The Unknown Tsesarevitch. Reminiscences and Considerations on V. K. Filatov’s Life and Times

© Oleg Vasiljevitch Filatov, 2019

ISBN 978-5-4496-1717-0

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

THE Preface

(Reminiscences and Considerations on V.K. Filatov’s Life and Times)

За Отрока – за Голубя – За Сына

За царевича младого Алексия

Помолись, церковная Россия!

Очи ангельские вытри

Вспомяни, как пал на плиты

Голубь углицкий – Дмитрий

Ласковая ты, Россия, матерь!

Ах, ужели у тебя не хватит

На него – любовной благодати?

Грех отцовский, не карай на сыне

Сохрани, крестьянская Россия

Царскосельского ягнёнка – Алексия! Marina Tsvetaeva  1

April 4, 1917

Third day of Easter

Here is the content of the verse

For the Adolescent – for the dove

For the son

For the young Tsarevich Alexei

Pray, Christian Russia!

Dry your angelic eyes

Remember the Uglich dove

Tsarevich Dimitri

Falling to the flagstones

Russia, our tender Mother!

Is it possible that you do not give?

Your loving kindness to Alexei?

Do not punish the son

For his father’s sins

Peasant Russia, save Alexei

A lamb from Tsarskoe Selo!

Once after an ordinary chat of the father and the son, I (Anzhelika Petrovna) asked Vasily Ksenofontovich about his attitude to the writing of memoirs. He answered: “I can’t stand it at all, and about my wanderings you can read in the works of A.M. Gorky. He expertly describes this time”. And to the question why he did not write, he replied: “Because all the memoirs in the world reveal the image of the author himself, and the time is not yet right, society has changed little since 1917.”

When the son volunteered to describe the life of both his father and himself, he answered: “One shouldn’t begin such a noble cause before 40 years are past.”

At that time all members of the family were in no mood either for reminiscences or for literary effort. Only now, 10 years after V.K. Filatov’s death, after numerous medical and criminal investigations and studies of archives, has each of us understood their task

In 1998 the “Blits” Publishing House in S.-Petersburg published the book “Tsesarevich Alexei’s Rescue. The Historical-Criminalistic Reconstruction of the Execution of the Tsar’s Family”.The book describes examinations carried out on the identity of Vasily Ksenofontovich Filatov, a school teacher, and Tsesarevich Alexei. Based on the comparison of their handwriting, photos made with the use of techniques generally accepted in the domestic criminal investigation, it was established that V.K. Filatov and Tsesarevich Alexei were the same man. Accordingly, it was Tsesarevich Alexei and not V.K. Filatov, who having lived the full-blooded life of a village teacher, retired on his pension in 1967. Everything happened as Marina Tsvetaeva prayed in her poem-prayer: peasant Russia had rescued Tsesarevich. In 1953, as a geography teacher in a village school, Alexei Nikolayevich Romanov (Vasily Ksenofontovich Filatov) married Lidiya Kuzminichna Klimenkova, born in 1917, a mathematics teacher in the same school. They gave birth to four children: Oleg, Olga, Irina, Nadezhda. On starting our reminiscences we saw that some self-manifestation could not be avoided. The most difficult part of the work has fallen to Oleg’s lot. But it was he who had stimulated our desire to write and to acquaint others with our thoughts. The events of our epoch have been shown through our reminiscences about one man. The history of the soul of a highly moral and charming man, our contemporary, will be constructed, like a mosaic, of the impressions of people who have known him well – his family. I am glad that I have had occasion to have been acquainted with this interesting man, in spirit so like my grandmother Alexandra Ivanovna Karmaleyeva, born in 1898, who, like him, was inclined to original philosophic deductions and generalizations. Their discussion of life, their feelings, thoughts, their inner development will be of interest to many others. So, it was in April 1983 when I first heard the family history. I had come, at that time, to get acquainted with my husband’s parents. On March 26, I got married to Oleg and he hastened to share his happiness with his mother and father. After the feeble spring of a northern town the Astrakhan sun seemed particularly bright. Numerous fishermen in their fishing-boats were seen on the Volga. They called these springtime catches ‘the spring fishing season’. The leaves were turning green – and human hearts softened by the warmth were ready to open up to communication. On the morning of April 2 my husband and I went on the ‘Meteor’ hovercraft down the Volga to the village Ikrianoe, where his parents were living. His mother was busy with housework but his father was not feeling well after his work in the garden. Any scratches and blows would cause serious pain. ‘Doctors can’t ease my pain, – he said, – they only prescribe ‘confinement to bed’ for 2—3 days.’ He would lay in bed and read, knowing his illness too well. Why did he know it? To make it clear, we should go back several decades. But we shall speak about this in more detail later. All day on April 2nd, I spoke enthusiastically about my relatives and myself, answering their interested questions. At first the questions were general, and then they became specific and laconic. Direct questions demanded direct answers. Vasily Ksenofontovich listened to me attentively without interrupting. Then he asked if I remembered my ancestors. He was satisfied with my answer. He considered me sufficiently prepared for the story of his own. Among his kin there was a famous man – Metropolitan Filaret (Fyodor Nikitich was his worldly name). His own lands were in the region of the Middle Volga, in Kostroma Province. The peasants living on metropolitical monasterial lands as well as his relatives were nicknamed the Filatovs – this sounded more natural to the Russian ear. Filaret-Filafet-Filat – is the same name and means ‘virtue-lover’. During the Time of Troubles Filaret had been captured by the Poles, and upon returning to Russia he had become a patriarch of the church. Vasily Ksenofontovich spoke about Filaret as a man experienced in politics, which had a serious influence on the government. ‘That is where our roots come from. It must be known, – he used to say, – remember this.’ The story was very interesting and, of course, it has remained in my memory. More than once did he remind his son Oleg of Filaret, of the necessity to learn languages, to understand political affairs and know history well to avoid mistakes. Vasily Ksenofontovich wanted to know whether I had any people in my family who had been connected with the church. I told him that my great-grandfather Ivan Karmaleev, a middle-class man, had a house of his own at Tver. The house was located near the church, in a very picturesque place, where the Tvertsa River flows into the Volga. On one bank there was a convent, on the other – a monastery. All the Karmaleevs have been tied to the river. This explains their family name. In his youth Ivan had even taken a job of a barge-hauler. This had told on his health in his old age. He had got hydropsy of the joints of his legs. He could not do any active physical work, but he worked as a churchwarden and bedral. He had taught his elder son Arseny to ring the church bells. Later Arseny became the conductor of a military band and painted historical pictures. Vasily Ksenofontovich was also interested in the fate of Ivan Karmaleev’s other children as well as the life at Tver at that time. He himself said that as far back as the XIV century a bride (princess Maria) had been taken from Tver, that his family had researched the family names, or, as they are called now – their family tree. I asked if they still existed. ‘No, because of the revolution and the wars all of this research has been lost’, – he answered. Only after the death of Vasily Ksenofontovich did the family begin to compare all the stories and it became clear that Patriarch Filaret (Fyodor Nikitich Romanov, 1553—1633) had fathered the first Romanov tsar, Mikhail Fyodorovich. Vasily Ksenofontovich did not draw our special attention to this. He did say, however, that the life of Filaret and his family had not been easy. In 1601 Fyodor Nikitich was arrested by order of Boris Godunov, was forced to take monastic vows, was named Filaret and exiled to the Antoniev Siysky monastery. His wife, under the name of Marfa, was exiled to the Zaonezhye churchyard, and his under-age son Mikhail and daughter were confined in Beloozero together with their aunt Anastasiya Nikitichna. In 1606 Filaret became the Metropolitan of Rostov. In 1610 he headed the ‘Grand Embassy’ which besieged Smolensk, but was captured by King Sigizmund III together with part of the embassy. Only 9 years later did he return to his homeland and begin to help his son. Vasily Ksenofontovich ended his story with the words: ‘Yes. Such were events many years ago. And now tell me where did your grandparents come from?’ I answered that my grandmother Alexandra Ivanovna Karmaleeva was born in 1898, on April 18, and my grandfather Efrem Alexeevich Octalopov was born in 1896 at Torzhok. Ivan Karmaleev had a two-storey house at Tver on the bank of the Tvertsa, where it flows into the Volga. Ivan had ten sons and two daughters. Karmaleev was a middle-class man and had a moderate income. His daughter Alexandra was a second child in the family

Alexei Ostalopov, a merchant, had a three-storey house at Torzhok on Bolotnaya street, 5, just opposite the church. The ground floor was not lived-in. There were kitchen and laundry there. The yard was large, there was a stable. His son Efrem, born in 1896, married Alexandra Karmaleeva. Their daughter Engelina was born at Torzhok in 1928, on April 27. The family lived on the second floor. Even now, in the late century, the house has lasted perfectly. It looks rather impressive, even among the present five-storey buildings

Engelina Efremovna married to Petru Tamas, the Rumanian, born at Petroshani, Timoshoara District, Rumania. Their daughter Anzhelika was born in Leningrad in 1955, on March 30

Vasily Ksenofontovich emphasized that Torzhok had supplied the imperial family with golden embroidery. I said that my grandmother, having been a dress-designer in the clothing workshop, had learned this craft. Then he spoke about Nicholas II and the mass execution at that time. His story surprised me. He described the events in detail and spoke about the executed as if they were his relatives. First, speaking about Alexei in the third person, he imperceptibly proceeded to himself (the first person). He described in detail the rescue of the boy, gave the names of his rescuers – the Strekotin brothers and mentioned a further help from Mikhail Pavlovich Gladkikh

My husband also listened to him and asked straight: ‘So, you are Alexei, aren’t you?’

Vasily Ksenofontovich answered: ‘I’ve told you that already. You should remember things the first time!’

There were many heart-to-heart talks. Quietly, without hastening to tell everything at once, but little by little preparing for us our own conclusions, he achieved the main thing – he taught us to think. The ways of God are unknown

Being a tourist in Bulgaria, I had an opportunity not only to see the sights of the country and to get acquainted with the culture of the people but also to be blessed by Metropolitan of Plovdiv. Here is the story of it. It was July, 1982. I walked about old Plovdiv, taking photos of the architecture of the epoch of the Bulgarian Renaissance, gathering interesting details. Going down the hill by the marble staircase I saw the Christian church – an ancient house buried in flowers and rose bushes. A stone wall was in place around it and two men were standing by the forged gate. I photographed that picturesque corner. The men stopped me. They asked if I knew what house was behind the wall and invited me to see it. It was very interesting to me, but I hesitated to go there alone. By chance I got my opportunity. Three tourists from our group happened to be nearby. During an excited conversation in different languages we learned that the men were monks from the staff of the metropolitan chambers. They spoke lively in Bulgarian and we told about ourselves in Russian. They repeated their invitation and we agreed. The Metropolitan’s residence included several small halls for business talks and a large conference-hall decorated with carved oak panelling. There were portraits of the Head of the Church and of the Head of State on the walls as well as portraits of the Metropolitans of Plovdiv. We were also shown the private chambers, the cell icons and a prayer-book with a silver cover. By the end of the visit we unexpectedly met the host himself. He and his retinue had just returned from Greece. It was a business trip concerning the problems of the church. He was also accompanied by secular officials who had conducted negotiations and shot a film on Orthodoxy

We turned out to be the center of attention. I told them where we were from and about the sacred places of my city: the chapel of the blessed Kseniya of Petersburg. I decided to ask for a blessing by the Metropolitan of Plovdiv. The sovereign blessed me with the words: ‘I bless you, a God’s slave, to great deeds.’ We were invited to take part in the evening liturgy and we agreed with gratitude

So a chain of many opportunities had started

On the following day our tourist group set off for Kazanlyk and Shipka. There, at the height of 31m above sea level, stands the Russian church of Saint George built in honour of the Russian soldiers killed in action for Shipka. While the other tourists were being photographed and fussed over by the guide, I went to the cemetery near the church. A woman came up to me and told me about the graves in front of which I was standing. According to legend, the people buried there, were from the Romanov family which had ruled Russia for more than 300 years. Our country is going though peculiar times. Old Russia has gone but still there is nothing new, though more than 80 years have passed since the October upheaval. Life had made Vasily Ksenofontovich roam the country but everywhere he went, this cultivated man was received willingly. He found work everywhere but he felt drawn to Saint-Petersburg. He had sent his grown-up children to their native country, to their native city. My grandparents had also been sent to Povolzhye, to Tatarstan, to establish the Soviet power there and organize agriculture. They accepted the good local traditions and customs and helped the Tatars, but they could not consider themselves one with the people. The village which was composed of mixed nomads could not be called a collective. It was very difficult to cope with everything. An attempt had even been made on my grandmother’s life, but the people had shielded her with their bodies. Therefore when the term ended, Efrem and Alexandra, like many others who had left their homelands for different reasons, tried to come back. They lived in Moscow for some time and before long they were sent to Leningrad. My grandfather headed the building organization and my grandmother was the head of the Vasileostrovsky Party Committee. Grandfather had the right to carry a weapon. He did not wear a uniform but he lived as a military man. He went to the front from the very beginning of the war

I told about my relatives and Vasily Ksenofontovich told about his life in the Orenburg district, in the German-Dutch settlement

He said that it was both possible and necessary to learn from the Pretoriya villagers. While each member of the collective farm had a household of his own, life itself made them strengthen the feeling of collectivism. They would support an individual but only of their nationality: they neither recognized the foreigners nor helped them. In other, outwardly successful collective farms, in fact, an attitude of indifference was growing, that is, a man understood an interaction between ‘my’ and ‘common’, but nobody was interested in his opinion (probably there was no need). Ultimately, he got convinced that he cannot change anything. He knew, saw, understood but did not influence anyone or anything. Vasily Ksenofontovich would say: ‘Our freedom and independence are not supported financially. An enormous mass of peasants and workers have been reduced to the state of poor proletariat. The government is very strong, it has all the means of production, and any abuse of power tells immediately upon a multitude of people.’ And now, in the late 90s we witness a re-organization of political power but the country has not been prepared economically. The government does not conside it’s obligation to care for the needs of individuals. All of us have been office workers and had no means of production. Now the right of the collective use of already accumulated resources, that is the results of collective work, has been cancelled. But the government has not properly determined the economical rights of an individual (that is, the right of property). Vasily Ksenofontovich said: ‘The Russian State and the Russian soul now suffer a chronic disease because of the political machinations. Our ancestors, who had modernized their lands to bequeath them to us, have left us quite other lands.’ I still remember our talks. Of course, we talked not only on the social-political themes. Vasily Ksenofontovich spoke about his life and his children. Oleg was their first son, then two children, three, four… What should bringing up children start with? Daughters are most brought up by their mother. And he, father, teaches his son to nail a plank, to saw wood, to cut a stake, to dig a vegetable bed, to sharpen an instrument… He teaches his son not only with words but he finds real work for him. The aim of Vasily Ksenofontovich had been simple and clear – to LIVE. I listened attentively to his analysis of the experience of life of other people and a critical comparison of it with that of his own. The past… the experience of previous generations… Life of fathers and mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers… Why do we often mentally look backwards? What do we search for in life that has already passed? Probably, they had also looked back into the depths of people’s lives. And so on generation after generation. Now it is our turn to record, understand, and preserve everything that has been accumulated by concrete people. The life of Vasily Ksenofontovich had its specific history, unique details, and he told them to each member of the family in a different way. Each of his stories revealed a new turning point in his life, every time new facts appeared. Each story was not an exact repetition of the previous one but revealed some regularity. Details added an exactness and volume to the events ’

In September of 1984 my mother Engelina Efremovna went to the village, Ikrianoe, to see her relatives. There she heard for the first time that after the execution of the Tsar’s family the boy remained alive and that that boy was, he, himself. He had survived this tragedy as a youth, and during many years he had been keeping, the burning truth about his experiences to himself. Mother was surprized considering this outwardly plain man: what could be the source of his strength, his endurance and his emotional energy? Mother and Vasily Ksenovontovoch talked much about the war. She was 13 years old when the war began. The German troops besieged Leningrad and the hospitals started being organized there. My grandmother worked in the Institute of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. During the war it was re-organized as a hospital specializing in cranial-brain and jaw surgery. At first Mother worked there as a junior nurse, then as a telephone-operator, and then she was taughed to be a surgeon’s assistant. She accompanied ambulances, took the wounded away from the battle-fields and delivered them to the hospital. Mother told us how they had nursed the wounded through their illnesses and how they almost died of dystrophy. My grandmother was the commissar of the hospital and could have a ration but never took it. Vasily Ksenofontovich recounted how he had met thousands of refugees from Leningrad and had accomodated the evacuated people. They were very weak but their stories inspired others with faith in victory. Lidiya Kuzminichna also told about her military past. Because of frequent moves? It was never officially registered, that she was a medical sister during the war. With Oleg’s help, we registered her. They listened to us in the recruiting office and sent an inquiry to the archives – justice triumphed. Mother helped examine the documents, write an application and accompanied Lidiya Kuzminichna to the commissar. Some years later Oleg appealed to the military-medical archive where additional documents were found, and Lidiya Kuzminichna received an additional pension. But it was only in 1997! The elder generation has something to remember. Their life has been full of trials but they have not become pessimists. On the contrary, they rejoice over life. Mother and Lidiya Kuzminichna performed their household duties, but also walked through Astrakhan looking at the ancient houses and the Astrakhan Kremlin. Some days later Oleg and I also went to Astrakhan, where the two grannies (Lida and Gelia) nursed their granddaughter Nasten’ka. She was 8 months old then. Oleg spoke about the history of that region. We walked a lot and visited friends. Grandad was also fond of looking after his granddaughter. He took her in his arms but she would not sit a minute. She would jump to her feet and skip on his knees. His hands were massive, T therefore it seemed that the child had no body and only her legs and head were skipping. If the child was out of sorts for some reason, her grandad sang songs or ditties and clapped his hands. Sometimes he played the piano together with Nastia. It was something unimaginable. Nastia liked it very much. Later, granny Lida helped this tiny little child play the piano by herself. I took their photo

Each day I bathed my daugher in a baby’s bath, dipping her, splashing the water. The leaves of the cherry tree rustled above us. In the garden, Grandad sat and loughed, watching the bathing

His night’s lodging was in the garden, in the bed with a canopy. Usually the nights in the open air were quiet, but sometimes the dust storms made him go into the house. In the evening we used to have tea and talk. Life passed quietly and peacefully, until one day a thief sneaked in to the garden and then into the house. Everybody was frightened. Vasily Ksenofontovich calmed us down with the words: ‘Nothing can be more frightful than the basement of the Ipatiev house. They shot the people there, but a thief comes by chance.’

He took an axe and went to the garden to sleep. But we could not go to bed and sat a long time, discussing the incident

The appearance of Vasily Ksenofontovich was noteworthy and my lack of patience was well known to the artists who saw a model worth painting. He had impressive eyes, shadowed by bushy eyebrows which struck me with their wisdom as if they had absorbed the life of the age and its pain. His parchment-skin face was lean

Every time I tried to sketch him, he became shy and went away to the garden. He also did not like to be photographed. He would sit in the shadow and the photos were indistinct. Once we (Oleg, Vasily Ksenofontovich and I) were mending the roof, covering it with a new roofing-felt. When our work was nearing completion, I managed to take his photo, because being lame he could not rapidly descend from the ladder. Feeling confused he smiled and went on repeating: ‘Now, now!’

I did not draw pictures of only Vasily Ksenofontovich. I would go to the Volga, look at the thick, branchy trees growing along the river and at villages resembling clusters of mushrooms. They seemed something ancient. (Water, the river bank, a burning buoy). As soon as you wanted to put them on paper, you understood how difficult and mysterious it is and yet at the same time, surprisingly simple

Oleg asked father to go fishing but Vasily Ksenofontovich refused saying: ‘I can’t keep pace with you. I only walk about the garden.’ Next morning Oleg gathered the fishing-rods, got worms ready, took bread to coax the fish up, got instructions from his father and, together with his sister Irina and I, set off to fish. The morning was foggy but the sun rose higher and higher, and the scenery changed, becoming more cheerful. Without wasting time I began sketching a small fishing-boat, peacefully lying in the blue-gray mist on the unruffled surface of the water