- The year was 1917 and the Romanov family was in terrible trouble. Do not do the Russian accent. I think they like it. It's so bad, just truly bad. - Fine but I will not forget
this dishonor to my family. (coughs) I was hot anyway. The national had already lost confidence in Czar Nicholas II. World War I was a political disaster and workers, peasants, and revolutionaries turned their rage on Nicholas
and the other Romanov's, Russia's imperial family. The Bolsheviks, later
of the Communist Party, we all know them, rioted
across Russia demanding change. Even the military turned against Nicholas and in a final act of desperation to avoid civil war and protect his family, Nicholas folded to the
demands of the Duma, or the state assembly, and agreed to step down as ruler. On March 15th, 1917, Nicholas II abdicated the Russian throne, ending 304 years of the
Romanov imperial dynasty. The family hoped to start
a new life, maybe abroad, free from the chains of the monarchy. Even when moved to imprisonment in Siberia under the watch of Bolshevik
radical Yakov Yurovsky, the Romanov's believed they
would still be freed one day. But what they didn't know
was that Yurovsky was only waiting for word from Vladimir
Lenin to execute them. In July of 1918, word came. (reel ticking)
(dramatic music) Why are we still so
fascinated by the Romanovs, holding out hope that they somehow survived their imprisonment and execution? Perhaps it's the fairy tale of it all. Nicholas and Alexandra were
handsome, elegant royals who wrote each other love letters and lived in the rarest kind of opulence. As the story goes, they
were devoted to each other and to their beautiful children, Olga, Tatiana, Anastasia, Maria, and the young czar-to=be, Alexei. I'd always had a passing interest in the Romanov family and their demise. I mean, I'd seen the movies. ♪ Heart don't fail me now. ♪ - And we did that video about their advisor Rasputin's phallus. Rasputin's penis was actually
just an old sea cucumber. (electronic buzzing) But it wasn't until I went to Russia and saw where the Romanov family, well, most of the family, is buried, that it really hit. Actually, no. When it really hit me was when I got horrible food poisoning in St. Petersburg from salad dressing and watched an entire, very poorly review mini-series
on the Romanov family while in a power barfing haze. So, you have that to thank for this video. (retches) Historians often say that Nicholas II was a man in the wrong
place at the wrong time, a soft-spoken kind man who was more comfy in the countryside than in the war room. I mean, there's no question
that he was lousy ruler. He was out of touch
with the common people. He was blind to starvation and suffering. He allowed his government to enact violence against the masses. But maybe we wish that he
and mostly all the children didn't meet such a bad death. The story of the Romanovs
is a tale of a quest for truth, closure, and the solution to a decades-long mystery,
including this part. ♪ One step at a time ♪ (dramatic music) (sorrowful music) - The Romanovs were kept under house arrest in three locations. First, a palace outside St. Petersburg, then rural Tobolsk, and
finally on April 30th, 1918, the family was transferred to the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg. Their move to Yekaterinburg
in the ultra-radical and anti-czarist Ural
Mountains, way out there, like Siberia out there, was troubling. Quote, "I would go anywhere at
all, only not to the Urals," Nicholas reportedly said on the train to the Ipatiev House. The mansion had its windows
covered in newspaper and then painted over and
was known by the Bolsheviks under the grim moniker, the
House of Special Purpose. The Romanovs would spend
78 days in the house. Yes, they were prisoners, but while captivity was
frustrating and boring, it was not torture. The guards even became
friendly with the family, granting them little luxuries like books, newspapers, and extra time outdoors. One guard even said, quote, "All of my evil thoughts
about the tsar disappeared "after I had stayed a certain time. "I began to pity them as human beings. "I kept saying to
myself, 'Let them escape. "'Do something to let them escape.'" But this peace would not last. After one of the daughters,
Maria, was allegedly caught in a compromising position with a guard, likely not more than a
quote "kiss and a cuddle" for the birthday cake he smuggled her. Listen, Maria, I get it. It doesn't seem like there was much to do. A new commandant was assigned
to the Ipatiev House, a man Nicholas described
as the dark gentleman. This man was Yakov Yurovsky, a radical Bolshevik with a
deep hatred for the czar, Yurovsky instated more rigid
rules, stricter guards, and harsher living
conditions for the Romanovs. But he treated Nicholas and
Alexandra with professionalism. And it was reported that Nicholas even came to regard
Yurovsky with some fondness. Yurovsky spent his time at the house waiting for word from Vladimir Lenin that he should execute the
czar and the imperial family. At the House of Special Purpose, he knew the special purpose. (game show buzzer ringing) In an especially chilling moment, a cleaning woman remembered Yurovsky sitting down next to Alexei, the young heir, a boy that was plagued by constant pain and illness as the result of his hemophilia. Yurovsky gently asked how Alexei was feeling, expressing concern. This is spooky in retrospect, as Yurovsky had just heard the go ahead from Lenin for the execution. Yurovsky was to execute
the entire Romanov family and a few other loyal followers
who had come with them, including a physician,
Alexandra's lady-in-waiting, the valet, and the head cook
of the imperial household. But the pressure was on because
the counter-revolutionary, pro-monarchy, White Russian
Army was only 20 miles away. So, Yurovsky had to act fast. He had to find a location
to dispose of the bodies so that the monarchists wouldn't find them because if they did, they
might hold up the remains of the royals as martyrs, as relics. He had to devise a way to efficiently and covertly kill 11 people. Yurovsky decided the best way to quote "liquidate" the Romanovs and their servants was in the
basement of the Ipatiev House. Rifles would not be used. They would be too loud. Instead they would use
pistols and revolvers. At 1:30 a.m. on July 17th, 1918, Yurovsky woke the Romanov family. He told them that the Whites, not these whites (buzzing), these Whites, were going to attack the city and the family needed to
be moved to the basement so as to be caught in the crossfire. How nice. The family calmly got dressed. Nicholas, even saying with relief, "Well, we're gonna get out of this place." Yurovsky and his men escorted the family and the servants into the basement. Nicholas carried young Alexei,
who was unable to walk. Anastasia brought her beloved dog, Jimmy. Apparently, they trusted Yurovsky. Once in the basement, they waited. Alexandra requested chairs. The family believed they
were being kept safe. In another very creepy move, that's Yurovsky,
(chiming) Yurovsky, who was a former photographer, arranged the family and servants as if posing them for a portrait. Really, he was arranging them
for an efficient execution. A truck rattled outside and thinking it was their
ride to another location, Nicholas asked Yurovsky,
"Well, here we all are. "What are you going to do now?" Taking out a piece of paper, Yurovsky read Nicholas
his sentence of death. Uncomprehending, Nicholas
turned to his family and then back to Yurovsky, and said, "What? "What? "I don't understand. "Read it again." Yurovsky finished the death sentence and shot Nicholas II at point
blank range in the chest. What followed was a blood bath, hardly the quick and efficient execution that Yurovsky had wanted. The executioners were
all untrained marksmen and opened frantic fire
in the tiny basement, quickly filling the room with
smoke and sprays of blood. Aside from Alexandra,
who was shot in the head, none were given a quick or painless death. Due to the chaos, most
were horribly wounded before being finally shot
in the head or bayoneted. But something even stranger happened. To the horror of the executioners, the bullets fired at the Romanov sisters bounced off of them. You see, from the beginning
of their imprisonment, Alexandra and the sisters had been secretly sewing the Romanov jewels, diamonds and rubies
into their undergarments as an insurance policy,
should they be exiled aborad and need to start their lives over again. Their jewel-encrusted undergarments served as a sort of pseudo-bulletproof vest. The grand duchesses were
shot and stabbed at, but the only thing that
would end their suffering, was a bullet to the head. When the literally smoke
cleared and the imperial family and their servants were dead, the basement was covered in blood. Pools of blood and bodily fluids covered the floors, painted the walls. The whole procedure, Yurovsky
said, took 20 minutes. The bodies were moved to the truck that was waiting outside
the basement door. As this was happening, Anastasia sat up and screamed, covering her face. She was only silenced by
a final shot to the head. Or was she? (exuberant singing) (record scratching)
More on that later. The bodies were driven down to the forest, the Four Brothers mine area that Yurovsky had scouted as the location for their burial. The mangled bodies were stripped, there possessions taken,
their clothes burned, and dumped down a mine shaft. Only, the mine shaft
that Yurovsky had scouted was too shallow, only nine feet deep with the water at the bottom
barely covering the 11 bodies. Yurovsky doused the bodies in acid and threw grenades into the shaft in an attempt to better
destroy the evidence. This was to be the last of the Romanovs. But it was only one week after the murder of the Romanov family that the White Russian Army took Yekaterinburg from the Bolsheviks. The judicial investigator
appointed to investigate the murder was pointed to
the mine shaft by witnesses. And there they found bone fragments, jewels, clothing scraps,
and other evidence that bodies had been dumped there. Evidence but no bodies,
only fragments of bodies. According to witness accounts and Yurovsky's own
writings, he got nervous. There were too many witnesses to the mine shaft burial site. And his own men couldn't
keep their mouths shut. He would have to rebury the bodies. As dawn broke on the
morning of July the 19th, Yurovsky and his men picked up and drove the exhumed corpses of the Romanovs further down the road. But they got stuck in the mud, had to frantically douse
the bodies with more acid, unsuccessfully tried to cremate a couple, and then dumped them
in shallow mass graves in an area called Pig's Meadow. Nine bodies were buried in one grave, two in another so as to further obscure their identification. And there, the bodies stayed. It wasn't until 1979 when
a Yekaterinburg native, the geologist Alexander Avdonin and the filmmaker Geli Ryabov took another look at the
location of the Romanov remains. Going off the accounts,
the team located the site where they believe the bodies of the czar and his family had been
buried in Pig's Meadow. They discovered a burial site covered with dirt and wooden planks. Upon excavating further, they
found a jumble of skeletons that apparently had been doused with acid in an attempt to speed up the decay. However, due to the political climate in the Soviet Union at the time, the bodies could not be moved or revealed. So, Avdonin and Ryabov secretly took three skulls
(mysterious deep tones) with them that day and reburied
the rest of the remains. Avdonin kept one skull, which
he thought was the czar's, under his bed in Yekaterinburg for a year. That's really an iconic
corpse staple move, isn't it? The stolen body parts under
some random guy's bed. Tale as old as time.
- Haydn's head. - Ryabov took the other two
skulls to his home in Moscow, hoping to use his connections with the forensic service
at the Ministry of Health to get the skulls secretly tested.
(mysterious deep tones) That didn't work out and
the men were too anxious. So, they went back and reburied
the skulls in Pig's Meadow where they stayed buried until 1991, more than 10 years later. In 1991, Boris Yeltsin
was elected president and the political climate was right to return to the Pig's Meadow burial site. This time, Avdonin would be able to completely exhume the bones and place them in the
morgue at Yekaterinburg. Thus began the quest to scientifically identify the Romanov remains. This next part of the script
was originally 12 pages long. Who loves molecular genetic testing
(electronic beeping) and incredibly complicated international political conflicts? Anyway, we included as
much as we can here. The first character you need to know here is forensic anthropologist Sergei Abramov, who was sent by the Ministry of Health to identify the bones. In three months, he pieced together over 950 bones and bones fragments, labeling each set body number one, body number two, and so on. At this time, DNA testing was way too expensive and
frankly, unavailable. So, Abramov and his
team developed a system of computer modeling,
mathematical techniques, and superimposing photos over the bones to identify the remains. At some point, the American government hears about this and says, "Hello, we will
(bugle piping) "send the F.B.I. over there to help." But two days before they're
supposed to show up, Russian goes, "Oh, never mind. "No thanks, we found some
guy in Florida to help." And they had, a Dr. William Maples, a forensic anthropologist at
the University of Florida. They chose Maples over the U.S. government to help with identifications. And though he had some
disagreements with Abramov, bodies were identified. But wait, another player in the Romanov remains thunderdome
(electronic buzzing) was on the horizon. The Russians were not
capable of DNA testing yet, but the British were.
(royal music) The Russian Ministry of Health agreed to have Romanov bones tested at the British Home Office in England. This move raised a lot of controversy. First, there was a degree of embarrassment that the Russian scientists couldn't test the remains of the czar in Russia. Said the director of the
morgue at Yekaterinburg, "We were working on molecular
genetic testing at one time, "then Mr. Stalin shot the entire team. "As a result, we began lagging behind." Stalin did do things like that. It's one of the problems with Stalin. Second, Russia had long blamed Britain for the deaths of the Romanovs. You see, King George V
(popping) was a first cousin to both Nicholas
(popping) and his wife Alexandra,
(popping) who were third cousins
(popping) once removed to each other. Royal, LOL.
(popping) In 1917, after the abdication, King George was all ready to bring his cousins to safety in England. But upon realizing how unpopular
Nicholas was in Britain, he changed his mind and
specifically told them not to come, forcing them to be sent to Siberia and we know what happened there. To many Russians, the British
killed the imperial family. But there was a mystery to solve, so differences were put aside. Plus, The Queen was suppose
to visit Russia soon, so the Brits were all about keeping things cool with the Russians. And in 1992, femur samples from the bones were transported to England
to begin the painstaking and difficult process of extracting DNA. But here's the thing. DNA is helpful if you have
other DNA to compare it to. Where were the scientists
going to find DNA that would match the long-dead
Russian imperial family? Royalty, LOL.
(popping) Prince Phillip, husband
to Queen Elizabeth II, is the grand nephew of
the Empress Alexandra. His grandmother was Alexandra's sister. Phillip agreed to donate blood, through which scientists could extract some mitochondrial DNA, a kind of DNA that's carried exclusively through generations of
women to their offspring. If the DNA was in Phillip, it would be in any relative
of his, alive or dead, who shared a maternal line. This could be used to confirm the identity of bones, allegedly, belonging to Alexandra and her children. And the mitochondrial DNA matched. These were the remains of Alexandra and three of her children. Only three of her children? But what about Anastasia? ♪ Let this road be mine ♪ - We'll get there
(record scratching) in a second, relax. Although it stood to
reason that Czar Nicholas was also in that grave, body
number four to be precise, identifying him through science proved harder.
(swooshing) The best way to compare DNA would be to exhume the body of Nicholas's brother Grand Duke George. But the Russians said (speaks Russian) because it would be too expensive to break open George's
Italian marble tomb. Okay, strike one.
(buzzer) Next, they went to Japan, where there was bloody handkerchief that had once bound a wound
Czar Nicholas received when a Japanese person
attacked him with a sword. Obviously. (ominous trumpets) The Emperor of Japan helped arrange this, but unfortunately, the
handkerchief was too contaminated and dirty to get a proper DNA sample from. Strike two.
(buzzer) In Toronto, Canada, of all places, lived the 75-year-old son
of Nicholas's sister Olga, who would be a perfect
mitochondrial DNA match to Nicholas. Unfortunately, Kulikovsky,
this nephew, declined to help. Believing that the investigation
was not only a hoax, but that the scientists
were working for the KGB and only asking for his DNA to prove that he was not part
of the Romanov family. Strike three.
(buzzer) Going back to the family tree, the scientists looked at the
women in Nicholas's family and found that Nicholas's
sister had a daughter, Irina. Princess Irina married
Prince Felix Yusupov, the man who killed Rasputin
and had a daughter. And that daughter had a daughter, and that daughter was like,
"Sure, I'll give you my DNA." Finally, along with another donor, a 66-year-old Scottish nobleman, a distant cousin of Nicholas's, Team DNA had two DNA sources
with which to compare. And success!
(party whistle blowing) They were a match. Well, except for a mutation. Basically, Nicholas II
possessed a mutation, where he had two forms
of mitochondrial DNA, an inherited condition
known as heteroplasmy. But the team still announced
their findings in 1993, stating they were 98.5% certain
(chiming) these were the Romanovs. This announcement
sparked more controversy. This is the part we cut most of but it involves the
forensic anthropologist guy from Florida, the TV show
"Unsolved Mysteries," University of California, Berkeley, Cambridge University, heteroplasmy drama, and sample contamination. It's too much for this video. But if your thing is genetic
mutation and DNA testing, we'll link those resources below. Needless to say, the
British team was correct, confirmed again when they
finally got permission to exhume that body in the marble tomb, George Romanov, Nicholas's brother. The DNA was a match and both brothers
(chiming) had heteroplasmy to boot. To most, the identities of
the Yekaterinburg remains had been confirmed and the
Romanovs had been found. To most. Remember, there was still
that separate grave, meaning there were still
two missing bodies of two Romanov children believed
to be Alexei and Maria. Though some some insisted it was not Maria but Anastasia that was missing. Despite their doubts, in 1998,
the Russian Orthodox Church, urged by President Boris Yeltsin, allowed the alleged remains
of Nicholas, Alexandra, Olga, Tatiana, and Anastasia slash
maybe Maria, to be buried in the Cathedral of Saints Peter
and Paul in St. Petersburg, the traditional resting
place of the Romanov dynasty, which is where I saw them this summer. However, due to their
doubts, the church did not give the family the full rights. The funeral was conducted
by deacons, not bishops, and members of the Russian Orthodox Church and the surviving Romanov families were conspicuously absent. In 2000, the Russian Orthodox Church canonized Nicholas,
Alexandra, and their children, further tightening their grip on their control of the Romanov legacy. But, in 2007, a discovery. Two more bodies were found in Pig's Meadow by a group called SEARCH, or the Scientific Expedition to Account for the Romanov Children. Discovered in a pit 230 feet away from where Nicholas had been buried, the unearthed skeletons
appeared to have suffered a major trauma and had been
burned by acid or fire. Testing revealed that the
skeleton of the young girl, age 18 to 23 was four trillion times
(chiming) more likely to be a daughter of Nicholas and Alexandra's than not. The skeleton of the boy, age 10 to 13, was 80 trillion times
(chiming) more likely to be their son than not. But to this day, that
is still not good enough for the Russian Orthodox Church. The bones of Alexei, and likely Maria, are stored in the medical refrigerator at the Forensic Research Bureau
in Yekaterinburg, unburied. Despite requests from Romanov descendants and overwhelming DNA evidence, the church claims that
it needs more evidence and will not allow them to be buried at the cathedral in St. Petersburg. Pushing the issue upsets
the Russian Orthodox Church and well, Vladimir Putin,
who allegedly both believe that the Romanov remains were destroyed after they were killed in a ritual murder by the real culprits, Jewish people. That's not what happened, but please don't Kremlinbot me.
(robotic beeping) Do not have the time right now. So,
(solemn music) there in that refrigerator, the last remains of the
Romanovs wait for their burial. (projector clicking) But wait, what about Anastasia? (exuberant singing) We can't get away with
doing a Romanov video without talking about the Anastasia myth. After the execution, the
death of Czar Nicholas, and only Nicholas, was
announced in Russia. Lenin lead people to
believe that Alexandra and the children had been spared and were being kept somewhere safe. That lie and the hope
that one of the czar's beautiful daughters had survived, fed into this myth that
Anastasia was still alive. There were countless Anastasia imposters. But the most convincing was a woman who came to call herself Anna Anderson. First appearing in Berlin in 1920 after she jumped from a bridge, she was initially called Frauline Unbekannt or Miss Unknown. In and out of hospitals and asylums, she admitted to being
Grand Duchess Anastasia and concocted an elaborate story about walking across Europe to find her aunt. Eventually, the Romanovs
former tutor, Pierre Gilliard, and the children's favorite
aunt, the Grand Duchess Olga, went to see this Anastasia while she was very sick
at St. Mary's Hospital. While the kind hearted Olga visited Miss Unknown for months,
she had her doubts. Though her doubts were not absolute. And this is what Anna Anderson, a.k.a. Anastasia, played on. Most of the Romanov family doubted her. But there were also
doubts to their doubts. The way she spoke, what she knew, the way she carried
herself, her feet, yes. Anna Anderson appeared to have the distinctive feet of Anastasia. (chiming) It made more than a couple
members of the Romanov family not only vouch for her but embrace her, welcoming her into there luxurious lives. Anna Anderson settled in America, married a man who reveled in the belief that she was Anastasia, became Anastasia Manahan by marriage, and died in 1984 of pneumonia. Her true identity is still unknown. It wasn't until a posthumous lawsuit where DNA from a section on Manahan's small intestine that had been removed and kept by a pathology
laboratory was tested, that it was confirmed
that Anastasia Manahan was an unrelated Polish
woman named Franziska. (trumpet sliding) Believing that one of the Romanovs survived,
(Russian polka music) makes their deaths a tiny bit less tragic. We want to believe the fairy tale even if it goes against our judgment. But despite none of the Romanov family surviving that night in 1918, what they and their bodies went through is the stuff of legends. The hope is that their bodies and their stories can all soon be put to rest in the same place, now more than 100 years
since their execution. This video was made
with generous donations from death enthusiasts just like you. (cheers) I'm really wearing autumnal colors here in sort of an aspirational thing, but it is hot as balls. (singing) ♪ Very Netflix style ♪ ♪ Very documentary ♪ ♪ And we're very
established organization ♪ ♪ Of movie people ♪ ♪ On the YouTube ♪ (retches) (singing) Into their undergarments
as an insurance polishy. (groans) All right, it's fine, we're
fine, everybody's fine. It's no big deal. It was too shallow, only
nine fit (speaks gibberish). (beep) I'm so hot and so tired. I'll sit like this for a while. (moans) Is the thumbnail here (moans)? And mitochondrial DNA, whoa, what? (scoffs) Strike three, three, three. Stop that truck. You stop that beepin' truck. The TV show "Unsolved
mitcher", "Mysteries," University of California, Berkeley, Cambridge interview (groans). Do I look insane? Relax. - And I did curse her.
(bell chimes)
I swear I'm going to break the world record for the fastest notification click one day. Also I absolutely love Caitlin's moth necklace!
This was a great summary (good word?) about the Romanov family. I always wondered about the Anastasia legend. Thanks for the link to the video, love me some Caitlin history!