A prince taking up office as a colonial governor should have been major news, but the recent headlines had been too explosive, completely burying the story.
On May 18, 1896, Nicholas II held a grand public festival at Heden Square on the outskirts of Moscow. As was customary, the Tsar was to distribute gifts to the people.
What should have been a celebration shared with the public turned into Nicholas II being set up badly. No one knew who had leaked the news, but before the festivities had even begun, the whole country already knew about them.
People poured in from all over the country, crowding into Heden Square. More than five hundred thousand people had gathered at a venue of less than nine square kilometers.
Worse still, the square had not even been paved. The ground remained uneven, riddled with potholes and ditches, while the bureaucrats responsible for organizing the celebration had taken no safety measures whatsoever.
The moment the event began, the scene descended into chaos. Spurred on by people with ulterior motives, those in the rear kept shoving forward, causing a thousand deaths and ten thousand injuries on the spot.
A single celebration had been forcibly turned into an epic-scale disaster.
The real tragedy came afterward. The bureaucrats concealed the extent of the losses, and Nicholas II, kept in the dark, took no emergency measures. That evening, the celebratory banquet was held as planned.
Once the news spread, all of European public opinion concentrated its fire on Nicholas II. "Brutal," "savage," "tyrant"... every accusation was heaped onto Nicholas II in one breath.
By the time Nicholas II realized what was happening, everything had already settled into place. The official responsible for planning the celebration committed suicide out of fear of punishment, while the others involved vanished without