LAST MOMENTS OF TSAR.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXII, Issue 2514, 15 December 1927, Page 2

LAST MOMENTS OF TSAR.

A close friend of Voikoff, the recently assassinated Russian Ambassador to Poland, who first became notorious through signing the Tsar’s death warrant at Ekaterinburg, has given a new account of the last moments of the unfortunate monarch to a special correspondent of the Journal. This man lived next door to the house of the merchant Ipatieff, where the Imperial family were lodged. Or: the fatal night he noticed an unwonted activity among the Red Guard and saw a little boy who used to play with the Tsarevitch being led away in tears. Next day Voikoff remarked: “We shot them on the ground floor. There were eleven of them, the Tsar, the Tsarina, five children, Dr. Bodkin, and three servants. Our men numbered twelve also. Up to the last minute the Tsar merely thought that his place of residence was to be changed owing to the approach of the Czechoslovaks and the Whites. When he received a bullet in the head he remarked in astonishment, ‘Then they are not going to move me.’ ” A workman named Maisnikoff was as much involved in the murder of the Imperial family as Voikoff, it appears. He fled later to Rumania, and now occupies a lucrative position in a Caucasian bank,