How Emperor Alexander III found himself in the epicenter of an "accidental" train disaster, and where does the terrorists have to do with it?

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Seven years after the assassination attempt on Tsar Alexander II, the Russian Empire shuddered again. Now the life of Emperor Alexander III was nearly cut short. His train crashed, and historians still argue about the true cause of what happened.

As they say, nothing foreshadowed trouble. On October 17, 1888, the family of Tsar Alexander III, together with numerous servants, returned from the Crimea to St. Petersburg. But a tragedy struck on the Kursk-Kharkov-Azov line. The imperial train suddenly derailed a few tens of kilometers from Kharkov.

The sovereign did not flinch

On the straight section, a train of two steam locomotives and fifteen passenger cars developed an impressive speed - more than sixty versts per hour, although, according to the rules, it should not accelerate over forty versts per hour. At the same time, the automatic brakes of the train did not work. Suddenly, the front carriages were literally ripped apart due to the fact that they were hit by the rear ones. In just a few seconds, the seemingly indestructible imperial train turned into a heap of rubble.

The emperor himself, like his family at the moment, was in the dining car. After several jolts, there was a terrible crash, and the train stopped.

Naturally, the survivors immediately began to look for the sovereign, his wife, children and retinue. And soon they were found. No one from the royal family was hurt, which is surprising, since the dining car turned into a pile of smoking iron.

According to eyewitnesses, when the car collapsed, the roof began to fall. And then the sovereign, who was distinguished by great physical strength, stood under her. He held the roof on his shoulders until all the surviving passengers of the carriage got out of there. And only after that he went outside himself.

The scale of the tragedy was impressive. Of the fifteen cars, only a third survived, and the locomotives themselves were unharmed. The main blow was taken by the carriages in which the courtiers were accommodated. Of the two hundred and ninety passengers, twenty-one people died, and another sixty-eight were injured of varying severity. Kamchatka, the sovereign's favorite dog, did not survive the train crash.

Since not many years have passed since the tragic death of Emperor Alexander II, the very first version due to which the accident occurred sounded like this: a terrorist attack. The people talked about a certain organization that wanted to destroy the entire Romanov family. Once it happened with Tsar Alexander II, it will work with his son. Many of the surviving passengers of the ill-fated train were also inclined towards a terrorist attack. In fact, only the sovereign retained his sanity. He didn’t chop off the shoulder and go into hysterics. Instead, Alexander III ordered a thorough investigation to find out the true cause of the disaster.

This difficult and very important task for the entire Russian Empire was given to Anatoly Fedorovich Koni, a man who at that time was the chairman of the Petersburg district court and held the post of chief prosecutor.

No room for error

I must say that Alexander III did not put pressure on Anatoly Fedorovich, demanding that he find the "correct" evidence. The chief prosecutor received complete freedom of action, since it was important for the emperor to know the truth.

Koni was entrusted with a complex and delicate investigation for a reason. The fact is that by that time he was already a well-known lawyer. And the glory was brought to him by the difficult case of Vera Zasulich, a woman terrorist who attempted the assassination of the mayor of St. Petersburg Fedor Fedorovich Trepov. And although everyone expected that Zasulich would suffer severe punishment for his act, it was Koni who managed to save her. In the highest circles, Koni was treated with respect. He was considered a man of word and honor, who, however, was distinguished by cunning.

Alexander III, of course, was aware of the case of Vera Zasulich. The acquittal did not suit him, like many others. But it was the work of Koni that impressed the sovereign. Therefore, after a meeting with the Minister of Justice Konstantin Ivanovich Palen, the emperor opted for Anatoly Fedorovich. In their personal conversation, Alexander III said that finding out the true cause of the train crash would make him forget about the Zasulich case. In fact, Koni had no choice. He needed to build a career further, and the sovereign's favor would play a big role in this. Anatoly Fedorovich kindly assured the emperor that he would be able to sort out a difficult matter. On that they parted.

At his own discretion, Koni assembled a special commission, which undertook to investigate the causes of the tragedy. It included representatives of the state police, gendarmes, engineers and mechanics. Alexander III, as they say, kept his finger on the pulse and periodically called Anatoly Fedorovich for a report.

And once Koni told him that after the most varied checks that could be carried out, he came to the conclusion that the train crash was not the fault of any terrorists. The sovereign replied that he did not even doubt such results. Koni stated that the main reason was the worn out rails that could not withstand the heavy imperial train. Thus, the Minister of Railways Konstantin Nikolaevich Posiet became the culprit.

There is a version that immediately after the accident, when Alexander III got out of the destroyed carriage, his eyes caught on a strange tie. Looking closely, the emperor realized that she was rotten. This assured him that the train derailed precisely because of the dilapidated railway track. Then he gave a piece of this tie to Posyet, who arrived at the crash site. Naturally, the Minister of Railways was horrified. The rotten rail took the lives of two dozen people and nearly killed the emperor. Accordingly, it was in her power to put an end to the entire career of Konstantin Nikolaevich. And there is an opinion that therefore it was he who began to actively promote the version of the terrorist attack.

Soon Koni made an official report. He said that not only Posyet was responsible for the disaster, but also numerous officials who, with the help of corruption schemes, laundered the money allocated for the maintenance of the railway in proper condition.

Soon Posiet himself, as well as several other people, were removed from their posts. A new stage of the investigation began. But … in fact, it ended in nothing. No charges were brought against these people. But there was no reinstatement in posts either.

The true cause of the crash, which they chose to hide

There is a version that Koni, together with the commission, got to the bottom of the true cause of the crash, but they chose to hide it on the personal order of Alexander III.

Once all the survivors gathered in the Gatchina Palace to honor the memory of the people whose lives were carried away by the train disaster. And after the funeral service, the sovereign approached Posiet and Baron von Taube and declared that he knew the truth and no longer considered them to be the culprits of the accident.

There is information that, in parallel with the official investigation, Koni was conducting a second, unofficial one with the involvement of a secret police officer led by Adjutant General Pyotr Aleksandrovich Cherevin. And so Cherevin found out that the crash was not due to "rotten rails", but because of a bomb explosion. He found that a young assistant cook had put it in one of the carriages. At the time of the explosion, he was not on the train, since he unnoticed got off it during a stop. At first, no one paid attention to his absence, the guy was considered dead. But the cook's assistant was also not found among the corpses. The surname of this "cook" is, unfortunately, classified. However, it is known that with the help of revolutionary organizations he soon ended up in Paris. It was possible to find out about this thanks to the documents of General Nikolai Dmitrievich Seliverstov. Nikolai Dmitrievich headed the Political Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in France. As for the terrorist, his days were numbered. He died in Paris under mysterious circumstances.

For political reasons, Alexander III ordered to classify the results of Cherevin's investigation. And it was the rotten rails that became the official version of the train wreck. But all the same, it did not work to erase thoughts and guesses about the terrorist attack. Both Russian and European newspapers wrote about him. But the sovereign did not recognize this version until the end of his days, at least not officially.

In the place where the catastrophe occurred, the Spaso-Svyatogorsk Monastery and the Cathedral of Christ the Savior of the Most Glorious Transfiguration were erected. And in memory of the tragedy, over a hundred churches, more than three hundred chapels and seventeen bell towers were built throughout the country. But almost all of them were destroyed during the Soviet era. And only recently, in the fall of 2013, a bust of Tsar Alexander III appeared at the train crash site.

And in continuation of the topic for everyone who is interested in the history of the imperial house of Russia, little-known facts about the monarchs of the Romanov Dynasty, revealing them from an unexpected side.