Remains of Czarevich Alexis Nicolaevich and Grand Duchess Maria found
Russian scientists have confirmed through DNA testing that bone fragments found in the Ural Mountains are indeed those of the last Czarevich, Alexis Nicolaevich Romanov, Heir to the Throne of Imperial Russia, and his sister, Grand Duchess Maria. Both were murdered by the http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=1206 in 1918, alongside the rest of the immediate Imperial Family: Czar Nicholas II, the Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna, the Grand Duchess Anastasia, the Grand Duchess Tatiana, and the Grand Duchess Olga.
The remains were found near a site where the bodies of the rest of the http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3332. The corpses had been buried by the Marxists hastily in containers, with sulphuric acid meant to obliterate the bodies. The Communists had acted quickly on direct orders from Lenin when news of a Czarist White Army advance sparked Red fears of an Imperial rescue.
The newly identified remains will likely be interred alongside the rest of the Family at Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=348, final resting place of the Romanov family.Czarevich Alexis suffered from congenital hemophilia, a result of the close breeding of Europe’s aristocratic houses. His mother’s faith in Rasputin, the famous holy man/charlatan, has been blamed for stoking lack of confidence in the Czarist government and indirectly aiding the eventual Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917.
Along with their family, Alexis and Maria were taken prisoner by the Reds, who shipped them around Russia and attempted to use them as bargaining chips to fend off foreign intervention. King George V of the United Kingdom allegedly declined to ransom his lookalike cousin Czar Nicholas out of fear of provoking leftist forces within his own realm, already weakened by the madness of the First World War.
The deaths of the Imperial Family led to a number of legends. One sister, Anastasia, was alleged to have escaped, and a number of women later claimed to be her. At least one person pretended to be Alexis, issuing titles and medals in exchange for payment.
In 2000, the Russian Orthodox Church canonized the Imperial Family, who came to symbolize the unspeakable suffering Russia underwent as a result of Communism.