Reburial of the remains of the royal family. Dossier

Moscow, September 11. The remains of the children of the royal Romanov dynasty of St. Petersburg are already on October 18. Now the remains of Tsarevich Alexei and Grand Duchess Maria rest in the State Archives of Russia. The royal relics have been here for 8 years, from the moment they were discovered near the main burial site of the family in the Sverdlovsk region. "MIR 24" decided to remember the history of the royal burial and found out where the remains of the great Romanov dynasty are now located.

On the night of July 16-17, 1918, after the execution of the royal family, their bodies were sent to Verkh-Isetsk, the current district of Yekaterinburg. Unsuccessful attempts to destroy the royal bodies led to the fact that the next morning the whole city knew about what had happened. The corpses thrown into the ice mine were so frozen that they looked as if they were alive. After this, it was decided to rebury the remains in the marshy area of ​​Porosenkova Log.

Here, several bodies were buried directly under the roadway, and the rest were doused with sulfuric acid and left in the ground nearby. A year after these events, forensic investigator Sokolov, sent to search for a burial place, discovered only one of the severed fingers in this area - the remains remained deep in the ground under the railway rails.

“This is all that remains of the august family. The Bolsheviks destroyed everything else with fire and sulfuric acid,” Sokolov explained then.

The remains were discovered only 72 years later. The burial contained 9 bodies, an examination of which showed that the dead were from the Romanov dynasty. The grave did not contain the remains of only two family members: Tsarevich Alexei and Princess Maria. However, many researchers raised doubts about the results of the quick examination, which is why the country was in no hurry to call the bodies authentic.

Entire legends circulated around the dynasty, either confirming the death of family members or denying it. Many believed that all members of the royal dynasty were not killed and were in Europe. Others suggested that the found burial had nothing to do with the royal family, and that the original remains were kept elsewhere. Still others suggested that only the emperor’s children, Alexei and Maria, managed to survive after the bloody night.

In order to achieve the truth in this matter, the case of establishing the authenticity of the remains was transferred to the Prosecutor General's Office. Given the significance of the case, the researchers, together with American and British scientists, conducted several examinations at once. To do this, DNA samples were taken from some of the emperor's relatives, now living in Greece and Great Britain. The study showed that the remains found with a 98.5% probability belong to members of the Romanov family.

After doubts about the authenticity were dispelled, in July 1998, representatives of the royal family were solemnly buried in the Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg. However, despite this, discussions about the unfound bodies of Alexei and Maria continued.

Several times their “genuine” remains were found in different parts of the country, but genetic examination each time showed that the bodies found had nothing to do with the royal dynasty.

The bodies of the imperial children were nevertheless found in the Sverdlovsk region. After numerous examinations that confirmed their authenticity, the remains were placed in the State Archive of the Russian Federation.

The burial place was suggested by a document from the commandant of the house for special purposes, Yakov Yurovsky. Despite the fact that for a long time the note was not taken seriously, the place where the bodies of the crown prince and princess were buried was indicated correctly.

However, despite the large number of examinations carried out both in Russia and abroad, the Russian Orthodox Church still does not recognize the authenticity of the remains found near Yekaterinburg. However, despite this position of the clergy, representatives of the House of Romanov agreed with the final verdict of the court and intend to attend the reburial ceremony in the Peter and Paul Fortress.

As MK learned, the Prosecutor General's Office ordered a historical examination of the circumstances of the execution and secret burial of Nicholas II and members of his family in July 1918 near Yekaterinburg. If this had happened before the Yekaterinburg remains were recognized as royal, the investigation, according to some historians, would have avoided many mistakes.

In 1991, the burial of nine people was found on the Old Koptyakovskaya Road near Yekaterinburg. In 1998, the work of the State Commission on the royal remains was completed, they were officially declared royal and buried with state honors in the Peter and Paul Cathedral.

But two members of the State Commission - Sergei Belyaev and Veniamin Alekseev - did not agree with the conclusion of the investigation and continued to insist on their own. The discovery in 2007 of a new burial (presumably of Tsarevich Alexei and his older sister Maria) did not shake the experts’ positions. Sergei Belyaev presented his version of what happened on the eve of the 90th anniversary of the Yekaterinburg tragedy to MK.

HELP "MK"

Emperor Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra Feodorovna and five children, including the young heir to the throne Alexei, were shot in the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg on the night of July 17, 1918. Together with them, members of the local council killed four servants who did not want to leave the royal family: a doctor, a cook, a maid of honor and a soldier who was caring for the sick crown prince. The corpses of the victims were taken to the Ganina Yama area near Yekaterinburg.

Sergei Alekseevich, what is the likelihood that the remains discovered near Yekaterinburg and officially declared royal ones really belong to the family of the last Russian emperor?

Minimal.

Can't be! Who then was buried with imperial honors in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in 1998?

Hard to say. Perhaps the family of an Ekaterinburg merchant... In the early 20s, one of the participants in the murder of the sovereign's family, a certain Paramonov, said that in order to conceal the true place of her burial, they shot and buried a merchant family nearby - approximately the same composition in gender and age.

Is such a gross mistake possible? How could it happen?

After the discovery of the remains, there were repeated calls for a professional, historical examination of the circumstances of the execution and burial of the imperial family. And including from the current head of the investigative department of the Prosecutor General’s Office, Alexander Bastrykin. But this proposal, at the initiative of the investigator of the Prosecutor General’s Office Vladimir Solovyov, was then rejected, and the remains were declared royal.

According to the official version, after the execution in the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg, the bodies of members of the imperial family were transported to the Ganina Yama area guarded by the Red Army, but were not destroyed there, and on the night of July 18-19, 1918, they were taken out and buried about half a kilometer from there - on the Koptyakovskaya road in Porosenkov Log tract. In support, the investigation refers to “Yurovsky’s Note” - the memoirs of one of the participants in those bloody events. However, the investigation ignored other, moreover, more reliable sources. But they paint a completely different picture.

Why don’t you believe Yurovsky specifically?

It is necessary to take a critical view of any documents issued by the participants in this crime. After all, this is not a repentant confession that gives grounds for trust, and not even official investigation materials given under oath or at least under a signature on liability for giving false testimony under an article of the Criminal Code. "Yurovsky's Note", for example, is one hundred percent fake! Its real author is academician Mikhail Pokrovsky - the same one who gained fame as a supplier of disinformation to the West through the organs of the Cheka. The text of his manuscript “Notes” was recently discovered in the archive, and although it stipulates that the document was allegedly written by Pokrovsky from the words of Yurovsky, it cannot be trusted. The Note is full of outright lies.

For example?

For example, all events there are described as taking place before the eyes of the author. Yurovsky claims that on the morning of July 17, immediately after the execution and loading of the bodies of the dead into the car, he drove it to Ganina Yama. In fact, he remained in the Ipatiev House, where he supervised the destruction of traces of the crime, the collection and accounting of royal jewelry and manuscripts. He could have appeared on Ganina Yama no earlier than 17.00, which is confirmed by the materials of the investigation of 1918-1922 and the testimony of the house manager for special purposes, Medvedev, who reported that “after the corpses were removed from the house, commandant Yurovsky ordered to call the team and wash the floor in the room. When was all this done, Yurovsky left the courtyard for the office at the house."

Thus, Yurovsky appeared in the Ganina Yama area only at the end of the day on July 17, which means he could not have been a participant and eyewitness to the atrocities committed there in the pre-dawn hours and during the day of July 17. And in this case, his description of the entire day when the bodies were dismembered loses all credibility.

Yurovsky’s statement that he was in a car that left Ganina Yama in the direction of Yekaterinburg on the night of July 18-19 and took out the remains of those killed in the Ipatiev House, which were later allegedly buried in Porosenkov Log, is also unreliable. There is evidence that at this very time Yurovsky was in another place.

His claims are refuted by several witnesses. And first of all, the head of the Yekaterinburg Cheka, Isaiah Rodzinsky, and the chairman of the Yekaterinburg Council of Various Deputies, Pavel Bykov, who actually took a personal part in those terrible events. Both indicate that some of the bodies were burned, while others were doused with acid and lowered into the swamp.

There is a second important point. The interpretation of events in Yurovsky's Note is in blatant contradiction not only with other Soviet sources, but also with the facts collected by investigator Sokolov in 1918-1922. Even the condition of the remains, which were rushed to be declared royal, does not correspond to the available data.

Does the discovery of the missing remains of two victims in July last year confirm the investigation's version? In total, 11 people were killed in the Ipatiev House - seven members of the royal family and four servants, but at first only nine were found...

The discovery of new remains did not add anything new to what was already known. Now the main efforts of the investigation are aimed at genetic research. Perhaps their results will allow a final verdict on the identification of both the newly found remains and the remains discovered in 1991.

How is this final? After all, the DNA analysis of the first nine bodies seemed to completely confirm their identity?

If! As a member of the State Commission, I know the opinion of Russian and foreign experts. So, many of them believe that the comparison of DNA samples of the remains with those taken from the descendants of the Romanovs was not carried out purely. I will not go into details, but the main evidence in the DNA analysis was the coincidence in the mitochondrial (obtained through the female line) part of the genes that were found both in the descendants of the Romanovs and in the “Ekaterinburg remains”. Recently, Ekaterinburg geneticists, while conducting a routine examination in their region, identified exactly the same changes in local residents, including people who had never traveled outside their region.

According to scientists, these features arose in this region as a result of natural processes and are inherent in the local population, which reduces the likelihood of evidence of identification of the remains of the last Russian emperor to a level of less than 70:1. This means that the skeletons found in 1991 near the road to Koptyaki most likely belonged to local residents.

Where are the real remains of the royal family?

I think that in a quagmire about 400 m from Ganina Yama. Somewhere in the area of ​​Ganina Yama, the bodies of the royal martyrs were cut up, then lowered into containers with sulfuric acid, and what could not be completely destroyed, according to Nikolai Sokolov, was hidden in the area of ​​destruction, and according to Pavel Bykov - in a swamp at some distance from the place of destruction. Let me emphasize: the latest version does not contradict the conclusion of Sokolov’s investigation, but complements and clarifies it, since in both cases we are talking about the territory inside the Red Guard cordon around Ganina Yama, and not outside, where unknown remains were discovered, recognized as royal ones...

The number of fragments of ceramic containers from sulfuric acid, brought to destroy the bodies of murdered members of the royal family, found during excavations in 1918-1919, and in modern times, is tens or even hundreds of times less than what would have been if all containers remained in the Ganina Yama area.

Further. Counting from inventories of objects discovered during the investigation of 1918-1919 in the Ganina Yama area, revealed no more than 200 bone fragments, including the smallest. This is disproportionately less than what should have been left after burning 11 bodies. The combination of both factors confirms Bykov’s message that everything remaining from the burning was lowered into the swamp - most likely in jugs in which sulfuric acid was brought...

Thus, I see no reason to reject the conclusion I set out in the Special Opinion at the meeting of the State Commission on January 30, 1998, and then at the hearings in the State Duma on May 21 of the same year. On the morning of July 19, 1918, no one placed any remains under the sleepers and no one made any “grave” there that morning.

However, the final decision has already been made...

Not certainly in that way. The investigations of 1918-1922, 1991-1998, and even the modern one are nothing more than a preliminary investigation. And it assumes that the case will be considered by the court in the future. Only he can put a final point on the issue of the remains, the fuss around which has been going on for 10 years. It is only necessary that the court be legitimate, open and provide an objective examination and competition between the parties.

Ekaterina Petukhova

RUSSIA CAN GET A TSAREVICH
In July it will become known who owns the last unidentified remains of the royal family.

Research on the remains began last year in Yekaterinburg, and then eminent foreign scientists took over the baton. Anthropological and genetic examinations were carried out simultaneously in three of the best laboratories in the world. The head of the Sverdlovsk Regional Bureau of Forensic Medicine, Nikolai Nevolin, told MK how they went.

Nikolai Ivanovich, at what stage is the examination now?

We do not divide the examination into stages. But I can say that those examinations that were appointed at the end of autumn last year and at the beginning of this year (anthropological and genetic - Author) have already actually been completed. Another thing is that it may be necessary to conduct a number of additional studies.

What kind of research will this be?

According to the anthropologists who carried out the examination, the amount of ash mass of the remains found in the second burial is not enough. From the point of view that when two people are burned, there should be more of them. Porsenkov Log remains not fully explored, so, apparently, it will be necessary to conduct another archaeological study of the entire area that surrounds the previously conducted excavations. To make sure there are no other burial plots somewhere. On the other hand, there is a version that initially the burning of the bodies of the dead could have started in the area of ​​​​Ganina Yama, and then for some reason the burning was stopped. And then the remains were transported here, to the Porosenkova Log area, and they continued to burn them here. Then everything will fall into place. Now I cannot anticipate what the experts who will evaluate the results of the already conducted examinations will say. Maybe they will make some adjustments and say that the research conducted needs to be supplemented.

What genetic material were the remains from the second burial compared to?

Firstly, samples from the first burial were used for the study, and blood samples from Romanov relatives now living abroad were also studied.

How are the remains stored? Are there any special requirements?

The remains are stored at sub-zero temperatures - minus 4-6 degrees - in small special plastic containers.

Nikolai Ivanovich, on what principle did you choose the laboratories where the examinations were carried out?

These laboratories are well known all over the world. The level of research there is very high. They are part of the Interpol system. Specialists from these laboratories have great authority in the scientific world and are known not only for practical, but also for scientific work. This also applies to the laboratory of the Institute of General Genetics. Vavilov RAS, and foreign ones - in Austria and the USA. It was there that examinations of the remains were carried out. The University of Massachusetts was also involved in the research. In our opinion, the best specialists in the field of genetics and anthropology have been involved. In the first half of July, the results of all examinations will be officially published.

How expensive were the examinations?

In the USA and Austria, laboratories conducted research at their own expense. This is prestigious for every scientific laboratory. Moreover, the research here has historical overtones. And the research that took place here was paid for from the regional budget.

If experts announce in July that the remains belong to the children of the last emperor of Russia, will the results of the examination be final or may some doubts still remain?

We must wait until July for the official press conference. We will all listen together to what the scientists have to say. It is too early to talk about results, much less give assessments.

As MK learned, the Prosecutor General’s Office ordered a historical examination of the circumstances of the execution and secret burial of Nicholas II and members of his family in July 1918 near Yekaterinburg. If this had happened before the Yekaterinburg remains were recognized as royal, the investigation, according to some historians, would have avoided many mistakes.

In 1991, the burial of nine people was found on the Old Koptyakovskaya Road near Yekaterinburg. In 1998, the work of the State Commission on the royal remains was completed, they were officially declared royal and buried with state honors in the Peter and Paul Cathedral.

But two members of the State Commission - Sergei Belyaev and Veniamin Alekseev - did not agree with the conclusion of the investigation and continued to insist on their own. The discovery in 2007 of a new burial (presumably of Tsarevich Alexei and his older sister Maria) did not shake the experts’ positions. Sergei Belyaev presented his version of what happened on the eve of the 90th anniversary of the Yekaterinburg tragedy to MK.

HELP "MK"

Emperor Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra Feodorovna and five children, including the young heir to the throne Alexei, were shot in the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg on the night of July 17, 1918. Together with them, members of the local council killed four servants who did not want to leave the royal family: a doctor, a cook, a maid of honor and a soldier who was caring for the sick crown prince. The corpses of the victims were taken to the Ganina Yama area near Yekaterinburg.

Sergei Alekseevich, what is the likelihood that the remains discovered near Yekaterinburg and officially declared royal ones really belong to the family of the last Russian emperor?

Minimal.

- Can't be! Who then was buried with imperial honors in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in 1998?

Hard to say. Perhaps the family of an Ekaterinburg merchant... In the early 20s, one of the participants in the murder of the sovereign's family, a certain Paramonov, said that in order to conceal the true place of her burial, they shot and buried a merchant family nearby - approximately the same composition in gender and age.

- Is such a gross mistake possible? How could it happen?

After the discovery of the remains, there were repeated calls for a professional, historical examination of the circumstances of the execution and burial of the imperial family. And including from the current head of the investigative department of the Prosecutor General’s Office, Alexander Bastrykin. But this proposal, at the initiative of the investigator of the Prosecutor General’s Office Vladimir Solovyov, was then rejected, and the remains were declared royal.

According to the official version, after the execution in the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg, the bodies of members of the imperial family were transported to the Ganina Yama area guarded by the Red Army, but were not destroyed there, and on the night of July 18-19, 1918, they were taken out and buried about half a kilometer from there - on the Koptyakovskaya road in Porosenkov Log tract. In support, the investigation refers to “Yurovsky’s Note” - the memoirs of one of the participants in those bloody events. However, the investigation ignored other, moreover, more reliable sources. But they paint a completely different picture.

- Why don’t you believe Yurovsky specifically?

It is necessary to take a critical view of any documents issued by the participants in this crime. After all, this is not a repentant confession that gives grounds for trust, and not even official investigation materials given under oath or at least under a signature on liability for giving false testimony under an article of the Criminal Code. “Yurovsky’s Note,” for example, is a hundred percent fake! Its real author is academician Mikhail Pokrovsky - the same one who gained fame as a supplier of disinformation to the West through the organs of the Cheka. The text of his manuscript “Notes” was recently discovered in the archive, and although it stipulates that the document was allegedly written by Pokrovsky from the words of Yurovsky, it cannot be trusted. The “Note” is full of outright lies.

- For example?

For example, all events there are described as taking place before the eyes of the author. Yurovsky claims that on the morning of July 17, immediately after the execution and loading of the bodies of the dead into the car, he drove it to Ganina Yama. In fact, he remained in the Ipatiev House, where he supervised the destruction of traces of the crime, the collection and accounting of royal jewelry and manuscripts. He could have appeared on Ganina Yama no earlier than 17.00, which is confirmed by the materials of the investigation of 1918-1922 and the testimony of the house manager for special purposes, Medvedev, who reported that “after removing the corpses from the house, Commandant Yurovsky ordered to call the team and wash the floor in the room. When all this was done, Yurovsky left the courtyard for the office at the house.”

Thus, Yurovsky appeared in the Ganina Yama area only at the end of the day on July 17, which means he could not have been a participant and eyewitness to the atrocities committed there in the pre-dawn hours and during the day of July 17. And in this case, his description of the entire day when the bodies were dismembered loses all credibility.

Yurovsky’s statement that he was in a car that left Ganina Yama in the direction of Yekaterinburg on the night of July 18-19 and took out the remains of those killed in the Ipatiev House, which were later allegedly buried in Porosenkov Log, is also unreliable. There is evidence that at this very time Yurovsky was in another place.

His claims are refuted by several witnesses. And first of all, the head of the Yekaterinburg Cheka, Isaiah Rodzinsky, and the chairman of the Yekaterinburg Council of Various Deputies, Pavel Bykov, who actually took a personal part in those terrible events. Both indicate that some of the bodies were burned, while others were doused with acid and lowered into the swamp.

There is a second important point. The interpretation of events in Yurovsky's Note is in blatant contradiction not only with other Soviet sources, but also with the facts collected by investigator Sokolov in 1918-1922. Even the condition of the remains, which were rushed to be declared royal, does not correspond to the available data.

Does the discovery of the missing remains of two victims in July last year confirm the investigation's version? In total, 11 people were killed in the Ipatiev House - seven members of the royal family and four servants, but at first only nine were found...

The discovery of new remains did not add anything new to what was already known. Now the main efforts of the investigation are aimed at genetic research. Perhaps their results will allow a final verdict on the identification of both the newly found remains and the remains discovered in 1991.

- How is this final? After all, the DNA analysis of the first nine bodies seemed to completely confirm their identity?

If! As a member of the State Commission, I know the opinion of Russian and foreign experts. So, many of them believe that the comparison of DNA samples of the remains with those taken from the descendants of the Romanovs was not carried out purely. I will not go into details, but the main evidence in the DNA analysis was the coincidence in the mitochondrial (obtained through the female line) part of the genes that were found both in the descendants of the Romanovs and in the “Ekaterinburg remains.” Recently, Ekaterinburg geneticists, while conducting a routine examination in their region, identified exactly the same changes in local residents, including people who had never traveled outside their region.

According to scientists, these features arose in this region as a result of natural processes and are inherent in the local population, which reduces the likelihood of evidence of identification of the remains of the last Russian emperor to a level of less than 70:1. This means that the skeletons found in 1991 near the road to Koptyaki most likely belonged to local residents.

- Where are the real remains of the royal family?

I think that in a quagmire about 400 m from Ganina Yama. Somewhere in the area of ​​Ganina Yama, the bodies of the royal martyrs were cut up, then lowered into containers with sulfuric acid, and what could not be completely destroyed, according to Nikolai Sokolov, was hidden in the area of ​​destruction, and according to Pavel Bykov - in a swamp at some distance from the place of destruction. Let me emphasize: the latest version does not contradict the conclusion of Sokolov’s investigation, but complements and clarifies it, since in both cases we are talking about the territory inside the Red Guard cordon around Ganina Yama, and not outside, where unknown remains were discovered, recognized as royal ones...

The number of fragments of ceramic containers from sulfuric acid, brought to destroy the bodies of murdered members of the royal family, found during excavations in 1918-1919, and in modern times, is tens or even hundreds of times less than what would have been if all containers remained in the Ganina Yama area.

Further. Counting from inventories of objects discovered during the investigation of 1918-1919 in the Ganina Yama area, revealed no more than 200 bone fragments, including the smallest. This is disproportionately less than what should have been left after burning 11 bodies. The combination of both factors confirms Bykov’s message that everything remaining from the burning was lowered into the swamp - most likely in jugs in which sulfuric acid was brought...

Thus, I see no reason to reject the conclusion I set out in the Special Opinion at the meeting of the State Commission on January 30, 1998, and then at the hearings in the State Duma on May 21 of the same year. On the morning of July 19, 1918, no one placed any remains under the sleepers and no one made any “grave” there that morning.

- Nevertheless, the final decision has already been made...

Not certainly in that way. The investigations of 1918-1922, 1991-1998, and even the modern one are nothing more than a preliminary investigation. And it assumes that the case will be considered by the court in the future. Only he can put a final point on the issue of the remains, the fuss around which has been going on for 10 years. It is only necessary that the court be legitimate, open and provide an objective examination and competition between the parties.

Marina Lemutkina.

RUSSIA CAN GET A TSAREVICH

In July it will become known who owns the last unidentified remains of the royal family.

Research on the remains began last year in Yekaterinburg, and then eminent foreign scientists took over the baton. Anthropological and genetic examinations were carried out simultaneously in three of the best laboratories in the world. The head of the Sverdlovsk Regional Bureau of Forensic Medicine, Nikolai Nevolin, told MK how they went.

- Nikolai Ivanovich, at what stage is the examination now?

We do not divide the examination into stages. But I can say that those examinations that were appointed at the end of autumn last year and at the beginning of this year (anthropological and genetic - Auto.), have actually already been completed. Another thing is that it may be necessary to conduct a number of additional studies.

- What kind of research will this be?

According to the anthropologists who carried out the examination, the amount of ash mass of the remains found in the second burial is not enough. From the point of view that when two people are burned, there should be more of them. Porsenkov Log remains not fully explored, so, apparently, it will be necessary to conduct another archaeological study of the entire area that surrounds the previously conducted excavations. To make sure there are no other burial plots somewhere. On the other hand, there is a version that initially the burning of the bodies of the dead could have started in the area of ​​​​Ganina Yama, and then for some reason the burning was stopped. And then the remains were transported here, to the Porosenkova Log area, and they continued to burn them here. Then everything will fall into place. Now I cannot anticipate what the experts who will evaluate the results of the already conducted examinations will say. Maybe they will make some adjustments and say that the research conducted needs to be supplemented.

- What genetic material were the remains from the second burial compared with?

Firstly, samples from the first burial were used for the study, and blood samples from Romanov relatives now living abroad were also studied.

- How are the remains stored? Are there any special requirements?

The remains are stored at sub-zero temperatures - minus 4-6 degrees - in small special plastic containers.

- Nikolai Ivanovich, on what principle did you choose the laboratories where the examinations were carried out?

These laboratories are well known all over the world. The level of research there is very high. They are part of the Interpol system. Specialists from these laboratories have great authority in the scientific world and are known not only for practical, but also for scientific work. This also applies to the laboratory of the Institute of General Genetics. Vavilov RAS, and foreign ones - in Austria and the USA. It was there that examinations of the remains were carried out. The University of Massachusetts was also involved in the research. In our opinion, the best specialists in the field of genetics and anthropology have been involved. In the first half of July, the results of all examinations will be officially published.

- How expensive were the examinations?

In the USA and Austria, laboratories conducted research at their own expense. This is prestigious for every scientific laboratory. Moreover, the research here has historical overtones. And the research that took place here was paid for from the regional budget.

If experts announce in July that the remains belong to the children of the last emperor of Russia, will the results of the examination be final or may some doubts still remain?

We must wait until July for the official press conference. We will all listen together to what the scientists have to say. It is too early to talk about results, much less give assessments.

Ekaterina Petukhova.

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.

Discovery of remains

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 by 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.

Alexei 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. 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.

As MK learned, the Prosecutor General’s Office ordered a historical examination of the circumstances of the execution and secret burial of Nicholas II and members of his family in July 1918 near Yekaterinburg. If this had happened before the Yekaterinburg remains were recognized as royal, the investigation, according to some historians, would have avoided many mistakes.

In 1991, the burial of nine people was found on the Old Koptyakovskaya Road near Yekaterinburg. In 1998, the work of the State Commission on the royal remains was completed, they were officially declared royal and buried with state honors in the Peter and Paul Cathedral.

But two members of the State Commission - Sergei Belyaev and Veniamin Alekseev - did not agree with the conclusion of the investigation and continued to insist on their own. The discovery in 2007 of a new burial (presumably of Tsarevich Alexei and his older sister Maria) did not shake the experts’ positions. Sergei Belyaev presented his version of what happened on the eve of the 90th anniversary of the Yekaterinburg tragedy to MK.

HELP "MK"

Emperor Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra Feodorovna and five children, including the young heir to the throne Alexei, were shot in the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg on the night of July 17, 1918. Together with them, members of the local council killed four servants who did not want to leave the royal family: a doctor, a cook, a maid of honor and a soldier who was caring for the sick crown prince. The corpses of the victims were taken to the Ganina Yama area near Yekaterinburg.

Sergei Alekseevich, what is the likelihood that the remains discovered near Yekaterinburg and officially declared royal ones really belong to the family of the last Russian emperor?

Minimal.

- Can't be! Who then was buried with imperial honors in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in 1998?

Hard to say. Perhaps the family of an Ekaterinburg merchant... In the early 20s, one of the participants in the murder of the sovereign's family, a certain Paramonov, said that in order to conceal the true place of her burial, they shot and buried a merchant family nearby - approximately the same composition in gender and age.

- Is such a gross mistake possible? How could it happen?

After the discovery of the remains, there were repeated calls for a professional, historical examination of the circumstances of the execution and burial of the imperial family. And including from the current head of the investigative department of the Prosecutor General’s Office, Alexander Bastrykin. But this proposal, at the initiative of the investigator of the Prosecutor General’s Office Vladimir Solovyov, was then rejected, and the remains were declared royal.

According to the official version, after the execution in the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg, the bodies of members of the imperial family were transported to the Ganina Yama area guarded by the Red Army, but were not destroyed there, and on the night of July 18-19, 1918, they were taken out and buried about half a kilometer from there - on the Koptyakovskaya road in Porosenkov Log tract. In support, the investigation refers to “Yurovsky’s Note” - the memoirs of one of the participants in those bloody events. However, the investigation ignored other, moreover, more reliable sources. But they paint a completely different picture.

- Why don’t you believe Yurovsky specifically?

It is necessary to take a critical view of any documents issued by the participants in this crime. After all, this is not a repentant confession that gives grounds for trust, and not even official investigation materials given under oath or at least under a signature on liability for giving false testimony under an article of the Criminal Code. “Yurovsky’s Note,” for example, is a hundred percent fake! Its real author is academician Mikhail Pokrovsky - the same one who gained fame as a supplier of disinformation to the West through the organs of the Cheka. The text of his manuscript “Notes” was recently discovered in the archive, and although it stipulates that the document was allegedly written by Pokrovsky from the words of Yurovsky, it cannot be trusted. The “Note” is full of outright lies.

- For example?

For example, all events there are described as taking place before the eyes of the author. Yurovsky claims that on the morning of July 17, immediately after the execution and loading of the bodies of the dead into the car, he drove it to Ganina Yama. In fact, he remained in the Ipatiev House, where he supervised the destruction of traces of the crime, the collection and accounting of royal jewelry and manuscripts. He could have appeared on Ganina Yama no earlier than 17.00, which is confirmed by the materials of the investigation of 1918-1922 and the testimony of the house manager for special purposes, Medvedev, who reported that “after removing the corpses from the house, Commandant Yurovsky ordered to call the team and wash the floor in the room. When all this was done, Yurovsky left the courtyard for the office at the house.”

Thus, Yurovsky appeared in the Ganina Yama area only at the end of the day on July 17, which means he could not have been a participant and eyewitness to the atrocities committed there in the pre-dawn hours and during the day of July 17. And in this case, his description of the entire day when the bodies were dismembered loses all credibility.

Yurovsky’s statement that he was in a car that left Ganina Yama in the direction of Yekaterinburg on the night of July 18-19 and took out the remains of those killed in the Ipatiev House, which were later allegedly buried in Porosenkov Log, is also unreliable. There is evidence that at this very time Yurovsky was in another place.

His claims are refuted by several witnesses. And first of all, the head of the Yekaterinburg Cheka, Isaiah Rodzinsky, and the chairman of the Yekaterinburg Council of Various Deputies, Pavel Bykov, who actually took a personal part in those terrible events. Both indicate that some of the bodies were burned, while others were doused with acid and lowered into the swamp.

There is a second important point. The interpretation of events in Yurovsky's Note is in blatant contradiction not only with other Soviet sources, but also with the facts collected by investigator Sokolov in 1918-1922. Even the condition of the remains, which were rushed to be declared royal, does not correspond to the available data.

Does the discovery of the missing remains of two victims in July last year confirm the investigation's version? In total, 11 people were killed in the Ipatiev House - seven members of the royal family and four servants, but at first only nine were found...

The discovery of new remains did not add anything new to what was already known. Now the main efforts of the investigation are aimed at genetic research. Perhaps their results will allow a final verdict on the identification of both the newly found remains and the remains discovered in 1991.

- How is this final? After all, the DNA analysis of the first nine bodies seemed to completely confirm their identity?

If! As a member of the State Commission, I know the opinion of Russian and foreign experts. So, many of them believe that the comparison of DNA samples of the remains with those taken from the descendants of the Romanovs was not carried out purely. I will not go into details, but the main evidence in the DNA analysis was the coincidence in the mitochondrial (obtained through the female line) part of the genes that were found both in the descendants of the Romanovs and in the “Ekaterinburg remains.” Recently, Ekaterinburg geneticists, while conducting a routine examination in their region, identified exactly the same changes in local residents, including people who had never traveled outside their region.

According to scientists, these features arose in this region as a result of natural processes and are inherent in the local population, which reduces the likelihood of evidence of identification of the remains of the last Russian emperor to a level of less than 70:1. This means that the skeletons found in 1991 near the road to Koptyaki most likely belonged to local residents.

- Where are the real remains of the royal family?

I think that in a quagmire about 400 m from Ganina Yama. Somewhere in the area of ​​Ganina Yama, the bodies of the royal martyrs were cut up, then lowered into containers with sulfuric acid, and what could not be completely destroyed, according to Nikolai Sokolov, was hidden in the area of ​​destruction, and according to Pavel Bykov - in a swamp at some distance from the place of destruction. Let me emphasize: the latest version does not contradict the conclusion of Sokolov’s investigation, but complements and clarifies it, since in both cases we are talking about the territory inside the Red Guard cordon around Ganina Yama, and not outside, where unknown remains were discovered, recognized as royal ones...

The number of fragments of ceramic containers from sulfuric acid, brought to destroy the bodies of murdered members of the royal family, found during excavations in 1918-1919, and in modern times, is tens or even hundreds of times less than what would have been if all containers remained in the Ganina Yama area.

Further. Counting from inventories of objects discovered during the investigation of 1918-1919 in the Ganina Yama area, revealed no more than 200 bone fragments, including the smallest. This is disproportionately less than what should have been left after burning 11 bodies. The combination of both factors confirms Bykov’s message that everything remaining from the burning was lowered into the swamp - most likely in jugs in which sulfuric acid was brought...

Thus, I see no reason to reject the conclusion I set out in the Special Opinion at the meeting of the State Commission on January 30, 1998, and then at the hearings in the State Duma on May 21 of the same year. On the morning of July 19, 1918, no one placed any remains under the sleepers and no one made any “grave” there that morning.

- Nevertheless, the final decision has already been made...

Not certainly in that way. The investigations of 1918-1922, 1991-1998, and even the modern one are nothing more than a preliminary investigation. And it assumes that the case will be considered by the court in the future. Only he can put a final point on the issue of the remains, the fuss around which has been going on for 10 years. It is only necessary that the court be legitimate, open and provide an objective examination and competition between the parties.

Marina Lemutkina.

RUSSIA CAN GET A TSAREVICH

In July it will become known who owns the last unidentified remains of the royal family.

Research on the remains began last year in Yekaterinburg, and then eminent foreign scientists took over the baton. Anthropological and genetic examinations were carried out simultaneously in three of the best laboratories in the world. The head of the Sverdlovsk Regional Bureau of Forensic Medicine, Nikolai Nevolin, told MK how they went.

- Nikolai Ivanovich, at what stage is the examination now?

We do not divide the examination into stages. But I can say that those examinations that were appointed at the end of autumn last year and at the beginning of this year (anthropological and genetic - Auto.), have actually already been completed. Another thing is that it may be necessary to conduct a number of additional studies.

- What kind of research will this be?

According to the anthropologists who carried out the examination, the amount of ash mass of the remains found in the second burial is not enough. From the point of view that when two people are burned, there should be more of them. Porsenkov Log remains not fully explored, so, apparently, it will be necessary to conduct another archaeological study of the entire area that surrounds the previously conducted excavations. To make sure there are no other burial plots somewhere. On the other hand, there is a version that initially the burning of the bodies of the dead could have started in the area of ​​​​Ganina Yama, and then for some reason the burning was stopped. And then the remains were transported here, to the Porosenkova Log area, and they continued to burn them here. Then everything will fall into place. Now I cannot anticipate what the experts who will evaluate the results of the already conducted examinations will say. Maybe they will make some adjustments and say that the research conducted needs to be supplemented.

- What genetic material were the remains from the second burial compared with?

Firstly, samples from the first burial were used for the study, and blood samples from Romanov relatives now living abroad were also studied.

- How are the remains stored? Are there any special requirements?

The remains are stored at sub-zero temperatures - minus 4-6 degrees - in small special plastic containers.

- Nikolai Ivanovich, on what principle did you choose the laboratories where the examinations were carried out?

These laboratories are well known all over the world. The level of research there is very high. They are part of the Interpol system. Specialists from these laboratories have great authority in the scientific world and are known not only for practical, but also for scientific work. This also applies to the laboratory of the Institute of General Genetics. Vavilov RAS, and foreign ones - in Austria and the USA. It was there that examinations of the remains were carried out. The University of Massachusetts was also involved in the research. In our opinion, the best specialists in the field of genetics and anthropology have been involved. In the first half of July, the results of all examinations will be officially published.

- How expensive were the examinations?

In the USA and Austria, laboratories conducted research at their own expense. This is prestigious for every scientific laboratory. Moreover, the research here has historical overtones. And the research that took place here was paid for from the regional budget.

If experts announce in July that the remains belong to the children of the last emperor of Russia, will the results of the examination be final or may some doubts still remain?

We must wait until July for the official press conference. We will all listen together to what the scientists have to say. It is too early to talk about results, much less give assessments.

Ekaterina Petukhova.