15 October 1917. Nicholas II

Non-fiction

Project 1917 is a series of events that took place a hundred years ago as described by those involved. It is composed only of diaries, letters, memoirs, newspapers and other documents

Nicholas II

Tobolsk, Russian Republic

It was a warm day; about 4 o'clock a short rain fell. Now all of us want to take a walk, but we are obliged to go around town accompanied by the sentries.

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✍ Also today

Mata Hari

Vincennes, Paris, France

is executed by shooting

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Georgy Knyazev

Sredny avenue, Vassilyevsky island, Petrograd, Russian Republic

The dancer Mata Hari is executed in Vincennes. She was convicted of espionage.

There was a time when all of Paris gathered to look at her famous belly dance. She performed in European capitals. Her other dance of the Devil, otherwise known as the Mephistopheles, produced just as much furor. She was beautiful, flexible and seductive. She wasn’t prone to debauchery, she took everything life offered her. And she succeeded in many things. Once, she appeared on stage with a black diamond on her chest, which drove all the Parisians crazy… See more

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Pitirim Sorokin

Petrograd, Russian Republic

People flee from Petrograd in the thousands. Indeed, why would they remain in a city faced with famine and murders - the work of the Bolshevik hordes? “I advise you to leave too,” a friend told me, whom I saw off to the station. “Leave as soon as possible. Otherwise, it will be too late.”

But to leave Petrograd now? I should not, and I do not want.

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Ivan Pavlov

4, Vvedenskaya street, Petrograd, Russian Republic

Horrors of the revolution are renewing inter-animal relations.

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Mikhail Larionov with Nikolay Gumilyov

makes a portrait of Nikolay Gumilyov

Paris, rue Cambon, 37, hotel Castille

Vladimir Lenin

Vyborg, Russian Republic

Comrades! The Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries, to which Kerensky belongs, appeals to you in its paper Dyelo Naroda (of September 30) “to be patient”.

The paper asks us "to be patient" and urges that power be left in the hands of Kerensky’s government, that power should not pass to the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. Let Kerensky rely on the landowners, capitalists and kulaks, let the Soviets that have carried through the revolution and vanquished the Kornilovite generals "be patient", we are told. Let them have patience until the Constituent Assembly, which will soon be convened. See more

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Ivan Bunin

Vasilievskoe estate, Glotovo village, Orlovskaya guberniya, Russian Republic

I woke up at six. Stayed in bed for an hour. I feel down. I'm thinking that the world might grow empty for me soon. Where have my former carelessness and hope gone! My soul feels numb, empty, I've got nothing to say, nothing to write, I'm trying - and it's just a trade, a pathetic, dead one. Yesterday Breshkovsky appealed to the youth - "go educate the people"!

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Lev Urusov

Petrograd, Russian Republic

A navy battle is rumored to be taking place west from Revel. We have, apparently, lost two torpedo boats while our battleships couldn't leave the harbor because of a mass demonstration. The same source (Bogoyavlensky) reported yesterday that our battleships seem to have no electricity - the main artery of the ship - staff, of course, blames it on the counter-revolutionary Command. Officers, especially navy officers, are the real martyrs of the revolution. Even the "Petropavlovsk" ensigns have gone grey.

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Alfred Knox

Petrograd, Russian Republic

I dined last night with General Judson, the American Military Attache, who has taken a palace of a house and has A.D.C.’s, etc. He had Stevens, the American railroad expert, with De Candolle, our railway man, to talk to him, Verkhovski, the new Minister of War, and Colonel Polkovnikov, the new Commander of the District. I sat on Judson’s left; opposite Verkhovski.

Verkhovski is intelligent but very young. He looks twenty-eight but is really thirty-four. He is young in his ideas and is an enthusiast with an enthusiast’s lack of common sense. I am not sure that he does not talk for effect. See more

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Anna Vyrubova

Petrograd, Russian Republic

Hardly knowing what next was in store for me, I reported at once to the High Commission. Here I was told that their inquiries concerning me were finished, and that I had better see the Minister of the Interior. At this ministry I was informed that I was in no immediate danger but that I would remain under police surveillance.

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14 October

Repin makes a portrait of the British Ambassador

Kschessinska moves into a villa

Lenin insists that Bolsheviks shouldn't wait for the Congress of Soviets

Nightmare before Christmas

Death of Rasputin. Murder conspiracy and its consequences

From one revolution to another

Russia in 1917

+11

in Petrograd

+11

in Moscow