2009 Identification of the remains found in July 2007

[Warren]

Originally Posted by AGRBear

My question to Warren and others: Don't some of you ever wonder why in these last 90 years that the leading Russian politicians have always been in a hurry in putting the lid on this story with hopes of shoving it off to some archive where it will cause people to loose interests and end up just gathering dust and when it vanishes from the archies, no one will take notice?

Depends on which conspiracy theory you choose to believe. Myself? Rather than jumping to conclusions based on uncorroborated reports I'd prefer to wait for the result and see what it actually says. As I don't have a predetermined opinion on this particular investigation, I'll take it as it comes. As to people "losing interest", or the fate of the Romanovs "gathering dust and when it vanishes from the archives no one will take notice", I think you underestimate peoples' intelligence.

Discussion of the fate of the Princes in the Tower (now there's a real cover-up!) continues to this day, and that happened in 1485. So there's no need to worry, the story of the Imperial Family and Ekaterinburg will be around for a long time yet.

[AGRBear]

Jumping to conclusions? I hardly think that is what I and others are doing. For example: How can the Russians continue to claim that the missing grand duchess from the mass grave is Maria? Especially, now, when they claim that they, now, have found remains of the missing grand duchess who's height is estimated to be the shortest female, GD Anastasia's estimated height, whereas Maria was one of the tallest of Nicholas II's children.

What makes the Princess in the Tower a "real cover-up" when the execution of Nicholas II, his family and the others were not "a real cover-up"??? My goodness, Lenin and the top officials claimed in July of 1918 they had only executed Nicholas II and taken the others to a safe place. If the Whites hadn't gone into Ekaterinburg that same July and set up various investigations, do you honestly think we'd know what we know today?

Conspiracies? Which one would you like to discuss in detail? Russians have always been deep into conspiracies. All countries have.

To provide an example of the fear, which still existed in Russia around the execution and buriel of Nicholas II, as late as 1991, all you have to do is read Edward Radzinsky's book THE LAST TSAR as he secretly sought out people to interview about the death of Nicholas II and the others. True, Radzinsky does appear to outsiders as being too dramatic, but was he? Let me remind you, he was seeking out a story that the communists wanted to keep in a box with a very tight lid. There were still enough "good old boys" around who wanted to let sleeping dogs lie and would have done something to keep the lid tight if they had known. Another example: It took the people who had found the mass graves from 1979 to 1991 to build up the nerve to admit they had found the mass grave as well as wait for a better political environment.

Yes, I have asked many questions. Questions should be asked. And the answers should be provided, now, and later since they have nothing to hide. Does this mean I have a "predetermined opinion"? Let's just say, the track record of the high Russian officials on the subject of the execution of Nicholas II and the others hasn't been "the truth and nothing but the truth", so I tend to have a very reserved attitude toward information being provided.

AGRBear

[Warren]

Originally Posted by AGRBear

Questions should be asked. And the answers should be provided, now,

It's rather pointless demanding answers "now" when the investigation hasn't been completed, the report hasn't been published, and none of us know what it will contain.

[AGRBear]

The final report on the mass grave tells us the Russians believe GD Maria is the one missing.

Dr. Maples, who was more than qualified, voiced the 3 young female remains found in the mass grave were GDs Olga, Tatiana and Maria. GD Anastasia was not one of the three.

True, the final report on the remains found last July in the two pits hasn't been given, but, Rossel, the Gov. of Ekaterinburg, who is the spokesman, tells the world that tests have been made and idenitification is certain, the female is the missing grand duchess. Which grand duchess? GD Maria.

And, you think we're not suppose to be asking questions. [Bear shakes her head with disbelief.]

And, yes, of course, it's up to those of you running this forum as to what you'd like posted. If you don't want me to question anything until the report is public, I'll abide by your rules, just as you would abide by my rules on my forum.

AGRBear

[Warren]

I wasn't aware I was making any rules. I was merely stating the fact that until we know what the investigation reveals it seems a premature and empty exercise posing rhetorical questions since you and I both know that no-one here is in a position to provide any answers.

I think it unlikely that those involved in the DNA analysis will be posting a running commentary of their activities either here or in your forum, so the end result is the same.

[Russophile]

Originally Posted by AGRBear

Jumping to conclusions?

Again, many thanks Bear for saying so eloquently what I could not. This is exactly what I was thinking of, but for the life of me couldn't say, when I was addressing OlgaNicolievna.

[J Kendrick]

Originally Posted by Warren

Depends on which conspiracy theory you choose to believe. Myself? Rather than jumping to conclusions based on uncorroborated reports I'd prefer to wait for the result and see what it actually says. As I don't have a predetermined opinion on this particular investigation, I'll take it as it comes. As to people "losing interest", or the fate of the Romanovs "gathering dust and when it vanishes from the archives no one will take notice", I think you underestimate peoples' intelligence.

Discussion of the fate of the Princes in the Tower (now there's a real cover-up!) continues to this day, and that happened in 1485. So there's no need to worry, the story of the Imperial Family and Ekaterinburg will be around for a long time yet.

Who said anything about conspiracy theories? I'm just talking about reading the signs...

Take, for example, the sudden last minute involvement of the Innsbruck, Austria lab at the very same time that Ekaterinburg Gov. Rossel is busy grandstanding in front of the media to claim to the world that it's over.

(... and unless anybody didn't notice, it had actually taken Mr. Rossel two good kicks at the can before the media would pay his claims any real attention. The first was when Rossel had initially issued his statement through a spokesperson in the Governor's public information office back on April 11th ... and the second was not until almost three weeks later when Rossel himself had made the statement in front of the media on April 30th and had then added those three little magic letters... D-N-A... that finally caught all of the attention that he was hoping for.)

So... Here we now have the sudden involvement of Innsbruck (which has had no previous connection to the Romanov investigation) on the one hand ... while over on the other hand... we also have world-wide public attention now being distracted at the very same time by Governor Rossel who is busy granstanding in front of the media...

A classic case of misdirection... if ever I've seen one...

So, why involve Innsbruck at the very last minute? It surely cannnot be just for confirmation, because they already have four labs involved in the testing... Moscow, Ekaterinburg, the US AFIP, and the University of Massachusetts. How much more confirmation could they possibly need?

With only forty-odd broken bone fragments and just seven teeth to work with, they simply cannot afford to keep sending out sample after sample for more and more testing without spreading the evidence out far too thinly.... and still manage to set aside enough of those same bone fragments for burial... given that we already know some of those same bone fragments are far too damaged to produce any sort of DNA result.

In the past, Innsbruck has been the lab that they will turn to when the tests have not been turning out exactly as people had been expecting... the most recent example being the case of Mozart's skull, where it was finally decided after Innsbruck became involved that the results were inconclusive.

It simply stands to reason that the more DNA labs they now bring into the testing at this late stage.... the more likely it then becomes that there must be something that they were expecting see in those test results that they're having some trouble finding. Innsbruck's last minute involvement can only be to help out because there's something about those same DNA tests that has not been working out exactly as they had expected.

So....

If that is the reason that Innsbuck has now been brought in to help with the testing at the very last minute... to now help them look for something in the DNA that they still can't find in those bone fragments... while the Governor Edvard Rossel is busy distracting the media's attention away from the lab work that's still being done...

Then what can it possibly be, exactly, that the labs are still looking for... and that they have now asked Innsbruck to help them with... that they still can't find?

JK

[BorisRom]

New historical examination is necessary in addition to genetic examination for valid identification of the remains found near Ekaterinburg (both "old", and "new" remains).


Ekaterinburg. On May, 19th. INTERFAX - Director of Institute of history and archeology of the Ural branch of the Russian Academy of Science academician Veniamin Alekseev considers, that the genetic examination (one only)is not enough to recognize «the Ekaterinburg remains» belonging members of family of emperor Nicholas II.
"Valid truth is not present in this question till now. «The truth» is monopolized by criminalists, genetics, - and it is necessary to correlate their data with historical data. Historical certificates not always coincide with the final conclusions of genetics", - V.Alekseevhas declared on Monday in Ekaterinburg at the conference, devoted the 140 anniversary from the date of a birth of last Russian emperor.
As the academician has explained "Interfax", ten more years back, at detection of the first burial place, he insisted on carrying out of historical examination -"in this case anybody would not has doubts whether the remains found near Ekaterinburg are the remains of Imperial family".
"It is a shame to me to be abroad when there anybody speaks: you (Russians) have killed Tsar and his family, - and moreover you even cannot understand in it and cannot found the remains till now", - V.Alekseev has emphasized.
The Academician has noted, that historical examination is begun now, however many documents, including abroad, are stored under a signature stamp "confidentially" (secret).
http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=24530 (in Russian)

[BorisRom]

Tests of "royal remains" almost completed

Yekaterinburg, May 20, Interfax - The Institute for Forensic Medicine in Innsbruck, Austria, has almost completed the examination of the so-called "royal remains", chief of the Sverdlovsk regional bureau of forensic medicine Nikolay Nevolin said.
"Basically, the U.S. laboratories have finished their tests," he told journalists in Yekaterinburg on Tuesday.
"Russian experts will also complete tests by June, if everything goes according to the plan," Nevolin said
"Then in July the commission will probably start work that will include both Russia and foreign specialists," he said.
The commission will evaluate the results of all the examinations conducted, and will also be able to recommend further tests to make sure they do not raise any doubts and meet all international standards, he said.
In July 2007, during the excavation on the Staraya Koptyakovskaya road near Yekaterinburg, two human bodies with signs of a violent death were found. Early data suggest that those were the remains of a child aged between ten and 14 and of a young woman aged 20.
The theory that is currently being investigated is that the found remains could be those of Crown Prince Alexey and Grand Duchess Maria, executed in 1918.
http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=4693

[J Kendrick]

Originally Posted by BorisRom

Tests of "royal remains" almost completed

Yekaterinburg, May 20, Interfax - The Institute for Forensic Medicine in Innsbruck, Austria, has almost completed the examination of the so-called "royal remains", chief of the Sverdlovsk regional bureau of forensic medicine Nikolay Nevolin said.
"Basically, the U.S. laboratories have finished their tests," he told journalists in Yekaterinburg on Tuesday.
"Russian experts will also complete tests by June, if everything goes according to the plan," Nevolin said
"Then in July the commission will probably start work that will include both Russia and foreign specialists," he said.
The commission will evaluate the results of all the examinations conducted, and will also be able to recommend further tests to make sure they do not raise any doubts and meet all international standards, he said.
In July 2007, during the excavation on the Staraya Koptyakovskaya road near Yekaterinburg, two human bodies with signs of a violent death were found. Early data suggest that those were the remains of a child aged between ten and 14 and of a young woman aged 20.
The theory that is currently being investigated is that the found remains could be those of Crown Prince Alexey and Grand Duchess Maria, executed in 1918.
http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=4693

So...

Nikolai Nevolin has now said: "Then in July the commission will probably start work that will include both Russia and foreign specialists... The commission will evaluate the results of all the examinations conducted, and will also be able to recommend further tests to make sure they do not raise any doubts and meet all international standards."

Does this then mean that the results will not now be known until *after* the July 17th 2008 90th Anniversary of the murders?

... and now we are told that they might be recommending even more testing when the commission meets in July? If the Ekaterinburg Governor Edvard Rossel's clearly premature claims of three weeks ago are really to be taken as reliable... then what possible reason could there be now after having gone through this entire DNA process for the past ten months for conducting still yet another round of "further tests"?

They already have at least five DNA labs we know about that have been involved in this latest testing... Moscow, Ekaterinburg, the US AFIP, the University of Massachusetts, and now Innsbruck, Austria.... and a couple of these very same facilities are known to be among the best DNA labs on the planet... but now, after almost an entire year, they're hinting again at having to do even more testing?

What gives?

Clearly... All is not as it first appears.

JK

[Warren]

Originally Posted by J Kendrick

what possible reason could there be now

Maybe the labs and teams are just being thorough. We'll find out more when the results of the analysis are released. After ninety years, a few more months or more before the mystery is resolved (or not) isn't too long a wait.

[J Kendrick]

Originally Posted by Warren

Maybe the labs and teams are just being thorough. We'll find out more when the results of the analysis are released. After ninety years, a few more months or more before the mystery is resolved (or not) isn't too long a wait.

This has been going on for ten long months now and still with no clear end in sight. Any suggestion that's now being made that the labs are only being thorough, after this great length of time, is clearly little more than an excuse.

The entire world has always been perfectly willing and eager to write off the cases of any claimed Romanov survivors in a matter of mere weeks... or even days... and yet... the sorts of DNA tests that are necessary to prove the cases of either a claimed Romanov survivor or those 40-odd bone fragments of claimed missing remains found last summer along the old Koptyaki Road are exactly the same.

The types of tests and procedures that are necessary to prove these cases have been well-known and firmly in place for all of the past fifteen years. Whether it's the bones of a claimed survivor found half a world away or the 40-odd bone fragments that were found last summer just seventy yards from the first burial site of the so-called "Ekaterinburg remains"... the necessary lab work is exactly the same... and should not take any longer than it does with any other such case.

Fourteen years ago, it had taken Dr. Peter Gill just 15 weeks... from the first day of his arrival in Charlottesville, Virginia on the 19th of June 1994 to the final day of the London press conference on the 5th of October of that very same year... to collect the Anderson/Manahan samples from Martha Jefferson Hospital in the US... to fly them home to his lab in England... do all the necessary tests... and to find an alternative match with the Franzisca Schanskowska relative Karl Maucher... all in the very short space of just over three months.

... and that was just the one lab...

This time around we now have five labs involved... some of the very best labs on the planet... the very same labs that set the standards... labs that are now working with well-tested, well-established, and very well known procedures...

...and they're certainly not having to break any new technical ground here as they had been back in 1992 and '93 with the original testing of the first "Ekaterinburg remains"...

... but here we now are ten months later... and they're still stalling.

Given what has now been said by Nikolai Nevolin in yesterday's (May 20th 2008) Interfax report, it now becomes readily apparent that the much anticipated target date that is less than two months away of the July 17th Ninetieth Anniversary of the murders has fallen by the wayside.

If the Ekaterinburg Governor Edvard Rossel's now highly publicized but obviously premature claims of just last month are to be given any serious credence, then this whole thing should, certainly, have been well cut and dry by now. But here we now are with Gospodin Nikolai Nevolin announcing just yesterday the meeting of a commission in July that will evaluate the tests even further... and now he is hinting at the possibility of yet even more testing.

They're moving the goal posts again. That much is obvious.. and the longer they now continue to drag this thing on... the far more likely it then becomes that their latest lab results cannot have been turning out exactly as they had expected... or there must now be something missing in the details of those tests that they had all been expecting to find in their work on those same 40-odd bones fragments that still is not showing up in their lab results.

JK

[BorisRom]

Dear John,
I think, you are right.
Moreover, - I think - we can wait even more sensational results:
How much I remember, the American laboratories should execute the genetic examinations not only new remains, but they wished to execute repeated genetic examination of old remains (1998) which part was stored in Ekaterinburg and has been transferred to them for repeated examination on a belonging to Imperial family .
As results of repeated examination of old remains also are not promulgated till now - hence, we can assume, that these results have not confirmed their belonging to Imperial family also.
What are your opinion?

[J Kendrick]

There are two possible reasons for their decision to re-examine the remains from the first burial pit as part of this latest investigation.

One possibility might well be that they would want to re-examine the bones that were uncovered in 1991 in order to confirm the previous identification work that was done by Drs. Peter Gill and Pavel Ivanov... based, in part, on the suspicions that have been raised by the many who have doubted the identification because of the apparent lack of any "Otsu" mark on the skull of Body Four (Nicholas)...

But...

Remembering here that the prime goal of this latest investigation is to identify those 40-odd bone fragments that are now thought by many to belong to the two missing Romanov teen-agers....

The far more likely possibility is that the investigating scientists will now want to re-examine the remains from the first burial pit in order to search for the required genetic evidence of that suspected faulty Factor VIII gene in the bones of the female members of the family who are believed to be carriers of hemophilia.

If the latest DNA tests of the 40-odd bone fragments that were found last July have somehow failed to find any evidence of that suspected faulty Factor VIII gene... then the investigating scientists would still have four more chances of finding that evidence in the bones from the first burial pit.

If they cannot find the faulty Factor VIII gene in any of these new bone fragments from last summer's discovery then they must now go looking for that evidence in the bones of the other suspected carriers from the 1991 exhumation.... Body Three (Olga).. Bodies Five and Six (the still unidentified daughters)... and Body Seven (Alexandra).

If the tests of the remains from the first burial pit are then also unsuccessful... if there is no genetic evidence of a faulty Factor VIII gene to be found in the bones of Body Seven... if there is no such evidence to be found either in the bones of Bodies Three, Five, and Six... then both Alexandra and her daughters could not have been carriers of the disease. If that then does prove to be the case... if there is no evidence to be found of a faulty Factor VIII gene in any of the bones from the first burial pit... then the Tsarevich Alexei's blood disorder has been misdiagnosed.

.. and the DNA identification of those 40-odd bone fragments that were found last summer may then also be compromised.

JK

[Russophile]

Holy Schnikies John!
That would be HUGE! And would confirm that the impossible (survivors) could have been possible!

[J Kendrick]

Here we now are at the end of May... after we had all been told numerous times since about last Christmas by the investigating authorities that we should be expecting an answer by sometime in April or May... the same two months that have now come and gone... and still nothing.

Instead, we now have Nikolai Nevolin telling us all to expect a commission to meet in July, when they could then ask for even more DNA tests to be done... when we know that they've already been testing for at least the past five months...

So...

About this now sudden return of the word "commission"... a word which we had last heard used in connection with the Romanov investigation more than ten long years ago...

Is this, then, planned to be a totally new commission that we are now told will be meeting in July... with new members... and a new mandate?

... or ...

Is this, instead, likely to be some sort of resurrection of the original Yeltsin-appointed State Romanov Commission... the 22-member commission which had last made any sort of public appearance more a decade ago... all the way back there in January of 1998 when it had then approved plans for the formal burial of the "Ekaterinburg remains" in July of that same year?

JK

[Russophile]

Originally Posted by J Kendrick

Instead, we now have Nikolai Nevolin telling us all to expect a commission to meet in July, when they could then ask for even more DNA tests to be done... when we know that they've already been testing for at least the past five months...

Which would prove your earlier post of they are not finding what they need to find so they are trying to find a way to find it.


(Did that make sense? )

[AGRBear]

I think soooooo......

AGRBear

[Warren]

Originally Posted by Russophile

Which would prove your earlier post...

Nothing can be "proved" at this stage of proceedings. Since we are agreed that we don't know exactly what is going on, everything from our vantage point is supposition and speculation. This may turn out to be correct (or not); we'll just have to wait and see.

[Elspeth]

Originally Posted by J Kendrick

There are two possible reasons for their decision to re-examine the remains from the first burial pit as part of this latest investigation.

The actual reason is what it is, and if they haven't chosen to divulge the reasons then we don't know what they are. Your assertion that there are only two possible reasons doesn't necessarily make it so. Their reason might be one of your two, or it might be something else that none of us have thought of. We don't know.