FINAL WARNING: The Council on Foreign Relations
son (Aleksei), and four daughters (Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and
Anastasia); as well as Dr. Eugene Botkin, the imperial physician, and
three servants; and murdered them in the basement of the Ipatiev
house in Ekaterinburg (now Sverdlovsk). They took their bodies
fourteen miles away to the abandoned Four Brothers Mine, soaked the
bodies with gasoline, attempted to burn them, and buried them in the
swamp. They were only successful in burning the two youngest ones,
Aleksei and Anastasia. Their personal belongings were thrown down a
mine shaft. Fearing that they would be discovered, two days later, the
bodies were retrieved. Those remaining were buried in the middle of a
dirt road, where in 1979, they were discovered by a local historian and
Soviet television personality, who excavated two skulls, analyzed
them, and then reburied them. The discovery was finally announced in
1989.In 1991, the final resting place of the Romanov’s was “reopened for the
last time,” and the remains, a box of bones purported to be five of the
seven Romanov’s, were removed for DNA analysis. In 1995, the tests
results were released, which indicated that the remains were that of
the Royal family. However, many Russians doubted the claims, and in
1998, when a funeral was finally held, the head of the Russian
Orthodox Church ordered the officiating priest not to refer to
Romanov’s by name, but instead, as the “victims of the Revolution.”
The priest said before the funeral: “The truth is I don’t know who I am
burying.”According to the official report, there were a total of 23 people in the
cellar, which measured 17 feet by 14 feet. One of the first investigator’s
on the scene, Captain Malinovsky, of the Officer’s Commission,
concluded: “As a result of my work on this case I became convinced
that the imperial family was alive. It appeared to me that the Bolsheviks
had shot someone in the room in order to simulate the murder of the
imperial family...” Some have suggested that it was only Dr. Botkin
and the servants who were shot.In December, 1970, documents released by the British Government
revealed that President Wilson backed a secret mission to Russia that
resulted in the rescue of the Czar and his family, who were smuggled
out of Russia in the back of trucks, and then taken by ship to Europe
where they have lived since 1918. The Report said that, “Sir William