The Royal Family: real life after an imaginary execution. The Romanov family: the story of the life and death of the rulers of Russia

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 from 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.

The commandant of the Special Purpose House, Yakov Yurovsky, was entrusted with commanding the execution of members of the former emperor’s family. It was from his manuscripts that it was subsequently possible to reconstruct the terrible picture that unfolded that night in the Ipatiev House.

According to the documents, the execution order was delivered to the execution site at half past one in the morning. Just forty minutes later, the entire Romanov family and their servants were brought into the basement. “The room was very small. Nikolai stood with his back to me, he recalled. —

I announced that the Executive Committee of the Councils of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies of the Urals had decided to shoot them. Nikolai turned and asked. I repeated the order and commanded: “Shoot.” I shot first and killed Nikolai on the spot.”

The emperor was killed the first time - unlike his daughters. The commander of the execution of the royal family later wrote that the girls were literally “armored into bras made of a solid mass of large diamonds,” so the bullets bounced off them without causing harm. Even with the help of a bayonet it was not possible to pierce the “precious” bodice of the girls.

Photo report: 100 years since the execution of the royal family

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“For a long time I was unable to stop this shooting, which had become careless. But when I finally managed to stop, I saw that many were still alive. ... I was forced to shoot everyone in turn,” Yurovsky wrote.

Even the royal dogs could not survive that night—along with the Romanovs, two of the three pets belonging to the emperor’s children were killed in the Ipatiev House. The corpse of Grand Duchess Anastasia's spaniel, preserved in the cold, was found a year later at the bottom of a mine in Ganina Yama - the dog's paw was broken and its head was pierced.

The French bulldog Ortino, which belonged to Grand Duchess Tatiana, was also brutally killed - presumably hanged.

Miraculously, only the spaniel of Tsarevich Alexei, named Joy, was saved, who was then sent to recover from his experience in England to the cousin of Nicholas II, King George.

The place “where the people put an end to the monarchy”

After the execution, all the bodies were loaded into one truck and sent to the abandoned mines of Ganina Yama in the Sverdlovsk region. There they first tried to burn them, but the fire would have been huge for everyone, so the decision was made to simply throw the bodies into the mine shaft and throw them with branches.

However, it was not possible to hide what happened - the very next day rumors spread throughout the region about what had happened at night. As one of the members of the firing squad, forced to return to the site of the failed burial, later admitted, the icy water washed away all the blood and froze the bodies of the dead so that they looked as if they were alive.

The Bolsheviks tried to approach the organization of the second burial attempt with great attention: the area was first cordoned off, the bodies were again loaded onto a truck, which was supposed to transport them to a more reliable place. However, failure awaited them here too: after just a few meters of travel, the truck got stuck firmly in the swamps of Porosenkova Log.

Plans had to be changed on the fly. Some of the bodies were buried directly under the road, the rest were doused with sulfuric acid and buried a little further away, covered with sleepers on top. These cover-up measures proved to be more effective. After Yekaterinburg was occupied by Kolchak’s army, he immediately gave the order to find the bodies of the dead.

However, forensic investigator Nikolai U, who arrived at Porosenkov Log, managed to find only fragments of burnt clothing and a severed woman’s finger. “This is all that remains of the August Family,” Sokolov wrote in his report.

There is a version that the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky was one of the first to learn about the place where, in his words, “the people put an end to the monarchy.” It is known that in 1928 he visited Sverdlovsk, having previously met with Pyotr Voikov, one of the organizers of the execution of the royal family, who could tell him secret information.

After this trip, Mayakovsky wrote the poem “The Emperor,” which contains lines with a fairly accurate description of the “Romanov grave”: “Here the 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.”

Confession of execution

At first, the new Russian government tried with all its might to assure the West of its humanity in relation to the royal family: they say that they are all alive and are in a secret place in order to prevent the implementation of the White Guard conspiracy. Many high-ranking political figures of the young state tried to avoid answering or answered very vaguely.

Thus, the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs at the Genoa Conference in 1922 told correspondents: “The fate of the Tsar’s daughters is not known to me. I read in the newspapers that they are in America.”

Pyotr Voikov, who answered this question in a more informal setting, cut off all further questions with the phrase: “The world will never know what we did to the royal family.”

Only after the publication of Nikolai Sokolov’s investigation materials, which gave a vague idea of ​​the massacre of the imperial family, did the Bolsheviks have to admit at least the very fact of the execution. However, details and information about the burial still remained a mystery, shrouded in darkness in the basement of the Ipatiev House.

Occult version

It is not surprising that a lot of falsifications and myths have appeared regarding the execution of the Romanovs. The most popular of them was the rumor about a ritual murder and the severed head of Nicholas II, which was allegedly taken for safekeeping by the NKVD. This is evidenced, in particular, by the testimony of General Maurice Janin, who oversaw the investigation into the execution by the Entente.

Supporters of the ritual nature of the murder of the imperial family have several arguments. First of all, attention is drawn to the symbolic name of the house in which everything happened: in March 1613, who laid the foundation for the dynasty, ascended to the kingdom in the Ipatiev Monastery near Kostroma. And 305 years later, in 1918, the last Russian Tsar Nikolai Romanov was shot in the Ipatiev House in the Urals, requisitioned by the Bolsheviks specifically for this purpose.

Later, engineer Ipatiev explained that he purchased the house six months before the events that unfolded there. There is an opinion that this purchase was made specifically to add symbolism to the grim murder, since Ipatiev communicated quite closely with one of the organizers of the execution, Pyotr Voikov.

Lieutenant General Mikhail Diterichs, who investigated the murder of the royal family on behalf of Kolchak, concluded in his conclusion: “This was a systematic, premeditated and prepared extermination of Members of the House of Romanov and persons exclusively close to them in spirit and belief.

The direct line of the Romanov Dynasty is over: it began in the Ipatiev Monastery in the Kostroma province and ended in the Ipatiev House in the city of Yekaterinburg.”

Conspiracy theorists also drew attention to the connection between the murder of Nicholas II and the Chaldean ruler of Babylon, King Belshazzar. Thus, some time after the execution, lines from Heine’s ballad dedicated to Belshazzar were discovered in the Ipatiev House: “Belzazzar was killed that same night by his servants.” Now a piece of wallpaper with this inscription is stored in the State Archives of the Russian Federation.

According to the Bible, Belshazzar, like , was the last king of his family. During one of the celebrations in his castle, mysterious words appeared on the wall, predicting his imminent death. That same night the biblical king was killed.

Prosecutor's and church investigation

The remains of the royal family were officially found only in 1991 - then nine bodies were discovered buried in Piglet Meadow. After another nine years, the missing two bodies were discovered - severely burnt and mutilated remains, presumably belonging to Tsarevich Alexei and Grand Duchess Maria.

Together with specialized centers in the UK and the USA, she conducted many examinations, including molecular genetics. With its help, DNA extracted from the found remains and samples of Nicholas II’s brother Georgy Alexandrovich, as well as his nephew, the son of Olga’s sister Tikhon Nikolaevich Kulikovsky-Romanov, were deciphered and compared.

The examination also compared the results with the blood on the king's shirt, stored in the. All researchers agreed that the found remains indeed belonged to the Romanov family, as well as their servants.

However, the Russian Orthodox Church still refuses to recognize the remains found near Yekaterinburg as authentic. This was because the church was not initially involved in the investigation, officials said. In this regard, the patriarch did not even come to the official burial of the remains of the royal family, which took place in 1998 at the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg.

After 2015, the study of the remains (which had to be exhumed for this purpose) continues with the participation of a commission formed by the Patriarchate. According to the latest expert findings, released on July 16, 2018, comprehensive molecular genetic examinations “confirmed that the discovered remains belonged to the former Emperor Nicholas II, members of his family and people from their entourage.”

The lawyer of the imperial house, German Lukyanov, said that the church commission will take into account the results of the examination, but the final decision will be announced at the Council of Bishops.

Canonization of the Passion-Bearers

Despite the ongoing controversy over the remains, back in 1981 the Romanovs were canonized as martyrs of the Russian Orthodox Church abroad. In Russia, this happened only eight years later, since from 1918 to 1989 the tradition of canonization was interrupted. In 2000, the murdered members of the royal family were given a special church rank - passion-bearers.

As the scientific secretary of the St. Philaret Orthodox Christian Institute, church historian Yulia Balakshina told Gazeta.Ru, passion-bearers are a special order of holiness, which some call the discovery of the Russian Orthodox Church.

“The first Russian saints were also canonized precisely as passion-bearers, that is, people who humbly, imitating Christ, accepted their death. Boris and Gleb - at the hands of their brother, and Nicholas II and his family - at the hands of the revolutionaries,” Balakshina explained.

According to the church historian, it was very difficult to canonize the Romanovs based on the fact of their lives - the family of rulers was not distinguished for pious and virtuous actions.

It took six years to complete all the documents. “In fact, in the Russian Orthodox Church there are no deadlines for canonization. However, debates about the timeliness and necessity of the canonization of Nicholas II and his family continue to this day. The main argument of opponents is that by transferring the innocently murdered Romanovs to the level of celestials, the Russian Orthodox Church deprived them of elementary human compassion,” said the church historian.

There were also attempts to canonize rulers in the West, Balakshina added: “At one time, the brother and direct heir of the Scottish Queen Mary Stuart made such a request, citing the fact that at the hour of death she demonstrated great generosity and commitment to the faith. But she is still not ready to positively resolve this issue, citing facts from the life of the ruler, according to which she was involved in the murder and accused of adultery.”

In 1894, replacing his father Alexander III, Nicholas II ascended the Russian throne. He was destined to become the last emperor not only in the great Romanov dynasty, but also in the history of Russia. In 1917, at the proposal of the Provisional Government, Nicholas II abdicated the throne. He was exiled to Yekaterinburg, where in 1918 he and his family were shot.

The Bolsheviks feared that enemy troops might enter Yekaterinburg any day now: the Red Army clearly did not have enough strength to resist. In this regard, it was decided to shoot the Romanovs without waiting for their trial. On July 16, the people appointed to carry out the sentence came to Ipatiev’s house, where the royal family was under the strictest supervision. Closer to midnight, everyone was transferred to the room intended for the execution of the sentence, which was located on the ground floor. There, after the announcement of the resolution of the Ural Regional Council, Emperor Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, their children: Olga (22 years old), Tatyana (20 years old), Maria (18 years old), Anastasia (16 years old), Alexey (14 years old), and also doctor Botkin, cook Kharitonov, another cook (his name is unknown), footman Trupp and room girl Anna Demidova were shot.

That same night, the corpses were carried in blankets to the courtyard of the house and placed in a truck, which drove out of the city onto the road leading to the village of Koptyaki. About eight versts from Yekaterinburg, the car turned left onto a forest path and reached abandoned mines in an area called Ganina Yama. The corpses were thrown into one of the mines, and the next day they were removed and destroyed...

The circumstances of the execution of Nicholas II and his family in Yekaterinburg on the night of July 16-17, 1918, as well as Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich in Perm on June 10 and a group of other members of the Romanov family in Alapaevsk on July 18 of the same year were investigated back in 1919-1921 N. A. Sokolov. He accepted the investigative case from the investigative group of General M.K. Diterichs, led it until the retreat of Kolchak’s troops from the Urals and subsequently published a complete selection of case materials in the book “The Murder of the Royal Family” (Berlin, 1925). The same factual material was covered from different angles: interpretations abroad and in the USSR differed sharply. The Bolsheviks did everything possible to hide information regarding the execution and the exact location of the burial of the remains. At first, they persistently adhered to the false version that everything was fine with Alexandra Fedorovna and her children. Even at the end of 1922, Chicherin stated that the daughters of Nicholas II were in America and they were completely safe. The monarchists clung to this lie, which was one of the reasons why there is still debate about whether any of the members of the royal family managed to avoid a tragic fate.

For almost twenty years, Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences A. N. Avdodin was investigating the death of the royal family. In 1979, he, together with film writer Geliy Ryabov, having established the place where the remains were supposed to be hidden, dug up part of them on the Koptyakovskaya road.

In 1998, in an interview with a correspondent for the newspaper “Arguments and Facts,” Geliy Ryabov said: “In 1976, when I was in Sverdlovsk, I came to Ipatiev’s house and walked around the garden among the old trees. I have a rich imagination: I saw them walking here, heard them talking - it was all imagination, a mess, but nevertheless it was a strong impression. Then I was introduced to local historian Alexander Avdodin... I found Yurovsky’s son - he gave me a copy of his father’s note (who personally shot Nicholas II with a revolver - Author). Using it, we established the burial site, from which we took out three skulls. One skull remained with Avdodin, and I took two with me. In Moscow, he turned to one of the senior officials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, with whom he had once started his service, and asked him to conduct an examination. He did not help me because he was a convinced communist. For a year, the skulls were kept at my house... The next year we gathered again in Piglet Log and returned everything to its place.” During the interview, G. Ryabov noted that some of the events that took place in those days could not be called anything other than mysticism: “The next morning after we unearthed the remains, I came there again. I approached the excavation - believe it or not - the grass grew ten centimeters overnight. Nothing is visible, all traces are hidden. Then I transported these skulls in a service Volga to Nizhny Tagil. It started to rain mushrooms. Suddenly a man appeared out of nowhere in front of the car. Driver -
The steering wheel turned sharply to the left, and the car skidded downhill. They turned over many times, fell on the roof, and all the windows flew out. The driver has a small scratch, I have nothing at all... During another trip to Porosenkov Log, I saw a series of foggy figures at the edge of the forest...”

The story associated with the discovery of remains on the Koptyakovskaya road received public outcry. In 1991, for the first time in Russia, an attempt was officially made to reveal the secret of the death of the Romanov family. For this purpose, a government commission was created. During her work, the press, along with publishing reliable data, covered a lot of things in a biased manner, without any analysis, sinning against the truth. There were disputes all around about who actually owned the exhumed bone remains that had lain for many decades under the deck of the old Koptyakovskaya road? Who are these people? What caused their death?

The results of research by Russian and American scientists were heard and discussed on July 27-28, 1992 in the city of Yekaterinburg at the international scientific and practical conference “The Last Page of the History of the Royal Family: Results of the Study of the Yekaterinburg Tragedy.” This conference was organized and conducted by the Coordination Council. The conference was closed: only historians, doctors and criminologists, who had previously worked independently of each other, were invited to it. Thus, adjustment of the results of some studies to others was excluded. The conclusions that scientists from both countries came to independently of each other turned out to be almost the same and with a high degree of probability indicated that the discovered remains belonged to the royal family and its entourage. According to expert V.O. Plaksin, the results of research by Russian and American scientists coincided on eight skeletons (out of nine found), and only one turned out to be controversial.
After numerous studies both in Russia and abroad, after labor-intensive work with archival documents, the government commission concluded: the discovered bone remains indeed belong to members of the Romanov family. Nevertheless, the controversy surrounding this topic does not subside. Some researchers still strongly refute the official conclusion of the government commission. They claim that the “Yurovsky note” is a fake, fabricated in the bowels of the NKVD.
On this occasion, one of the members of the government commission, the famous historian Edward Stanislavovich Radzinsky, giving an interview to a correspondent of the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, expressed his opinion: “So, there is a certain note from Yurovsky. Let's say we don't know what it's about. We only know that it exists and that it talks about some corpses, which the author declares to be the corpses of the royal family. The note indicates the place where the corpses are located... The burial referred to in the note is opened, and as many corpses as indicated in the note are found there - nine. What follows from this?..” E. S. Radzinsky believes that this is not just a coincidence. In addition, he indicated that DNA analysis is -99.99999...% probability. British scientists, who spent a year studying fragments of bone remains using molecular genetic methods at the forensic center of the UK Ministry of Internal Affairs in the city of Aldermaston, came to the conclusion that that the bone remains found near Yekaterinburg belong specifically to the family of the Russian Emperor Nicholas II.

To this day, reports from time to time appear in the press about people who consider themselves descendants of members of the royal house. Thus, some researchers have suggested that in 1918, one of the daughters of Nicholas II, Anastasia, passed away. Her heirs immediately began to appear. For example, Afanasy Fomin, a Red Ufa resident, counts himself among them. He claims that in 1932, when his family lived in Salekhard, two military men came to them and began to interrogate all family members in turn. Children were brutally tortured. The mother could not stand it and admitted that she was Princess Anastasia. She was dragged out into the street, blindfolded and hacked to death with sabers. The boy was sent to an orphanage. Afanasy himself learned about his belonging to the royal family from a woman named Fenya. She said that she served Anastasia. In addition, Fomin told unknown facts from the life of the royal family in the local newspaper and presented his photographs.

It was also suggested that people loyal to the Tsar helped Alexandra Fedorovna cross the border (to Germany), and she lived there for more than one year.
According to another version, Tsarevich Alexei survived. He has as many as eight dozen “descendants”. But only one of them asked for an identification examination and trial. This man is Oleg Vasilyevich Filatov. He was born in the Tyumen region in 1953. Currently lives in St. Petersburg, works in a bank.

Among those who became interested in O.V. Filatov was Tatyana Maksimova, a correspondent for the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper. She visited Filatov and met his family. She was struck by the amazing similarity between Oleg Vasilyevich’s eldest daughter Anastasia and Grand Duchess Olga, the sister of Nicholas II. And the face of the youngest daughter Yaroslavna, says T. Maksimova, strikingly resembles Tsarevich Alexei. O. V. Filatov himself says that the facts and documents that he has suggest that Tsarevich Alexei lived under the name of his father Vasily Ksenofontovich Filatov. But, according to Oleg Vasilyevich, the final conclusion must be made by the court.
...His father met his future wife at the age of 48. They were both teachers in the village school. The Filatovs first had a son, Oleg, then daughters, Olga, Irina, and Nadezhda.

Eight-year-old Oleg first heard about Tsarevich Alexei from his father while fishing. Vasily Ksenofontovich told a story that began with Alexey waking up at night on a pile of dead bodies in a truck. It was raining and the car skidded. People got out of the cabin and, swearing, began to drag the dead to the ground. Someone's hand put a revolver into Alexei's pocket. When it became clear that the car could not be pulled out without a tow, the soldiers went to the city for help. The boy crawled under the railway bridge. He reached the station by rail. There, among the carriages, the fugitive was detained by a patrol. Alexey tried to escape and fired back. All this was seen by a woman who worked as a switchman. The patrolmen caught Alexei and drove him towards the forest with bayonets. The woman ran after them screaming, then the patrolmen began shooting at her. Fortunately, the switchwoman managed to hide behind the carriages. In the forest, Alexey was pushed into the first hole he came across, and then a grenade was thrown. He was saved from death by a hole in the pit where the boy managed to sneak through. However, a fragment hit the left heel.

The boy was pulled out by the same woman. Two men helped her. They took Alexei on a handcar to the station and called a surgeon. The doctor wanted to amputate the boy’s foot, but he refused. From Yekaterinburg, Alexey was transported to Shadrinsk. There he was settled with the shoemaker Filatov, laid on the stove together with the owner's son, who was in a fever. Of the two, Alexey survived. He was given the first and last name of the deceased.

In a conversation with Filatov, T. Maksimova noted: “Oleg Vasilyevich, but the Tsarevich suffered from hemophilia - I can’t believe that wounds from bayonets and grenade fragments left him a chance of survival.” To this Filatov replied: “I only know that the boy Alexei, as his father said, after Shadrinsk, was treated for a long time in the north near the Khanty-Mansi with decoctions of pine needles and reindeer moss, forced to eat raw venison, seal, bear meat, fish and as if bull's eyes." In addition, Oleg Vasilyevich also noted that hematogen and Cahors were never transferred to them at home. All his life, my father drank an infusion of bovine blood, took vitamins E and C, calcium gluconate, and glycerophosphate. He was always afraid of bruises and cuts. He avoided contact with official medicine, and had his teeth treated only by private dentists.

According to Oleg Vasilyevich, the children began to analyze the oddities of their father’s biography when they had already matured. So, he often transported his family from one place to another: from the Orenburg region to the Vologda region, and from there to the Stavropol region. At the same time, the family always settled in remote rural areas. The children wondered: where did the Soviet geography teacher get his deep religiosity and knowledge of prayers? What about foreign languages? He knew German, French, Greek and Latin. When the children asked where their father knew languages, he answered that he learned them at the workers' school. My father also played the keyboard very well and sang. He also taught his children to read and write music. When Oleg entered Nikolai Okhotnikov’s vocal class, the teacher did not believe that the young man was taught at home - the basics were taught so skillfully. Oleg Vasilyevich said that his father taught musical notation using the digital method. After the death of his father, in 1988, Filatov Jr. learned that this method was the property of the imperial family and was inherited.

In a conversation with a journalist, Oleg Vasilyevich spoke about another coincidence. From his father’s stories, the name of the Strekotin brothers, “Uncle Andrei” and “Uncle Sasha,” was etched into his memory. It was they, together with the switchwoman, who pulled the wounded boy out of the pit and then took him to Shadrinsk. In the State Archive, Oleg Vasilyevich found out that the Red Army brothers Andrei and Alexander Strekotin actually served as guards at Ipatiev’s house.

At the Research Center for Law at St. Petersburg State University, they combined portraits of Tsarevich Alexei, aged from one and a half to 14 years, and Vasily Filatov. A total of 42 photographs were examined. The studies carried out with a high degree of reliability suggest that these photographs of a teenager and a man depict the same person at different age periods of his life.
Graphologists analyzed six letters from 1916-1918, 5 pages of the diary of Tsarevich Alexei and 13 notes of Vasily Filatov. The conclusion was as follows: we can say with complete confidence that the studied records were made by the same person.
Doctoral student of the Department of Forensic Medicine of the Military Medical Academy Andrey Kovalev compared the results of the study of the Yekaterinburg remains with the structural features of the spines of Oleg Filatov and his sisters. According to the expert, Filatov’s blood relationship with members of the Romanov dynasty cannot be ruled out.
For a final conclusion, additional research is needed, in particular DNA. In addition, the body of Oleg Vasilyevich’s father will need to be exhumed. O. V. Filatov believes that this procedure must certainly take place within the framework of a forensic medical examination. And for this you need a court decision and... money.

For 10 centuries, the domestic and foreign policies of the Russian state were determined by representatives of the ruling dynasties. As you know, the greatest prosperity of the state was under the rule of the Romanov dynasty, descendants of an old noble family. Its ancestor is considered to be Andrei Ivanovich Kobyla, whose father, Glanda-Kambila Divonovich, baptized Ivan, came to Russia in the last quarter of the 13th century from Lithuania.

The youngest of the 5 sons of Andrei Ivanovich, Fyodor Koshka, left numerous offspring, which include such surnames as the Koshkins-Zakharyins, Yakovlevs, Lyatskys, Bezzubtsevs and Sheremetyevs. In the sixth generation from Andrei Kobyla in the Koshkin-Zakharyin family there was the boyar Roman Yuryevich, from whom the boyar family, and subsequently the Romanov tsars, originated. This dynasty ruled in Russia for three hundred years.

Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov (1613 - 1645)

The beginning of the reign of the Romanov dynasty can be considered February 21, 1613, when the Zemsky Sobor took place, at which the Moscow nobles, supported by the townspeople, proposed electing 16-year-old Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov as sovereign of all Rus'. The proposal was accepted unanimously, and on July 11, 1613, in the Assumption Cathedral of the Kremlin, Mikhail was crowned king.

The beginning of his reign was not easy, because the central government still did not control a significant part of the state. In those days, robber Cossack detachments of Zarutsky, Balovy and Lisovsky were walking around Russia, ruining the state already exhausted by the war with Sweden and Poland.

Thus, the newly elected king was faced with two important tasks: first, ending hostilities with his neighbors, and second, pacifying his subjects. He was able to cope with this only after 2 years. 1615 - all free Cossack groups were completely destroyed, and in 1617 the war with Sweden ended with the conclusion of the Stolbovo Peace. According to this agreement, the Moscow state lost access to the Baltic Sea, but peace and tranquility were restored in Russia. It was possible to begin to lead the country out of a deep crisis. And here Mikhail’s government had to make a lot of efforts to restore the devastated country.

At first, the authorities took up the development of industry, for which foreign industrialists - ore miners, gunsmiths, foundry workers - were invited to Russia on preferential terms. Then the turn came to the army - it was obvious that for the prosperity and security of the state it was necessary to develop military affairs, in connection with this, in 1642, transformations began in the armed forces.

Foreign officers trained Russian military men in military affairs, “regiments of a foreign system” appeared in the country, which was the first step towards the creation of a regular army. These transformations turned out to be the last in the reign of Mikhail Fedorovich - 2 years later the tsar died at the age of 49 from “water sickness” and was buried in the Archangel Cathedral of the Kremlin.

Alexey Mikhailovich, nickname Quiet (1645-1676)

His eldest son Alexei, who, according to contemporaries, was one of the most educated people of his time, became king. He himself wrote and edited many decrees and was the first of the Russian tsars to begin signing them personally (others signed decrees for Mikhail, for example, his father Filaret). Meek and pious, Alexey earned the people's love and the nickname Quiet.

In the first years of his reign, Alexei Mikhailovich took little part in government affairs. The state was ruled by the Tsar's educator, boyar Boris Morozov, and the Tsar's father-in-law, Ilya Miloslavsky. Morozov's policy, which was aimed at increasing tax oppression, as well as Miloslavsky's lawlessness and abuses, caused popular indignation.

1648, June - an uprising broke out in the capital, followed by uprisings in southern Russian cities and in Siberia. The result of this rebellion was the removal of Morozov and Miloslavsky from power. 1649 - Alexei Mikhailovich had the opportunity to take over the rule of the country. On his personal instructions, they compiled a set of laws - the Council Code, which satisfied the basic wishes of the townspeople and nobles.

In addition, the government of Alexei Mikhailovich encouraged the development of industry, supported Russian merchants, protecting them from competition from foreign traders. Customs and new trade regulations were adopted, which contributed to the development of domestic and foreign trade. Also, during the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich, the Moscow state expanded its borders not only to the southwest, but also to the south and east - Russian explorers explored Eastern Siberia.

Feodor III Alekseevich (1676 - 1682)

1675 - Alexei Mikhailovich declared his son Fyodor heir to the throne. 1676, January 30 - Alexei died at the age of 47 and was buried in the Archangel Cathedral of the Kremlin. Fyodor Alekseevich became the sovereign of all Rus' and on June 18, 1676 he was crowned king in the Assumption Cathedral. Tsar Fedor reigned for only six years, he was extremely unindependent, power ended up in the hands of his maternal relatives - the Miloslavsky boyars.

The most important event of the reign of Fyodor Alekseevich was the destruction of localism in 1682, which provided the opportunity for promotion to not very noble, but educated and enterprising people. In the last days of the reign of Fyodor Alekseevich, a project was drawn up to establish a Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy and a theological school for 30 people in Moscow. Fyodor Alekseevich died on April 27, 1682 at the age of 22, without making any order regarding the succession to the throne.

Ivan V (1682-1696)

After the death of Tsar Fyodor, ten-year-old Pyotr Alekseevich, at the suggestion of Patriarch Joachim and at the insistence of the Naryshkins (his mother was from this family), was proclaimed tsar, bypassing his older brother Tsarevich Ivan. But on May 23 of the same year, at the request of the Miloslavsky boyars, he was approved by the Zemsky Sobor as the “second tsar,” and Ivan as the “first.” And only in 1696, after the death of Ivan Alekseevich, Peter became the sole tsar.

Peter I Alekseevich, nickname the Great (1682 - 1725)

Both emperors pledged to be allies in the conduct of hostilities. However, in 1810, relations between Russia and France began to take on an openly hostile character. And in the summer of 1812, war began between the powers. The Russian army, having expelled the invaders from Moscow, completed the liberation of Europe with a triumphal entry into Paris in 1814. The successfully ended wars with Turkey and Sweden strengthened the country's international position. During the reign of Alexander I, Georgia, Finland, Bessarabia, and Azerbaijan became part of the Russian Empire. 1825 - During a trip to Taganrog, Emperor Alexander I caught a severe cold and died on November 19.

Emperor Nicholas I (1825-1855)

After Alexander's death, Russia lived without an emperor for almost a month. On December 14, 1825, an oath was announced to his younger brother Nikolai Pavlovich. That same day, an attempted coup took place, which was later called the Decembrist uprising. The day of December 14 made an indelible impression on Nicholas I, and this was reflected in the nature of his entire reign, during which absolutism reached its highest rise, expenses for officials and the army absorbed almost all state funds. During the years, the Code of Laws of the Russian Empire was compiled - a code of all legislative acts that existed in 1835.

1826 - the Secret Committee was established, dealing with the peasant issue; in 1830, a general law on estates was developed, in which a number of improvements were designed for the peasants. About 9,000 rural schools were established for the primary education of peasant children.

1854 - the Crimean War began, ending in the defeat of Russia: according to the Paris Treaty of 1856, the Black Sea was declared neutral, and Russia was able to regain the right to have a fleet there only in 1871. It was the defeat in this war that decided the fate of Nicholas I. Not wanting to admit the error of his views and beliefs, which led the state not only to military defeat, but also to the collapse of the entire system of state power, the emperor is believed to have deliberately taken poison on February 18, 1855.

Alexander II the Liberator (1855-1881)

The next from the Romanov dynasty came to power - Alexander Nikolaevich, the eldest son of Nicholas I and Alexandra Fedorovna.

It should be noted that I was able to somewhat stabilize the situation both within the state and on the external borders. Firstly, under Alexander II, serfdom was abolished in Russia, for which the emperor was nicknamed the Liberator. 1874 - a decree was issued on universal conscription, which abolished conscription. At this time, higher educational institutions for women were created, three universities were founded - Novorossiysk, Warsaw and Tomsk.

Alexander II was able to finally conquer the Caucasus in 1864. According to the Argun Treaty with China, the Amur Territory was annexed to Russia, and according to the Beijing Treaty, the Ussuri Territory was annexed. 1864 - Russian troops began a campaign in Central Asia, during which the Turkestan region and Fergana region were captured. Russian rule extended all the way to the peaks of the Tien Shan and the foot of the Himalayan range. Russia also had possessions in the United States.

However, in 1867, Russia sold Alaska and the Aleutian Islands to America. The most important event in Russian foreign policy during the reign of Alexander II was the Russian-Turkish War of 1877–1878, which ended in the victory of the Russian army, which resulted in the declaration of independence of Serbia, Romania and Montenegro.

Russia received part of Bessarabia, seized in 1856 (except for the islands of the Danube Delta) and a monetary indemnity of 302.5 million rubles. In the Caucasus, Ardahan, Kars and Batum with their surroundings were annexed to Russia. The Emperor could have done a lot more for Russia, but on March 1, 1881, his life was tragically cut short by a bomb from Narodnaya Volya terrorists, and the next representative of the Romanov dynasty, his son Alexander III, ascended the throne. Difficult times have come for the Russian people.

Alexander III the Peacemaker (1881-1894)

During the reign of Alexander III, administrative arbitrariness increased significantly. In order to develop new lands, a massive resettlement of peasants to Siberia began. The government took care of improving the living conditions of workers - the work of minors and women was limited.

In foreign policy at this time, there was a deterioration in Russian-German relations and a rapprochement between Russia and France took place, which ended with the conclusion of the Franco-Russian alliance. Emperor Alexander III died in the fall of 1894 from kidney disease, aggravated by bruises received during a train accident near Kharkov and constant excessive consumption of alcohol. And power passed to his eldest son Nicholas, the last Russian emperor from the Romanov dynasty.

Emperor Nicholas II (1894-1917)

The entire reign of Nicholas II passed in an atmosphere of growing revolutionary movement. At the beginning of 1905, a revolution broke out in Russia, marking the beginning of reforms: 1905, October 17 - the Manifesto was published, which established the foundations of civil freedom: personal integrity, freedom of speech, assembly and unions. The State Duma was established (1906), without whose approval not a single law could enter into force.

Agrarian reform was carried out according to the project of P.A. Stolshin. In the field of foreign policy, Nicholas II took some steps to stabilize international relations. Despite the fact that Nicholas was more democratic than his father, popular discontent with the autocrat grew rapidly. At the beginning of March 1917, the Chairman of the State Duma M.V. Rodzianko told Nicholas II that the preservation of autocracy was possible only if the throne was transferred to Tsarevich Alexei.

But, given the poor health of his son Alexei, Nicholas abdicated the throne in favor of his brother Mikhail Alexandrovich. Mikhail Alexandrovich, in turn, abdicated in favor of the people. The republican era has begun in Russia.

From March 9 to August 14, 1917, the former emperor and members of his family were kept under arrest in Tsarskoye Selo, then they were transported to Tobolsk. On April 30, 1918, the prisoners were brought to Yekaterinburg, where on the night of July 17, 1918, by order of the new revolutionary government, the former emperor, his wife, children and the doctor and servants who remained with them were shot by security officers. Thus ended the reign of the last dynasty in Russian history.

The Romanovs are the great dynasty of kings and emperors of Russia, an ancient boyar family that began its existence at the end of the 16th century. and still exists today.

Etymology and history of the surname

The Romanovs are not quite the correct historical surname of the family. Initially, the Romanovs came from the Zakharyevs. However, Patriarch Filaret (Fyodor Nikitich Zakharyev) decided to take the surname Romanov in honor of his father and grandfather, Nikita Romanovich and Roman Yuryevich. This is how the family received a surname that is still used today.

The boyar family of the Romanovs gave history one of the most famous royal dynasties in the world. The first royal representative of the Romanovs was Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov, and the last was Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov. Although the royal family was interrupted, the Romanovs still exist to this day (several branches). All representatives of the great family and their descendants live abroad today, about 200 people have royal titles, but none of them has the right to lead the Russian throne in the event of the return of the monarchy.

The large Romanov family was called the House of Romanov. The huge and extensive family tree has connections with almost all the royal dynasties of the world.

In 1856 the family received an official coat of arms. It depicts a vulture holding a golden sword and a tarch in its paws, and along the edges of the coat of arms are eight severed lion heads.

Background to the emergence of the Romanov royal dynasty

As already mentioned, the Romanov family descended from the Zakharyevs, but where the Zakharyevs came to the Moscow lands is unknown. Some scholars believe that family members were natives of the Novgorod land, and some say that the first Romanov came from Prussia.

In the 16th century. The boyar family received a new status, its representatives became relatives of the sovereign himself. This happened due to the fact that he married Anastasia Romanovna Zakharyina. Now all of Anastasia Romanovna’s relatives could count on the royal throne in the future. The opportunity to take the throne came very soon, after the suppression. When the question of further succession to the throne arose, the Romanovs came into play.

In 1613, the first representative of the family, Mikhail Fedorovich, was elected to the throne. The era of the Romanovs began.

Tsars and emperors from the Romanov family

Starting from Mikhail Fedorovich, several more kings from this family ruled in Rus' (five in total).

These were:

• Fedor Alekseevich Romanov;
• Ivan the 5th (Ioann Antonovich);

In 1721, Rus' was finally reorganized into the Russian Empire, and the sovereign received the title of emperor. The first emperor was Peter the 1st, who until recently was called Tsar. In total, the Romanov family gave Russia 14 emperors and empresses. After Peter the 1st they ruled:

The end of the Romanov dynasty. The Last of the Romanovs

After the death of Peter the 1st, the Russian throne was often occupied by women, but Paul the 1st passed a law according to which only a direct heir, a man, could become emperor. Since then, women have no longer ascended the throne.

The last representative of the imperial family was Nicholas II, who received the nickname Bloody for the thousands of people who died during the two great revolutions. According to historians, Nicholas II was a fairly mild ruler and made several unfortunate mistakes in domestic and foreign policy, which led to the escalation of the situation within the country. Unsuccessful, and also greatly undermined the prestige of the royal family and the sovereign personally.

In 1905, an outbreak broke out, as a result of which Nicholas was forced to give the people the desired civil rights and freedoms - the power of the sovereign weakened. However, this was not enough, and in 1917 it happened again. This time Nicholas was forced to resign his powers and renounce the throne. But this was not enough: the royal family was caught by the Bolsheviks and imprisoned. The monarchical system of Russia gradually collapsed in favor of a new type of government.

On the night of July 16-17, 1917, the entire royal family, including Nicholas's five children and his wife, was shot. The only possible heir, Nikolai's son, also died. All relatives hiding in Tsarskoe Selo, St. Petersburg and other places were found and killed. Only those Romanovs who were abroad survived. The reign of the Romanov imperial family was interrupted, and with it the monarchy in Russia collapsed.

Results of the Romanov reign

Although during the 300 years of rule of this family there were many bloody wars and uprisings, on the whole the power of the Romanovs brought benefits to Russia. It was thanks to the representatives of this family that Rus' finally moved away from feudalism, increased its economic, military and political power and turned into a huge and powerful empire.