Entry 1 - Petrograd

Boris Stuermer (1848 - 1917)
Russian Minister of the Interior

... and, post factum, everybody claims that "he (or more often she)
predicted it long ago, but they would not listen." It is a lie; we
all knew that the war has been conducted abominably, that Rasputin and
Stuermer were plotting, that the administration was greatly inclined to
graft, -- all gossip of the town. But no one whom I had seen since the
execution of the monk was aware of the real fact: the revolution was
in the air. 


 
Mikhail Rodzianko (1859 - 1924)
Chairman of the Fourth State Duma (Congress)

Rodzianko, to whom I spoke at the Club only a fortnight
before the abdication, said that everything would turn out all right.
In fact, the Court, and people around it -- were much better posted;
perhaps they felt something growing instinctively, as they were
too silly to crystallize their fears in some concrete conception.

Maroossia [wife of Count Rostovtsev, friend of Anna Vyrubova and Baroness 
Buxhoevden, the Tsarina's closest friends]
was in Tsarskoye Selo  not long before the old Admiral's
death; they said that the danger was expected from the "Town and
Country Union." But all these whispers and chatterings were always
of the category of a "so-and-so, whose brother's friend knew a man
who...."


Tsarskoe Selo "Tsar's Village"

With all my running around about the town I must confess I did
not notice any movement; I always thought that the reason of the
unrest -- was the shortage of food, and a little provocation, to put
Stuermer in a disagreeable position. 

The realization of the serious danger approaching all of us 
came to me only when the police fired on the mob 
on the Nevsky and the first real clash took place. I happened
to cross the Liteinyi near Basseinaya Street, when I heard for the
first time in my life the whistling of bullets and the peculiar
drumming of the machine guns. I felt weak in the knees and around the
waist and had to stand in a porte-cochere for a while. It was only for
a few moments, and I felt ashamed of this disgusting feeling of fear.

 
July 4, 1917.  Street demonstration on Nevskii Prospect 
just after troops of the Provisional Government have 
opened fire with machine guns.

A crowd of cooks, or maids, passed near me shouting and screaming for
help; they had disgustingly lost their self-control. I reached home in
a hurry and found Maroossia pale and frightened. I had to tell her
not to show her nose in the streets. Then Mikhalovsky called me up and
asked how did I like the revolution. He did not like it: his cook had
been shot in the knee; a very moderate cook, in fact.