Remains of czar heir may have been found

Yahoo News ^ | 8/23/07 | STEVE GUTTERMAN, AP

[mgstarr]

MOSCOW - The remains of the last czar's hemophiliac son and heir to the Russian throne, missing since the royal family was gunned down nine decades ago by Bolsheviks in a basement room, may have been found, an archaeologist said Thursday.

Bones were found in a burned area in the ground near Yekaterinburg, the city where Czar Nicholas II and his wife and children were held prisoner and then shot in 1918.

A top local archaeologist said the bones belong to a boy and a young woman roughly the ages of the czar's son, Alexei, and a daughter whose remains have also never been found.

"An anthropologist has determined that the bones belong to two young individuals — a young male apparently aged roughly 10-13 and another, a young woman about 18-23," he told NTV television.

Nicholas abdicated in 1917 as revolutionary fervor swept Russia, and he and his family were detained. The next year, they were sent to the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg, where a firing squad executed them on July 17, 1918.

Historians say Communist guards lined up and shot Nicholas, his wife, Alexandra, their five children and four attendants in a small basement room in a nobleman's house in Yekaterinburg. The bodies were loaded in a truck and disposed of first in a mine shaft, according to most accounts.

The Bolsheviks who killed the czar apparently mutilated and hid the bodies because they did not want the remains of the family — especially those of the heir Alexei — to become objects of worship or spark opposition to their new regime.

[mgstarr]

[yldstrk]

Someone should have taken them in. I still can’t fathom why no one would.

[ConservativeMind]

I so love hearing of the peaceful progression of Socialism.

[Spktyr]

The other royal houses of Europe had their own problems with Bolsheviks/Communists at the time and didn’t want to exacerbate their problems - or borrow some from somewhere else.

[Alice in Wonderland]

Czar Nicholas II of Russia and his family, photographed c. 1916, showing his wife Alexandra (who was a carrier of hemophilia), his four daughters, and (in the foreground) his son Alexis, perhaps the most famous European royal with hemophilia.

[Irene Adler]

The British were supposed to rescue them, but due to leftwing agitation following WWI in Britain, they did not. The royal family of Britain, close cousins to the Romanoffs, really let them down because of local politics in Britain at the time. Actually the Royal family blames the Prime Minister at the time, but they didn’t try awfully hard.

[Irene Adler]

Also, as time went on after the revolution and Bolshevik takeover, the Bolshevik government moved the family farther and farther inland to make rescuing them more and more difficult. The conditions under which they lived deteriorated progressively as well. The few servants and teachers plus their doctor who stayed with them were mostly killed off a few at a time. Only the doctor and perhaps one other remained alive to be killed with the family at the end. Depressing story.

Lenin's older brother had been executed by the Czarist government years before, but it isn't clear how much this influenced Lenin to eventually order their execution. The Bolsheviks also killed just about every possible male Romanoff who was a potential heir just to make sure. They didn't quite get 'em all, but not for lack of trying.

[Toliy]

One tactical reason for the execution's order was the Czech Legion's proximity to Yekaterinburg (they were merely a day away from the city). I don't know about the British, but the Czechs could have been the royal rescue party, had the Bolsheviks wavered with the brutal deed...

[PAR35]

Someone should have taken them in. I still can’t fathom why no one would.

The Czar missed a small window of opportunity in which he might have fled (and remember, at that time World War I was still raging.) When the White forces did get close to the Royal family, they were murdered by the Reds.

[SevenofNine]

That so cool I wonder if they going reburied Alexi 2 with his family which inside church NOWWW

[SevenofNine]

Well Irene that is true reason why King George V felt that Nicholas wife who happen to be German Born Alexandra of Hesse may be trouble for Brit royals they need to survive kinda suck that they didn’ t rescue them George once said in his diary
I was totally loyal to Nicky he was kindest of gentleman

[Mila]

I remember seeing the burial ceremony of Alexandra and two of her daughters on television. I found it fascinating that the DNA evidence, identifying these remains as belonging to the Russian royal family, was provided by Great Britain’s Price Phillip who was related to the czarina through his mother.