The Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg where the last Romanovs were killed has also been known as the House of Special Purpose. That special purpose being, of course, the murder. The family spent 78 days at the house.
The house was commissioned in the 1880s by Ivan Redikortsev, and in 1909 it was bought by Nikolai Nikolayevich Ipatiev, an engineer, who used the ground floor as his office. Ipatiev was ordered to vacate his house in April 1918, and the Romanovs arrived there on 30 April. The guards were housed on the ground floor, while the family and their four servants lived in four rooms on the upper floor. They were allowed daily exercise in the enclosed garden, and they often went outside even if the weather was bad. It was closed off from the street by a high wooden fence. They were murdered in the basement at the back of the building.
After the murders, the house was used as a branch of the Ural Revolution Museum and as an agricultural school. In 1938, it again became a museum. Large groups often posted in front of the bullet-damaged wall in the basement. In 1946, it was taken over by the Communist Party, and in 1974, it was listed as a monument and it became a place of pilgrimage. Its demolition was ordered in 1977. In 2000, the plot was handed over to the Russian Orthodox Church, and The Church on Blood in Honour of All Saints Resplendent in the Russian Land was built on the spot. The altar is directly over the site of the execution.
Be the first to comment