Freedom House, as Governor’s House was renamed in accord with the revolutionary times, would have been big enough by itself if the Romanovs had taken only their cooks and domestic servants from Tsarskoe Selo. But they had made only a marginal reduction of the entourage, and at first, Pierre Gilliard was the sole senior retainer who was given a room in the residence.1 All the others received accommodation across the road in the Kornilov house – each day they walked over to perform their services for the family. Pankratov and Kobylinski were the only other people permitted to enter the premises. The guard detachment, as had been the case at Tsarskoe Selo, was required to stay outside. On most days, the residence was busy with people and activity until bedtime and the Romanovs tried to behave as they had always done. Status and dignity remained important even though Sydney Gibbes, with his eye for custom and propriety, noticed that some retainers were engaging in a greater degree of eye contact with the imperial family than had once been acceptable, but otherwise the old etiquette was preserved. He admired how the Romanovs achieved at least a semblance of normality in the changed circumstances.2
It was a claustrophobic existence and tiffs amongst the entourage became frequent as the isolation made itself felt. Ilya Tatishchev tried to keep the peace: ‘One mustn’t be petty, one mustn’t be petty!’3 The obvious solution was to find indoor pursuits that might lighten the gloom. Gibbes and Gilliard usefully distracted Nicholas’s children by teaching them lessons and setting homework. The garden provided another outlet for pent-up energies. Then there were the theatrical performances. On one occasion Nicholas joined in, taking the leading role in Anton Chekhov’s The Bear.4 Nicholas himself adapted the text to enable Olga and Maria to take part.5 The Romanovs took photographs of each other and had them developed and printed locally.6 Games of bezique whiled away the evening hours.7
On 23 September 1917 Maria Nikolaevna wrote to the dowager empress – her grandmother – to assure her about the situation. She expressed delight about their little garden and the hens, ducks and four piglets that the family were looking after.8 There were also turkeys which the younger Romanovs, including Alexei, enjoyed looking after. The garden had its own tennis court, albeit that it lacked a net. Anastasia Nikolaevna wrote to her friend Ekaterina Zborovskaya: ‘It is not too bad, but we spend most of the time searching for balls in the ditch and similar places. We sit on the window sills and entertain ourselves watching the public passing by.’9 Kolya Derevenko, the doctor’s son, visited to play with Alexei on designated days.10 Alexei wrote brightly to his ‘dear Granny’ on 5 November 1917: ‘In the daytime Papa saws wood with my sisters or clears the pathways. I hope you’ve recovered from your illness. We all send a big kiss and always remember you.’11 As had been true at Tsarskoe Selo, Nicholas was also partnered in his outdoor labours by Dolgorukov, Tatishchev, Gilliard or one of his daughters; he was determined to keep himself in physical trim. Alexandra continued to spend the days in her chair reading or sewing. The daughters continued to use their cameras, and Kobylinski felt that the atmosphere was less strained than it had been at the Alexander Palace.12
Looking from the balcony windows down on to the street, the Romanovs tried to acquaint themselves with Tobolsk. Anastasia recorded some of the things that impressed her as different from what she had seen elsewhere. The post, she noticed, arrived not by carriage as at Tsarskoe Selo but in a sleigh with jingling bells. The peasants in the winter went about their business in long fur coats which, quaintly, they and the town’s inhabitants called their ‘geese’. And whereas most Russians wore dull-coloured winter boots in snowy weather, the peasantry of Tobolsk province had theirs dyed crimson.13 The family obviously had a genuine curiosity about those parts of Nicholas’s former domains with which they had only a fleeting acquaintance. But the Romanov detainees were not just forbidden to take walks in the street: they were also prohibited from communicating with the urban population. This meant that they had to gather local information mainly from what the retainers, who could go into town whenever they liked, told them.14
Freedom House was comfortable despite being somewhat cold and draughty – Tatyana Nikolaevna wrote to her friend Margarita Khitrovo that the rooms occupied by her father and brother were the only ones that were kept properly warm.15 This was an early indication of the family’s need to manage its budget more economically than at the Alexander Palace. Nicholas and Alexandra had little acquaintance with the practical requirements and simply signed invoices from Nicholas’s own funds supplemented by a subsidy from the government. Meals were still provided in plenty. Breakfast was a two-course affair and there was morning coffee with a zakuska. Lunch ran to three courses, followed by afternoon tea and pastries and sweet-cakes.16 The Romanovs began to dine at the same table as Botkin, Ilya Tatishchev, Vasili Dolgorukov, Anastasia Gendrikova, Ekaterina Shneider, Pierre Gilliard and Sydney Gibbes. Retainers at lower levels fared less well but could nevertheless eat their fill and take bags of food back to their families in the town. Freedom House itself had an impact on the local economy as the Romanovs’ staff bought up scarce provisions. Hearing of criticism in the town, Pankratov stopped everyone from carrying food off the premises. This annoyed the servants, who complained that their pay was inadequate to look after their families. Pankratov replied that they should take the matter up with Nicholas.17
But the family’s finances were not in fact as buoyant as most people in Tobolsk assumed, and soon after the move from Tsarskoe Selo there arose difficulties in balancing the accounts at Freedom House. Nicholas had lost access to any personal bank account, and the household had to obtain its supplies on credit in the absence of adequate finance from the Soviet authorities in the capital. Debts were growing inexorably. Kobylinski recognized that such a situation could not continue for much longer. When he applied for assistance at the Tobolsk branch of the State Bank, the advice was to approach a businessman called Yanushkevich and ask for a loan. Yanushkevich, who still had much of his wealth, handed over 20,000 rubles on condition that Evgeni Kobylinski, Vasili Dolgorukov and Ilya Tatishchev stood as guarantors of repayment – and the three of them assented. Nothing was disclosed to Nicholas about this arrangement.18 It was an arrangement that could only put off the evil day when the last ruble dribbled out, and the retinue’s leading members were nervously aware that the Romanovs were living well beyond their means.
Alexandra was never one to spend a kopek more than she absolutely had to, but her understanding of the financial situation was less than perfect. Like the rest of the family, she had always been insulated from the circumstances that daily faced others in society. In Tobolsk, they were more cut off than ever.
The only chance for the Romanovs to obtain a glimpse of life outside Freedom House occurred when they attended Mass at the Church of the Annunciation.19 Father Alexei Vasilev inadvertently made this difficult for them from 25 December 1917 by offering the traditional prayer for the health and long life of the emperor and his family.20 This was his way of expressing displeasure at Pankratov’s refusal to allow him to teach scripture to the Romanov youngsters.21 Vasilev was a figure of importance in the town who had joined the town duma in a bloc with the Kadet Party; he also gave religious instruction at the boys’ high school.22 His prayer was a conscious provocation because he was repeating words that had been the official tradition before the February Revolution.23 The soldiers on duty raised a fuss (Kobylinski had permitted many of the older servicemen to stand inside the church to keep warm). There were shouts of threats to shoot the priest. Bishop Germogen resolved the trouble by banishing Vasilev to a monastery, and Kobylinski refrained from punishing the military troublemakers. Germogen was a major figure in the Russian Orthodox Church who had publicly resigned from the Holy Synod in 1912 rather than accept Rasputin’s growing influence. Though he did not court controversy, he did not flinch in the face of trouble.24 He was also a monarchist, and when he removed Vasilev, his purpose was to save him and the rest of the clergy from retaliation by the Soviet authorities.
A new priest, Father Vladimir Khlynov, was appointed who behaved with more discretion than Vasilev. Nonetheless, the soldiers decided that the Romanovs should be banned from attending church and should have Mass said for them in Freedom House. Kobylinski managed to achieve a compromise whereby the family could go to church but not with the same regularity.25 Even so, the Tobolsk clergy’s sympathy for the Romanovs continued to agitate the guards, who insisted on being present at the services held in Freedom House. Nerves were strained when a prayer was offered to St Alexandra. One of the soldiers, on hearing the name Alexandra, assumed that this meant the empress. Their suspicion was that a prayer was being offered in the names of the deposed dynasty. There was the usual fuss until someone got hold of an ecclesiastical calendar and could prove that there was a saint of the same name.26 The family was being given a lesson that even if they behaved as they were asked, it was not enough: everyone had to conform to the wishes of those who sympathized with the Soviet government – and no one could predict what they might decide from day to day.