Poor Anastasia; The Remains of All The Czar's Children Have Been Found

This was a story, that so to speak, would never die.

Every few years, a self-styled Princess would surface calling herself Anastasia and laying claim to the Russian throne, having somehow been spared the vicissitudes of the Bolshevik Revolution, who shot the family in a basement, threw them down a mine shaft, and poured over acid over so as to hide the complete discovery of the crime for 90 years. I can remember in my lifetime at least 3 or 4 different claimants.

A parallel, but less known story, is that had the British Royal family invited the Romanoffs to England--Nicholas and George V were cousins, you can see the family resemblance in the photo above--, they, unlike 40 million others, would have escaped one of the worst regimes of all time. Alas, no such invitation was forthcoming and no such counter factual history made factual.

YEKATERINBURG, Russia (Reuters) - Scientific tests have confirmed that remains found in Russia last year belong to the last Tsar's male heir and his daughter, missing since the royal family were executed in 1918, officials said on Wednesday.

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Bolshevik executioners shot the family in 1918 in the basement of a merchant's house in Yekaterinburg, 1,450 km (900 miles) east of Moscow. Attempts were made to destroy the bodies, then they were dumped into pits.

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Full story here.