On the outskirts of this burly industrial centre on a nowhere scrap of land, here unfolded the final act of one of the last century’s most momentous events.A short way through a clearing, toward a cluster of birch trees, the killers deposited their victims’ bodies, which had been mutilated, burnt and doused with acid to mask their origins. It would be 73 more years, in 1991, before the remains would be reclaimed and the announcement would ring out — the grave of last Russian czar Nicholas II and his family had been found. But the story does not end there.Eleven people were said to have been killed that day in July 1918 on Lenin’s orders. Just nine sets of remains were dug up here and then authenticated using DNA. The remains of the czar’s son Aleksei and a daughter, whose identity is still not clear, were missing. Did their bones lie elsewhere, or could it be that they had escaped execution, as rumour had it for so long?Only in the past few months have these questions dating from the Russian Revolution apparently been resolved here, and only by a group of amateur sleuths who spent their weekends plumbing the case. Following that wisp of a clue this summer, Shitov and other amateur investigators went to where the other remains had been found. Away from the road, about 70 yards from the first burial ground, is a slightly elevated area among the trees. It is there that the bodies of Aleksei (13) and his sister were apparently consigned.The amateurs found the bones, many of them charred by fire, scattered among bullets and pieces of jars that held acid used to disfigure the bodies. So it seems that for all the years since the first discovery, even as people made pilgrimages to the site and wondered what had happened to Aleksei and his sister, their remains were only a short stroll away.Scientists in Russia and the US are testing the new finds extensively. The sister is believed to be Maria (19) though that is not entirely settled. Others long conjectured that the sister was Anastasia (17), a theory that fed a belief that she survived. The investigators went over the events of July 17, 1918, when the killers knifed and gunned down Nicholas II, his wife, five children, doctor and three servants in the basement of a house where they were being held after Nicholas was forced to abdicate. It was not easy determining what had occurred. Then Shitov and his colleagues decided to scrutinise a statement by the chief killer, Yakov Yurovsky, in the archives. Yurovsky related how he had set aside two corpses, believing that if they were burnt and buried separately they would confuse royalists who later might be seeking 11 bodies, not nine.But how separately? The amateur investigators focused on a Russian phrase that Yurovsky used to describe the sequence of events in the second burial. The phrase — “tut zhe” — can mean “nearby”, “right here” or “right now”. It had often been interpreted as indicating that the second grave was next to the first.But now a different thought arose. The experts wondered whether Yurovsky meant that the grave was in the area, but not very close to the first. For now, the church has declined to say whether it considers the newly found remains genuine, pending further tests. But people who have long sought the remains say they are hopeful that once the results are in, the church will formally conduct a service at St Petersburg to lay to rest the final remains of the Romanovs.“This brings closure to a very sad chapter in Russian history,” said Peter Sarandinaki, an American of Russian descent who started an organisation to help find the remains and had conducted several searches here. “It is because their murder symbolises the start of a diabolic era in world history. And now that has all come to an end.”
