The Missing Romanov

1. Have you heardThere's a rumor in St. Petersburg?Have you heardWhat they're saying on the street?Although the Tsar did not survive,One daughter may be still alive!The Princess Anastasia!Alive, or dead?

2. ANASTASIA The Missing Romanov A WebQuest Done by : Margaret Phuong Lan

3. The Romanov Massacre On July 16 1918, the family were woken up and taken to a cellar. They were arranged into a group and believed they were to be photographed. Suddenly armed men burst into the room and began firing. Anastasia’s parents and her sister, Olga, their doctor (Dr Botkin) and two servants died instanly. The family’s diamonds had been sewn into the girl’s dresses and the bullets bounced off these around the room. The soldiers were amazed at this 'miracle' but kept on firing.   Alexei was lying on the floor groaning – a soldier shot him through the head.   It was chaotic inside the cellar. The room was filled with smoke.

4. Tatiana and Maria eventually died. Anastasia was last seen huddled against the wall with her arms over her head. Some accounts of the murder say that Anastasia was bayoneted several times. There is much confusion about how Anastasia died. Some people believe she did not die at all. The bodies of the royal family were thrown into a pit in the woods. The pit was found two years later. Two bodies were missing…….  

5. The Investigation A team of archaeologists, jurists and scientists started working on the burial site on July 11 of 1991 and discovered about 1000 bone fragments but only 9 skulls whereas 11 people had been murdered. On 18 July, of 1991, Romanovs' remains discovery was announced all over the world. Using photographic superimposition, Russian scientists started skeletons identification and first concluded that Alexei's and Maria's bodies were missing. Then, another American forensic team led by William Maples, of the University of Florida, arrived at Yekaterinburg on July 25, 1992. By analysing the dental and bone specimens, they concluded that the missing daughter was Anastasia.

6. Identifications results comparisonof Abramov and Mapple teams Abramov: anthropology, reconstruction, photosuperimposition Maples: anthropology, dental

7. In October, 1994, the results of DNA testing used to compare the DNA of the skeletons to the DNA of known living relatives of the Romanovs was announced, and, once and for all, the skeletons were confirmed as being those of the missing royal family and their attendants.

8. Anastasia - The Missing Romanov WHY WE BELIEVE ANASTASIA DID NOT SURVIVE I) Clue one: ANNA ANDERSON and ANASTASIA When the bodies of the Russian royal family were discovered it was noted that two bodies were missing. A woman known as Anna Anderson claimed that she was Anastasia.

10. Anna Anderson Anastasia Romanov Also, there are some interesting points to note… As early as 1927, the doubters believed “Anna Anderson” was really a Polish housewife named Franzisca Schanzkowska (or Schanzkovsky) that had been reported missing in Berlin on the same day that Anderson was fished out of the canal. This theory had been forwarded by private detective Martin Knopf. According to medical records, Schanzkowska also had bone tuberculosis, a history of foot disorders, and had had a birthmark removed from her right shoulder... all of which matched the physical evidence that had earlier been taken as proof of Anderson being Anastasia. In addition, Knopf found a witness that could positively identify Anderson as the missing Schanzkowska; Doris Wingender, daughter of Schanzkowska's landlady in Berlin. But Schanzkowska's brother, Felix, and her two sisters, refused to identify Anderson as their missing sibling, even though Felix had to admit there was a strong resemblance between Anderson and his missing sister. It seems like more than a coincidence that it was only after Olga’s death that Anderson went to court to be declared the true Anastasia.

11. Shortly after the Romanov skeletons were confirmed, Gleb Botkin's daughter and her husband, Marina and Dick Schweitzer, hired Dr. Peter Gill and his associates - the same team that tested the skeletons' DNA - to run comparison tests of the Romanov family's DNA with three tissue samples known to have come from Anna Anderson. At the same time, Anna Anderson's DNA was further checked against the DNA of Karl Maucher, a great nephew of the missing Polish woman Franzisca Schanzkowska, to double-check the long standing theory that Anderson could be the missing Polish woman. Mitochondrial DNA DNA found in the mitochondrion of a cell differs in structure from the DNA found in the cell nucleus. Although both have the same structure of base units or double nucleotides forming a double helix, mitochondrial DNA, or mtDNA, exists as a circular loop DNA while chromosomes in the nucleus are formed from linear DNA. Unlike nuclear DNA, mtDNA is inherited solely from the mother as they are present in the egg when fertilization of the egg when the father’s sperm takes place. For this reason, mtDNA sequences or orders of nucleotides remain constant over generations and therefore can be clear indicators for inheritance through the female or maternal family tree. Compare two samples or sequences of DNA is complex but a Sequence Server, can be used to do this, quickly looking for the similarities and differences. If a significant amount of differences between two samples are identified by the Sequence Server, a mtDNA match can be ruled out and this was eventually found to be the case in the Anna Anderson claim.

12. The results came back months later, in 1995. The DNA testing proved conclusively that Anna Anderson was not related to Romanov royal family in any way... therefore, she was not Anastasia. • According to the British genetics team at Aldermaston, headed by Dr. Peter Gill, Mrs. Anderson's DNA failed to match that of the female skeletons excavated near Ekaterinburg in 1991. • An analysis of the blood of Karl Maucher revealed a mitochondrial match exact enough to conclude that Franziska and Anna Anderson were the same person. • Various samples of Mrs. Anderson’s hair and preserved body tissue have reached the same conclusion. • It was further found that both Anderson and Maucher shared a rare genetic trait, and that when all corresponding matches in their DNA were considered, that there was only a one in three-hundred chance that the two people were not related.

13. NAGANT COLT MAUSER II) Clue two: THE THEORY THAT ALEXEI STILL SURVIVED AFTER THE MASSACRE (Reference: “Tsarevich Alexei – Lenin’s Greatest Secret”, John M.L.Kendrick) @ Problems with the gun The gun was used in the murder was not the Colt. Dr. William Maples says that fourteen bullets were recovered from the grave where five of the seven Romanovs are said to have been found.  He explains that all of the bullets are 7.62, 7.63, or 7.65 millimetre rounds or about the same size as a .32 calibre while the Colt is a 45 calibre weapon. Dr. Maples also points out that the Russian investigators think nine of the bullets came from Nagant revolvers, four from a Browning (according to Radzinsky, Pavel Medvedev was armed with a ten shot Browning pistol), and one from a Mauser.  Not one came from a Colt.

14. @ Disappearing bullets There are questions about the number of shots leaves only a few bullets in the bodies and too few holes in the wall. Each of twelve executioners had a gun that fired a minimum of seven shots and they fired until their weapons were empty before picking up bayonets. However, there are only fourteen bullets had been found in the grave. Even considering the plaster damage evident in the photograph, no matter how long and how often one stares at the wall and the doors in that picture it is difficult to account for another seventy bullets.

15. @ Yurovsky, the man who led the executioners was hiding something Peter Ermakov (the assassin known as Comrade Mauser) said something when he was interviewed by Richard Halliburton back in the 1930's: “There were to be just we three executioners. If there were to be more than just three of us, we would be in each other's way”.  If three guns were loaded and nine were not then it might be possible that those armed with ineffective weapons were there to be witnesses rather than executioners.  Their real purpose may have been to tell what they had seen: the heir to Russia's throne had been shot in the head. Practically all of the accounts explain that on the evening before the murders Yurovsky called on the captain of the guard, Pavel Medvedev, to collect all of the revolvers and deliver them to his office on the upper floor of the Ipatiev House.  If Yurovsky was alone in that room with the guns, as this would tend to suggest, then he was the only one who knew how the guns were loaded.

16. @ The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk The survival of the Crown Prince of Russia may have been assured by a hand shake agreement during the negotiations that produced the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.  It was Kaiser Wilhelm's wish, Lenin owed the Germans a favour, and it may have resulted because the Kaiser's Field Marshall Paul von Beneckendorffund von Hindenburg had been asked for help by the Tsar's Grand Marshall Count Paul Benckendorff.  If there was any chance that the bodies were to be discovered, the Tsarevich could not be found to be the only one missing. Of course, one of the Princess would also have to disappear to deflect any suspicion away from the boy if there was any chance of the Imperial grave being discovered.

17. III) Clue three: THE BOLSHEVIKS’S SECRET Thanks to Riabov’s relation, Alexander Yurovsky, one son of Yakov Yurovsky, the main Bolshevik executor has been found. Alexander Yurovsky gave them a document known from that moment as 'Yurovsky's note'. This document was then an unpublished essay on the execution and the destruction of the bodies. This essay had been read by his father, on February, 1934 during a meeting of former locals Bolsheviks. Yakov Yurovsky Gueli Riabov Alexander Avdonin

18. At first burial, the bodies were dumped into a mineshaft and hand grenades were detonated on them to collapse the shaft. Forty-eight hours later, nervous that the corpses would be easily found, Yurovski had the bodies retrieved, and then tried to burning them. However, burning all the corpses would cause many troubles. Therefore, there is a subsequent reburial of the original bodies, except two, in an even more remote burial site, to more thoroughly conceal the evidence of the atrocity. Alexei and one of his sisters, were not buried with the rest of the bodies but were instead cremated.

19. What do you think if the missing body is not Anastasia but is another Princess? The missing body might be Maria!!! (February 2001 issue of The Anatomical Record (New Anatomist) Draft of skeletons position in the grave : (1: Demidova - 2: Dr Botkin - 3: Olga - 4: Nkolai - 5: Maria/Anastasia - 6: Tatiana - 7: Aleksandra - 8: Kharitonov - 9: Trupp)

20. Could this be one of the last Romanov? The discovery was made by construction workers in Yekaterinburg, 20 metres from Ipatyev House - the spot where the Tsar's family were shot. A Russian Orthodox church, the Saviour-of-the-Blood cathedral, is being built on the site. The bones have been sent to a regional forensic laboratory and initial analysis suggests that the remains are of a woman and child. It is thought that the bones - two skulls and a leg bone – could fit the age profile of Tsarevna Maria and Tsarevich Aleksei.

21. REFERENCE Victor W.Weedn, M.D., J.D., Duquesne University “The identification of Czar Nicholas II, The last Czar of Imperial Russia” http://www.romanov-memorial.com http://anomalyinfo.com/articles http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-03/su-ssq030204.php http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,62529,00.html http://www.freewarehof.org/manahans.html http://www.historyonthenet.com/Lessons/anastasia http://www.dnai.org/d/index.html http://members.tripod.com/~Pharaoh30/index-13.html http://www.npsnet.com/tsarevich_alexei http://www.interscience.wiley.com/jpages/0003-276X