In 1918, Bolshevik revolutionaries marched
the royal Romanov family down to a small, bleak cellar in Yekaterinburg, Russia, telling
them they would be moved to a safe house. Minutes later, Tsar Nicholas II, his wife
Alexandra, and his five children were facing a firing squad. The guards shot at the tsar and his family
until they believed that each and every one of them lay dead. However, in the years after the revolution,
many women came forward claiming to be the missing royal daughter, Anastasia. Some surviving friends and relatives of the
Romanov family were convinced that one of these women was telling the truth. When the bodies of the murdered Romanovs were
found 61 years later, two of the children, son Alexei and one of his sisters, weren’t
with them. Did young Anastasia manage to escape her family’s
tragic fate that night? Born to Tsar Nicholas II, Emperor of all Russia,
and his wife Alexandra on June 18, 1901, Anastasia was the youngest of four sisters. Her parents had been praying for a boy to
pass on the imperial title, so the birth of their fourth daughter was somewhat of an upset. Nicholas had to take a walk and compose himself
before being led to his newborn girl. His sister, Grand Duchess Xenia, exclaimed
“My God! What a disappointment! A fourth girl”. You could say their reaction to Anastasia
wasn’t exactly “woke”. The youngest Romanov sister preferred climbing
trees and running around outdoors to being tutored inside a classroom. She was the biggest troublemaker in the royal
Russian household. Anastasia may not have been the male heir
Tsar Nicholas was hoping for, but she definitely grew into a tomboy. Visitors described her as charming, spirited,
and very energetic. She had a great sense of humor and loved playing
practical jokes. Others thought she was a brat. Either way, most people agreed that the short,
strawberry-blonde, blue-eyed girl was extremely gifted and bright. If you’ve heard of the Russian Revolution,
you might have imagined that the royal family, including Anastasia, was living a life of
lavish opulence while the Russian population starved. You may be surprised to hear that you were
probably living larger in your dorm room than Anastasia was at the Winter Palace. The five kids slept on simple cots without
pillows, took cold – and we’re talking about Russian cold – showers, and were expected
to tidy up their rooms, do their own chores, and do needlework for charities during their
free time. Anastasia was almost never addressed by her
royal title within the household either, instead being referred to by her first name. The royal children’s lifestyle was less
“MTV Cribs” and more “Little House on the Prairie”. The lives of most of the royal children were
also marred by illness. Anastasia’s little brother Alexei had a
form of hemophilia, which was not uncommon in the somewhat inbred royal families of the
time. However, his hemophilia was so severe it rendered
the heir to the throne permanently disabled – the tiniest cut or bruise could kill him. In the early 20th century, anyone with Alexei’s
condition would not be expected to survive to adulthood. This created a problem for the royal family,
who worried about Alexei’s health and worried they would have no legitimate heir to the
Russian throne. Things for the royal family took a turn for
the worse during World War I. Three years of food rationing and endless
bloodshed had severely tested the patience of the Russian population. 1.7 million Russian soldiers died in World
War I, while almost 5 million soldiers were wounded. This put Russia’s casualty rate at over
76% of their mobilized forces. Hungry, demoralized, and permanently cold,
the exhausted Russian population started rioting in February 1917, with many Russian soldiers
abandoning their posts and joining the protests. Public sentiment had already turned against
the royal family because Nicholas II had involved his country in the bloody World War. Further creating discontent, the equivalent
“National Enquirers” of the time had ignited unfounded rumors that Tsarina Alexandra’s
trusted advisor, Rasputin, was having an affair with both the queen and all four of the grand
duchesses. After eight days of rioting in February, many
Russians called for Tsar Nicholas II to step down. Nicholas eventually gave up, abdicating the
throne on March 2 and nominating his brother, Grand Duke Michael, as his successor. The Grand Duke, recognizing a sinking ship
when he saw one, politely but firmly rejected the offer, leaving Russia without a monarch. In August of 1917, the Red Guards captured
the royal family and sent them to Tobolsk, Siberia, the land where winter is permanently
coming. Shortly after, the family was moved to Ipatiev
House, also known as the vaguely named House of Special Purpose, in Yekaterinburg. It would be the last place where Anastasia
and her family would be definitively recognized before the terrible fate that was about to
befall them. The Bolsheviks took over Russia, and in October
1917 Russia fell into the midst of a violent civil war between the Red Guards and the White
Guards, who clearly needed better branding skills. Months later, a Bolshevik revolutionary by
the name of Yakov Mikhailovich Yurovsky described the supposed last night of the Romanov family. On July 17, 1918, Yurovsky claims the family
was told to get dressed in the middle of the night so they could be moved to another safe
house. Nicholas and Alexandra, along with their five
children and a handful of close servants, were taken to a small basement room and told
to wait. Anastasia, who had turned seventeen just a
month ago, walked down to the cellar holding her dog, Jimmy. The guards then let the family know they weren’t
going to be moved, but instead, executed. Nicholas barely had time to react before he
and his wife were immediately gunned down in a hail of bullets. As Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Alexei and Anastasia
started screaming, the guards shot at all of them, including family doctor Yevgeny Botkin,
chambermaid Anna, cook Ivan, and valet Alexei, even killing Anastasia’s small dog. However, the guards hadn’t counted on the
fact that, unknown to them, the princesses had some protection. Before Anastasia and her sisters arrived in
Yekaterinburg, the Tsarina warned them that her personal valuables would be confiscated. Writing in code, she instructed her daughters
to sew their jewels into the lining of their corsets. Presumably, Alexandra was hoping to retain
some items of value they could use down the line to buy their freedom and a way out of
Russia. When the guards shot at the Romanov family
in that small, dark cellar, the girls had sewn so many jewels into their clothing that
many of the bullets actually got deflected instead of piercing their skin. When the smoke from the initial gunfire cleared,
many of the Romanov daughters, shockingly, were still alive. The guards then resorted to bayoneting and
knifing the survivors. But because they had chosen such a small room
for the execution and crowded so many assassins and victims into it, it was hard to even see
who was alive or what was happening most of the time, especially as the room fogged up
with gun smoke. The Soviet government hid the evidence of
this crime. They later publicly claimed to have killed
Tsar Nicholas II, but said they were taking care of his wife and children in an undisclosed
location. Many people suspected this was a lie and the
rest of Nicholas’ family had been killed as well, something the government admitted
later. But when rumors started swirling that Anastasia
might still be alive, the Soviet government refused to definitively refute the gossip. Decades later, the bodies of five of the seven
members of the Romanov family were found in 1979 in a forest outside Yekaterinburg. Forensic scientists definitively identified
Nicholas, Alexandra, Olga, and Tatiana, but couldn’t agree on whether the last body
was Maria or Anastasia. Regardless, the bodies of Alexei as well as
one of the Romanov daughters were missing from the burial site. This discovery further fueled rumors of Anastasia’s
possible escape. Though many people came forward over the years
to impersonate various deceased members of the Romanov family, people believed Anastasia
was the most likely survivor, and that’s why her body was missing from her family’s
resting place. Even though Alexei’s body was also missing,
it was unlikely that a child with Alexei’s severe hemophilia could have escaped alive
and well. The smallest wounds would have ended his life
without immediate medical attention, which it is unlikely he would have received. Anastasia, on the other hand, had the bullet-deflecting
jewels sewn into her bodice. She was tough, crafty, and resourceful; a
fighter by any account. The guards had been sloppy. They kept thinking they had killed the entire
Romanov family with each new firing, only to discover that some of the girls were still
alive and moving after each attempt. In fact, the guards had to make repeated attempts
over a period of 20 minutes to kill this small group of people. What if the seventeen-year-old Anastasia had
survived, wounded but not mortally so, and played dead until she could hatch an escape
plan? In the confusion surrounding the aftermath
of the Romanov family’s disappearance from the public eye, yet another rumor emerged
supporting the theory of Anastasia’s survival. This time, the facts came from an official
source. Prior to the massacre, the Bolsheviks had
been negotiating the release of Alexandra and her daughters with Germany. Since Tsarina Alexandra was of German descent,
the Germans, who Russia wanted as an ally at the time, demanded “the safety of the
princesses of German blood”. When news of the massacre started spreading
internationally, the Bolsheviks told the Germans that the official account was wrong. The Soviet government stated that the two
youngest princesses, Anastasia and Maria, had escaped before the massacre even started,
and could not be located. Of course, many people thought this was a
lie told by the Soviets to placate the German government. But others believed it supported the idea
that Anastasia had escaped, especially when the Romanov grave was discovered with two
of the children’s bodies missing. Believers thought the government had simply
misidentified which two children had escaped. One woman, named Anna Anderson, came forward
years later in 1922 and proposed perhaps the most widely believed theory. Anderson had been confined in Dalldorf Asylum
in Germany after a suicide attempt in Berlin in 1920. At the time, Berlin and Paris both served
as refuges for aristocratic Russians who had managed to flee the Bolshevik Revolution and
the ensuing bloodshed. After a couple of years at the institution,
Anderson wouldn’t say much about who she was, where she was from, or what had happened
to her. Some guards and other patients started asking
her if she was one of the Romanov daughters, as she bore a striking resemblance to Tatiana. Anderson eventually claimed that she was,
in fact, the Grand Duchess Anastasia. Since most people need more evidence than
the word of an asylum patient to declare someone royalty, Russian tsarist friends and relatives
flocked in to meet the possible princess. Upon meeting her, a fair number of them agreed;
they had found the missing Anastasia! To those curious about how she managed to
survive the Bolshevik assassination, Anna explained that after the guards had slain
her family, one of the men carrying her out realized she was unconscious, but still alive. Feeling guilty and sympathetic to the young
girl, the guard helped her escape out of the room undetected. This story wasn’t that hard to believe,
as we know for a fact that three of the Latvian guards in the room that night refused to participate
in the execution of the Tsar’s family at the last minute. If one of them had noticed Anastasia was still
alive, he might have helped the poor young princess flee. There were other details that seemed to back
up Anna Anderson’s story. Her body had several prominent scars, scars
she said she got from being knifed by the Bolsheviks during the execution. One man in particular, Gleb Botkin, the son
of the Romanov family physician, swore up and down that the woman not only bore a striking
resemblance to Anastasia, but remembered many small details that it would have been impossible
for anyone but Anastasia to know. Others were less convinced. The real Anastasia was well-versed in not
only Russian, but English and French as well. Anderson had little knowledge of these languages. She also didn’t seem to remember major events
in the young Grand Duchess’ life. However, supporters of Anderson’s claim
pointed to the fact that Anderson had clearly gone through a major trauma, followed by a
life in hiding and mental illness. All this would affect not only her memory,
but also any skills and knowledge she had in her previous life as Grand Duchess Anastasia. Anderson eventually died in 1984, after courts
had repeatedly denied her any rightful claim to the Romanov title. Her DNA was tested, and the results shocked
all the people who had supported her. Anderson was identified as Fraziska Schanzkowska,
a Polish factory worker prone to mental illness, reported missing years earlier. It’s possible Fraziska, due to her mental
state, truthfully believed she was the Grand Duchess. However, Anderson wasn’t the only Anastasia
imposter. If Anastasia hadn’t really survived, why
did so many other women claim to be her? One motive could have been stories of the
immense Romanov fortune held in banks in England or Switzerland. These claimants may have been unpleasantly
surprised to learn that most of the Romanov fortune had been spent by Tsar Nicholas during
World War I to help pay for hospitals and hospital trains. Other women may have been mentally ill and
truly believed they were a Romanov, like Anna Anderson. Whatever the motives of the impersonators,
one of the reasons the mystery of Anastasia survived for so long is because it provided
a glimmer of hope in a grim situation; that a young, resourceful girl might have found
a way to escape the terrible massacre of her family. Endless books, musicals and movies have been
made over the years, telling the story of Anastasia’s survival and keeping this optimistic
version of events alive. However, this hope all but disappeared in
2007, when two more bodies were found near the initial Romanov burial site. Using DNA evidence, the Russian government
identified them as Alexei and Maria. This led them to conclude that the third daughter
found at the first burial site wasn’t Maria after all, but instead was Anastasia Nikolaevna
Romanova. Finally, the mystery had conclusively been
solved. On that tragic day in Yekaterinburg, just
a month after turning seventeen, Anastasia was brutally killed along with the rest of
the royal Romanov family. And now that you've solved this royal mystery,
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