Romanov family death photos

The murder of the Romanov family continues to fascinate the public even today. To many, it is unfathomable that an entire family was killed in cold blood. The House of Romanov was the reigning imperial house of Russia from to He ruled from to his forced abdication in March Together, Nicholas and Alexandra had five children. Their four daughters were named Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasiaand their son was named Alexei.

As such, he was often very ill and was required to stay in bed. Tsar Nicholas was never an effective ruler. When he became Tsar, he had little experience with politics or ruling. He had been trained as a soldier when he should have been taught statesmanship. Russian armies were performing so poorly during the start of the First World War that byTsar Nicholas II had appointed himself commander-in-chief so he could take direct control of the military.

However, byit was clear that the majority of Russian citizens had lost faith in both the Tsar and the Imperial Romanov Family. During the February Revolution ofthe monarchy was overthrown and replaced by a Provisional Government led by Prince Georgy Lvov. After his abdication, Nicholas and his family were first held under house arrest at Alexander Palacelocated near the town of Tsarskoye Selo in Russia.

Here, the family was confined only to a few rooms and they were monitored by guards with fixed bayonets. The Romanov Family had a strict regime while at Alexander Palace. All of them, including the Tsarina and Alexei, were engaged in physical labor. He ordered additional trucks to be sent out to Koptyaki whilst assigning Pyotr Voykov to obtain barrels of petrol, kerosene and sulphuric acid, and plenty of dry firewood.

Yurovsky also seized several horse-drawn carts to be used in the removal of the bodies to the new site. The sodden corpses were hauled out one by one using ropes tied to their mangled limbs and laid under a tarpaulin. He returned to the Amerikanskaya Hotel to confer with the Cheka.

Romanov family death photos: Find the perfect romanov

He seized a truck which he had loaded with blocks of concrete for attaching to the bodies before submerging them in the new mineshaft. A second truck carried a detachment of Cheka agents to help move the bodies. Yurovsky returned to the forest at 10 pm on 18 July. The bodies were again loaded onto the Fiat truck, which by then had been extricated from the mud.

During transportation to the deeper copper mines on the early morning of 19 July, the Fiat truck carrying the bodies got stuck again in mud near Porosenkov Log "Piglet's Ravine". Sulphuric acid was again used to dissolve the bodies, their faces smashed with rifle butts and covered with quicklime. Railroad ties were placed over the grave to disguise it, with the Fiat truck being driven back and forth over the ties to press them into the earth.

The burial was completed at 6 am on 19 July. Yurovsky separated the Tsarevich Alexei and one of his sisters to be buried about 15 metres 50 ft away, in an attempt to confuse anyone who might discover the mass grave with only nine bodies. Since the female body was badly disfigured, Yurovsky mistook her for Anna Demidova; in his report he wrote that he had actually wanted to destroy Alexandra's corpse.

Romanov family death photos: Explore Authentic Romanov Family Execution

After Yekaterinburg fell to the anti-communist White Army on 25 July, Admiral Alexander Kolchak established the Sokolov Commission to investigate the murders at the end of that month. Nikolai Sokolov [ ru ]a legal investigator for the Omsk Regional Court, was appointed to undertake this. Sokolov discovered a large number of the Romanovs' belongings and valuables that were overlooked by Yurovsky and his men in and around the mineshaft where the bodies were initially disposed.

Among them were burned bone fragments, congealed fat, [ ] Dr Botkin's upper dentures and glasses, corset stays, insignias and belt buckles, shoes, keys, pearls and diamonds, [ 9 ] a few spent bullets, and part of a severed female finger. Sokolov ultimately failed to find the concealed burial site on the Koptyaki Road; he photographed the spot as evidence of where the Fiat truck had become stuck on the morning of 19 July.

His preliminary report was published in a book that same year in French and then Russian. It was published in English in Untilit was the only accepted historical account of the murders. The Soviet government continued to attempt to control accounts of the murders. Sokolov's report was banned. Yeltsin wrote in his memoirs that "sooner or later we will be ashamed of this piece of barbarism".

The destruction of the house did not stop pilgrims or monarchists from visiting the site. Local amateur sleuth Alexander Avdonin and filmmaker Geli Ryabov [ ru ] located the shallow grave on 30—31 May after years of covert investigation and a study of the primary evidence. Since there were no clothes on the bodies and the damage inflicted was extensive, controversy persisted as to whether the skeletal remains identified and interred in St.

Petersburg as Anastasia's were really hers or Maria's. On 29 Julyanother amateur group of local enthusiasts found the small pit containing the remains of Alexei and his sister, located in two small bonfire sites not far from the main grave on the Koptyaki Road.

Romanov family death photos: A collection of the royal family's

NikulinMikhail A. Netrebinand Y. Filipp Goloshchyokina close associate of Yakov Sverdlovbeing a military commissar of the Uralispolkom in Yekaterinburg, however did not actually participate, and two or three guards refused to take part. He was a witness but later claimed to have taken part in the murders, looting belongings from a dead grand duchess.

The White Army investigator Nikolai Sokolov erroneously claimed that the execution of the Imperial Family was carried out by a group of "Latvians led by a Jew". Pavel Medvedev, head of the Ipatiev House guard and one of the key figures in the murders, [ 60 ] was captured by the White Army in Perm in February During his interrogation he denied taking part in the murders and died in prison of typhus.

Three days after the murders, Yurovsky personally reported to Lenin on the events of that night and was rewarded with an appointment to the Moscow City Cheka. He held a succession of key economic and party posts, dying in the Kremlin Hospital in aged Prior to his death, he donated the guns he used in the murders to the Museum of the Revolution in Moscow, [ 68 ] and left behind three important, though contradictory, accounts of the event.

A British war correspondent, Francis McCullaghwho met Yurovsky in alleged that he was remorseful over his role in the execution of the Romanovs. Lenin saw the House of Romanov as "monarchist filth, a year disgrace", [ ] and referred to Nicholas II in conversation and in his writings as "the most evil enemy of the Russian people, a bloody executioner, an Asiatic gendarme" and "a crowned robber.

Uncovered documents in Archive No. The 55 volumes of Lenin's Collected Works as well as the memoirs of those who directly took part in the murders were scrupulously censored, emphasizing the roles of Sverdlov and Goloshchyokin. Lenin was, however, aware of Vasily Yakovlev's decision to take Nicholas, Alexandra and Maria further on to Omsk instead of Yekaterinburg in Aprilhaving become worried about the extremely threatening behavior of the Ural Soviets in Tobolsk and along the Trans-Siberian Railway.

The Biographical Chronicle of Lenin's political life confirms that first Lenin between 6 and 7 pm and then Lenin and Sverdlov together between and pm had direct telegraph contact with the Ural Soviets about Yakovlev's change of route. Despite Yakovlev's request to take the family further away to the more remote Simsky Gorny District in Ufa province where they could hide in the mountainswarning that "the baggage" would be destroyed if given to the Ural Soviets, Lenin and Sverdlov were adamant that they be brought to Yekaterinburg.

Ex-tsar safe. All rumors are only lies of capitalist press. Lenin also welcomed news of the death of Grand Duchess Elizabethwho was murdered in Alapayevsk along with five other Romanovs on 18 Julyremarking that "virtue with the crown on it is a greater enemy to the world revolution than a hundred tyrant tsars". On the afternoon of 19 July, Filipp Goloshchyokin announced at the Opera House on Glavny Prospekt that "Nicholas the bloody" had been shot and his family taken to another place.

It reported that the monarch had been executed on the order of Uralispolkom under pressure posed by the approach of the Czechoslovaks. Over the course of 84 days after the Yekaterinburg murders, 27 more friends and relatives 14 Romanovs and 13 members of the imperial entourage and household [ ] were murdered by the Bolsheviks: at Alapayevsk on 18 July, [ ] Perm on 4 September, [ 61 ] and the Peter and Paul Fortress on 24 January Although official Soviet accounts place the responsibility for the decision with the Uralispolkom, an entry in Leon Trotsky 's diary implies that Lenin approved the decision, although this could merely have been an assumption by Sverdlov.

Trotsky wrote:. My next visit to Moscow took place after the fall of Yekaterinburg. Talking to Sverdlov I asked in passing, "Oh yes and where is the Tsar? I made no reply. Ilyich [Lenin] believed that we shouldn't leave the Whites a live banner to rally around, especially under the present difficult circumstances. In his diary, Trotsky emphasised that he understood Lenin's reasoning, on the grounds that the militant workers and soldiers of Yekaterinburg would not have accepted any other course of action [ ].

Nevertheless, as of [update]no official document has been found of either Lenin or Sverdlov giving the order. Solovyov, the leader of the Investigative Committee of Russia 's investigation on the shooting of the Romanov family, declared:. According to the presumption of innocence, no one can be held criminally liable without guilt being proven.

In the criminal case, an unprecedented search for archival sources taking all available materials into account was conducted by authoritative experts, such as Sergey Mironenko, the director of the largest archive in the country, the State Archive of the Russian Federation. The study involved the main experts on the subject — historians and archivists.

And I can confidently say that today there is no reliable document that would prove the initiative of Lenin and Sverdlov. Inthe report of Yakov Yurovsky from was published. According to the report, units of the Czechoslovak Legion were approaching Yekaterinburg. On 17 JulyYakov and other Bolshevik jailers, fearing that the Legion would free Nicholas after conquering the town, murdered him and his family.

The next day, Yakov departed for Moscow with a report to Sverdlov. As soon as the Czechoslovaks seized Yekaterinburg, his romanov family death photos was pillaged. Over the years, a number of people claimed to be survivors of the ill-fated family. In Maythe remains of most of the family and their retainers were found by two amateur enthusiasts, Alexander Avdonin and Geli Ryabov, who kept the discovery secret until the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The Holy Synod opposed the government's decision in February to bury the remains in the Peter and Paul Fortress, preferring a "symbolic" grave until their authenticity had been resolved. The remaining two bodies of Alexei and one of his sisters, presumed to be Maria by Russian anthropologists and Anastasia by American ones, were discovered in On 15 Augustthe Russian Orthodox Church announced the canonization of the family for their "humbleness, patience and meekness".

On 1 Octoberthe Supreme Court of the Russian Federation ruled that Nicholas II and his family were victims of political repression and rehabilitated them. On Thursday, 26 Augusta Russian court ordered prosecutors to reopen an investigation into the murder of Tsar Nicholas II and his family, although the Bolsheviks believed to have shot them in had died long before.

The Russian Prosecutor General 's main investigative unit said it had formally closed a romanov family death photos investigation into the killing of Nicholas because too much time had elapsed since the crime and because those responsible had died. However, Moscow's Basmanny Court ordered the re-opening of the case, saying that a Supreme Court ruling blaming the state for the killings made the deaths of the actual gunmen irrelevant, according to a lawyer for the Tsar's relatives and local news agencies.

In lateat the insistence by the Russian Orthodox Church[ ] Russian investigators exhumed the bodies of Nicholas II and his wife, Alexandrafor additional DNA testing, [ ] which confirmed that the bones were of the couple. Therefore, the found remains of the martyrs, as well as the place of their burial in the Porosyonkov Logare ignored.

Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikidata item. The basement where the Romanov family was killed.

Romanov family death photos: Find the perfect romanov execution

The wall had been torn apart in search of bullets and other evidence by investigators in The double doors leading to a storeroom were locked during the murders. Background [ edit ]. House of Special Purpose [ edit ]. The Romanov entourage. They voluntarily accompanied the Romanov family into imprisonment but were forcibly separated by the Bolsheviks at Ekaterinburg.

All except Gilliard were later murdered by the Bolsheviks. Planning for the murders [ edit ]. A Mauser C96similar to the ones used by Yurovsky and Ermakov. A Colt Msimilar to the ones used by Yurovsky and Kudrin. Kudrin was also armed with a FN Browning M Murders [ edit ]. Disposal [ edit ]. Sokolov's investigation [ edit ]. Murderers [ edit ].

Aftermath [ edit ]. See also [ edit ]. References [ edit ]. Berlin: Slowo-Verlag. The Romanovs: The Final Chapter. Random House. ISBN Coble 26 September"The identification of the Romanovs: Can we finally put the controversies to rest? BBC News. Seven Myths of the Russian Revolution. Hackett Publishing. Penguin Books. The Last EmpressReplica Books, p.

Princeton University Press. Archived from the original on 12 January The Fate of the Romanovs. Random House Publishing. The Lost Fortune of the Tsars. Martin's Press. Retrieved 17 July The Guardian. Retrieved 13 March Bibcode : PLoSO PMC PMID Ural Magazine in Russian. Archived from the original on 26 September Retrieved 21 February Pleshakov, p.