Romanov_Deaths_-_Russia.

What happened to the Romanov Family' The deaths of the Romanov family in Russia, 1918, is shrouded in mystery. We can only guess what happened that fateful July night. Since the Tsar abdicated in March 1917, they had been kept under house arrest. In August, they were moved to Tobolsk, in the Urals, to “protect” them. Months later, in April 1918, they were moved to a house in Ekaterinburg, where they lived for four months. On the night of the 17th July, 1918, at around 1.30am, the Romanov family and their servants were roused from their sleep. According to one account, the family, their doctor, and their 3 servants were told there was some fighting in the nearby town and that they would be safer downstairs. The prisoners dressed quickly, and were led to the cellar of the house. Once there, Yakov Yurovsky declared that the party was to be killed. A group of around 10 soldiers entered the room, and proceeded to shoot a pre-assigned target. Nicholas and Alexandra were the first to die, and once the first wave of bullets was over, it was found that the tsarovitch Alexei was still alive, as were his sisters Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia. Alexei was shot two or three more times, at point blanc range by Yurovsky. The soldiers had to finish off the four girls with bayonets. The whole process, including the verification that the party were indeed dead, reportedly took around 20 minutes. After verification was complete, the bodies were transported to an abandoned mine known as the “Four Brothers Mine” due to the four pine trees that stood nearby. Here, the bodies were stripped of their clothes. It was also discovered why bullets failed to kill the four girls, and why the bayonets wouldn’t penetrate certain parts of the girls clothing – they had some of the family jewels sewn into their clothes. The soldiers collected around 18lbs of diamonds along with an amulet containing a picture of Rasputin from around each of the four girls necks. The soldiers threw the bodies of the party down into the flooded, collapsed mine, and then threw down tree branches to conceal the bodies. The hiding place was deemed inappropriate the next morning, so the bodies were moved again by the dead of night. They ended up in a shallow pit in a forest near Ekaterinburg, where Sulphuric acid was poured over them to help with the decomposition and mask the smell. The bodies of the Imperial family and their servants lay in their shallow grave until they were discovered in 1979, but the writer and geophysicist who found them only announced this in 1989. However, the government didn’t allow them to be dug up until 1991, 73 years after they were put there. The bones were identified as the Romanov’s by means of DNA testing. All the bodies but two were there – Alexei and Maria were missing. The remains of Nicholas, Alexandra, Olga, Tatiana, Anastasia, and four of his loyal staff were buried in St Petersburg in 1998. The bones now remain there, in the crypt of the St Peter and Paul Cathedral’s St Catherine Chapel.