Oleg Filatov - The Unknown Tsesarevitch. Reminiscences and Considerations on V. K. Filatov’s Life and Times

Later I told father about our trip. He listened to me and said nothing. Still, I wonder why father remembered that man for so long. From the documents available in our family he had not participated in the war and could not know any of these details. Namely, about the photo being the only original or about Kuznetsov’s personal weapon and map case or that all these things are kept in the WW II Museum in Minsk

He had never been there, as far as we know. I thought that maybe he had learned about it from Yavorsky who lived in our village, but that was in the 60’s and Yavorsky had been very old already and also had not left the village. How could that be? This fact of his biography has also not been clarified. We’ve sent inquiries to the Highway Institutes in the Urals and Siberia about father and got answers that there was no such student. To-day we should, probably, study not only our father’s biography but also the biography of Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov. It is clear from publications that Kuznetsov was called the Hero of the Soviet Union not post mortem but while he was still living. In the book of the Heroes of the Soviet Union kept in the archives of the Military-historical museum of artillery, military engineering and communication, there is a record: “Kuznetsov N.I. – partisan, secret-service agent, Hero of the Soviet Union.” No other Kuznetsovs. The facts of his death are still unknown. Somebody had seen something, somebody had heard something. Not more. Theodor Gladkov in his book Disappeared from the place of attempt writes that people still hope that Nikolai Ivanovich is still alive and that maybe he has moved to another place, with his death feigned. And that Kuznetsov has continued his work but under another name and on another theme, because at that time the era of nuclear confrontation was approaching

Father would tell that N.I. Kuznetsov had been concerned with he search for the Amber room. And he said that in Koenigsberg, on the keft side of the highway going into town, there was an underground airdrome where it was kept in one of the wells. But nobody had searched for it in that region. It is of interest that the head of the geo-archaeological expedition on the search for the Amber room in the 60’s and 70’s at Kaliningrad, a Candidate of History, expert in the recent history of Germany, Andrei Stanislavovich Przhezdomsky is of the opinion that “…The Amber room and numerous valuables of interest not only to us but to world culture have remained on the territory of Prussia, namely, on the territory of Koenigsberg. Only the lack of skill, our famous haphazard ways and inability to approach the case from the scientific point of view, seriously explains a lack of results. If we can overcome our shortcomings, we shall be able to bring the valuables back.” 1. Maybe their lives had really intersected and we know nothing about it. We do not know whether father had ever been to Bielorussia or what friends he had there. I was born when he was 49 and his life during those earlier years we have only just begun to uncover. Much is to be studied. The life of this man is enigmatic and mysterious. We do not know how many similar fates there have been in Russia. If each of us studied these lives, we would enlarge the volume of information about Russian history, with the deeds of these people. Father had passed through numerous ordeals. For instance, three wars: World War I, Civil war, and World War II. Years of disruption of collectivization, anad of reconstruction of the economy. After the Civil war he was registered nowhere for 12 years – he lived in several orphanages. Therefore it would have been difficult to find him if anyone had wanted to. We have mapped his life and seen that he was mainly in central Russia, and in southern Russia where the climate was milder, and there was plenty of fruit and vegetables, and mud resorts. He had lived for a long time in the Siberia and in the Urals where his family had been executed and where he had studied. Grigory Rasputin’s relatives had also lived there. Here it becomes clear why Father appeared as a student in 1930. Industry was developing intensively at that time. In 1933 a passport system was introduced. One ought to be registered somewhere, to work and live. In 1930 he entered the Highway Institute (we have a related reference). Father had never kept a diary, his photos were not numerous, he neither liked to be photographed nor to take photos himself. But he had bought us two cameras and books on photography. We learned to do photography ourselves and we were photographed by other people on father’s request. Once a lad had come and lived with us for two weeks (it was Kukolev). He photographed us but left no photo. There are no other documents in our family apart from certificates, diplomas, references, and birth certificates. Father had asked us to guard these documents like they were the apple of the eye. He said that they contained everything about his life, and the remaining could be found in books such as Gorky’s books “ V liudiakh ” (Among People) and “ Moi universitety ” (My Universities). In all his life father had never sought for information about his relatives, at any rate, in our presence. He would say: “What should they need me for? It’s my life and they have a life of their own”. His secluded life astonished us. He knew how to be silent. We have never heard of his other family or whether he had any other children. Mother said that when I was born, father celebrated that event for a fortnight. Apparently, he had long waited for an heir. So one period of his life had ended and another period began, full of care for his hildren. He needed to earn money and worked from morning till night, like mother. Strange as it was for that time, we had “nurses”. They were Kashirins’ children from another village who studied in the Pretoria middle school and lived with us. When I grew up, I myself looked after my sisters when our parents were at school. Father dreamed that our life would not be like his. Therefore he did his very best for us and tried to pass all his knowledge on to us. It was a very interesting time. At school, where he worked, he tried to create an atmosphere of accessability to knowledge and trained the children’s interest in it. For example, Father’s stories about Kuznetsov N.I. or Gladkikh M.L. have created a life-long impression. He was always near them or they near him, days and nights, during all his life, that is, his life and their lives had been intertwined and, of course, he had learned much from them. I saw how father was cautious with people though he himself was approachable for others. Therefore later, when I observed him, and after his death examined his documents, I understood how hard it had been for him to get those documents. He had never kept diaries. Moving from place to place he had tried either to destroy or to take with himself all the necessary documents, which would be left after he died. So, as mother told it, from Tiumen and from Orenburg Province he took with him a file with his dossier. In 1955 our parents moved from Tiumen Province. As Father explained later, it was impossible to live there because due to a nuclear accident in Cheliabinsk, dead fish could be seen floating in the river Iset for a whole year after. Our parents travelled via Moscow. In Moscow they came to the Ministry of Education and tried to get work but, for some reason they failed. Mother cried, and father soothed her. Later mother recollected that father went away somewhere and sometime later the Minister appeared in the corridor and asked mother why she was crying. She answered that she could not find work. The Minister asked her: “Where would you like to work?” Mother answered, either in Altai krai or in Orenburg Province. The Minister took mother’s arm and conducted her to the personnel department, where my parents obtained a permit. So that’s how they came to live in Orenburg Province. The first seal witnessing a record in father’s work-record card appeared only in 1955. I still can’t comprehend how this could have happened, because father himself had once been Director of RONO. As if all those years he had been either in an administrative exile or on a business trip. And the most incredible thing is that he had served in the army and had had a serviceman’s identity card. Father had been exempt from military service for poor health but he was called twice to the medical commission. What for? When we appealed to the Military-medical archive of the Ministry of Defense in St. Petersburg, they said that they could not understand it either. We also failed to find his medical cards. Though the archive officers explained that medical commissions in the time of war had consisted of the medical workers of the hospitals and not of the region, and all medical records had been sent to the military districts. The districts had turned over the documents to the archives. But nothing has been found there either. Order #336 of 5.12.42, item 12 testifies to the fact that father suffered from a chronic illness of the muscular system of a neuropathic nature. 1 It’s a terrible desease. They had prescribed other medicines, while in this case strychnine ought to have been used, for example. Everything was and is strange. Father had not registered a disability certificate either. It seems that with this illness, and with any other, one should be examined, obtain a disability certificate, be registered in the polyclinic, be treated, get medicines, and go to resorts. Father had done nothing of the kind. He was already 60 and could think only of his children, about their health, but he would not do anything for himself. Was it unwillingness or a disregard for medicine, because it could not help him since he knew about the incurability of his hereditory illness? His hereditory illness had accustomed him to the thought that his life was in God’s hands, and he would live as many yearas as God gave him.And father had lived each day as if it would be his last. During his last years father would pray and repeat: “God, how long shall I suffer? When shall I die at last?” There was a single answer: “We all are in God’s hands.” He would say, that only thought, his ability to think, had made it possible for him to live. Many years later we decided to ascertain the diagnosis of father’s illness with the help of forensic genetics and medicine, that is, whether father was ill with haemophilia “A” or not