1905 and was succeeded by Dmitri Feodorovich Trepov. However, he continued as Commander of the Moscow military district. Assassination Following his resignation, Grand Duke Sergei moved to the Neskuchnoye Palace with his wife and foster children. Shortly thereafter, they moved to the Nicholas Palace within the safety of the Kremlin, under the cover of night. Sergei took every precaution advised by his detectives. Sergei and his wife rarely ventured outside. At home, they only received their closest friends. Like his father, Alexander II, Sergei was firm of the belief that unless it was the will of God, no attempt on his life would succeed. If it were the will of God, no amount of security would prevent it. One precaution he did take was for the benefit of his adjutants, whom he would no longer allow traveling with him. On 15 February 1905, the family attended a concert at the Bolshoi Theatre in aid of Elizabeth Feodorovna's Red Cross War charities. A terrorist organization that knew his route, the Socialist Revolutionary Party's combat detachment, had planned to assassinate him that day. However, one of their members, Ivan Kalyayev, noticed the children in the carriage and decided to call off their attack. To kill the Grand Duchess and the children would surely have sparked a wave of apprehension throughout the empire, and would have set back the revolutionary cause by years. Having had lunch with his wife at Nicholas Palace on 17 February, Sergei left unaccompanied for the Governor General's mansion. Because of the looming threat, Sergei had refused to take his adjutant, Alexei, since he was married and a father. The arrival of the Grand Duke's recognizable carriage, drawn by a pair of horses and driven by his coachman Andrei Rudinkin, alerted the terrorist who had been waiting in the Kremlin with a bomb wrapped in newspapers. Just before 14:45, the carriage of the Grand Duke passed through the gate of Nikolskaya Tower of the Kremlin and turned the corner of the Chudov Monastery into Senatskaya Square. From a distance no more than away and still some inside the Nikolsky Gate, Ivan Kalyayev stepped forward and threw a nitroglycerin bomb directly into Sergei's lap. The explosion disintegrated the carriage and the Grand Duke died immediately. Scattered all over the bloodstained snow lay pieces of scorched cloth, fur, and leather. The body of the Grand Duke was mutilated, with the head,