In addition to traces of bullets and blood found in the cellar room of the Ipatiev house, where the murder of the Romanov family took place, the investigators discovered various graffities on the wallpaper. Some of them were insults against the Romanov family and obviously written before the murder, when the room hosted red guards of the Ipatiev house. Others were drawings showing Rasputin and the Tsarina in obscene postures.

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The following words were also found on a wall of the cellar room:

“Belsatzar ward in selbiger Nacht / Von seinen Kuechter umgebracht”
translated in English: “Balthazar was, on the same night, killed by his slaves”.

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These are lines adapted from the poem “Balthazar,” by the German-Jewish poet Heinrich Heine (1797-1856). The poem, which has a biblical inspiration, evokes the story of the last king of Babylon: Balthazar. The latter had shown his profanity during a dinner by using holy vessels from Jerusalem’s temple. Then, the dinner was interrupted by a hand which appeared and wrote on the wall these words: "Mané", "Thécel", "Pharès".

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Prophet Daniel, called to decipher it, understood these words as the next judgment of king Balthazar and the conquest of his kingdom. In fact, the same night, Balthazar was killed by his own men and the kingdom conquered by Cyrus.

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The German rendition of "Balthazar" is "Belsazar" without "t". The addition of this "t" reveals the word "Tzar" (Belsatzar) and, thus, Heine’s poem then takes a strong meaning in this place.
     
The question as to who could have written these words remains unanswered. The person who did it must have been educated and had known the German language well.

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Later, near the windows of the cellar room, Nikolai Sokolov during his investigations also found these words: “'24678 rous. of the year' 'year 1918' '148467878 r’s '878888' and 'polouverchok's” as well as some signs/symbols on the left side. Numerous attempts were made to decipher these signs without success. For example, in 1923, a man called Enel wrote in a book that these mysterious signs were secret Persian characters meaning: “Here, through secret forces, the Czar has been offered in sacrifice so that his country be destroyed. All peoples are informed of this event.”