Where are the relics of the royal family? The mystery of the royal grave: where the remains of Nicholas II and his family actually lie

The family of the last Emperor of Russia, Nicholas Romanov, was killed in 1918. Due to the concealment of facts by the Bolsheviks, a number of alternative versions appear. For a long time there were rumors that turned the murder of the royal family into a legend. There were theories that one of his children escaped.

What really happened in the summer of 1918 near Yekaterinburg? You will find the answer to this question in our article.

Background

Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century was one of the most economically developed countries in the world. Nikolai Alexandrovich, who came to power, turned out to be a meek and noble man. In spirit he was not an autocrat, but an officer. Therefore, with his views on life, it was difficult to manage the crumbling state.

The revolution of 1905 showed the insolvency of the government and its isolation from the people. In fact, there were two powers in the country. The official one is the emperor, and the real one is officials, nobles and landowners. It was the latter who, with their greed, licentiousness and short-sightedness, destroyed the once great power.

Strikes and rallies, demonstrations and bread riots, famine. All this indicated decline. The only way out could be the accession to the throne of an imperious and tough ruler who could take complete control of the country.

Nicholas II was not like that. It was focused on building railways, churches, improving the economy and culture in society. He managed to make progress in these areas. But positive changes affected mainly only the top of society, while the majority of ordinary residents remained at the level of the Middle Ages. Splinters, wells, carts and everyday life of peasants and craftsmen.

After the entry of the Russian Empire into the First World War, the discontent of the people only intensified. The execution of the royal family became the apotheosis of general madness. Next we will look at this crime in more detail.

Now it is important to note the following. After the abdication of Emperor Nicholas II and his brother from the throne, soldiers, workers and peasants began to take the leading roles in the state. People who have not previously dealt with management, who have a minimal level of culture and superficial judgments, gain power.

Small local commissars wanted to curry favor with the higher ranks. The rank and file and junior officers simply mindlessly followed orders. The troubled times that ensued during these turbulent years brought unfavorable elements to the surface.

Next you will see more photos of the Romanov royal family. If you look at them carefully, you will notice that the clothes of the emperor, his wife and children are by no means pompous. They are no different from the peasants and guards who surrounded them in exile.
Let's figure out what really happened in Yekaterinburg in July 1918.

Course of events

The execution of the royal family was planned and prepared for quite a long time. While power was still in the hands of the Provisional Government, they tried to protect them. Therefore, after the events in July 1917 in Petrograd, the emperor, his wife, children and retinue were transferred to Tobolsk.

The place was deliberately chosen to be calm. But in fact, they found one from which it was difficult to escape. By that time, the railway lines had not yet been extended to Tobolsk. The nearest station was two hundred and eighty kilometers away.

They sought to protect the emperor's family, so the exile to Tobolsk became for Nicholas II a respite before the subsequent nightmare. The king, queen, their children and retinue stayed there for more than six months.

But in April, after a fierce struggle for power, the Bolsheviks recalled “unfinished business.” A decision is made to transport the entire imperial family to Yekaterinburg, which at that time was a stronghold of the red movement.

The first to be transferred from Petrograd to Perm was Prince Mikhail, the Tsar’s brother. At the end of March, their son Mikhail and three children of Konstantin Konstantinovich were deported to Vyatka. Later, the last four are transferred to Yekaterinburg.

The main reason for the transfer to the east was Nikolai Alexandrovich’s family ties with the German Emperor Wilhelm, as well as the proximity of the Entente to Petrograd. The revolutionaries feared the release of the Tsar and the restoration of the monarchy.

The role of Yakovlev, who was tasked with transporting the emperor and his family from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg, is interesting. He knew about the assassination attempt on the Tsar that was being prepared by the Siberian Bolsheviks.

Judging by the archives, there are two opinions of experts. The first ones say that in reality this is Konstantin Myachin. And he received a directive from the Center to “deliver the Tsar and his family to Moscow.” The latter are inclined to believe that Yakovlev was a European spy who intended to save the emperor by taking him to Japan through Omsk and Vladivostok.

After arriving in Yekaterinburg, all prisoners were placed in Ipatiev’s mansion. A photo of the Romanov royal family was preserved when Yakovlev handed it over to the Urals Council. The place of detention among the revolutionaries was called a “house of special purpose.”

Here they were kept for seventy-eight days. The relationship of the convoy to the emperor and his family will be discussed in more detail below. For now, it is important to focus on the fact that it was rude and boorish. They were robbed, psychologically and morally oppressed, abused so that they were not noticeable outside the walls of the mansion.

Considering the results of the investigations, we will take a closer look at the night when the monarch with his family and retinue were shot. Now we note that the execution took place at approximately half past two in the morning. Life physician Botkin, on the orders of the revolutionaries, woke up all the prisoners and went down with them to the basement.

A terrible crime took place there. Yurovsky commanded. He blurted out a prepared phrase that “they are trying to save them, and the matter cannot be delayed.” None of the prisoners understood anything. Nicholas II only had time to ask that what was said be repeated, but the soldiers, frightened by the horror of the situation, began to shoot indiscriminately. Moreover, several punishers fired from another room through the doorway. According to eyewitnesses, not everyone was killed the first time. Some were finished off with a bayonet.

Thus, this indicates a hasty and unprepared operation. The execution became lynching, which the Bolsheviks, who had lost their heads, resorted to.

Government disinformation

The execution of the royal family still remains an unsolved mystery of Russian history. Responsibility for this atrocity may lie both with Lenin and Sverdlov, for whom the Urals Soviet simply provided an alibi, and directly with the Siberian revolutionaries, who succumbed to general panic and lost their heads in wartime conditions.

Nevertheless, immediately after the atrocity, the government began a campaign to whiten its reputation. Among researchers studying this period, the latest actions are called a “disinformation campaign.”

The death of the royal family was proclaimed the only necessary measure. Since, judging by the ordered Bolshevik articles, a counter-revolutionary conspiracy was uncovered. Some white officers planned to attack the Ipatiev mansion and free the emperor and his family.

The second point, which was furiously hidden for many years, was that eleven people were shot. The Emperor, his wife, five children and four servants.

The events of the crime were not disclosed for several years. Official recognition was given only in 1925. This decision was prompted by the publication of a book in Western Europe that outlined the results of Sokolov’s investigation. Then Bykov is instructed to write about “the current course of events.” This brochure was published in Sverdlovsk in 1926.

Nevertheless, the lies of the Bolsheviks at the international level, as well as hiding the truth from the common people, shook faith in power. and its consequences, according to Lykova, became the reason for people's distrust of the government, which did not change even in post-Soviet times.

The fate of the remaining Romanovs

The execution of the royal family had to be prepared. A similar “warm-up” was the liquidation of the Emperor’s brother Mikhail Alexandrovich and his personal secretary.
On the night from the twelfth to the thirteenth of June 1918, they were forcibly taken from the Perm hotel outside the city. They were shot in the forest, and their remains have not yet been discovered.

A statement was made to the international press that the Grand Duke had been kidnapped by attackers and went missing. For Russia, the official version was the escape of Mikhail Alexandrovich.

The main purpose of such a statement was to speed up the trial of the emperor and his family. They started a rumor that the escapee could contribute to the release of the “bloody tyrant” from “just punishment.”

It was not only the last royal family that suffered. In Vologda, eight people related to the Romanovs were also killed. The victims include the princes of the imperial blood Igor, Ivan and Konstantin Konstantinovich, Grand Duchess Elizabeth, Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich, Prince Paley, the manager and the cell attendant.

All of them were thrown into the Nizhnyaya Selimskaya mine, not far from the city of Alapaevsk. Only he resisted and was shot. The rest were stunned and thrown down alive. In 2009, they were all canonized as martyrs.

But the thirst for blood did not subside. In January 1919, four more Romanovs were also shot in the Peter and Paul Fortress. Nikolai and Georgy Mikhailovich, Dmitry Konstantinovich and Pavel Alexandrovich. The official version of the revolutionary committee was the following: the liquidation of hostages in response to the murder of Liebknecht and Luxemburg in Germany.

Memoirs of contemporaries

Researchers have tried to reconstruct how members of the royal family were killed. The best way to cope with this is the testimony of the people who were present there.
The first such source is notes from Trotsky’s personal diary. He noted that the blame lies with the local authorities. He especially singled out the names of Stalin and Sverdlov as the people who made this decision. Lev Davidovich writes that as Czechoslovak troops approached, Stalin’s phrase that “the Tsar cannot be handed over to the White Guards” became a death sentence.

But scientists doubt the accurate reflection of events in the notes. They were made in the late thirties, when he was working on a biography of Stalin. A number of mistakes were made there, indicating that Trotsky forgot many of those events.

The second evidence is information from Milyutin’s diary, which mentions the murder of the royal family. He writes that Sverdlov came to the meeting and asked Lenin to speak. As soon as Yakov Mikhailovich said that the Tsar was gone, Vladimir Ilyich abruptly changed the topic and continued the meeting as if the previous phrase had not happened.

The history of the royal family in the last days of its life is most fully reconstructed from the interrogation protocols of the participants in these events. People from the guard, punitive and funeral squads testified several times.

Although they are often confused, the main idea remains the same. All the Bolsheviks who were close to the tsar in recent months had complaints against him. Some were in prison themselves in the past, others had relatives. In general, they gathered a contingent of former prisoners.

In Yekaterinburg, anarchists and Socialist Revolutionaries put pressure on the Bolsheviks. In order not to lose authority, the local council decided to quickly put an end to this matter. Moreover, there was a rumor that Lenin wanted to exchange the royal family for a reduction in the amount of indemnity.

According to the participants, this was the only solution. In addition, many of them boasted during interrogations that they personally killed the emperor. Some with one, and some with three shots. Judging by the diaries of Nikolai and his wife, the workers guarding them were often drunk. Therefore, real events cannot be reconstructed for certain.

What happened to the remains

The murder of the royal family took place secretly and was planned to be kept secret. But those responsible for the disposal of the remains failed to cope with their task.

A very large funeral team was assembled. Yurovsky had to send many back to the city “as unnecessary.”

According to the testimony of the participants in the process, they spent several days with the task. At first it was planned to burn the clothes and throw the naked bodies into the mine and cover them with earth. But the collapse did not work out. I had to remove the remains of the royal family and come up with another way.

It was decided to burn them or bury them along the road that was just under construction. The preliminary plan was to disfigure the bodies with sulfuric acid beyond recognition. It is clear from the protocols that two corpses were burned and the rest were buried.

Presumably the body of Alexei and one of the servant girls burned.

The second difficulty was that the team was busy all night, and in the morning travelers began to appear. An order was given to cordon off the area and prohibit travel from the neighboring village. But the secrecy of the operation was hopelessly failed.

The investigation showed that attempts to bury the bodies were near shaft No. 7 and the 184th crossing. In particular, they were discovered near the latter in 1991.

Kirsta's investigation

On July 26-27, 1918, peasants discovered a golden cross with precious stones in a fire pit near the Isetsky mine. The find was immediately delivered to Lieutenant Sheremetyev, who was hiding from the Bolsheviks in the village of Koptyaki. It was carried out, but later the case was assigned to Kirsta.

He began to study the testimony of witnesses pointing to the murder of the Romanov royal family. The information confused and frightened him. The investigator did not expect that this was not the consequences of a military court, but a criminal case.

He began questioning witnesses who gave conflicting testimony. But based on them, Kirsta concluded that perhaps only the emperor and his heir were shot. The rest of the family was taken to Perm.

It seems that this investigator set himself the goal of proving that not the entire Romanov royal family was killed. Even after he clearly confirmed the crime, Kirsta continued to interrogate more people.

So, over time, he finds a certain doctor Utochkin, who proved that he treated Princess Anastasia. Then another witness spoke about the transfer of the emperor’s wife and some of the children to Perm, which she knew about from rumors.

After Kirsta completely confused the case, it was given to another investigator.

Sokolov's investigation

Kolchak, who came to power in 1919, ordered Dieterichs to understand how the Romanov royal family was killed. The latter entrusted this case to the investigator for particularly important cases of the Omsk District.

His last name was Sokolov. This man began to investigate the murder of the royal family from scratch. Although all the paperwork was handed over to him, he did not trust Kirsta’s confusing protocols.

Sokolov again visited the mine, as well as Ipatiev’s mansion. Inspection of the house was made difficult by the location of the Czech army headquarters there. However, a German inscription on the wall was discovered, a quote from Heine's verse about the monarch being killed by his subjects. The words were clearly scratched out after the city was lost to the Reds.

In addition to documents on Yekaterinburg, the investigator was sent cases on the Perm murder of Prince Mikhail and on the crime against the princes in Alapaevsk.

After the Bolsheviks recapture this region, Sokolov takes all office work to Harbin, and then to Western Europe. Photos of the royal family, diaries, evidence, etc. were evacuated.

He published the results of the investigation in 1924 in Paris. In 1997, Hans-Adam II, Prince of Liechtenstein, transferred all paperwork to the Russian government. In exchange, he was given the archives of his family, taken away during the Second World War.

Modern investigation

In 1979, a group of enthusiasts led by Ryabov and Avdonin, using archival documents, discovered a burial near the 184 km station. In 1991, the latter stated that he knew where the remains of the executed emperor were. An investigation was re-launched to finally shed light on the murder of the royal family.

The main work on this case was carried out in the archives of the two capitals and in the cities that appeared in the reports of the twenties. Protocols, letters, telegrams, photos of the royal family and their diaries were studied. In addition, with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, research was carried out in the archives of most countries of Western Europe and the USA.

The investigation of the burial was carried out by the senior prosecutor-criminologist Soloviev. In general, he confirmed all of Sokolov’s materials. His message to Patriarch Alexei II states that “under the conditions of that time, the complete destruction of the corpses was impossible.”

In addition, the investigation of the late 20th - early 21st centuries completely refuted alternative versions of events, which we will discuss later.
The canonization of the royal family was carried out in 1981 by the Russian Orthodox Church abroad, and in Russia in 2000.

Since the Bolsheviks tried to keep this crime secret, rumors spread, contributing to the formation of alternative versions.

So, according to one of them, it was a ritual murder as a result of a conspiracy of Jewish Freemasons. One of the investigator's assistants testified that he saw "kabbalistic symbols" on the walls of the basement. When checked, these turned out to be traces of bullets and bayonets.

According to Dieterichs' theory, the emperor's head was cut off and preserved in alcohol. The finds of remains also refuted this crazy idea.

Rumors spread by the Bolsheviks and false testimonies of “eyewitnesses” gave rise to a series of versions about the people who escaped. But photographs of the royal family in the last days of their lives do not confirm them. And also the found and identified remains refute these versions.

Only after all the facts of this crime were proven, the canonization of the royal family took place in Russia. This explains why it was held 19 years later than abroad.

So, in this article we got acquainted with the circumstances and investigation of one of the most terrible atrocities in the history of Russia in the twentieth century.

The first and only royal family in Russia were the Romanovs. Nicholas II had five children: 4 daughters (Anastasia, Olga, Tatyana, Maria) and a son Alexei.

The Romanovs ruled the Russian Empire from 1613 to 1917, which is already three hundred years! This family was truly powerful and deservedly received the title of dynasty.

The Romanov family was numerous; there were no problems with the successors to the throne. In 1918, after the Bolsheviks shot the emperor, his wife and children, a large number of impostors appeared. Rumors spread that that very night in Yekaterinburg, one of them still survived.

And today many believe that one of the children could have been saved and that their offspring could live among us.

Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova

After the massacre of the imperial family, many believed that Anastasia managed to escape

Anastasia was Nikolai's youngest daughter. In 1918, when the Romanovs were executed, Anastasia’s remains were not found in the family’s burial place and rumors spread that the young princess had survived.

People all over the world have been reincarnated as Anastasia. One of the most prominent impostors was Anna Anderson. I think she was from Poland.

Anna imitated Anastasia in her behavior, and rumors that Anastasia was alive spread quite quickly. Many also tried to imitate her sisters and brother. People all over the world tried to cheat, but Russia had the most doppelgängers.

Many believed that the children of Nicholas II survived. But even after the burial of the Romanov family was found, scientists were unable to identify the remains of Anastasia. Most historians still cannot confirm that the Bolsheviks killed Anastasia.

Later, a secret burial was found, in which the remains of the young princess were discovered, and forensic experts were able to prove that she died along with the rest of the family in 1918. Her remains were reburied in 1998.

DNA

Scientists were able to compare the DNA of the found remains and modern followers of the royal family

Many people believed that the Bolsheviks buried the Romanovs in various places in the Sverdlovsk region. In addition, many were convinced that two of the children were able to escape.

There was a theory that Tsarevich Alexei and Princess Maria were able to escape from the scene of the terrible execution. In 1976, scientists picked up a trail with the remains of the Romanovs. In 1991, when the era of communism was over, researchers were able to obtain government permission to open the burial site of the Romanovs, the same one left by the Bolsheviks.

But scientists needed DNA analysis to confirm the theory. They asked Prince Philip and Prince Michael of Kent to provide DNA samples to compare with those of the royal couple. Forensic experts confirmed that the DNA did indeed belong to the Romanovs. As a result of this research, it was possible to confirm that the Bolsheviks buried Tsarevich Alexei and Princess Maria separately from the rest.

Discovered remains of members of the royal family

Some people devoted their free time to searching for traces of the real burial site of the family

In 2007, Sergei Plotnikov, one of the founders of an amateur historical group, made an amazing discovery. His group was searching for any facts related to the royal family.

In his free time, Sergei was engaged in searching for the remains of the Romanovs at the supposed site of the first burial. And one day he was lucky, he came across something solid and started digging.

To his surprise, he found several fragments of pelvic and skull bones. After an examination, it was established that these bones belong to the children of Nicholas II.

Evidence of foul play in murder

Few people know that the methods of killing family members differed from each other.

After an analysis of the bones of Alexei and Maria, it was found that the bones were severely damaged, but differently than the bones of the emperor himself.

Traces of bullets were found on Nikolai's remains, which means the children were killed in a different way. The rest of the family also suffered in their own ways.

Scientists were able to establish that Alexei and Maria were doused with acid and died from burns. Despite the fact that these two children were buried separately from the rest of the family, they suffered no less.

Results of the analysis of the remains

There was a lot of confusion around the Romanov bones, but in the end scientists were able to establish that they belonged to the family

Archaeologists discovered 9 skulls, teeth, bullets of various calibers, fabric from clothes and wires from a wooden box. The remains were determined to be those of a boy and a woman, with approximate ages ranging from 10 to 23 years.

The likelihood that the boy was Tsarevich Alexei, and the girl Princess Maria, is quite high. In addition, there were theories that the government managed to discover the location of the Romanov bones. There were rumors that the remains had been found back in 1979, but the government kept this information secret.

Lack of money

One of the research groups was very close to the truth, but they soon ran out of money

In 1990, another group of archaeologists decided to start excavations, in the hope that they would be able to discover some more traces of the location of the remains of the Romanovs.

After several days or even weeks, they dug up an area the size of a football field, but never completed the study because they ran out of money. Surprisingly, Sergei Plotnikov found bone fragments in this very territory.

Doubt

Due to the fact that the Russian Orthodox Church demanded more and more confirmation of the authenticity of the Romanov bones, the reburial was postponed several times

The Russian Orthodox Church refused to accept the fact that the bones actually belonged to the Romanov family. The Church demanded more evidence that these same remains were actually found in the burial of the royal family in Yekaterinburg.

The successors of the Romanov family supported the Russian Orthodox Church, demanding additional research and confirmation that the bones really belong to the children of Nicholas II.

The reburial of the family was postponed many times, as the Russian Orthodox Church each time questioned the correctness of the DNA analysis and the belonging of the bones to the Romanov family. The church asked forensic experts to conduct an additional examination. After scientists finally managed to convince the church that the remains really belonged to the royal family, the Russian Orthodox Church planned a reburial.

Modern successors of the family

The Bolsheviks eliminated the bulk of the imperial family, but their distant relatives are alive to this day

The successors of the family tree of the Romanov dynasty live among us. One of the heirs to the royal genes is Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and he provided his DNA for research. Prince Philip is the husband of Queen Elizabeth II, grandniece of Princess Alexandra, and the great-great-great-grandson of Nicholas I.

Another relative who helped with DNA identification is Prince Michael of Kent. His grandmother was a cousin of Nicholas II.

There are eight more successors of this family: Hugh Grosvenor, Constantine II, Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna Romanova, Grand Duke George Mikhailovich, Olga Andreevna Romanova, Francis Alexander Matthew, Nicoletta Romanova, Rostislav Romanov. But these relatives did not provide their DNA for analysis, since Prince Philip and Prince Michael of Kent were recognized as the closest relatives. The Bolsheviks executed the royal family in Yekaterinburg, and they needed to somehow hide the evidence of the crime.

There are two theories about how the Bolsheviks killed children. According to the first version, they first shot Nikolai, and then put his daughters in a mine where no one could find them. The Bolsheviks tried to blow up the mine, but their plan failed, so they decided to pour acid on the children and burn them.

According to the second version, the Bolsheviks wanted to cremate the bodies of the murdered Alexei and Maria. After several studies, scientists and forensic experts concluded that it was not possible to cremate the bodies.

To cremate a human body, you need a very high temperature, and the Bolsheviks were in the forest, and they did not have the opportunity to create the necessary conditions. After unsuccessful attempts at cremation, they finally decided to bury the bodies, but divided the family into two graves.

The fact that the family was not buried together explains why not all family members were initially found. This also disproves the theory that Alexei and Maria managed to escape.

The farewell ceremony lasted three days

By decision of the Russian Orthodox Church, the remains of the Romanovs were buried in one of the churches in St. Petersburg

The mystery of the Romanov dynasty rests with their remains in the Church of Saints Peter and Paul in St. Petersburg. After numerous studies, scientists still agreed that the remains belong to Nikolai and his family.

The last farewell ceremony took place in an Orthodox church and lasted three days. During the funeral procession, many still questioned the authenticity of the remains. But scientists say the bones match 97% of the royal family's DNA.

In Russia, this ceremony was given special significance. Residents of fifty countries around the world watched as the Romanov family retired. It took more than 80 years to debunk the myths about the family of the last emperor of the Russian Empire. With the completion of the funeral procession, an entire era passed into the past.

Almost a hundred years have passed since that terrible night when the Russian Empire ceased to exist forever. Until now, none of the historians can state unequivocally what happened that night and whether any of the family members survived. Most likely, the secret of this family will remain unsolved and we can only guess what really happened.

This gave special weight to the arguments of that group of learned historians and geneticists who are confident that in 1998, in the Peter and Paul Fortress, under the guise of the imperial family, completely alien remains were buried with great pomp. For almost ten years, the problem of searching for and identifying the remains of Nikolai Romanov’s family executed in Yekaterinburg in 1918 has been dealt with by Vadim Viner, a professor at the Russian Academy of History and Paleontology. For this purpose, he even created a special Center to investigate the circumstances of the death of family members of the House of Romanov, of which he is the president. Wiener is confident that the statement of Japanese scientists could provoke a new political scandal in Russia if the decision of a special commission of the Russian government recognizing the “Ekaterinburg remains” as Romanov’s remains is not canceled. He spoke about the main arguments on this matter and what interests were intertwined in the “Romanov case” in an interview with Strana.Ru correspondent Viktor Belimov.

- Vadim Aleksandrovich, what reasons does Russia have to trust Tatsuo Nagai?

There are enough of them. It is known that for an examination of this level it is necessary to take not distant relatives of the emperor, but close relatives. This means sisters, brothers, mother. What did the government commission do? She took distant kinship, second cousins ​​of Nicholas II, and a very distant kinship along the line of Alexandra Feodorovna, this is the English Prince Philip. Despite the fact that it is possible to find out the DNA structures of close relatives: there are the relics of Elizabeth Feodorovna, the Empress’s sister, the son of Nicholas II’s sister Tikhon Nikolaevich Kulikovsky-Romanov. Meanwhile, the comparison was made on the basis of analyzes of distant relatives, and very strange results were obtained with formulations such as “there are coincidences.” Coincidence in the language of geneticists does not mean identity at all. In general, we are all the same. Because we have two arms, two legs and one head. This is not an argument. The Japanese took DNA tests of the emperor’s close relatives.

Second. A very clear historical fact has been recorded that when Nicholas once, while still a crown prince, traveled to Japan, he was hit on the head with a saber. Two wounds were inflicted: occipito-parietal and fronto-parietal 9 and 10 cm, respectively. During the cleaning of the second occipito-parietal wound, a bone fragment the thickness of an ordinary sheet of writing paper was removed. This is enough to leave a notch on the skull - the so-called bone callus, which does not resolve. On the skull, which the Sverdlovsk authorities, and later the federal authorities, passed off as the skull of Nicholas II, there is no such callus. Both the Obretenie Foundation, represented by Mr. Avdonin, and the Sverdlovsk Bureau of Forensic Medicine, represented by Mr. Nevolin, said whatever they wanted: that the Japanese were mistaken, that the wound could migrate along the skull, and so on.

What did the Japanese do? It turns out that after Nikolai’s visit to Japan, they kept his scarf, vest, the sofa on which he sat, and the saber with which they hit him. All this is in the Otsu City Museum. Japanese scientists studied DNA from the blood that remained on the scarf after the wound, and DNA from cut bones discovered in Yekaterinburg. It turned out that the DNA structures are different. This was in 1997. Now Tatsuo Nagai decided to summarize all this data into one comprehensive study. His examination lasted a year and ended recently, in July. Japanese geneticists have proven 100 percent that the examination carried out by Mr. Ivanov’s group was pure hackwork. But the DNA analysis carried out by the Japanese is only a link in a whole chain of evidence about the non-involvement of the Yekaterinburg remains with the family of Nicholas II.

In addition, I note that an examination was carried out using the same method by another geneticist, the President of the International Association of Forensic Physicians, Mr. Bonte from Dusseldorf. He proved that the found remains and doubles of the family of Nicholas II, the Filatovs, are relatives.

- Why are the Japanese so interested in proving the mistake of the Russian government and Russian geneticists?

Their interest here is purely professional. They have a thing that is directly related not only to the memory of Russia, but also to the entire controversial situation. I mean the handkerchief with the king's blood. As you know, geneticists are divided on this issue, as are historians. The Japanese supported the group that is trying to prove that these are not the remains of Nicholas II and his family. And they supported it not because they wanted it, but because their results themselves showed the obvious incompetence of Mr. Ivanov and, even more so, the incompetence of the entire government commission, which was created under the leadership of Boris Nemtsov. Tatsuo Nagai's conclusions are the last, very strong argument that is difficult to refute.

- Were there any responses to Nagai’s statements from your opponents?

There were screams. From the side of the same Avdonin. Like, what does some Japanese professor have to do with it if the governor of the Sverdlovsk region Rossel supported us. Then it was said that this was inspired by some dark forces. Who are they? Apparently there are many of them, starting with Patriarch Alexy II. Because the Church initially did not accept the point of view of the official authorities.

You said that DNA analysis is only a link in the chain of evidence. What other arguments are there to prove that there are no remains of the last imperial family in the Peter and Paul Fortress?

There are two blocks of arguments. The first block is intravital medicine. Initially, Nikolai Alexandrovich and his family were served by 37 doctors. Naturally, medical documents were preserved. This is the easiest examination. And the first argument that we found concerns the discrepancies between the data from the doctors’ lifetime records and the condition of skeleton No. 5. This skeleton was passed off as the skeleton of Anastasia. According to doctors' records, Anastasia had a height of 158 cm during her lifetime. She was short and plump. The skeleton that was buried is 171 cm tall and is the skeleton of a thin person. The second is bone callus, which I already mentioned.

Third. In the diaries of Nicholas II, when he was in Tobolsk, there is an entry: “I sat at the dentist.” A number of fellow historians and I began to look for who was the dentist in Tobolsk at that time. He, or rather she, was alone in the whole city - Maria Lazarevna Rendel. She left her son notes on the condition of Nicholas II's teeth. She told me what fillings she applied. We asked forensic scientists to look at the fillings on the skeleton's teeth. It turned out that nothing matches. The Medical Examiner's Office again said Rendell was wrong. How could she be wrong if she, excuse me, personally treated his teeth?

We started looking for other records. And I found in the State Archives of the Russian Federation on Bolshaya Pirogovskaya, 17, the records of physician Evgeniy Sergeevich Botkin. In one of the diaries there is a phrase: “” “Nicholas II unsuccessfully climbed onto a horse. Fell. Broken leg. The pain is localized. A plaster cast has been applied.” But there is not a single fracture on the skeleton, which they are trying to pass off as the skeleton of Nicholas II. And we did this at minimal cost. The investigator of the Prosecutor General's Office Solovyov, who led this case, did not need to travel abroad and spend budget money, as he did with pleasure. It was enough to look into the archives of Moscow and St. Petersburg. But this does not indicate reluctance, but rather the fact that the authorities very much wanted to ignore these arguments and documents.

The second block of arguments is related to history. First of all, we raised the question of whether Yurovsky’s note, on the basis of which the authorities were looking for the grave, is genuine. And now our colleague, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor Buranov, finds in the archive a handwritten note written by Mikhail Nikolaevich Pokrovsky, and not by any means Yakov Mikhailovich Yurovsky. This grave is clearly marked there. That is, the note is a priori false. Pokrovsky was the first director of Rosarkhiv. Stalin used it when it was necessary to rewrite history. He has a famous expression: “History is politics facing the past.” Yurovsky's note is a fake. Since it is a fake, you cannot use it to locate the grave. This is now a proven issue.

- This also has a legal side...

It is also full of oddities and absurdities. We originally asked that all of this be displayed in the right margin. In 1991, Avdonin, who found the grave, contacted the Verkh-Isetsky District Department of Internal Affairs of Yekaterinburg with a statement about the find. From there they contact the regional prosecutor's office, and a prosecutor's inspection is ordered. The grave has been opened. Further it is unclear. A criminal case is not initiated, but as part of this inspection a prosecutorial examination is appointed. This is already an obvious contradiction. That is, they had to initiate a criminal case in connection with the discovery of remains that showed signs of violent death. Article 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. As a result, a criminal case is initiated under Article 102. Murder committed by a group of persons by prior conspiracy. This is where real politics comes into play. Because a simple question arises: if you take the case on the circumstances of the death of the royal family, then who should you involve as suspects in the murder? Sverdlov, Lenin, Dzerzhinsky - the city of Moscow? Or Beloborodova, Voikova, Goloshchekina - this is Uralsovet, Yekaterinburg. Who will you file a case against if they are all dead?

That is, a priori the case was illegal, and it had no judicial prospects. But under Article 102 it is easier to prove that these are the remains of the Romanov family, or rather, it is easier to ignore the arguments. How should one act if everything was done according to the law? You must set a statute of limitations and find out that no one can be held accountable. The criminal case is subject to closure. Next, you need to take the case to court, make a judicial ruling to establish personal identity, and then resolve the issue of the funeral. But this was not profitable for the Prosecutor General's Office. She spent government money, feigning vigorous activity. That is, it was pure politics. Considering that huge amounts of money from the federal budget were poured into this matter.

The Prosecutor General's Office initiates a case under Article 102 and closes it due to the fact that the remains belong to Nicholas II. It's the same difference as between sour and salty. Moreover, the decision about the remains was made not by the court, but by the government of the Russian Federation under Chernomyrdin. The government decides by voting that these are the remains of the royal family. Is this a court decision? Naturally not.

Moreover, the General Prosecutor's Office, represented by Solovyov, is seeking to issue a death certificate. I will quote him: “The death certificate was issued to Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov. Born May 6, 1868. Place of birth unknown. Education unknown. His place of residence before his arrest is unknown. His place of work before his arrest is unknown. The cause of death was execution. The place of death is the basement of a residential building in Yekaterinburg.” Tell me, who was issued this certificate? You don't know where he was born? You don't even know that he was an emperor? This is the real mockery!

- What is the position of the Church?

She does not recognize these remains as authentic, seeing all these contradictions. The church initially separated two issues - the remains separately, and the names separately. And then, realizing that the government will bury these remains, the Church makes the only correct decision from the “God knows their names” series. Here's the paradox. The Church buries under the motto “God knows their names,” Yeltsin, under pressure from the Church, buries some victims of the civil war. The question is: who are we burying anyway?

What do you think was the purpose of this whole thing? The argument for traveling “abroad” is still weak. The level of the game is still slightly higher...

But the banal reason is in the other direction. When did interest in the Romanovs arise? It was when Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev, and then Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev, tried to improve relations with Buckingham Palace. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II said that she would not come to Russia until they apologize to her for the fate of Nicholas II. Nicholas II and her father are cousins. And she went only after they apologized to her. That is, all stages of the appearance and study of these remains are closely related to political events.

The autopsy of the remains took place a few days before the meeting between Gorbachev and Thatcher. As for Britain as such, there, in the Baring brothers’ bank, lies gold, the personal gold of Nicholas II. Five and a half tons. They cannot release this gold until Nicholas II is declared dead. Not even missing in action. Because no one put anyone on the wanted list. Therefore, he is not missing. According to UK law, the absence of a corpse and the absence of documents on the wanted list means that the person is alive. In this situation, apparently hoping that they will be able to process certain relatives, the authorities decide to search for the remains and conduct a poor-quality examination.

- But even after that, the Baring brothers’ bank did not issue gold...

It was not by chance that the Prosecutor General's Office issued a death certificate. And a group of citizens turned to the bank for money. But the bank does not recognize this document. They are demanding a decision from a Russian court that Nicholas II died and these are his remains.

- Why are relatives ready to worship someone else’s grave if only they were given gold?

For most relatives, of course, finding an authentic grave is more important than gold. They tried to drag them into this dirty game. Many refused, but some of the Romanovs still came to Yekaterinburg for the funeral.

What do you propose to do now that you have such influential people as Japanese scientists as your allies?

Let's return the matter strictly to the legal field. We'll take it to court. The court will reject the evidence system of the Prosecutor General's Office. Since there are already two court rulings in Germany on the recognition of the Yekaterinburg remains as relatives of the Filatovs. That is, you still need to determine whose remains these are and hand them over to relatives, let them decide where to bury them. That is, the procedure for removing the remains from the Peter and Paul Cathedral is looming.

- Do you know whose remains these are?

According to German scientists, these are the remains of the Filatovs, doubles of Nicholas II. And Nicholas II had seven families of doubles. This is also a fact already known. The system of doubles began with Alexander the First. When his father, Emperor Paul the First, was killed as a result of a conspiracy, he was afraid that Paul's people would kill him. He gave the command to select three doubles for himself. Historically, it is known that there were two attempts on his life. Both times he remained alive because his doubles died. Alexander II had no doubles. Alexander the Third had doubles after the famous train crash in Borki. Nicholas II had doubles after Bloody Sunday 1905. Moreover, these were specially selected families. Only at the last moment did a very narrow circle of people find out which route and in which carriage Nicholas II would travel. And so the same departure of all three carriages took place. It is unknown which of them Nicholas II sat in. Documents about this lie in the archives of the third department of the Office of His Imperial Majesty. And the Bolsheviks, having seized the archive in 1917, naturally received the names of all the doubles. Next, Sergei Davydovich Berezkin appears in Sukhumi, ideally similar to Nicholas II. His wife is Surovtseva Alexandra Fedorovna, a copy of the Empress. And he has children - Olga, Tatyana, Maria, Anastasia. They covered the king.

FSB. From there, at one time, in 1955, information was leaked that a grave near Yekaterinburg was opened in 1946. Although there is also a conclusion by Doctor of Medical Sciences Popov that the grave is 50 years old, not 80. As we say, in the Romanov case one question was answered - 20 more arose. The matter is so complicated. This is worse than the Kennedy assassination. Because the information is strictly dosed.

- What was the point of climbing into this grave in 1946?

Perhaps it was created at that time. Let us remember that in 1946, a resident of Denmark, Anna Andersen, tried to get royal gold. Starting the second process to recognize herself as Anastasia. Her first trial did not end in anything; it lasted until the mid-30s. Then she paused and in 1946 filed a lawsuit again. Stalin apparently decided that it was better to make a grave where “Anastasia” would lie than to explain these issues to the West. There are far-reaching plans here, many of which we don’t even know about. We can only guess.

- Did the Filatovs live at that time?

Don't know. Filatov's trail is lost.

- And what relatives did the scientist Bonte communicate with?

He communicated with Oleg Vasilyevich Filatov. This is the son of Filatov, who portrayed, according to some sources, Nikolai himself, according to others - Alexei. Obviously, Oleg himself heard the ringing, but does not know where it is. The German compared his analyzes with the German relatives of the Filatovs and with the Yekaterinburg remains. And I got a 100% match. Nobody denies this examination. They are silent about her. Although in Germany it has judicial status. No one has ever talked about doppelgängers. I once stuttered in one interview, they told me that I was crazy, although I was raising a problem that really existed.

- What do you intend to do in the future?

We would like to create some kind of discussion club and hold a series of Internet conferences. In September, the famous historian Vladlen Sirotkin is scheduled to come to Yekaterinburg. He is collecting documents on Russia's claims to Western debts. According to him, not only do we owe the West, but the West also owes us. The amount of debt is $400 billion. The Czech Republic, England, France, America, Japan, Germany, Italy owe us. A lot of money was sent to the West for the purchase of weapons during the First World War. These were collateral for future deliveries. But there were no deliveries. Our property is there. Here is the price of the issue, which really stands behind all this. We need to show that the problem is multifaceted. It is very important for us that we went against the government, the official authorities, including the government of the Sverdlovsk region. We were persecuted in order to establish historical truth.

More than 16 years have passed since the reburial of the royal family in St. Petersburg, but all doubts about the authenticity of the “Ekaterinburg remains” have not yet been eliminated.

Discovery of remains

After the execution on the night of July 16-17, 1918, the bodies of members of the royal family and their associates (11 people in total) were loaded into a car and sent towards Verkh-Isetsk to the abandoned mines of Ganina Yama. At first they unsuccessfully tried to burn the victims, and then they threw them into a mine shaft and covered them with branches.

However, the next day almost the entire Verkh-Isetsk knew about what had happened. Moreover, according to a member of Medvedev’s firing squad, “the icy water of the mine not only completely washed away the blood, but also froze the bodies so much that they looked as if they were alive.” The conspiracy clearly failed.

It was decided to promptly rebury the remains. The area was cordoned off, but the truck, having driven only a few kilometers, got stuck in the swampy area of ​​Porosenkova Log. Without inventing anything, they buried one part of the bodies directly under the road, and the other a little to the side, after first filling them with sulfuric acid. Sleepers were placed on top for safety.

It is interesting that the forensic investigator N. Sokolov, sent by Kolchak in 1919 to search for the burial place, found this place, but never thought of lifting the sleepers. In the area of ​​​​Ganina Yama, he managed to find only a severed female finger. Nevertheless, the investigator’s conclusion was unequivocal: “This is all that remains of the August Family. The Bolsheviks destroyed everything else with fire and sulfuric acid.”

Nine years later, perhaps, it was Vladimir Mayakovsky who visited Porosenkov Log, as can be judged from his poem “The Emperor”: “Here a cedar has been touched with an ax, there are notches under the root of the bark, at the root there is a road under the cedar, and in it the emperor is buried.”

It is known that the poet, shortly before his trip to Sverdlovsk, met in Warsaw with one of the organizers of the execution of the royal family, Pyotr Voikov, who could show him the exact place.

Ural historians found the remains in Porosenkovo ​​Log in 1978, but permission for excavations was received only in 1991. There were 9 bodies in the burial. During the investigation, some of the remains were recognized as “royal”: according to experts, only Alexei and Maria were missing. However, many experts were confused by the results of the examination, and therefore no one was in a hurry to agree with the conclusions. The House of Romanovs and the Russian Orthodox Church refused to recognize the remains as authentic.

Alexey and Maria were discovered only in 2007, guided by a document drawn up from the words of the commandant of the “House of Special Purpose” Yakov Yurovsky. “Yurovsky’s note” initially did not inspire much confidence, however, the location of the second burial was indicated correctly.

Falsifications and myths

Immediately after the execution, representatives of the new government tried to convince the West that members of the imperial family, or at least the children, were alive and in a safe place. People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs G.V. Chicherin in April 1922 at the Genoa Conference, when asked by one of the correspondents about the fate of the Grand Duchesses, vaguely answered: “The fate of the Tsar’s daughters is not known to me. I read in the newspapers that they are in America.”

However, P.L. Voikov informally stated more specifically: “the world will never know what we did to the royal family.” But later, after the materials of Sokolov’s investigation were published in the West, the Soviet authorities recognized the fact of the execution of the imperial family.

Falsifications and speculation around the execution of the Romanovs contributed to the spread of persistent myths, among which the myth of ritual murder and the severed head of Nicholas II, which was in the special storage facility of the NKVD, was popular. Later, stories about the “miraculous rescue” of the Tsar’s children, Alexei and Anastasia, were added to the myths. But all this remained myths.

Investigation and examinations

In 1993, the investigation into the discovery of the remains was entrusted to the investigator of the General Prosecutor's Office, Vladimir Solovyov. Given the importance of the case, in addition to traditional ballistic and macroscopic examinations, additional genetic studies were carried out jointly with English and American scientists.

For these purposes, blood was taken from some Romanov relatives living in England and Greece for analysis. The results showed that the probability of the remains belonging to members of the royal family was 98.5 percent.
The investigation considered this insufficient. Solovyov managed to obtain permission to exhume the remains of the Tsar’s brother, George. Scientists confirmed the “absolute positional similarity of mt-DNA” of both remains, which revealed a rare genetic mutation inherent in the Romanovs - heteroplasmy.

However, after the discovery of the supposed remains of Alexei and Maria in 2007, new research and examination were required. The scientists’ work was greatly facilitated by Alexy II, who, before burying the first group of royal remains in the tomb of the Peter and Paul Cathedral, asked investigators to remove bone particles. “Science is developing, it is possible that they will be needed in the future,” these were the words of the Patriarch.

To remove the doubts of skeptics, the head of the laboratory of molecular genetics at the University of Massachusetts, Evgeniy Rogaev (whom representatives of the House of Romanov insisted on), the chief geneticist of the US Army, Michael Cobble (who returned the names of the victims of September 11), as well as an employee of the Institute of Forensic Medicine from Austria, Walter, were invited for new examinations. Parson.

Comparing the remains from the two burials, experts once again double-checked the previously obtained data and also conducted new research - the previous results were confirmed. Moreover, the “blood-spattered shirt” of Nicholas II (the Otsu incident), discovered in the Hermitage collections, fell into the hands of scientists. And again the answer is positive: the genotypes of the king “on blood” and “on bones” coincided.

Results

The results of the investigation into the execution of the royal family refuted some previously existing assumptions. For example, according to experts, “under the conditions in which the destruction of corpses was carried out, it was impossible to completely destroy the remains using sulfuric acid and flammable materials.”

This fact excludes Ganina Yama as a final burial site.
True, historian Vadim Viner finds a serious gap in the conclusions of the investigation. He believes that some finds belonging to a later time were not taken into account, in particular coins from the 30s. But as the facts show, information about the burial place very quickly “leaked” to the masses, and therefore the burial ground could be repeatedly opened in search of possible valuables.

Another revelation is offered by the historian S.A. Belyaev, who believes that “they could have buried the family of an Ekaterinburg merchant with imperial honors,” although without providing convincing arguments.
However, the conclusions of the investigation, which was carried out with unprecedented rigor using the latest methods, with the participation of independent experts, are clear: all 11 remains clearly correlate with each of those shot in Ipatiev’s house. Common sense and logic dictate that it is impossible to duplicate such physical and genetic correspondences by chance.
In December 2010, the final conference dedicated to the latest results of the examinations was held in Yekaterinburg. The reports were made by 4 groups of geneticists working independently in different countries. Opponents of the official version could also present their views, but according to eyewitnesses, “after listening to the reports, they left the hall without saying a word.”
The Russian Orthodox Church still does not recognize the authenticity of the “Ekaterinburg remains,” but many representatives of the House of Romanov, judging by their statements in the press, accepted the final results of the investigation.