The Romanov Dog That Survived

On 17 July 1918 the final Imperial family of the Russian Empire — former Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, and their children Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia and Alexei, were executed by Bolsheviks in the basement of the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg, a little over a year after Nicholas’ abdication.

Along with the family, their three servants and doctor were also murdered, and as the bodies were piled in to a truck to be driven to the woods and disposed of, Tatiana’s loyal bulldog Ortino (or Ortipo, it varies between sources) came running down the stairs barking and was swiftly bayoneted. Another family dog, Jemmy (or Jimmy), was killed in a similar way. But there was a third family dog —  Alexei’s beloved King Charles spaniel Joy — who was no where to be seen. Joy was described as a naughty dog that was always running off, and unlike Ortino and Jemmy, he was quiet and seldom barked, and it was perhaps this that saved him. Likely spooked by the gunshots, Joy ran from the house in to the woods.

The dog and his master

Alexei loved the dog, who was well known to the Russian public — often appearing in official photographs in the arms or at the feet of the ailing boy. Suffering from haemophilia, Alexei could not play with other children for fears that a simple bump or scratch could prove fatal, so spent much of his later years with his faithful companion in the garden or out for walks. Indeed, Joy appears in countless photos from the final few years of Alexei’s short life (he wouldn’t see his 14th birthday), suggesting the two were rarely apart.

After the execution, Joy returned to await his master, quietly stalking the grounds of the Ipatiev House in distress. At this point, several days after the execution, the blood lust of the guards had long subsided, and a sympathetic Bolshevik guard named Mikhail Letyomin took pity on the half starved, almost completely blind animal, and took him in. A mere eight days after the Romanovs murder, the Whites (rebellion forces and royalists, fighting to reinstate the monarchy and oust Lenin’s party from the capital) captured Ekaterinburg from the Bolsheviks. It was then that Paul Rodzianko, serving with the British Expeditionary Force at the time, who knew the family well, found the abandoned Joy once more wandering the grounds of the house. Rodzianko was close with the Imperial family, so recognised him and adopted the dog in their memory. His identity was confirmed later by a former lady-in-waiting to Alexandra in Omsk, with the country’s future still uncertain.

Joy was still, tragically, searching for his master Alexei, and this meeting with a familiar smell (he was blind, remember) sent him in to temporary state of excitement. But following this, Joy in this period was described as sad and dejected, not eating his food and spending his days lying by the door in anticipation. Be that as it may, he was cared back to strength and declared a miracle — amidst the slaughter of the entire household, he had made it out alive: the only surviving member of the Imperial family.

His escape from Russia

As the Whites forces crumbled and the Bolsheviks began to crush any opposition, the surviving members of the former Russian aristocracy, exiled family and friends, and other political refugees, fled Russia. Most, in fear for their lives, never saw it again. One of these was Rodzianko himself, who returned to Britain via Vladivostok, taking Joy with him where he was either presented as a gift to King George V — a cousin to Nicholas II who had previously offered refuge to the family before their arrest (had history played out a little differently, little Joy would have lived at Windsor with his master Alexei and the rest of the Romanovs) — or was kept by Rodzianko himself as he settled nearby. Accounts vary, but what we know from Rodzianko himself is that Joy carried a sadness and loneliness for the rest of his days: traumatised having possibly witnessing the murder of his master and family, and nearly starving to death on the grounds until his rescue.

From the court of the Russian Empire to the court of the British Empire, Joy lived a long life and enjoyed the retirement his master and family never could, at Sefton Lawn, right by Windsor Castle. But in surviving, in some minor way at least, it was a triumph for the family. Very few made it out alive following the fall of the Romanov dynasty, but Joy did. He was buried in the cemetery for royal dogs, which has sadly since been turned in to a car park.

Paul Rodzianko himself said, in his 1939 biography Tattered Banners: “Every time I pass my garden at Windsor I think of the small dog’s tomb in the bushes with the ironical inscription ‘Here lies Joy.’ To me that little stone marks the end of an empire and a way of life.”

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