Scientists have determined that two skeletons unearthed in a Siberian city are those of Czar Nicholas II and his wife, Alexandra, thus solving a 74-year-old mystery, a researcher said today.
The remains of imperial Russia's last czar and czarina were among nine skeletons dug up last summer from a pit in Yekaterinburg, Aleksandr Blokhin, a researcher, said. A third skeleton was identified as that of the Romanov rulers' family doctor, Sergei Botkin.
If one of the remaining bodies is definitively identified as that of the Czar's daughter Anastasia, it may finally put to rest a persistent legend that she somehow escaped when the family was executed.
In March 1917, as czarist power dissolved in the developing Russian Revolution, Nicholas abdicated after a constitutional republic was established, ending the nearly 300-year reign of the Romanovs. The imperial family was banished three months later to Siberia, where they lived their last year. End of a Taboo
On July 17, 1918, the Czar and his family members were executed by firing squad in the basement of a house in Yekaterinburg, on Lenin's orders. The location of their remains and the details of their execution were once taboo matters in the Soviet Union.Continue reading the main story
Last summer, scientists using a computer matched the skulls found with old photographs of the royal couple, said Mr. Blokhin, a regional official running the investigation.
"Computer modeling, comparing ancient photos of the czar and czarina, have definitely proved that the remains found were their remains," Mr. Blokhin said in a telephone interview from Yekaterinburg, which was known in Soviet times as Sverdlovsk.
Until recent years, the authorities made no effort to find the bodies, preferring to leave no reminders of the czar, his wife, five children, three servants and their doctor.
When Russians began making pilgrimages to the house where the royal family was shot, the authorities ordered it bulldozed one night in 1977.
The pit where the remains of five females and four males were found was opened in July 1991. Experts also recovered bits of the czar's clothing from the site, which was covered with burned railroad ties. The remains appeared to correspond roughly in gender, age and size to the Romanov family and entourage.Continue reading the main story