in Yekaterinburg, where the Romanov family and their dogs were held in captivity The imperial family was arrested following the
February Revolution of 1917, which resulted in the
abdication of Nicholas II. On the morning of August 1, 1917, Alexei, along with his parents and sisters, was sent from the
Alexander Palace to
exile in
Tobolsk. They took the dogs with them. Later, along with the royal family, the dogs went from Tobolsk to the
Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg. Joy often spent nights in the courtyard. He was described as a disobedient dog that often ran away, but unlike Ortipo and Jimmy, he was quiet and rarely barked, which presumably saved him during the execution of the royal family. Alexei's sister
Olga Nikolaevna wrote in a letter that "Joy, Ortipo, and Jimmy are thriving. The first two have to be kicked out of the yard, where they enjoy themselves in the garbage pit and eat all sorts of rubbish. Joy has many acquaintances in the city, and therefore he always runs away." On July 17, 1918, the final Imperial family of the Russian Empire — former
Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, their children Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei, along with three servants and a doctor — were
shot and bayoneted by soldiers of the
Red Army in the basement of the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg. Alexei, "the boy born to rule all Russia", died aged 13. Mikhail Kabanov, a member of the
Ural Cheka, recounted the execution of the royal family in the Ipatiev House. "
Chekist Mikhail Medvedev, with the first shot, fatally shot Nicholas II. At that time, I also discharged my
Nagant revolver at the condemned. After that, I had to immediately go to the attic, to the machine gun, to repel any attack by hostile forces on us with my machine gun team. When I ran into the attic, I saw that the light was on in the Mining Institute across the street. The shots could be clearly heard, as well as the loud howling of the Tsar's dogs. I immediately went down to the execution room and said that the shooting in the city could be clearly heard, that the howling of the Tsar's dogs was very loud, and that in the Mining Institute opposite us, all the windows were lit up. I recommended killing the people with cold weapons, as well as killing two of the Tsar's dogs that were howling loudly. The third dog, Joy, was left unharmed because he did not howl. Then, the district doctor examined all the executed and confirmed that they were all dead." Joy was naturally quiet, so he did not irritate the guards. One of the guards of the Ipatiev House, Anatoly Yakimov, recalled: "The door from the hallway to the rooms where the royal family lived was still closed, but there was no one in the rooms. It was clear: not a sound was heard from there. Before, when the royal family lived there, one could always hear life in their rooms: voices, footsteps. At this time, however, there was no life there. In the hall, near the door to the rooms where the royal family lived, their little dog stood all the time, waiting to be let into the rooms. I remember well, I also thought at the time: you wait in vain." Alexei was shot twice in the head after the killers noticed that he had survived the first bullet. Anastasia recovered consciousness after the first shot and began to scream; she was stabbed by a bayonet. Jimmy was in Anastasia's arms during the execution and perished alongside her, he was hit on the head. Jimmy's body was discovered the following summer, on June 25, 1919, at the bottom of an open pit during an inspection of the mine by investigator Sokolov. "The right front paw was broken. The skull was penetrated, which, according to the doctor's conclusion, caused his death." Ortipo was left alone in an empty room on the upper floor, and her barking was heard by the guard Kabanov. She was bayoneted by one of the guards for howling loudly to avoid attracting attention to the house. Joy did not bark or howl, and therefore his life was spared. During the removal of bodies from the basement of the Ipatiev House, Joy ran out onto the street and was taken by one of the house's guards, Mikhail Letemin. When the
White Army took Yekaterinburg a week later, one of the officers, who knew the royal family well, recognized Joy on the street. He started asking whose dog it was, and they pointed to Letemin. The guard was arrested, and he gave testimony to the investigation. Joy became the main evidence by which the
marauder was discovered by the investigation of the White Army. During the
interrogation of Letemin, it was found out that on July 22, 1918, he took 78 items from the Ipatiev House to his home, previously belonging to the Royal Family. He took the dog of the heir Alexei, Joy, "out of pity." ==After escape==