Early life and military service Stepan Vaganov was born in 1886 near the Verkh-Isetsky Metallurgical Plant, in a working-class family. He was brought up in an
Orthodox family and finished education at the parish school and got a job as a locksmith. In 1907, Vaganov was married to a resident of his village, Olga Ivanovna. The wedding took place in the Church of the Nativity of Christ of the same faith. After the wedding, the young couple lived in the parental home of the Vaganovs, where they had seven children in seven years. In 1910 he was called up for military service, graduated from the Mineman School for lower ranks in
Kronstadt, and served on the 2nd rank cruiser
Asia. With the outbreak of the
First World War, he was transferred to the mine layer
Ladoga. He was noted in reports for his courage in naval combat. In 1915 he joined the
RSDLP (b) and already in 1916 was first arrested for an attempt to smuggle the issue of the newspaper "Proletarian Voice" of the Petrograd Committee of the RSDLP (b) onto the ship. He was sentenced to six months and served his sentence in the
Revel Coastal Prison.
The executions After the
Russian Revolution Vaganov joined the
Red Guard, which were later incorporated as the first units of the
Red Army following the outbreak of the
Russian Civil War in 1918. He returned to his native Yekaterinburg and soon rose to become the right-hand man of
Peter Ermakov, the military commissar of the 4th District of the Red Army Reserve in Yekaterinburg. In this position, Ermakov had in his direct subordination a special detachment of the Red Guards consisting of 19 men, the head of which was Vaganov. In June 1918, Vaganov took part in the suppression Verkh-Isetsk uprising under Ermakov's command. During this period he was actively involved in repression against the entrepreneurs and the workers alike in Yekaterinburg, the activity of which included expropriations and executions. By all accounts, Vaganov along with Ermakov were the most bloodthirsty and aggressive of the executioners.
Death Over the next few days, the Bolsheviks hastily evacuated from Yekaterinburg ahead of the advance of the
White-aligned
Czechoslovak Legion. Though a number of Bolsheviks remained in the city when the Czechoslovaks finally arrived, almost all of those involved in the killing of the Imperial Family had already fled. A notable exception was Vaganov, who was unable to escape in time and found himself trapped in the city when it was taken by the White Czechs under Colonel
Voytsekhovsky on 25 July. Vaganov's death, as well as his role in the regicide, was fully investigated by Nikolai Sokolov's commission established after the Whites came to power in Yekaterinburg. "The beauty and pride of the revolution", wrote Sokolov, "did not have time to escape from Yekaterinburg". Nonetheless, Sokolov and the White investigators regretted his untimely demise and the fact he could not be taken alive, as they knew very well he could have been a great wealth of information if captured and interrogated. Vaganov holds the distinction of being the first individual associated with the killing of the Imperial Family to die. He would be followed in death the following year by fellow executioner
Pavel Medvedev, who was arrested by the Whites in 1919, and the member of the Ural Regional Council
Nikolay Tolmachyov, who shot himself during a battle with the White Guard to avoid being made prisoner. == In popular culture ==