<P> The killing of the Tsar's wife and children was also discussed but had to be kept a state secret to avoid any political repercussions; German ambassador Wilhelm von Mirbach made repeated enquiries to the Bolsheviks concerning the family's well - being . Another diplomat, British consul Thomas Preston, who lived near the Ipatiev House, was often pressured by Pierre Gilliard, Sydney Gibbes and Prince Vasily Dolgorukov to help the Romanovs, the latter smuggling notes from his prison cell before he too was murdered by Grigory Nikulin, Yurovsky's assistant . However, Preston's requests to be granted access to the family were consistently rejected . As Trotsky would later explain, "The Tsar's family was a victim of the principle that form the very axis of monarchy: dynastic inheritance", for which their deaths were a necessity . Goloshchyokin reported back to Yekaterinburg on 12 July with a summary of his discussion about the Romanovs with Moscow, along with instructions that nothing relating to their deaths should be directly communicated to Lenin . </P> <P> On 14 July, Yurovsky was finalizing the disposal site and how to destroy as much evidence as possible at the same time . He was frequently in consultation with Peter Ermakov, who was in charge of the disposal squad and claimed to know the outlying countryside, to which Yurovsky placed his trust in him . Yurovsky wanted to gather the family and servants in a closely confined space from which they could not escape . The basement room chosen for this purpose had a barred window which was nailed shut to muffle the sound of shooting and in case of any screaming . Shooting and stabbing them at night while they slept or killing them in the forest and then dumping them into the Iset pond with lumps of metal weighted to their bodies were ruled out . Yurovsky's plan was to perform an efficient execution of all 11 prisoners simultaneously, though he also took into account that he would have to prevent those involved from raping the women or searching the bodies for jewels . Having previously seized some jewellery, he suspected more was hidden in their clothes; the bodies were stripped naked in order to obtain the rest (this, along with the mutilations were aimed at preventing investigators from identifying them). </P> <P> On 16 July, Yurovsky was informed by the Ural Soviets that Red Army contingents were retreating in all directions and the executions could not be delayed any longer . A coded telegram seeking final approval was sent by Goloshchyokin and Georgy Safarov at around 6: 00pm to Lenin in Moscow . There is no documentary record of an answer from Moscow, although Yurovsky insisted that an order from the CEC to go ahead had been passed on to him by Goloshchyokin at around 7: 00pm . This was consistent with a former Kremlin guard, Aleksey Akimov, who in the late 1960s claimed that Sverdlov personally instructed him to take a telegram to the telegraph office confirming the CEC's approval of the' trial' (code for execution), but with strict instructions that both the written form and ticker tape should be brought back by him immediately after it had been sent . At 8: 00pm, Yurovsky sent his chauffeur to acquire a truck for transporting the bodies, bringing with it rolls of canvas to wrap them in . The intention was to park it as close to the basement entrance as possible, with its engine running to mask the noise of gunshots . Yurovsky and Pavel Medvedev collected 14 handguns to use that night, comprising two Browning pistols, two American Colts, two 7.65 Mausers, one Smith & Wesson and seven Belgian - made Nagants . The Nagant operated on old black gunpowder which produced a good deal of smoke and fumes; smokeless powder was only just being phased in . </P> <P> In the commandant's office, Yurovsky assigned victims to each killer before distributing the handguns . He took a Mauser and Colt while Ermakov armed himself with three Nagants, one Mauser and a bayonet; he was the only one assigned to kill two prisoners, Alexandra and Botkin . Yurovsky instructed his men to "shoot straight at the heart to avoid an excessive quantity of blood and get it over quickly ." At least two of the Letts, an Austro - Hungarian prisoner of war named Andras Verhas and Adolf Lepa, himself in charge of the Lett contingent, refused to shoot the women . Yurovsky sent them to the Popov House for failing "at that important moment in their revolutionary duty". Neither Yurovsky nor any of the killers went into the logistics of how to efficiently destroy eleven bodies . He was under pressure of ensuring that no remains would later be found by monarchists who would exploit them to rally anti-communist support . </P>

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