Where Are the Romanovs Buried?
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On July 17, 1918, the reigning members of Russia's last ruling royal family, the Romanovs—Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Tsarina Alexandra, and their five children, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei—were executed by Bolshevik revolutionaries in Ekaterinburg. News of the family's deaths would go on to shock the world, kicking off decades of political debate and spawning mystery, as legends that one of more of the Romanovs may have survived, spread across the globe.
But though the deaths of the Romanovs would capture imaginations for years, it would take more than half a century for the family's remains to be discovered, and far longer for Russia's last imperial family to be laid to rest.
Where is the Romanov family buried?
Following their deaths by firing squad and stabbing, the bodies of the Romanov family were disposed of initially down a mine shaft, but were later retrieved to be burned and buried at a secondary site. In 1979, Alexander Avdonin was able to locate and identify one of the Romanov burial sites, though the bodies there were not exhumed until 1991. DNA evidence at the time confirmed that the remains found were those of the tsar and tsarina as well as three of their daughter and four members of their staff. Testing at the time was not able to positively determine which three of the four Romanov daughters were buried with their parents, with experts disagreeing at to whether it was Maria or Anastasia who was missing from the group.
In 1998, the remains of Nicholas, Alexandra, and the daughters found with them, as well as their staff, were laid to rest in the St Catherine Chapel at St Petersburg's St Peter and Paul Cathedral, which has served as a resting place for the Russian imperial family since the time of Peter the Great.
The funeral was a controversial one—the Russian Orthodox Church disputed the authenticity of the remains and refused to have its bishops take part in the ceremony, and initially Russian President Boris Yeltsin said he would not attend the service. However, Yeltsin later changed his mind, saying on the day of the ceremony, "Today is a historic day for Russia. For many years, we kept quiet about this monstrous crime, but the truth has to be spoken."
All of the Romanovs are not buried together
In 2007, an additional burial site was discovered, including the partial remains of two more individuals believed to be the missing Romanov daughter (most likely Maria), as well as the tsar and tsarina's only son Alexei. While DNA testing concluded that the remains were those of the Romanov children, the Orthodox Church remained unconvinced and has blocked calls for the remains to be buried with the other Russian royals.
The Romanovs were canonized by the church in 2000, making their remains religious relics, which the institution has said required them to be certain of the two additional bodies's identities before they can be laid to rest with the Romanovs. Proponents of burying the remaining Romanov children alongside the rest of their family have argued that the church's recalcitrance is a matter of political maneuvering over feeling sidelined from earlier investigations.
Ahead of the 100th anniversary of the Romanov's deaths in 2018, The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation announced that further DNA testing had confirmed that the bodies of the tsar and his family found with him were authentic. The investigators had exhumed the body of Nicholas' father, Alexander III, for genetic samples, as well as comparing them to samples taken from living members and descendants of the Romanov family, including England's Prince Philip.
Despite the further confirmation, Alexei and his sister remain unburied.
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