Bones 'probably' those of Tsar's children
There is a “high probability” that bones found recently in Russia belonged to a daughter and son of the last czar, an official said today.
The bones were found by archaeologists in a burned field near Yekaterinburg, a city in the Ural Mountains where Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, and their five children were held prisoner by the Bolsheviks and then shot in 1918. The discovery was announced in August.
Prosecutors later announced that they would reopen an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the deaths of the royal family.
Vladimir Gromov, deputy forensic chief in the Sverdlovsk region, said today: “Investigators have made a preliminary conclusion that there is a high degree of probability that the bones ... belong to the Crown Prince Alexei and Princess Maria.”
In 1998, remains unearthed from a mining pit and identified as those of Nicholas and Alexandra and three of their daughters were reburied in a ceremony in the imperial-era capital St Petersburg.
The ceremony was shadowed by statements of doubt – including from within the Russian Orthodox Church – about their authenticity.
If confirmed, the latest find would fill in a missing chapter in the story of the Romanov family, whose reign was ended by the violent 1917 Bolshevik revolution, which ushered in more than 70 years of Communist rule.
