[The following is in regards to the Romanov family’s captivity at Tsarskoe Selo after the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II.]
Far worse were the family’s walks. For a few hours each day, the Romanovs were allowed outside. But every afternoon, just before they stepped out, angry crowds gathered along the iron fence. They shouted insults and obscenities. Some even hurled sticks and clods of dirt.
The soldiers did little to stop this. Not long ago, just a glimpse of the tsar would have sent them to their knees. But ears of hardship had left them with little sympathy for Nicholas. “Too many hard, terrible things had been connected in the past with his name,” explained one soldier. One could hardly blame them for their gaping and mocking. Sometimes they went even further, poking him in the back with their bayonets, and turning rudely away when he offered to shake hands. Once a soldier even stuck a rifle into the spokes of his bicycle as he pedaled past. The tsar flew over the handlebars, crashing to the ground. He managed to accept it all without complaint.
The soldiers targeted the others, too. They snatched away Alexei’s toy rifle, told crude jokes about Alexandra within earshot, and made fun of the way the girls spoke. “What an ‘appetizing book’ you have in your hand,” one soldier drawled in imitation of Anastasia, who was overheard complaining about lunch. “One is tempted to eat it.”
Source:
Fleming, Candace. "Survivors of a Shipwreck." The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion & the Fall of Imperial Russia. 184-85. Print.
Further Reading:
Ца́рское Село́ (Tsarskoye Selo)
Николай II Алекса́ндрович (Nicholas II of Russia) / Nicholas the Bloody
Алексе́й Никола́евич (Alexei Nikolaevich)
[Alix of Hesse and by Rhine / Александра Фёдоровна (Alexandra Feodorovna) / Saint Alexandra the Passion Bearer]( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Feodorovna_(Alix_of_Hesse)
Великая Княжна Анастасия Николаевна Романова (Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia)
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