after a while, yurovsky and a party of armed men entered the basement room through the double doors. ivan plotnikov, history professor at the maksim gorky ural state university, has established that the executioners were yakov yurovsky, g. p. nikulin, m. a. medvedev (kudrin), peter ermakov, s. p. vaganov, a. g. kabanov, p. s. medvedev, v. n. netrebin, and y. m. tselms. three latvians refused at the last minute to take part in the execution.