Russians commemorate royal family's killing, investigators reaffirm identity of remains

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Russians commemorate royal family's killing, investigators reaffirm identity of remains

Wednesday 16 July 2008
By: STEVE GUTTERMAN, The Associated Press
MOSCOW

A descendant of Russia's last czar called for formal recognition that his slain family were victims of Communist-era oppression Wednesday as church ceremonies marked 90 years since their murder.

Russian Orthodox churches nationwide were holding services and processions Wednesday and Thursday to commemorate the canonized czar and his wife and children.

Nicholas II abdicated in 1917 as revolutionary fervor swept Russia, and he and his family were detained. They were shot by a Bolshevik firing squad early on July 17, 1918 in the basement of the house where they were being held in Yekaterinburg, in the Ural Mountains 1,500 kilometers (900 miles) east of Moscow.

Prince Dmitry Romanov, a descendant of the former ruling family, told Ekho Moskvy radio that he and other relatives were hoping for the family's rehabilitation.

"I think this must be done," Romanov said.

Russia's courts have thwarted efforts for such recognition in rulings that human rights activists say fit in with the Kremlin's reluctance to confront the crimes of Russia's Soviet past.

Former President Vladimir Putin has used nostalgia for the Soviet Union's might to build pride among Russians in the wake of its collapse.

Russian investigators marked the anniversary by repeating their confirmation that bone and tooth fragments found in a shallow grave in Yekaterinburg a year ago are those of the czar's 13-year-old heir, Crown Prince Alexei, and one of his daughters, Grand Duchess Maria.

The Russian Orthodox Church has expressed doubts about the accuracy of the scientific findings identifying the remains as those of the royal family.

"The remains that were found belong to Alexei and Maria. We can say that with certainty," Vladimir Solovyov, a senior investigator with the Investigative Committee of the Russian Prosecutor General's Office, told a news conference in Yekaterinburg.

The remains of Nicholas, his wife Empress Alexandra and three daughters including the youngest, Anastasia, were unearthed in Yekaterinburg in 1991 _ the year the Soviet Union collapsed _ and later reburied in the imperial capital, St. Petersburg.

The remains of Alexei and Maria were not found, fueling die-hard speculation that the hemophiliac heir might have somehow survived and escaped. The remains were discovered last July in the woods about 70 meters (yards) from the site where remains of the rest of the family were found.

The church made all seven slain family members saints in 2000.

Identification of the remains has helped illuminate one of the bloodiest chapters in Russia's history and brought a measure of closure for descendants of the Romanov dynasty.

"It is very important to me that it's now official," said Prince Dmitry Romanov, who comes to Russia every July to commemorate the deaths of his relatives. "We very much hoped that it would be so."