Murder of the Imperial Family 17 July 1918

[Russophile]

Calculated on Yurovsky's part. And probably Ermakov's as well. That man was psychotic to say the least. The other assassins were not prepared for the GD's that did not die due to the corsets, the guns jamming, the smoke from inefficient weaponry.
It was botched, plain and simple.

[pamela18335]

Hereditary Thane, what you say about "thousands of ordinary Russian families" may be, in fact, true. Nicky's father (Alexander III) certainly ruled with an iron fist, and Nicky was never properly prepared to be a Tsar, nor did he wish to be. I'm quite sure that much was done in his name that he knew nothing about.

Having said that, what Russian families suffered at the hands of Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia or Alexei? Or the servants, for that matter?

[pamela18335]

Russophile, and cold and heartless, to boot.

[lucien]

Originally Posted by pamela18335

Hereditary Thane, what you say about "thousands of ordinary Russian families" may be, in fact, true. Nicky's father (Alexander III) certainly ruled with an iron fist, and Nicky was never properly prepared to be a Tsar, nor did he wish to be. I'm quite sure that much was done in his name that he knew nothing about.

Having said that, what Russian families suffered at the hands of Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia or Alexei? Or the servants, for that matter?

Royal Russia News: In Memory of The Royal Martyrs 17 July, 1918

[AGRBear]

Originally Posted by Hereditary Thane

It was not even judicial murder: it was a brutal and calculated slaughter. Let us not forget, however that tens of thousands of ordinary Russian families suffered atrociously under the autocracy, as well as the the direct orders of Romanov family members, equalled only by the rabid communists who followed on.

Are you saying that Nicholas II directly ordered tens of thousands of Russian families to suffer an extremely wicked or cruel act, typically one involving physical violence or injury? If so, are you talking about a decree of some kind? If so, what was it? Did he order mass murder? If so, who did he order to die? The pogroms? Or, are you talking about all the peasants' general condition due to the lack of food by taking it from them and selling it abroad? I'm not defending Nicholas II, just wondering how you came about with the numbers and what your source is.

Acutally, I don't think that all the Romanovs atrocities put together would equal what the communists did from 1917 to 1939, which was a mere 22 years.

[Furienna]

1939? The communist regime lasted fifty years after that!

[ortino]

Grand Duke Serge was a known anti-Semite, who wanted to purge Moscow of all Jews. The last Tsar was known to be an anti-Semite also. Pogroms were common in pre-1917 Russia.

[Carminha Stalker]

No matter how people want to portray Nicholas II as a butcher and cruel tyrant, I am sure that many of the things that were done supposedly by his orders, were unknown to him. I´m not claining he was blameless, but his wife, and his children, his servants and the ones who accompanied them to their graves, certainly were . And aftewards? Can you compare anything to the terror of the Stalin years where millions of people were sent to their deaths or gulags, for mere suspicions.

[AGRBear]

Originally Posted by Furienna

1939? The communist regime lasted fifty years after that!

Yes, I know Bolshevism and Communism lasted longer.

I used the 22 years because this is when the Revolution, Civil War, the exiled millions to Siberia to the time of the great famine occurred. The number estimated who died is 25 million.

The number of 25 million was not my own.
On p. 385 of The White General by Richard Luckert

" At the end of the Civil War, Soviet Russia was exhausted and ruined. The droughts of 1920 and 1921 and the frightful famine during that last year added the final, gruesome chapter to the disaster. In the years following the originally "bloodless" October Revolution, epidemics, starvation, fighting, executions, and the general breakdown of the economy and society had taken something like twenty million lives. Another million had left Russia -- with General Wrangel, through the Far East, or in numerous other ways - rather than accept Communist rule, the emigres included a high proportion of educated and skilled people. War Communism might have saved the Soviet government in the course of the Civil War, but it also helped greatly to wreck the nation's economy. With private industry and trade proscribed and the state unable to perform these functions on a sufficient scale, much of the Russian economy ground to a standstill. It has been estimated that the total output of mines and factories fell in 1921 to 20 per cent if the pre-World War level, with many crucial items experiencing an even more drastic decline. Production of cotton, for example, fell to 5 per cent, iron to 2 per cent, of the prewar level. The peasants responded to requisitioning by refusing to till their land. By 1921 cultivated land had shrunk to some 62 per cent of the prewar area, and the harvest yield was only about 37 percent of normal. The number of horses declined from 35 million in 1916 to 24 million in 1920, and cattle from 58 to 37 million during the same span of time. The exchange rate of the US dollar, which had been two rubles in 1914, rose to 1,200 in 1920."


AGRBear

[COUNTESS]

Originally Posted by Carminha Stalker

No matter how people want to portray Nicholas II as a butcher and cruel tyrant, I am sure that many of the things that were done supposedly by his orders, were unknown to him. I´m not claining he was blameless, but his wife, and his children, his servants and the ones who accompanied them to their graves, certainly were . And aftewards? Can you compare anything to the terror of the Stalin years where millions of people were sent to their deaths or gulags, for mere suspicions.

And, Hitler, actually, personally never killed anyone and loved dogs. I have heard this nonsense, too. This is all facades. Nicholas and his family were quite well aware of the pogroms against Jews in his kingdom. Small Jewish town obliterated and woman and children killed along side men and boys. Living in constant fear of the next "spontaneous" demonstration. Stalin was no better, so there, really, was no improvement, except the common people lived better and did have better prospects for themselves. Not great, but better. On that note, I still don't believe they should have been massacared. That was wrong, too. The large inflation referred to, plagued European nations, too.

[Russophile]

Originally Posted by COUNTESS

And, Hitler, actually, personally never killed anyone and loved dogs.

So did Charlie Manson.

[COUNTESS]

Right, but at least we had the sense to lock him up.

[Russophile]

Originally Posted by COUNTESS

Right, but at least we had the sense to lock him up.

However he's still spewing his filth to the world and being glamourized in song. Not unlike those sent to Siberia who kept writing their revolutionary tracts in exile to be smuggled out. However! Russo is not advocating blowing everybody away, she is just pointing out that that was the times. There was major need of reform and NII was not up to the job.

[COUNTESS]

Originally Posted by Russophile

However he's still spewing his filth to the world and being glamourized in song. Not unlike those sent to Siberia who kept writing their revolutionary tracts in exile to be smuggled out. However! Russo is not advocating blowing everybody away, she is just pointing out that that was the times. There was major need of reform and NII was not up to the job.

Oh, I agreed with you. I never hear anything about the Manson creep, only when he come up for parole. I was just saying that the powers that were knew of all the atrocities, but killing Alix and the children, made them no better.

[kell]

Russia-InfoCentre :: New Evidence of Imperial Family’s Fate Found near Yekaterinburg New evidences of execution of the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II and his family have been found in Sverdlovsk Region.

As the regional Research-and-Development Center for Protection and Exploitation of History and Culture Monuments reported on September, 29th, experts found crocks of Japanese jugs, from which the dead bodies of tsar’s family members had been poured sulfuric acid on. They were unearthed in the area of Old Koptyakovskaya Road.

[kell]

Interfax-Religion Moscow, September 28, Interfax - The new artifacts found in the Sverdlovsk Region have confirmed the need for a new investigation into the death of Nicholas II and his family, Alexander Zakatov, the head of the Romanov Family Chancellery, told Interfax.

"The new finds indicate that not everything has been investigated yet. For this reason, the investigation should be continued. There are still a lot of things that are unclear," Zakatov said.

The Romanov family is not ready yet to recognize the authenticity of the remains found near Yekaterinburg. In addition, the Romanov family are demanding the resumption of the investigation into the criminal case involving

[AGRBear]

The latest forensic news must have gotten passed me, and, just a few days ago I watched SnowyHistory, a video on the latest information on what was found in the grave of Alexie and one of his sisters [Marie or Anastasia]. I found the section about the three bullets found in this new grave very interesting. The test on the two good bullets were made to prove they came from the same guns fired at the victims found in the mass grave. I believe there were about 25 bullets collected by the Whites in 1918 and later in the mass grave by the Russians. It is, now, a prove fact the two good bullets do not match any of the 25. It is believed the two newly discovered bullets were fired from a Browning that was manufactured earlier than 1918. And, the caliber was different. The third newly discovered bullet seems to fall into the same category as the two good bullets but was too damaged to make a match. This means, we do not know who shot and killed the two, Alexis, and a sister, who were found in their graves in 2007. We know who carried the two Brownings who fired the bullets already identified and listed among the 25. The shooters were Nikulin and Kudrin. Both fired at the royal family in the basement and have been identified. There hasn't been any mention of a third Browning in anything I've read up to this point in time.

I do not know if all three bullets were found with Alexei or with the remains of his sister. They were together but in separate graves that formed a "T".

http://www.youtube.com/user/SnowyHis.../3/HonT60qAB0g

Video is found here.

Time about 7:54

AGRBear

[AGRBear]

Ballistics questions on dates:

Date 11 July 1991: The layers of the grave as the bones were being dug up and removed were:
1. Top-layer was 30 centimeters
2. Railroad ties with "redeposited soil" - southern wall of mass grave then stones, branches, rotten wood
3. First bone uncovered was left pelvic bone of human remains at depth of 50 centimeters
4. Found the box with three skulls, sacrum, glass ampoules and viles [human hair and frgments of skin], two lumbar vertebrae, kneecaps, two jaw fragments with teeth, a lower jaw, two loose teeth two vertebra from neck, a right rib bone, two metcarpal bones, a right hipbone, portion of a left shoulder bone, which had been placed in the pit in 1980 by Ryabov and Avdonin who had returned what they had found and taken out. The box was taken up and opened.
--

12 July 1991
5. Determined the dig in 1979 had damaged the integrity of the 1918 grave
6. Pit was widen and deepen
7. More bones found as well as fragments of vessels which is assumed were what had held the acid used in 1918.... rope...
8. The laying of a cable was noticed on the western corner of the pit
9. See diagram of now the bones were found....

[unclear when the following was found]
10. firing mechanism from a hand grenade
11. bullets: fourteen bullets from the following:
a. one - 7.63 mm Mauser
b. four were from:
Browning
Colt
Smith & Wesson
c. nine were from:
Russian Nagant revolvers
--

13 July 1991- Exhumation ended
----

For more details see THE FATE OF THE ROMANOVS b y Wilson and King pps. 402-8
----
23 July to 25 July 1991

Bones were taken from the grave and to the Upper Verkh-Isetsk Police Departemnt's shooting range which is on the edge of Sverdlovsk

On ten sheets of plain brown wrapping paper the bones were sorted [ the tenth were for the "we don't know" pile
----
Days which followed.

Bones were cleaned and washed and it is said that some bones crumbled into dust during this process....
-----
8 Aug 1991
Moscow authorized the formal investigation of the bones under the leadship of Dr. Bladislav Plaskin

All bones were numbered with white paint
-----

End of Sept.
Remains were moved to the Department of Criminal Pathology morgue in Sverdlovsk, third floor and behind a gated and locked door.... Bones were placed on metal autopsy tables and arranged...

Total of 500 bone fragments were left [there are 206 individal bones in each human body]....
------
Second dig of mass grave

Oct 1991
12. 300 bone fragments were found
13. 13 loose teeth
14. 11 bullets
15. 150 small pieces of fatty tissue
16. fragments of rope and ceramic
----
Found: 25 bullets

Only 14 we know for certain came out of the mass grave. The other 11 were found while sifting dirt that was lefted by bulldozer shovels which included not just the grave but ground around the grave.

The Russians were not using the best of forensic methods in the first or second digging.

New graves found in 2007:
3 bullets that do not match any of the 25 bullets before 2007....

Added to numbers of bullets found are the 11 bullets found in the collection of Sokolov, the last White investigator in 1918 before the Reds reentered Ekaterinburg. The total is 39.

http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s...j/terrible.jpg
The books is the last diary of Alexei's found in the village of __?___ [On AP we're told it was found at Letemin]. Notice what looks like a bullet hole in the pages.

AGRBear

[AdmiralSteven]

Originally Posted by Michael HR

Just reading it, even though we all know what took place, makes your blood run cold. If only they could have died straight away it would have been much easier on them. Innocent young girls and a ill boy I'm sure Moscow would have been proud!

Everytime I read what happens, or think about it for that matter, I get sick to my stomach.

[Vasillisos Markos]

Kell set up a link, in another thread, to a 1998 article about the reburial of the Romanov remains and that made me wonder how the experts think it is Marie and not one of her sisters whose bones are still missing. Is it based on the size of the other female bones? Or on the written accounts of the executioners? Does anyone know? I think Alexei and Marie?'s bones were later discovered.

I found another part of the article interesting. I knew that Prince Phillip donated DNA which was used to identify Alexandra but I never knew poor Georgie was disinterred and a slice of his DNA was used to identify Nicky's remains. Georgie who led such a short life came in useful at the end. I wonder if they can locate Michael's bones this way as well?