her time as a nurse. It occurred to me rereading that this is the first time one of the girls’ names is used in the fic. It was unintentional, but I think it’s a sign of Russia’s memories growing stronger.

  ”The lady waits for him in the middle of the pond, a statuesque beacon wrapped in white fur.”—See Viktor Vasnetsov’s painting Snegurochka and this photo of Olga and Tatiana. I don't call Tatiana the Snow Maiden, but that's essentially the role she fills in Russia's dream.

  “The trees are beginning to blossom here now, it’s very beautiful.”—Letter from Tatiana to Nicholas, April 27, 1916

  “When did it bloom?” and “When I look at a solitary oak”—Tatiana quotes two poems by Alexander Pushkin, “The Flower” and “Thoughts”, respectively. Olga and Tatiana were named after the sisters in Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin. Olga was the poetry nerd, not Tatiana, so it is a signal that it’s time for Russia to go.

  “In the distance, he spies a dazzling white palace situated atop a pebbly beach.”—Livadia Palace, favorite summer retreat of the Imperial family and the location of the Yalta Conference.

  “He finds the princess inside sitting in front of a large painting.”—Why is Olga the Princess and not Tatiana? Part of it is because Olga was the eldest and the other is a reference to Olga’s patron saint, Princess Olga of Kiev.

  “The painting is a haunting thing. A tsar, his eyes wild with terror and grief, cradles the body of the son he has just struck down in a fit of rage.”—Ilya Repin’s Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan on 16 November 1581.

  “Only love.”—From Olga’s famous letter, “Father asks me to tell all who have remained loyal to him and those over who they might have influence, that they should not avenge him, for he has forgiven everyone and prays for them all; that they should not themselves seek revenge; that they should remember that the evil there is now is in the world will become yet more powerful, and that it is not evil that will conquer evil – only love.”

  “Give patience, Lord, to us thy children…”—Prayer copied in one of Olga’s notebooks

“It swells into an egg, gilded and covered in red enamel.”--Can’t have an experimental, dream-like introspective fic of Russia’s relationship with the Romanovs without bringing in Fabergé’s eggs. Some fusion of the Rosebud Egg and the Imperial Coronation Egg is how I imagined Olga’s egg.

  “That woman who said she was one of your princesses? Is she real?”—America is, of course, talking about Anna Anderson.

  “What are you doing, Alyosha?”—The Dostoyevsky references run wild in this section. The use of Alexei’s nickname and Russia’s name (instead of Vanya) is a reference to The Brothers Karamazov.

  “All the sisters send greetings to you.”—From Alexei’s last letter to his friend Kolya Derevenko.

  “I am building a little monument for myself in the woods, since no one else will do it.”-- In 1912, when he was dying from one of his hemophilia attacks, he told Alexandra, “When I am dead, build me a little monument of stones in the woods.

  “It is better to be unhappy and know the worst, than to be happy in a fool’s paradise.”—Dostoyevsky, The Idiot

  “On our earth we can only love with suffering and through suffering. We cannot love otherwise, and we know of no other sort of love’?”—Dostoyevsky, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

  “Inside is a large golden egg.”—Fabergé’s first Imperial Easter egg, the Hen Egg, although that one was white, not gold and much smaller than Russia’s egg. The surprise was a little gold hen, a pendant, and a crown.

  “Inside is a crown.”—The Russia Imperial Crown.

  “May I be damned! May I be damned!”—Ivan the Terrible after fatally hitting his son, “May I be damned! I’ve killed my son! I’ve killed my son!”

  “Lord, forgive me for everything!”—Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

  “You and I both know I have not been batyushka for a very long time.”-- Batyushka and matushka, often translated as little father, little mother

  “Do you remember when my birthday was?”—Nicholas’s question and the comment about Job are from a conversation he had with Peter Stolypin.

  “All my pretty chickens and their dam at one fell swoop.”—Macbeth, act 4, scene 3

  “Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord.”—Obadiah, chapter 1, verse 4. Alexandra and Tatiana read this verse during the afternoon of July 16, 1918.

  “Oh Vanya. Poor Vanya. ‘You will burn and you will burn out; you will be healed and come back again’.” He kisses both of Russia’s cheeks. “‘Life will bring you through.’”—Dostoyevsky quotes again, the first from The Brothers Karamazov, the second from Crime and Punishment

  “Here a cedar…”—Poem by Vladimir Mayakovsky, after visiting the Romanov burial site in 1928

  “I am too old, and I loved you too much.”—From The Brothers Karamazov, “I am too young, and I’ve loved you too much.”

  “But Russia did not throw himself down in a canal or the path of an oncoming train. He did not shoot himself.”—Shamlessly stolen from Anna Karenina, book 8, chapter 9: “And, happy in his family life, a healthy man, Levin was several times so close to suicide that he hid a rope lest he hang himself with it, and was afraid to go about with a rifle lest he shoot himself. But Levin did not shoot himself or hang himself and went on living.”

[otmaaromanovas]

Hello! Thanks for tagging me - I love this photo!

The original photograph can be found in one of Anastasia's 1915-1916 photograph albums. It depicts the "snow tower" that the girls often wrote about in their diaries.

The boy with them is Kolya Vladimirovich Derevenko - the son of Alexei's physician, Dr. Vladimir Derevenko. Kolya passed away in 1999. He gave this interview about Alexei, in Russian, shortly before his death. Helen Azar has translated it.

Here's another photograph of them from the same day from another one of Anastasia's many albums - you can see that Anastasia has written "Kolya" in Russian :)

A hilarious photo showing Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia climbing a hill made of snow, while her sister, Olga Nikolaevna is pushing her from the back. Her brother, Tsarevich Alexei, looks at the camera while one of his friends is pulling Nastya by the hand. Their father, Tsar Nicholas II, is looking from the side.

p.s. if anyone knows who the boy is pls write in the comments or dm me (@otmaaromanovas maybe you do tho?)

[soldiersofthequeen]

The Tsarevich Alexei  with his friend Kolya Derevenko