Stockton Herald, South Durham and Cleveland Advertiser. — 1887-05-14 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

TERRIBLE SCENES AT THE BIIL GARIAN EXECUTIONS.  An Odessa correspondent writes :—I have had dining the last few days several converse. tions with M. Gueroff, a Bulgarian deputy, and his daughter, Madam Zelenogoroff, the widow of Captain Zelenogoroff, who with eight others was shot at Rustchnk on February 22 by order of the Regents. I need not, of course, say that the statements here made must be taken with considerable reserve. Madam Zelenogoroff is a young lady of sonic twenty years, and of very considerable personal attractions. She assured me that there was no reason why the Regents should have sequestrated her property and issued a warrant of arrest against herself; hut, from what I gather, Madam Zelenogoroff's saloon was the chief rendezvous of the conspirators. All the leaders shot on the 22nd February she admitted were assembled in her house ten days previously; but she asserted that she knew nothing of the meditated revolt. Madam Zelenogoroff states that she was not permitted by the Regent's order to visit her husband during the three days' imprisonment before the execution. She gained access, however, to his prison in disguise. She complains bitterly of the manner of the executions, and if her statement be correct they were certainly carried out in a shocking manner. She said "My husband and the rest were sentenced to death late on the evening of the 21st, and shot at four o'clock the next morning. On that morning I was prostnted by illness, and my husband had only time to write a few rapidly-pencilled words before he was led out to his grave. I will show you the note, which with this ring on my finger are the only mementoes I now possess. This is what hazipened. The nine victims were place.d before their shallow, short graves, which were not more than four feet in length and a foot and a half deep. My husband refused to have his eyes bandaged, and tore open the tunic of his uniform thet it might not be riddled, saying that his coat was guilty of no treason. The firing party numbered 90, and yet my husband was left unscathed after the first volley. At the second and third discharge he was wounded and fell. Then the officer in charge advanced to give him the coup de grace, and emptied five chambers of his revolver before the ' murder' of my husband was completed. Theo the crowd ' rushed in, and tore the boots and clothes from the still warm bodies, which were pitched into too small graves and trodden down. My husband's feet were hacked off so that his poor mutilated corpse might be made to fit the grave. It was all very horrible. The dogs came in the night, and we had to set guaraiaus over the graves. Subsequently we erected crosses and headstones, but they wore demolished by the brutal and viLdictive agents of the Regents. Now things are quieter we have replaced the headatones." Madam Zelenogoroff had much to soy about Prince Alexander. Re was honourable, good natured, and amiable, but his amiability, if it may be so termed, said Madam Zelenogoroff, was carried to an extreme, which affected and injured his position. In the latter days of his reign not only many ladies, but officers, did not think of rising when the Prince entered or left a room. He was somewhat boyish in his amusements, and would divert himself with a number of officers in all manner of schoolboy frolics. He lost caste by being intimate with those around him. Madam Zelenogoroff observed, with much sadness, that only a month before the execution the judge who sent her husband and friends to their fate had dined at her table on the occasion of her birthd ty. The young widows and families of five of the officers executed at Itustehnk are now here viz., Ousourioff, Filoff, Kurgieff, Christeuikoff, and Zelenogoroff. They are of course for the present peusionnaires of the Russian Government.