The grand dukes were taken outside and loaded into a truck that already held four common criminals and six Red Guardsmen. At 1:20 am on 28 January they left the prison. They drove towards the river by the fields of Mars, where the truck stalled. While the driver was trying to restart it, one of the convicts tried to run and was shot in the back as he fled. The truck eventually began running again, and they drove to the fortress set up at the Saint Peter and Saint Paul Cathedral. The prisoners were roughly pushed from the truck into the Trubetskoy bastion. They were told to remove their shirts and coats, By then they had no doubt what was about to occur and the grand Dukes embraced each other for the last time.