PHOTO: view of the Drawing Room in the Governor’s Mansion in Tobolsk, where the carpet can be seen in the lower left-hand corner of the photo. 1917-18

The Museum of Russian Culture in San Francisco, has a valuable historic relic related to the Tobolsk exile of Nicholas II and his family, from August 1917 to April 1918.

In October 1973, doctor Anatoly Pavlovich Timofievich (1886-1975), who was living at the Novo-Diveevo Monastery in New York at the time, wrote to the Museum that, with the blessing of Archbishop Andrei (Rymarenko), he would like to donate for preservation a large carpet from the Governor’s Mansion in Tobolsk.

The carpet was in the Drawing Room, where a chapel was recreated, consisting of of a folding iconostasis and an altar. It was in this room, that the Imperial Family prayed during their house arrest in Tobolsk. The carpet was given to Timofievich by the sister of Nicholas II – Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna (1875-1960), but how the carpet came into Xenia’s possession remains a mystery.

Timofievich sent a photograph of the Drawing Room in the Governor’s House, in which part of this carpet is visible. The photo was taken in 1917-18 by Pierre Gilliard, French tutor of the heir to Tsesarevich Alexei, and published in his memoirs Thirteen Years at the Russian Court in 1921.

PHOTO: carpet from Tobolsk on display Museum of Russian Culture in San Francisco

Another photo of the carpet in Tobolsk was a great stroke of luck – from a book by Charles Sydney Gibbes, the August children’s English tutor. This photo shows the Christmas service in the house chapel in the Drawing Room of the Governor’s Mansion. In the lower left, part of the carpet can be seen – see photo above. It is known that the service was conducted by the rector of the Church of the Annunciation in Tobolsk, Archpriest Alexei Pavlovich Vasiliev (1865-1929), Christmas, December 1917.

On 8th November 1973, the carpet was sent to Nikolai Aleksandrovich Slobodchikov (1911-1991), chairman of the Museum of Russian Culture in San Francisco.

It was not until 2015, that the carpet was discovered in the museum’s vast archive. The carpet was identified, restored and put on display in the Museum of Russian Culture in San Francisco.

In 2018 – the year marking the 100th anniversary of the death and martyrdom of Russia’s last Tsar and his family – the Museum of the Family of Emperor Nicholas II opened in the former Governor’s Mansion in Tobolsk.

In July of the same year, employees of the Museum of Russian Culture in San Francisco and employees of the Museum of the Royal Family took place in Tobolsk.

NOTE: if you have any additional facts or information about this relic, please contact me by e-mail: royalrussia@yahoo.com

© Paul Gilbert. 4 November 2025