On October 17, 1888, the train carrying Tsar Alexander III and his family back from a vacation in Crimea derailed. As a result of the disaster, 21 people died. The official cause of the tragedy was attributed to a combination of factors, including speeding and track malfunction. Following the investigation, Minister of Railways Konstantin Posyet was dismissed.

Alongside the official investigation, the secret police began their own, as immediately after the accident, some victims shouted about an assassination attempt and an explosion. Detectives discovered that the crash was caused by a bomb planted by a cook's assistant linked to the revolutionary organization "Land and Liberty." After setting the explosive device with a timer, the cook left the train at the nearest station and then fled to Romania, later moving to France.

This information was found in the documents of the murdered gendarmerie general Nikolai Seliverstov, who was monitoring Russian émigré revolutionaries and was aware of planned terrorist acts. One day, the French police found him with a gunshot wound to the head in a hotel.

Among the papers of the murdered man, a photograph of the very cook who disappeared a few hours before the crash was discovered. On the back of the photo was a note stating that he had appeared in Paris and was ready to reveal all the secrets of the disaster. The cook was ordered to be interrogated, but when the police arrived at the specified address, he was also found with a gunshot wound to the head. The murderer of the Russian gendarme was found, but this crime turned out to be unrelated to the train crash. Who eliminated the potential terrorist remains a mystery.