Kolya Derevenko's Story: Tsarevich Alexei's best friend remembers

The son of the imperial physician, Nikolai Vladimirovich Derevenko, born in 1906, two years after the Heir Tsesarevich Alexei Nikolaevich, had become his best friend.

During his long life, he never wanted to talk about his friend's life or death, it was all too painful for him. When one of his associates tried to convince him to publish a book about his friendship with the Russian Heir to the throne, and about his experience in Tobolsk and Ekaterinburg, Nikolai exclaimed: "Don't you understand, all my life I have tried to forget that horror! If I allow myself to remember, I would not be able to live, could not work, could not exist, would lose my mind."

Only shortly before his death in 2004, did Kolya agree to an interview, which was video recorded for posterity.
Here I present a part of the interview, where he remembers learning of Alexei's murder after returning to Ekaterinburg at the end if July 1918, and about the sorrow and devastation he felt that summer, and until the end if his life...

"I was a little boy, just twelve years old. I did not know of the evil in people’s souls. We were living at the Popov house near Ipatiev house. In the middle of the summer of 1918, I was afraid and worried for Alexei. I wanted to see him and at the same time I am sure he wanted to see me too. Until that sad day of July 17, 1918, my father, Gilliard, Gibbes, and others knew everything, but I knew nothing. Something terrible was going to happen, but I didn’t know what it was… In the last week of July 1918, myself, my father, Gilliard, Gibbes, and others entered the Ipatiev house. There was a terrible scene… The house was in complete chaos; diaries, letters, albums, and other things were strewn all around in the house.. “But where is Ieskela?” I asked my father, but he stayed silent. Ieskela’s diary was found by a White guard, I think his name was Nemetkin, I am not sure. But Leonid Sednev… I saw him. He cried. His cries were so loud… so loud!
I was confused. “Papa, where is my Ieskela?” – I asked. “They killed him”, he said, and I started to cry. “But how?” – I replied. “They killed the Tsar, the Tsaritsa, and the Grand Duchesses too. They are all dead.” – said my father.  “But I don’t understand. Where… where are their bodies?”  “We don’t know, maybe we will never find them.  I then realized brutal life could be… I found Ieskela’s last letter written to me. One sentence in particular in that letter – “I hug you tightly” – made me cry so much. I thought “and I hug you tightly too, my dear friend, my Tsar…
I was in shock. In the following years, I thought about him. “Why did they kill you? In the USSR, there was no place for my Ieskela. We will be friends forever, my dear Tsesarevich… If I could see you just one more time, then I can die in peace…"

Kolya Derevenko died in 2004, at the age of 98, without ever finding out exactly what happened to his best friend Alexei. 

*In their letters, Alexei and Kolya would refer to each other by their names read backwards – Alexei was “Ieskela”, while Kolya was “Yalok”.

From 1918 letters of Alexei Romanov to Kolya Derevenko:

"Dear Yalok, Bring your bullet, the one you found in Ts.[arskoe] S.[elo]. I will also bring two of mine. Goodbye. Ieskela."
[On the reverse side of the letter]: “For Kolya. Open immediately (Tobolsk, March 1918)”

To Kolya (Tobolsk, April, 1918). "Dear Niki, I am very grateful for the cannon. I hope that we will see each other soon. Regards to Mama, Grandma and Fefer. My handwriting is bad because I am lying in bed. My leg hurts, but I think it will soon be better. Yours, Ieskela"
[On the reverse side, on top of the page Alexei wrote]: “I am sending you a prosfora"

"Dear Kolya,  all the sisters send greetings to you, your Mama and Grandma. I feel well myself. My head was aching all day, but now the pain is gone completely. I embrace you tightly. Greetings to the Botkins from all of us.   Always yours,  Alexei    
Konetz" [“The END” in Russian]
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