Essentuki, Stavropol Krai, Russia, February 5, 2019
Photo: pobeda26.ru A collection of rare photographs of the Royal Martyrs was discovered recently by workers repairing the roof at the Federal Treasury building in Essentuki in the Stavropol Krai in Russia, reports Pobeda and the Ministry of Tourism and Health Resorts of the Stavropol Krai.
The pictures were found in an envelope under an old I-beam. Most of the photos show a high Cossack among colleagues with Tsar Nicholas II and the Royal Family. None of the photos have been published before. The news agency Rublev reports that 7 photos and 2 postcards were found.
Photo: pobeda26.ru The postcards even bear the signatures of the royal children. The Grand Duchesses signed their joint portrait, and the Tsarevich wrote a dedicatory inscription on the back of his photo: “To Anatoly Semenovich. Tsarskoe Selo. April 7, 1907).”
Local historian Roman Nutrikhin found out that the photographs belonged to Anatoly Fedyushkin, a Terek Cossack who joined the special forces responsible for the protection of the Royal Family in 1909. As the Deputy Head of the Regional Department of the Treasury Vera Samarina notes, Anatoly Fedyushkin is often mentioned in the diaries and letters of the Grand Duchesses and Empress Alexandra under the name “Yuzik,” which the children called him in honor of his favorite literary hero.
Photo: pobeda26.ru After 1917, Fedyushkin joined the White Movement. In 1918, he found himself in the Caucasus, where he joined the ranks of the Volunteer Army and took place in the Terek Cossack uprising against the Soviet regime. After the suppression of the revolt, he left Russia and died in America in 1958.
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