The Romanovs

Captivity

The family were arrested during the Russian Revolution of 1917 and were imprisoned first at their home in Tsarskoye Selo and later at private residences in Tobolsk and Yekaterinburg, Siberia. "Darling, you must know how awful it all is", Olga wrote in a letter to a friend from Tobolsk. During the early months of 1917, the children caught measles. Olga contracted pleurisy on top of it.

Olga tried to draw comfort from her faith and her proximity to her family. To her "beloved mama", with whom she had sometimes had a difficult relationship, she wrote a poem in April 1917, while the family was still imprisoned at Tsarskoye Selo: "You are filled with anguish for the sufferings of others. And no one's grief has ever passed you by. You are relentless, only towards yourself, forever cold and pitiless. But if only you could look upon your own sadness from a distance, just once with a loving soul - Oh, how you would pity yourself, how sadly you would weep." In another letter from Tobolsk, Olga wrote: "Father asks to ... remember that the evil which is now in the world will become yet more powerful, and that it is not evil which conquers evil, but only love ..."

A poem copied into one of her notebooks prays for patience and the ability to forgive her enemies:

"Send us, Lord, the patience, in this year of stormy, gloom-filled days, to suffer popular oppression, and the tortures of our hangmen. Give us strength, oh Lord of justice, Our neighbor's evil to forgive, And the Cross so heavy and bloody, with Your humility to meet, In days when enemies rob us, To bear the shame and humiliation, Christ our Savior, help us. Ruler of the world, God of the universe, Bless us with prayer and give our humble soul rest in this unbearable, dreadful hour. At the threshold of the grave, breathe into the lips of Your slaves inhuman strength - to pray meekly for our enemies."
Also found with Olga's effects, reflecting her own determination to remain faithful to the father she adored, was Edmond Rostand's L'Aiglon, the story of Napoleon Bonaparte's son, who remained loyal to his deposed father until the end of his life.

There was one report that her father gave Olga a small revolver, which she concealed in a boot while in captivity at Tsarskoe Selo and at Tobolsk. Colonel Eugene Kobylynsky, their sympathetic jailer, pleaded with the grand duchess to surrender her revolver before she, her sisters, and brother were transferred to Yekaterinburg. Olga reluctantly gave up her gun and was left unarmed.

The family had been briefly separated in April 1918 when the Bolsheviks moved Nicholas, Alexandra, and Maria to Yekaterinburg. Alexei and the three other young women remained behind because Alexei had suffered another attack of hemophilia. The Empress chose Maria to accompany her because "Olga's spirits were too low" and level-headed Tatiana was needed to take care of Alexei. In May 1918 the remaining children and servants boarded the ship Rus that ferried them from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg. Aboard ship, Olga was distressed when she saw one of the guards slip from a ladder and injure his foot. She ran to the man and explained that she had been a nurse during the war and wanted to look at his foot. He refused her offer of treatment. All through the afternoon, Olga fretted over the guard, whom she called "her poor fellow." At Tobolsk Olga and her sisters had sewed jewels into their clothing in hopes of hiding them from the Bolsheviks, since Alexandra had written to warn them that upon arrival in Ekaterinburg, she, Nicholas and Maria had been aggressively searched and belongings confiscated.

Pierre Gilliard later recalled his last sight of the imperial children at Yekaterinburg:

" "The sailor Nagorny, who attended to Alexei Nikolaevitch, passed my window carrying the sick boy in his arms, behind him came the Grand Duchesses loaded with valises and small personal belongings. I tried to get out, but was roughly pushed back into the carriage by the sentry. I came back to the window. Tatiana Nikolayevna came last carrying her little dog and struggling to drag a heavy brown valise. It was raining and I saw her feet sink into the mud at every step. Nagorny tried to come to her assistance; he was roughly pushed back by one of the commissars ..." "
At the Ipatiev House, Olga and her sisters were eventually required to do their own laundry and learned how to make bread. The girls took turns keeping Alexandra company and amusing Alexei, who was still confined to bed and suffering from pain after his latest injury. Olga was reportedly deeply depressed and lost a great deal of weight during her final months. "She was thin, pale, and looked very sick", recalled one of the guards, Alexander Strekotin, in his memoirs. "She took few walks in the garden, and spent most of her time with her brother." Another guard recalled that the few times she did walk outside, she stood there "gazing sadly into the distance, making it easy to read her emotions." Later, Olga appeared angry with her younger sister Maria for being too friendly to the guards, reported Strekotin. After late June, when a new command was installed, the family was forbidden from fraternizing with the guards and the conditions of their imprisonment became even more stringent.