Who ruled after the execution of the royal family. How the royal Romanov family lived in the last days before the execution

Sergei Osipov, AiF: Which of the Bolshevik leaders made the decision to execute the royal family?

This question is still the subject of debate among historians. There is a version: Lenin And Sverdlov did not sanction the regicide, the initiative of which supposedly belonged only to members of the executive committee of the Ural Regional Council. Indeed, direct documents signed by Ulyanov are still unknown to us. However Leon Trotsky in exile, he recalled how he asked Yakov Sverdlov a question: “Who decided? - We decided here. Ilyich believed that we should not leave them a living banner, especially in the current difficult conditions.” Without any embarrassment, the role of Lenin was unequivocally pointed out by Nadezhda Krupskaya.

At the beginning of July, he urgently left for Moscow from Yekaterinburg party “master” of the Urals and military commissar of the Ural Military District Shaya Goloshchekin. On the 14th he returned, apparently with final instructions from Lenin, Dzerzhinsky and Sverdlov to exterminate the entire family Nicholas II.

- Why did the Bolsheviks need the death of not only the already abdicated Nicholas, but also women and children?

- Trotsky cynically stated: “In essence, the decision was not only expedient, but also necessary,” and in 1935, in his diary, he clarified: “The royal family was a victim of the principle that constitutes the axis of the monarchy: dynastic heredity.”

The extermination of members of the House of Romanov not only destroyed the legal basis for the restoration of legitimate power in Russia, but also bound the Leninists with mutual responsibility.

Could they have survived?

- What would have happened if the Czechs approaching the city had liberated Nicholas II?

The sovereign, members of his family and their faithful servants would have survived. I doubt that Nicholas II would have been able to disavow the act of renunciation of March 2, 1917 in the part that concerned him personally. However, it is obvious that no one could question the rights of the heir to the throne, Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich. A living heir, despite his illness, would personify legitimate power in turmoil-ridden Russia. In addition, along with the accession to the rights of Alexei Nikolaevich, the order of succession to the throne, destroyed during the events of March 2-3, 1917, would automatically be restored. It was precisely this option that the Bolsheviks desperately feared.

Why were some of the royal remains buried (and the murdered themselves canonized) in the 90s of the last century, some - quite recently, and is there any confidence that this part is really the last?

Let's start with the fact that the absence of relics (remains) does not serve as a formal basis for refusal of canonization. The canonization of the royal family by the Church would have taken place even if the Bolsheviks had completely destroyed the bodies in the basement of the Ipatiev House. By the way, many in exile believed so. The fact that the remains were found in parts is not surprising. Both the murder itself and the concealment of traces took place in a terrible hurry, the killers were nervous, the preparation and organization turned out to be extremely poor. Therefore, they could not completely destroy the bodies. I have no doubt that the remains of two people found in the summer of 2007 in the town of Porosyonkov Log near Yekaterinburg belong to the children of the emperor. Therefore, the tragedy of the royal family has most likely come to an end. But, unfortunately, both she and the subsequent tragedies of millions of other Russian families have left our modern society practically indifferent.

After the execution on the night of July 16-17, 1918, the bodies of members of the royal family and their associates (11 people in total) were loaded into a car and sent towards Verkh-Isetsk to the abandoned mines of Ganina Yama. At first they unsuccessfully tried to burn the victims, and then they threw them into a mine shaft and covered them with branches.

Discovery of remains

However, the next day almost the entire Verkh-Isetsk knew about what had happened. Moreover, according to a member of Medvedev’s firing squad, “the icy water of the mine not only completely washed away the blood, but also froze the bodies so much that they looked as if they were alive.” The conspiracy clearly failed.

It was decided to promptly rebury the remains. The area was cordoned off, but the truck, having driven only a few kilometers, got stuck in the swampy area of Porosenkova Log. Without inventing anything, they buried one part of the bodies directly under the road, and the other a little to the side, after first filling them with sulfuric acid. Sleepers were placed on top for safety.

It is interesting that the forensic investigator N. Sokolov, sent by Kolchak in 1919 to search for the burial place, found this place, but never thought to lift the sleepers. In the area of Ganina Yama, he managed to find only a severed female finger. Nevertheless, the investigator’s conclusion was unequivocal: “This is all that remains of the August Family. The Bolsheviks destroyed everything else with fire and sulfuric acid.”

Nine years later, perhaps, it was Vladimir Mayakovsky who visited Porosenkov Log, as can be judged from his poem “The Emperor”: “Here a cedar has been touched with an ax, there are notches under the root of the bark, at the root there is a road under the cedar, and in it the emperor is buried.”

It is known that the poet, shortly before his trip to Sverdlovsk, met in Warsaw with one of the organizers of the execution of the royal family, Pyotr Voikov, who could show him the exact place.

Ural historians found the remains in Porosenkovy Log in 1978, but permission for excavations was received only in 1991. There were 9 bodies in the burial. During the investigation, part of the remains were recognized as “royal”: according to experts, only Alexei and Maria were missing. However, many experts were confused by the results of the examination, and therefore no one was in a hurry to agree with the conclusions. The House of Romanovs and the Russian Orthodox Church refused to recognize the remains as authentic.

Alexei and Maria were discovered only in 2007, guided by a document drawn up from the words of the commandant of the “House of Special Purpose” Yakov Yurovsky. “Yurovsky’s note” initially did not inspire much confidence, however, the location of the second burial was indicated correctly.

Falsifications and myths

Immediately after the execution, representatives of the new government tried to convince the West that members of the imperial family, or at least the children, were alive and in a safe place. People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs G.V. Chicherin in April 1922 at the Genoa Conference, when asked by one of the correspondents about the fate of the Grand Duchesses, vaguely answered: “The fate of the Tsar’s daughters is not known to me. I read in the newspapers that they are in America.”

However, P.L. Voikov informally stated more specifically: “the world will never know what we did to the royal family.” But later, after the materials of Sokolov’s investigation were published in the West, the Soviet authorities recognized the fact of the execution of the imperial family.

Falsifications and speculation around the execution of the Romanovs contributed to the spread of persistent myths, among which the myth of ritual murder and the severed head of Nicholas II, which was in the special storage facility of the NKVD, was popular. Later, stories about the “miraculous rescue” of the Tsar’s children, Alexei and Anastasia, were added to the myths. But all this remained myths.

Investigation and examinations

In 1993, the investigation into the discovery of the remains was entrusted to the investigator of the General Prosecutor's Office, Vladimir Solovyov. Given the importance of the case, in addition to traditional ballistic and macroscopic examinations, additional genetic studies were carried out jointly with English and American scientists.

For these purposes, blood was taken from some Romanov relatives living in England and Greece. The results showed that the probability of the remains belonging to members of the royal family was 98.5 percent.
The investigation considered this insufficient. Solovyov managed to obtain permission to exhume the remains of the Tsar’s brother, George. Scientists confirmed the “absolute positional similarity of mt-DNA” of both remains, which revealed a rare genetic mutation inherent in the Romanovs - heteroplasmy.

However, after the discovery of the supposed remains of Alexei and Maria in 2007, new research and examinations were required. The scientists’ work was greatly facilitated by Alexy II, who, before burying the first group of royal remains in the tomb of the Peter and Paul Cathedral, asked investigators to remove bone particles. “Science is developing, it is possible that they will be needed in the future,” these were the words of the Patriarch.

To remove the doubts of skeptics, the head of the laboratory of molecular genetics at the University of Massachusetts, Evgeniy Rogaev (whom representatives of the House of Romanov insisted on), the chief geneticist of the US Army, Michael Cobble (who returned the names of the victims of September 11), as well as an employee of the Institute of Forensic Medicine from Austria, Walter, were invited for new examinations. Parson.

Comparing the remains from the two burials, experts once again double-checked the previously obtained data and also conducted new research - the previous results were confirmed. Moreover, the “blood-spattered shirt” of Nicholas II (the Otsu incident), discovered in the Hermitage collections, fell into the hands of scientists. And again the answer is positive: the genotypes of the king “on blood” and “on bones” coincided.

Results

The results of the investigation into the execution of the royal family refuted some previously existing assumptions. For example, according to experts, “under the conditions in which the destruction of corpses was carried out, it was impossible to completely destroy the remains using sulfuric acid and flammable materials.”

This fact excludes Ganina Yama as a final burial site.
True, historian Vadim Viner finds a serious gap in the conclusions of the investigation. He believes that some finds belonging to a later time were not taken into account, in particular coins from the 30s. But as the facts show, information about the burial place very quickly “leaked” to the masses, and therefore the burial ground could be repeatedly opened in search of possible valuables.

Another revelation is offered by the historian S.A. Belyaev, who believes that “they could have buried the family of an Ekaterinburg merchant with imperial honors,” although without providing convincing arguments.
However, the conclusions of the investigation, which was carried out with unprecedented rigor using the latest methods, with the participation of independent experts, are clear: all 11 remains clearly correlate with each of those shot in Ipatiev’s house. Common sense and logic dictate that it is impossible to duplicate such physical and genetic correspondences by chance.
In December 2010, the final conference dedicated to the latest results of the examinations was held in Yekaterinburg. The reports were made by 4 groups of geneticists working independently in different countries. Opponents of the official version could also present their views, but according to eyewitnesses, “after listening to the reports, they left the hall without saying a word.”
The Russian Orthodox Church still does not recognize the authenticity of the “Ekaterinburg remains,” but many representatives of the House of Romanov, judging by their statements in the press, accepted the final results of the investigation.

We do not claim the reliability of all the facts presented in this article, but the arguments presented below are very interesting.

There was no execution of the royal family.The heir to the throne, Alyosha Romanov, became People's Commissar Alexei Kosygin.
The royal family was separated in 1918, but not executed. Maria Feodorovna left for Germany, and Nicholas II and the heir to the throne Alexei remained hostages in Russia.

In April of this year, Rosarkhiv, which was under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Culture, was reassigned directly to the head of state. The changes in status were explained by the special state value of the materials stored there. While experts were wondering what all this meant, a historical investigation appeared in the President newspaper, registered on the platform of the Presidential Administration. Its essence is that no one shot the royal family. They all lived long lives, and Tsarevich Alexei even made a career in the nomenklatura in the USSR.

The transformation of Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich Romanov into Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Alexei Nikolaevich Kosygin was first discussed during perestroika. They referred to a leak from the party archive. The information was perceived as a historical anecdote, although the thought - what if it was true - stirred in the minds of many. After all, no one saw the remains of the royal family then, and there were always many rumors about their miraculous salvation. And suddenly, here you are - a publication about the life of the royal family after the alleged execution is published in a publication that is as far as possible from the pursuit of sensation.

— Was it possible to escape or be taken out of Ipatiev’s house? It turns out yes! - historian Sergei Zhelenkov writes to the President newspaper. - There was a factory nearby. In 1905, the owner dug an underground passage to it in case of capture by revolutionaries. When Boris Yeltsin destroyed the house after the decision of the Politburo, the bulldozer fell into a tunnel that no one knew about.

STALIN often called KOSYGIN (left) Tsarevich in front of everyone

Left hostage

What reasons did the Bolsheviks have for saving the life of the royal family?

Researchers Tom Mangold and Anthony Summers published the book “The Romanov Affair, or the Execution that Never Happened” in 1979. They started with the fact that in 1978 the 60-year secrecy stamp of the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty signed in 1918 expires, and it would be interesting to look into the declassified archives.

The first thing they dug up were telegrams from the English ambassador reporting on the evacuation of the royal family from Yekaterinburg to Perm by the Bolsheviks.

According to British intelligence agents in the army of Alexander Kolchak, upon entering Yekaterinburg on July 25, 1918, the admiral immediately appointed an investigator in the case of the execution of the royal family. Three months later, Captain Nametkin put a report on his desk, where he said that instead of execution there was a re-enactment of it.

In parallel with them, the commission of Captain Malinovsky worked, who in June 1919 gave the following instructions to the third investigator, Nikolai Sokolov: “As a result of my work on the case, I developed the conviction that the august family is alive... all the facts that I observed during the investigation are "simulation of murder".

Admiral Kolchak, who had already proclaimed himself the Supreme Ruler of Russia, did not need a living tsar at all, so Sokolov receives very clear instructions - to find evidence of the death of the emperor.

Sokolov can’t come up with anything better than to say: “The corpses were thrown into a mine and filled with acid.”

Tom Mangold and Anthony Summers believed that the answer should be sought in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk itself. However, its full text is not in the declassified archives of London or Berlin. And they came to the conclusion that there were points relating to the royal family.

Probably, Emperor Wilhelm II, who was a close relative of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, demanded that all the august women be transferred to Germany. The girls had no rights to the Russian throne and therefore could not threaten the Bolsheviks. The men remained hostages - as guarantors that the German army would not march on St. Petersburg and Moscow.

This explanation seems quite logical. Especially if we remember that the tsar was overthrown not by the Reds, but by their own liberal-minded aristocracy, the bourgeoisie and the top of the army. The Bolsheviks did not have any particular hatred for Nicholas II. He did not threaten them in any way, but at the same time he was an excellent ace in the hole and a good bargaining chip in negotiations.

In addition, Lenin understood perfectly well that Nicholas II was a chicken capable, if shaken well, of laying many golden eggs so necessary for the young Soviet state. After all, the secrets of many family and state deposits in Western banks were kept in the king’s head. Later, these riches of the Russian Empire were used for industrialization.

In the cemetery in the Italian village of Marcotta there was a gravestone on which Princess Olga Nikolaevna, the eldest daughter of the Russian Tsar Nicholas II, rested. In 1995, the grave, under the pretext of non-payment of rent, was destroyed and the ashes were transferred.

Life after death"

According to the President newspaper, the KGB of the USSR, based on the 2nd Main Directorate, had a special department that monitored all movements of the royal family and their descendants across the territory of the USSR:

“Stalin built a dacha in Sukhumi next to the dacha of the royal family and came there to meet with the emperor. Nicholas II visited the Kremlin in the uniform of an officer, which was confirmed by General Vatov, who served in Joseph Vissarionovich’s bodyguard.”

According to the newspaper, in order to honor the memory of the last emperor, monarchists can go to Nizhny Novgorod to the Red Etna cemetery, where he was buried on December 26, 1958. The famous Nizhny Novgorod elder Gregory performed the funeral service and buried the sovereign.

Much more surprising is the fate of the heir to the throne, Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich.

Over time, he, like many, came to terms with the revolution and came to the conclusion that one must serve the Fatherland regardless of one’s political beliefs. However, he had no other choice.

Historian Sergei Zhelenkov provides a lot of evidence of the transformation of Tsarevich Alexei into the Red Army soldier Kosygin.

During the thundering years of the Civil War, and even under the cover of the Cheka, this was really not difficult to do. His future career is much more interesting. Stalin saw a great future in the young man and far-sightedly moved him along the economic line. Not according to the party.

In 1942, the representative of the State Defense Committee in besieged Leningrad, Kosygin supervised the evacuation of the population and industrial enterprises and property of Tsarskoye Selo. Alexey had sailed around Ladoga many times on the yacht “Standart” and knew the surrounding area of the lake well, so he organized the “Road of Life” to supply the city.

In 1949, during Malenkov’s promotion of the “Leningrad Affair,” Kosygin “miraculously” survived. Stalin, who called him Tsarevich in front of everyone, sent Alexei Nikolaevich on a long trip around Siberia due to the need to strengthen cooperation activities and improve the procurement of agricultural products. Kosygin was so removed from internal party affairs that he retained his position after the death of his patron.

Khrushchev and Brezhnev needed a good, proven business executive; as a result, Kosygin served as head of government the longest in the history of the Russian Empire, the USSR and the Russian Federation - 16 years.

As for the wife of Nicholas II and daughters, their trace cannot be called lost either.

Before her death, she called a notary and said that Olga Romanova, the daughter of Nicholas II, was not shot by the Bolsheviks, but lived a long life under the protection of the Vatican and was buried in a cemetery in the village of Marcotte in northern Italy.

Journalists who went to the indicated address actually found a slab in the graveyard, where it was written in German: “ Olga Nikolaevna, eldest daughter of the Russian Tsar Nikolai Romanov, 1895 - 1976».

In this regard, the question arises: who was buried in 1998 in the Peter and Paul Cathedral? President Boris Yeltsin assured the public that these were the remains of the royal family. But the Russian Orthodox Church then refused to recognize this fact. Let us remember that in Sofia, in the building of the Holy Synod on St. Alexander Nevsky Square, lived the confessor of the Highest Family, Bishop Theophan, who fled from the horrors of the revolution. He never served a memorial service for the august family and said that the royal family was alive!

The result of the economic reforms developed by Alexei Kosygin was the so-called golden eighth five-year plan of 1966 - 1970. During this time:

- national income increased by 42 percent,

— the volume of gross industrial output increased by 51 percent,

— agricultural profitability increased by 21 percent,

— the formation of the Unified Energy System of the European part of the USSR was completed, the unified energy system of Central Siberia was created,

— development of the Tyumen oil and gas production complex began,

— the Bratsk, Krasnoyarsk and Saratov hydroelectric power stations and the Pridneprovskaya State District Power Plant came into operation,

— the West Siberian Metallurgical and Karaganda Metallurgical Plants started operating,

— the first Zhiguli cars were produced,

— the provision of the population with televisions has doubled, washing machines - two and a half times, refrigerators - three times.

The text of the resolution of the Presidium of the Ural Regional Council of Workers, Peasants and Red Army Deputies, published a week after the execution, said: “In view of the fact that Czechoslovak gangs threaten the capital of the Red Urals, Yekaterinburg; in view of the fact that the crowned executioner can avoid the trial of the people (a White Guard conspiracy has just been discovered, which had the goal of kidnapping the entire Romanov family), the Presidium of the regional committee, in fulfillment of the will of the people, decided: to shoot former Tsar Nicholas Romanov, guilty before the people of countless bloody crimes.”

The civil war gained momentum, and Yekaterinburg soon truly came under the control of the whites. The resolution did not report the execution of the entire family, but the members of the Urals Council were guided by the formula “You cannot leave them the banner.” According to the revolutionaries, any of the Romanovs freed by the Whites could subsequently be used for the project of restoring the monarchy in Russia.

If we look at the question more broadly, then Nikolai and Alexandra Romanov were considered by the masses as the main culprits of the troubles that occurred in the country at the beginning of the 20th century - the lost Russian-Japanese War, “Bloody Resurrection” and the subsequent first Russian revolution, “Rasputinism”, the First World War, low living standards, etc.

Contemporaries testify that among the workers of Yekaterinburg there were demands for reprisals against the Tsar, caused by rumors about attempts to escape by the Romanov family.

The execution of all the Romanovs, including children, is perceived as a terrible crime from a peacetime point of view. But in the conditions of the Civil War, both sides fought with increasing brutality, in which not only ideological opponents, but also members of their families were increasingly killed.

As for the execution of the entourage who accompanied the royal family, members of the Urals Council subsequently explained their actions as follows: they decided to share the fate of the Romanovs, so let them share it to the end.

Who made the decision to execute Nikolai Romanov and his family members?

The official decision to execute Nicholas II and his relatives was made on July 16, 1918 by the Presidium of the Ural Regional Council of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies.

This council was not exclusively Bolshevik and also consisted of anarchists and left Socialist Revolutionaries, who were even more radically disposed towards the family of the last emperor.

It is known that the top leadership of the Bolsheviks in Moscow was considering the issue of holding the trial of Nikolai Romanov in Moscow. However, the situation in the country worsened sharply, the Civil War began and the issue was postponed. The question of what to do with the rest of the family was not even discussed.

In the spring of 1918, rumors about the death of the Romanovs arose several times, but the Bolshevik government denied them. Lenin's directive, sent to Yekaterinburg, demanded the prevention of “any violence” against the royal family.

The highest Soviet leadership represented by Vladimir Lenin And Yakova Sverdlova The Ural comrades were confronted with a fact - the Romanovs were executed. During the Civil War, central control over the regions was often formal.

To date, there is no real evidence to suggest that the government of the RSFSR in Moscow gave the order for the execution of Nikolai Romanov and members of his family.

Why were the children of the last emperor executed?

In conditions of an acute political crisis and the Civil War, the four daughters and son of Nikolai Romanov were considered not as ordinary children, but as figures with the help of which the monarchy could be revived.

Based on known facts, we can say that such a view was not close to the Bolshevik government in Moscow, but the revolutionaries on the ground reasoned exactly like this. Therefore, the Romanov children shared the fate of their parents.

However, it cannot be said that the execution of the royal children is a cruelty that has no analogues in history.

After his election to the Russian throne founder of the Romanov dynasty Mikhail Fedorovich, in Moscow, a 3-year-old was hanged at the Serpukhov Gate Ivashka Vorenok, aka Tsarevich Ivan Dmitrievich, son of Marina Mnishek and False Dmitry II. The whole fault of the unfortunate child was that the opponents of Mikhail Romanov considered Ivan Dmitrievich as a contender for the throne. Supporters of the new dynasty solved the problem radically by strangling the baby.

At the end of 1741, as a result of a coup, she ascended the Russian throne. Elizaveta Petrovna, daughter Peter the Great. At the same time, she overthrew John VI, the infant emperor, who was not even one and a half years old at the time of the overthrow. The child was subjected to strict isolation, prohibiting his images and even the public speaking of his name. After spending his childhood in exile in Kholmogory, at the age of 16 he was imprisoned in solitary confinement in the Shlisselburg fortress. After spending his entire life in captivity, the former emperor was stabbed to death by guards at the age of 23 during a failed attempt to free him.

Is it true that the murder of Nikolai Romanov’s family was ritual in nature?

All investigative teams that have ever worked on the case of the execution of the Romanov family came to the conclusion that it was not of a ritual nature. Information about certain signs and inscriptions at the execution site that have a symbolic meaning is a product of myth-making. This version became most widespread thanks to a book by a Nazi Helmut Schramm"Ritual murder among the Jews." Schramm himself included it in the book at the suggestion of Russian emigrants Mikhail Skaryatin And Grigory Schwartz-Bostunich. The latter not only collaborated with the Nazis, but made a brilliant career in the Third Reich, rising to the rank of SS Standartenführer.

Is it true that some members of Nicholas II’s family escaped execution?

Today we can confidently say that both Nikolai and Alexandra and all their five children died in Yekaterinburg. In general, the overwhelming majority of members of the Romanov clan either died during the revolution and the Civil War or left the country. The rarest exception can be considered the great-great-great-granddaughter of Emperor Nicholas I, Natalya Androsova, who in the USSR became a circus performer and a master of sports in motorcycle racing.

To a certain extent, the members of the Urals Council achieved the goal they were striving for - the basis for the revival of the institution of monarchy in the country was completely and irrevocably destroyed.

Exactly one hundred years have passed since the death of the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II and his family. In 1918, on the night of July 16-17, the royal family was shot. We talk about life in exile and the death of the Romanovs, disputes about the authenticity of their remains, the version of the “ritual” murder and why the Russian Orthodox Church canonized the royal family.

CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

What happened to Nicholas II and his family before their death?

After abdicating the throne, Nicholas II turned from a tsar into a prisoner. The last milestones in the life of the royal family are house arrest in Tsarskoye Selo, exile in Tobolsk, imprisonment in Yekaterinburg, writes TASS. The Romanovs were subjected to many humiliations: the guard soldiers were often rude, they imposed restrictions on everyday life, and prisoners’ correspondence was viewed.

While living in Tsarskoe Selo, Alexander Kerensky forbade Nicholas and Alexandra from sleeping together: the spouses were allowed to see each other only at the table and speak to each other exclusively in Russian. True, this measure did not last long.

In Ipatiev’s house, Nicholas II wrote in his diary that he was only allowed to walk for an hour a day. When asked to explain the reason, they answered: “To make it look like a prison regime.”

Where, how and who killed the royal family?

The royal family and their entourage were shot in Yekaterinburg in the basement of the house of mining engineer Nikolai Ipatiev, RIA Novosti reports. Together with Emperor Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, their children - Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, Tsarevich Alexei, as well as physician Evgeny Botkin, valet Alexei Trupp, room girl Anna Demidova and cook Ivan Kharitonov died.

The commandant of the Special Purpose House, Yakov Yurovsky, was assigned to organize the execution. After the execution, all the bodies were transferred to a truck and taken out of Ipatiev’s house.

Why was the royal family canonized?

In 1998, in response to a request from the Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, the senior prosecutor-criminologist of the Main Investigation Department of the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation, who led the investigation, Vladimir Solovyov, replied that “the circumstances of the death of the family indicate that the actions of those involved in the direct execution of the sentence (choice of the place of execution, team, murder weapons, burial places, manipulations with corpses) were determined by random circumstances,” quotes “” refers to the assumption that doubles of the royal family could have been shot in Ipatiev’s house. In a publication by Meduza, Ksenia Luchenko refutes this version:

This is out of the question. On January 23, 1998, the Prosecutor General's Office presented the government commission led by Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov with a detailed report on the results of the study into the circumstances of the death of the royal family and people from its circle.<…>And the general conclusion was clear: everyone died, the remains were correctly identified.