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

same man and this is clear from his words, and since he had been wounded, then, after he had been drawn out of the shaft, he ought to have got qualified medical aid. I thought: “Who could have done it?” It could have been done by a man who was close to him and who knew how to treat him. At that time Doctor Derevenko V.N. lived in Ekaterinburg. In his memoirs he writes that three weeks before the execution he was sent by the order of Goloshchekin (comissar of Ekaterinburg) to serve the neighbouring garrisons near Ekaterinburg. It is also known from the description by Derevenko V.N. and investigator Sokolov N.A. that in Ekaterinburg at Shartash station there was a train where the hospital was organized. Golubeva ² was the chief of this hospital. From father’s words, they took him to Shartash station where the surgeon wanted to amputate his leg, but he would not permit it. Probably, Derevenko V.N. was that surgeon who knew that it ought not to be done. Though, maybe, doctor’s first thought that there was no way out of the situation, but he had also known before that Alexei had repeatedly been on the brink of life and death and each time he had emerged from the crisis and continued to live. If it had been another surgeon, the results for Alexei could have been disasterous. He could have lost his leg, but nothing like that happened. To-day we know about it from he himself. After all his moves father finally found himself in the North. I’ve written about it already. He left Shadrinsk late in the summer of 1918 and little is known about his movements until late in 1919. But we do know that Derevenko V.N. lived in Ekaterinburg till the Whites left the town and took doctor along to Tomsk in the fall of 1919. In January 1919 the Russian White army South front was formed, the German expeditionary force landed on April 20, 1918 and then that of the Allies. From 1917 in the Caucasus, Georgia, Abkhazia and Armenia the mensheviks came to power, in Azerbaijan were the Turks, the Germans and the English. On September 15, 1918 Baku was taken by the Turks. On January 20 the General Denikin’s volunteer army took the following towns in the Nourth Caucasus: Essentuki, Kislovodsk, and Piatigorsk. Poltava was taken by the Whites on June 31, 1919, freed by the Reds on December 11, 1919. Kastornaya was freed by the Reds on November 15, 1919, Kharkov – on June 24, 1919, Ekaterinodar – on August 15, 1919, Novocherkassk was taken by the Whites on April 7, 1918, freed by the Red 9^th army on January 7, 1920. Kiev was taken by the Whites on July 31, 1919, freed by the Reds on December 16 1919. Kursk was taken by the Whites on September 20, 1919, freed by the Reds on November 17, 1919. Orel was taken by the Whites on October 13, 1919, freed by the Reds on October 20, 1919. Tsaritsyn was taken by the Whites on June 30, 191, freed by the Reds on January 3, 1920. Voronezh was freed by the Reds on October 24, 1919. Tomsk was taken by the Reds on July 15, 1919. Shadrinsk was taken by the Whites on July 25, 1918, Zlatoust – on May 26, 1918, Perm’ – on December 25, 1918. Perm’ and Kungur were freed by the Reds on July 1, 1919, etc.¹. As he said, father hoped for a long time that everything would be restored. This period was sufficiently long: from 1918 till 1921. The Widow Empress Maria Feodorovna (the wife of Emperor Alexander III), mother of Emperor Nicolas II, was in the Crimea. There were mud resorts there. From father’s words, Konstantin, a relative on the side of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, lived in Tiflis. To-day it is difficult to relate him to the Grand Duke, since father had not dwelled on this fact. He could have been the grand-grandson of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, Prince Konstantin, born in 1890

      I draw a conclusion that father had wanted to be there but could not get there alone. He would have had to have crossed the front line and known where, with whom and how to find his relatives. Who could welcome him there? Besides, he needed information about the course of events. If he went in early 1919, the question arises: how could he roam about the country and eventually find himself in the Crimea? There was no unbroken line of the front strictly corresponding to the idea of the war. One had to go by railroad to the places occupied by the Whites in order to have a guaranteed successful crossing of the front line with the help of Gladkikh Mikhail Pavlovich and his people. As father said, the help of Gladkikh? M.P. was the only guarantee that they would not arrest him and let him move on. Father’s movement over the country was miraculously combined with an occupation by the Whites of the towns in the south and central Russia. And this movement could have taken place in early 1919 and back – in late 1920, when it became clear that the White army had lost (when the White towns were abandoned?). Then father returned to Shadrinsk in 1921 where he met with Alexander Strekotin and learned of the details of his sister Maria’s rescue. Here, in Shadrinsk, he entered the leather-processing course of the polytechnic school on February 8, 1921 and on the same day, i.e. February 8, 1921, he went on holiday and no information about his studies anywhere has been found in the State archive up to 1933. It should be mentioned that in this school, M.P. Gladkikh’s younger brother – Grigory Gladkikh, studied (see Appendix, documents from the Shadrinsk State archive). In this polytechnic there were leather-processing, gardening, electricians, land communication, and junior nurses’ courses. The teachers were from Ekaterinburg and many of them, according to the archive data, were highly educated. In his biography of 1937 father wrote that in 1918 he graduated from the fourth grade of the parish school. “I lived with my father until 1921. That year my father died and I was left alone, since at that time I had no family, although I had had two uncles. They had joined the Red Guard while my father was still alive and disappeared without a trace. Between 1921 and 1930 I worked as an apprentice at shoe factories in various cities of the Union.” In his biography of 1967 he wrote that he was born in 1907. (Here we should digress. The point is that neither the Shadrinsk ZAGS nor the archive has records of issueing Vasily Filatov’s birth certificate to any of his parents. There is only a record that a boy Vasily was born in the Filatov family. A question arises: how could Vasily Filatov get work without his birth certificate? From his words, Father had lost his birth certificate during the Civil war. He, as a homeless child, was sent to an orphanage in Kaluga. The medical commission determined his age with a 3-year difference. But they ought to have given him a document certifying him and to have indicated his age. His birth certificate was probably of the 1940 pattern. Person, who made out father’s birth certificate, did not date the document. On the back of the page there is a seal that the passport was issued in 1940 in the village of Isetskoe, Tiumen Province. There are no records that before 1940 Filatov V.K. had received any other certificates including a passport. There are no other records as of to-day. Though there is a possibility that information about Filatov V., having changed one document for another, is contained in the passport department of the village of Isetsk, Tiumen Province. This has yet to be checked.) Further he wrote that during his father’s life time he finished the primary school and entered the Shadrinsk Polytechnicum, where children were taught various trades. (To-day it is known from the archival data that grown-ups, up to 40 years old could also study there for a period of six months. But, according to the Shadrinsk archive, Vasily Filatov was there only one day). Then father wrote that he was unable to finish up there due to his father’s death in 1921. (His foster father really died on September 22, 1921 due to the famine that began in their district after a failed harvest.) These circumstances in 1922 forced father to abandon his studies and to work. (In the first biography he worked from 1921 in various cities of the Union) and had to leave his native region in order to save himself from starvation. From 1922 to 1928 he worked in various towns west of the Ural Mountains. Doctor Derevenko V.N. had been in Perm from the fall of 1920. Had father visited him? It’s unknown. In November 1923 Doctor Derevenko moved to Dnepropetrovsk, the south Ukraine, near the Crimea. In late January father went to Moscow to try his last chance to declare himself. He went to the British Embassy on Diplomaticheskaya Street where John was waiting for him in February of 1924. Who was that John? One cans supposr that it was sir John Henbery-Williams. Sir John Henbery-Williams was a British general, chief of the military mission of Great Btitain at the Headquarters of the Russian Army in the period 1914—1917, quartered at Mogilev. It was only he who could wait for father at the Great Britain Embassy. Father had not the habit of misleading us, his children. He was not going to do that because, first of all, he was worried about the safety of his family, i.e. his heirs. The fact of the planned meeting can probably be reflected in the materials archived in the Great Britain Ministry of Foreign Affairs.