Napolnaya School Museum dedicated to the Alapaevsk Martyrs

On 17th July 2018, the day marking the 100th anniversary of the death and martyrdom of Emperor Nicholas II and his family, a new permanent exhibition opened in the Napolnaya school in the Ural city of Alapaevsk. The one-storey red brick schoolhouse was built in 1913-1915, on the outskirts of the city.

It was on 20th May 1918, that members of the Russian Imperial Family and their retainers were brought to Alapaevsk: Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich, Princes of the Imperial Blood Ioann, Konstantin and Igor Konstantinovich, Prince Vladimir Paley (son of Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich), and two faithful servants: sister of the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent Varvara Alekseevna (Yakovleva), and Fyodor Semyonovich (Mikhailovich) Remez, secretary of the Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich.

The prisoners were imprisoned in the hastily vacated schoolhouse. They were given three rooms with iron beds, modest tables and chairs. Two smaller rooms were set aside for the kitchen and servants’ quarters.

On the night of 18th July 1918, they were taken out along the factory road towards Verkhnyaya Sinyachikha. It was here that their Bolshevik captors threw the prisoners into a deep abandoned mine, where they subsequently died.

Throughout the Soviet years to the present day, the building has retained its original appearance and interior layout of the premises. Up until November 2017, it housed an elementary school.

Today, it houses a museum consisting of five rooms, with a permanent exhibition dedicated to the Alapaevsk. Here you can see historical photographs, documents and materials of the investigation into their murders, some of their personal belongings, household items, weapons, and awards of the era.