The tragic fate of Anastasia Romanova: execution and false resurrection. The Tsar's daughter Anastasia

Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova - a great mystery

Princesses.

July 17" href="/text/category/17_iyulya/" rel="bookmark">July 17, 1918, Yekaterinburg) - Grand Duchess, fourth daughter of Emperor Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna. Shot along with her family in the Ipatiev house. After her death about 30 women declared themselves “the miraculously saved Grand Duchess,” but sooner or later they were all exposed as impostors. She was glorified along with her parents, sisters and brother in the Cathedral of the New Martyrs of Russia as a passion-bearer at the anniversary Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church in August 2000. Previously, in 1981, they were canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. Memory - July 4 according to the Julian calendar.

Birth

Born June 5 (18), 1901 in Peterhof. By the time of her appearance, the royal couple already had three daughters - Olga, Tatyana and Maria. The absence of an heir aggravated the political situation: according to the Act of Succession to the Throne, adopted by Paul I, a woman could not ascend the throne, therefore the younger brother of Nicholas II, Mikhail Alexandrovich, was considered the heir, which did not suit many, and first of all, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. In an attempt to beg God for a son, at this time she becomes more and more immersed in mysticism. With the assistance of the Montenegrin princesses Militsa Nikolaevna and Anastasia Nikolaevna, a certain Philip, a Frenchman by nationality, arrived at the court, declaring himself a hypnotist and a specialist in nervous diseases. Philip predicted the birth of a son to Alexandra Fedorovna, however, a girl was born - Anastasia. Nicholas wrote in his diary:

The entry in the emperor's diary contradicts the statements of some researchers who believe that Nicholas, disappointed by the birth of his daughter, did not dare to visit his newborn and his wife for a long time.

Grand Duchess Xenia, sister of the reigning Emperor, also celebrated the event:

The Grand Duchess was named after the Montenegrin princess Anastasia Nikolaevna, a close friend of the Empress. The “hypnotist” Philip, not at a loss after the failed prophecy, immediately predicted her “an amazing life and a special destiny.” Margaret Eager, author of the memoir Six Years at the Russian Imperial Court, recalled that Anastasia was named after the Emperor pardoned and reinstated the students of St. Petersburg University who took part in the recent unrest, since the name “Anastasia” itself means “returned to life,” the image of this saint usually contains chains torn in half.

The full title of Anastasia Nikolaevna sounded like Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess of Russia Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova, but it was not used, in official speech they called her by her first name and patronymic, and at home they called her “little, Nastaska, Nastya, little pod” - for her small height (157 cm ) and a round figure and a “shvybzik” - for his mobility and inexhaustibility in inventing pranks and pranks.

According to the memoirs of contemporaries, the emperor’s children were not spoiled with luxury. Anastasia shared a room with her older sister Maria. The walls of the room were gray, the ceiling was decorated with images of butterflies. There are icons and photographs on the walls. The furniture is in white and green tones, the furnishings are simple, almost spartan, a couch with embroidered pillows, and an army cot on which the Grand Duchess slept all year round. This cot moved around the room in order to end up in a more illuminated and warmer part of the room in winter, and in summer it was sometimes even pulled out onto the balcony so that one could take a break from the stuffiness and heat. They took this same bed with them on vacation to the Livadia Palace, and the Grand Duchess slept on it during her Siberian exile. One large room next door, divided in half by a curtain, served the Grand Duchesses as a common boudoir and bathroom.

The life of the grand duchesses was quite monotonous. Breakfast at 9 o'clock, second breakfast at 13:00 or 12:30 on Sundays. At five o'clock there was tea, at eight there was a general dinner, and the food was quite simple and unpretentious. In the evenings, the girls solved charades and did embroidery while their father read aloud to them.

Early in the morning it was supposed to take a cold bath, in the evening - a warm one, to which a few drops of perfume were added, and Anastasia preferred Koti perfume with the smell of violets. This tradition has been preserved since the time of Catherine I. When the girls were small, servants carried buckets of water to the bathroom; when they grew up, this was their responsibility. There were two baths - the first large one, left over from the reign of Nicholas I (according to the surviving tradition, everyone who washed in it left their autograph on the side), the other, smaller, was intended for children.

Sundays were especially looked forward to - on this day the Grand Duchesses attended children's balls at their aunt Olga Alexandrovna's. The evening was especially interesting when Anastasia was allowed to dance with the young officers.

Like other children of the emperor, Anastasia was educated at home. Education began at the age of eight, the program included French, English and German, history, geography, the Law of God, natural Sciences, drawing, grammar, arithmetic, as well as dancing and music. Anastasia was not known for her diligence in her studies; she hated grammar, wrote with horrific errors, and with childish spontaneity called arithmetic “sinishness.” English teacher Sydney Gibbs recalled that she once tried to bribe him with a bouquet of flowers to improve his grade, and after his refusal, she gave these flowers to the Russian language teacher, Pyotr Vasilyevich Petrov.

Basically, the family lived in the Alexander Palace, occupying only part of several dozen rooms. Sometimes they moved to Winter Palace, despite the fact that it was very large and cold, the girls Tatyana and Anastasia often got sick here.

In mid-June, the family went on trips on the imperial yacht "Standard", usually along the Finnish skerries, landing from time to time on the islands for short excursions. The imperial family especially fell in love with a small bay, which was dubbed Standard Bay. They had picnics there, or played tennis on the court, which the emperor built with his own hands.

We also rested at the Livadia Palace. The main premises housed the imperial family, and the annexes housed several courtiers, guards and servants. They swam in the warm sea, built fortresses and towers out of sand, and sometimes went into the city to ride a stroller through the streets or visit shops. It was not possible to do this in St. Petersburg, since any appearance royal family it created a crowd and excitement in public.

They sometimes visited Polish estates belonging to the royal family, where Nicholas loved to hunt.

The First World War turned out to be a disaster for Russian Empire and for the Romanov dynasty. By February 1917, having lost hundreds of thousands killed, the country faltered. In the capital, Petrograd, people staged food riots, students joined the striking workers, and the troops sent to restore order themselves rebelled. Tsar Nicholas II, hastily summoned from the front, where he personally commanded the imperial army, was given an ultimatum: renunciation. For the sake of himself and his sickly 12-year-old son, he abandoned the throne that his dynasty had occupied since 1613.
The provisional government placed the former emperor's family under house arrest in Tsarskoe Selo, a comfortable ensemble of palaces near Petrograd. Together with Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and Tsarevich Alexei, there were the Tsar’s four daughters, Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia, the eldest of whom was 22 years old, and the youngest 16 years old. Apart from constant supervision, the family experienced virtually no hardships during their imprisonment in Tsarskoe Selo.
By the summer of 1917, Kerensky began to worry about conspiracies: on the one hand, the Bolsheviks sought to eliminate the former Tsar; on the other hand, the monarchists who remained loyal to the tsar wanted to save Nicholas II and return the throne to him. For safety's sake, Kerensky decided to send his royal captives to Tobolsk, a remote Siberian town more than 1,500 kilometers east of Ural mountains. On August 14, Nicholas II, his wife and five children, accompanied by about 40 servants, set off from Tsarskoye Selo on a six-day journey on a heavily guarded train.
...In November, the Bolsheviks seized power and concluded a separate peace with Germany and Austria-Hungary (the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty was signed in March 1918). The new leader of Russia, Vladimir Lenin, faced many problems, including what to do with former king, who has now become his prisoner.
In April 1918, when White Army, supporters of the Tsar, advanced towards Tobolsk along the Trans-Siberian Railway, Lenin ordered to transport royal family to Yekaterinburg, located at the western end of the road. Nicholas II and his family were settled in the two-story residence of the merchant Ipatiev, giving it the ominous name “House of Special Purpose.”
Security guards most which consisted of former factory workers, was commanded by the uncouth and often drunk Alexander Avdeev, who liked to call the former Tsar Nicholas the Bloody.
At the beginning of July 1918, Avdeev was replaced by Yakov Yurovsky, the head of the local Cheka detachment. Two days later, a courier arrived from Moscow with orders to prevent the former Tsar from falling into the hands of the Whites. The pro-monarchist army, joining the 40,000-strong Czech corps, steadily advanced west towards Yekaterinburg, despite the resistance of the Bolsheviks.
Somewhere after midnight, on the night of July 16-17, 1918, Yurovsky woke up the members of the royal family, ordered them to get dressed and ordered them to gather in one of the rooms on the first floor. Chairs were brought to Alexandra and the sick Alexei, Nicholas II, the princesses, Doctor Botkin and four servants remained standing. After reading out the death sentence, Yurovsky shot Nicholas II in the head - this was a signal to the other participants in the execution to open fire at pre-specified targets. Those who did not die immediately were bayoneted.
The bodies were thrown into a truck and taken to an abandoned mine outside the city, where they were mutilated, doused with acid and dumped in an adit. On July 17, the government in Moscow received an encrypted message from Yekaterinburg: “Inform Sverdlov that all members of the family suffered the same fate as its head. Officially, the family died during the evacuation.”
At a meeting of the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on July 18, its chairman reported a telegram received via direct wire about the execution of the former tsar.
July 19 by the Council People's Commissars A decree was published on the confiscation of the property of Nikolai Romanov and members of the former imperial house. All their property was declared property Soviet republic. The execution of the Romanovs in Yekaterinburg was officially published on July 22. The day before, a message about this was made at a workers' meeting in the city theater, greeted with a stormy expression of delight...
Rumors arose almost immediately about how true this message was. The version that Nicholas II was actually executed on the night of July 16-17 was actively discussed, but the lives of the former queen, her son and four daughters were spared. However, since the former queen and her children never appeared anywhere, the conclusion about the death of the entire family became generally accepted. True, from time to time, contenders for the role of survivors of this terrible tragedy appeared. They were considered impostors, and the legend that not all the Romanovs died that night was considered a fantasy.
...In 1988, with the advent of glasnost, sensational facts were revealed. The son of Yakov Yurovsky handed over to the authorities a secret report detailing the location and circumstances of the burial of the bodies. From 1988 to 1991, searches and excavations took place. As a result, nine skeletons were found in the indicated location. After careful computer analysis (comparing skulls with photographs) and comparing genes (the so-called comparison of DNA fingerprints), it became obvious that the five skeletons belonged to Nicholas II, Alexandra and three of the five children. Four skeletons - three servants and Doctor Botkin - the family doctor.
The discovery of the remains lifted the veil of secrecy, but also added fuel to the fire. Two skeletons were missing from the burial found near Yekaterinburg. Experts came to the conclusion that there are no remains of Tsarevich Alexei and one of the Grand Duchesses. It is not known whose skeleton is missing, Maria or Anastasia. The question remains open: fifty-fifty.

The memories of contemporaries indicate that Anastasia was well educated, knew how to dance, knew foreign languages, participated in home performances... She had a funny nickname in her family: “Shvibzik” for her playfulness. She seemed to be made of mercury, and not of flesh and blood, she was very witty and had an undoubted gift of mime. She was so cheerful and so able to dispel the wrinkles of anyone who was out of sorts that some of those around her began to call Her “Sunbeam”
...The life of the youngest daughter of Nicholas II ended at 17 years old. On the night of July 16-17, 1918, she and her relatives were shot in Yekaterinburg.
Or weren't they shot? In the early 90s, the burial of the royal family near Yekaterinburg was discovered, but the remains of Anastasia and Tsarevich Alexei were not found. However, another skeleton, "number 6", was later found and buried as belonging to the Grand Duchess. True, a small detail casts doubt on its authenticity - Anastasia had a height of 158 cm, and the buried skeleton was 171 cm... Well, the princess didn’t grow up in the grave?
There are other inconsistencies that allow us to hope for a miracle...

Despite the apparent transparency of the history of the death of the family of the last Russian Tsar, there are still blank spots in it. Too many people were not interested in finding out the truth, but in creating the illusion of truth. Multiple examinations carried out in different laboratories in different countries of the world brought confusion to the matter rather than clarity.
It is well known that in the early 90s the burial of the royal family was discovered near Yekaterinburg, but the remains of Anastasia (or Maria) and Tsarevich Alexei were not found. However, another skeleton, "number 6", was later found and buried as belonging to the Grand Duchess. However, a small detail casts doubt on its authenticity - Anastasia had a height of 158 cm, and the buried skeleton was 171 cm...
It is less known that Nicholas II had seven twin families, and their fate is not clear. Two judicial determinations in Germany, based on DNA examinations of the Ekaterinburg remains, showed that they are one hundred percent consistent with the Filatov family - doubles of the family of Nicholas II... So, perhaps, it remains to be seen whose remains are buried under the name of Grand Duchess Anastasia in St. Petersburg in July 1998 (there are doubts about other remains buried then), and whose remains were found in the summer of 2007 in the Koptyakovsky forest.
Official point of view: ALL members of the family of Nicholas II and himself were shot in Yekaterinburg in 1918, and no one managed to escape. The contenders for the “role” of the survivors Anastasia and Alexei are scammers and impostors who have a vested interest in receiving Nicholas II’s foreign bank deposits. According to various estimates, the amount of these deposits in England ranges from 100 billion to 2 trillion dollars.
This official point of view is contradicted by facts and evidence that do not allow Anastasia to be considered dead along with the entire Royal Family on the night of July 17, 1918:
- There is an eyewitness account who saw the wounded but alive Anastasia in a house on Voskresensky Prospekt in Yekaterinburg (almost opposite Ipatiev’s house) in the early morning of July 17, 1918; it was Heinrich Kleinbetzetl, a tailor from Vienna, an Austrian prisoner of war, who in the summer of 1918 worked in Yekaterinburg as an apprentice to the tailor Baudin. He saw her in Baudin's house in the early morning of July 17, a few hours after the brutal massacre in the basement of Ipatiev's house. It was brought by one of the guards (probably still from the previous more liberal guard composition - Yurovsky did not replace all the previous guards), - one of those few young guys who had long sympathized with girls, the Tsar's daughters;
- There is confusion in the testimonies, reports and stories of the participants in this bloody massacre - even in different versions of the stories of the same people;
- It is known that the “Reds” were looking for the missing Anastasia for several months after the murder of the Royal Family;
- It is known that one (or two?) women's corsets were not found.
- It is known that the Bolsheviks conducted secret negotiations with the Germans about handing over the Russian Tsarina and her children to them in exchange for Russian political prisoners in Germany after the tragedy in Yekaterinburg!
- In 1925, A. Anderson met with Olga Alexandrovna Romanova-Kulikovskaya, the sister of Nicholas II and Anastasia’s aunt, who could not help but recognize her niece. Olga Alexandrovna treated her with warmth and warmth. “I’m not able to grasp this with my mind,” she said after the meeting, but my heart tells me that it’s Anastasia!” Later, the Romanovs decided to abandon the girl, declaring her an impostor.
- the archives of the Cheka-KGB-FSB about the murder of the Royal Family and what the security officers led by Yurovsky in 1919 (a year after the execution) and MGB officers (Beria’s department) did in the Koptyakovsky forest in 1946 have not yet been opened. All documents known so far about the execution of the Royal Family (including Yurovsky’s “Note”) were obtained from other state archives (not from the FSB archives).
If all members of the Royal Family were killed, then why do we still not have answers to all these questions?

Fräulein Unbekannt (Unbekannt - unknown)

Under the name Fräulein Unbekant, a girl rescued from a suicide attempt was registered in the Berlin police report on February 17, 1920. She had no documents with her and refused to give her name. She had light brown hair and piercing gray eyes. She spoke with a pronounced Slavic accent, so in her personal file there was an entry “unknown Russian.”
Since the spring of 1922, dozens of articles and books have been written about her. Anastasia Tchaikovskaya, Anna Anderson, later Anna Manahan (after her husband's last name). These are the names of the same woman. Last name, written on her gravestone, Anastasia Manahan. She died on February 12, 1984, but even after death, her fate haunts neither her friends nor her enemies.
...That evening, February 17, she was admitted to the Elisabeth Hospital on Lützowstrasse. At the end of March she was transferred to a neurological clinic in Daldorf with a diagnosis of “mental illness of a depressive nature,” where she lived for two years. In Dahldorf, when examined on March 30, she admitted that she had tried to commit suicide, but refused to give a reason or give any comments. During the examination, her weight was recorded - 50 kilograms, height - 158 centimeters. Upon examination, doctors discovered that she had given birth six months ago. For a girl “under the age of twenty,” this was an important circumstance.
They saw numerous scars from lacerations on the patient’s chest and stomach. On the head behind the right ear there was a 3.5 cm long scar, deep enough for a finger to go into it, as well as a scar on the forehead at the very roots of the hair. On the foot of his right leg there was a characteristic scar from a perforating wound. It fully corresponded to the shape and size of the wounds inflicted by a Russian rifle bayonet. There are cracks in the upper jaw. The next day after the examination, she admitted to the doctor that she was afraid for her life: “She makes it clear that she does not want to identify herself for fear of persecution. The impression of restraint born of fear. More fear than restraint." The medical history also records that the patient has a congenital orthopedic foot disease hallux valgus of the third degree.
The disease discovered in the patient by the doctors of the clinic in Daldorf absolutely coincided with the congenital disease of Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova. The girl had the same height, foot size, hair and eye color and portrait resemblance to the Russian princess, and from the medical card data it is clear that the traces of injuries to “Fräulein Unbekant” fully correspond to those that, according to the forensic investigator Tomashevsky, were inflicted on Anastasia in the basement of Ipatiev’s house . The scar on the forehead also matches. Anastasia Romanova had such a scar since childhood, so she was the only one of the daughters of Nicholas II who always wore her hair with bangs.
In the end, the girl named herself Anastasia Romanova. According to her version, the miraculous rescue looked like this: along with all the murdered family members, she was taken to the burial place, but on the way the half-dead Anastasia was hidden by some soldier. She reached Romania with him, they got married there, but what happened next was a failure...
Over the next 50 years, speculation and court cases continued about whether Anna Anderson was Anastasia Romanova, but in the end she was never recognized as a “real” princess. Nevertheless, fierce debate about the mystery of Anna Anderson continues to this day...
Opponents: Since March 1927, opponents of the recognition of Anna Anderson as Anastasia have put forward the version that the girl posing as the saved Anastasia was in fact a native of a peasant family (from East Prussia) named Franziska Shantskovskaya.
This point of view is confirmed by a 1995 examination carried out by the Department of Forensic Medicine of the British Home Office. According to the results of the examination, studies of the mitochondrial DNA of “Anna Anderson” convincingly prove that she is not Grand Duchess Anastasia. youngest daughter Tsar Nicholas II. According to the conclusion of a team of British geneticists in Aldermaston, led by Dr Peter Gill, Ms Anderson's DNA does not match either the DNA of female skeletons recovered from a grave near Yekaterinburg in 1991 and allegedly belonging to the queen and her three daughters, nor with the DNA of Anastasia's maternal relatives and paternal line, residing in England and elsewhere. At the same time, a blood test of Karl Mauger, the great-nephew of missing factory worker Franziska Schanckowska, revealed a mitochondrial match, leading to the conclusion that Franziska and Anna Anderson are the same person. Tests in other laboratories looking at the same DNA led to the same conclusion. Although there are doubts about the source of DNA samples from Anna Anderson (she was cremated, and the samples were taken from the residual materials of a surgical operation carried out 20 years before the examination).
These doubts are aggravated by the testimony of people who knew Anna-Anastasia personally:
“... I knew Anna Anderson for more than ten years and was familiar with almost everyone who was involved in her struggle for recognition over the past quarter century: friends, lawyers, neighbors, journalists, historians, representatives of the Russian royal family and royal families Europe, the Russian and European aristocracy - a wide range of competent witnesses who, without hesitation, recognized her as the royal daughter. My knowledge of her character, all the details of her case and, as it seems to me, probability and common sense - everything convinces me that she was a Russian Grand Duchess.
This belief of mine, although challenged (by DNA research), remains unshakable. Not being an expert, I cannot question Dr. Gill's results; if only these results had revealed that Ms. Anderson was not a member of the Romanov family, I might be able to accept them—if not easily now, then at least in time. However, no amount of scientific evidence or forensic evidence will convince me that Ms. Anderson and Franziska Schanckowska are the same person.
I categorically state that those who knew Anna Anderson, who lived with her for months and years, treated her and cared for her during her many illnesses, be it a doctor or a nurse, who observed her behavior, posture, demeanor, “They can’t believe that she was born in a village in East Prussia in 1896 and was the daughter and sister of beet farmers.”
Peter Kurt, author of the book “Anastasia. The Riddle of Anna Anderson" (in Russian translation "Anastasia. The Riddle of the Grand Duchess")

Anastasia in Anna, in spite of everything, was recognized by some foreign relatives of the Romanov family, as well as Tatyana Botkina-Melnik, the widow of Doctor Botkin, who died in Yekaterinburg.
Supporters: Supporters of recognizing Anna Anderson as Anastasia point out that Franziska Shantskovskaya was five years older than Anastasia, taller, wore shoes four sizes larger, never gave birth to children and had no orthopedic foot diseases. In addition, Franziska Schanzkowska disappeared from home at a time when “Fräulein Unbekant” was already in the Elisabeth Hospital on Lützowstrasse.”
The first graphological examination was made at the request of the Gessenskys in 1927. It was performed by an employee of the Institute of Graphology in Prisna, Dr. Lucy Weizsäcker. Comparing the handwriting on the recently written samples with the handwriting on the samples written by Anastasia during the life of Nicholas II, Lucy Weizsäcker came to the conclusion that the samples belong to the same person.
In 1960, by decision of the Hamburg Court, graphologist Dr. Minna Becker was appointed as a graphological expert. Four years later, reporting on her work before the Supreme Court of Appeal in the Senate, the gray-haired Dr. Becker said: “I have never seen so many identical features in two texts written by different people" Another important note from the doctor is worth mentioning. Handwriting samples in the form of texts written in German and Russian were provided for examination. In her report, speaking about Ms. Anderson’s Russian texts, Dr. Becker noted: “It seems as if she was again in a familiar environment.”
Due to the inability to compare fingerprints, anthropologists were brought in to investigate. Their opinion was considered by the court as “probability close to certainty.” Research carried out in 1958 at the University of Mainz by Doctors Eickstedt and Klenke, and in 1965 by the founder of the German Anthropological Society, Professor Otto Rehe, led to the same result, namely:
1. Mrs. Anderson is not the Polish factory worker Franziska Schanckowska.
2. Mrs. Anderson is Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanova.
Opponents pointed to the discrepancy between the shape of Anderson’s right ear and Anastasia Romanova’s ear, citing an examination done back in the twenties.
These doubts were resolved by one of the most famous forensic experts in Germany, Dr. Moritz Furthmeier. In 1976, Dr. Furthmeyer discovered that, by an absurd accident, experts used a photograph of Dahldorf's patient, taken from an inverted negative, to compare the ears. That is, the right ear of Anastasia Romanova was compared with the left ear of “Fräulein Unbekant” and naturally received a negative result for identity. When comparing the same photograph of Anastasia with a photograph of Anderson (Tchaikovsky)'s right ear, Moritz Furthmeier obtained a match in seventeen anatomical positions. To recognize the identification in a West German court, the coincidence of five positions out of twelve was quite sufficient.
One can only guess what her fate would have been like had it not been for that fatal mistake. Even in the sixties, this error formed the basis of the decision of the Hamburg court, and then of the highest appeal court in the Senate.
...IN last years Another important consideration, previously ignored for some unknown reason, was added to the mystery of Anna Anderson’s identification as Anastasia.
We are talking about a congenital deformation of the feet, which was known from the childhood of the Grand Duchess and which Anna Anderson also had. The fact is that this is a very rare disease. As a rule, this disease appears in women aged 30-35 years. As for cases of congenital disease, they are isolated and extremely rare. Out of 142 million people in Russia, only eight cases of this disease have been registered over the past ten years.
To put it simply, the statistics for a congenital case are approximately 1:17. Thus, with a probability of 99.9999947, Anna Anderson was indeed Grand Duchess Anastasia!
This statistic refutes the negative results of DNA tests carried out on the remains of tissue materials over the years, since the reliability of DNA research does not exceed 1:6000 - three thousand times less reliable than the statistics of Anna-Anastasia! At the same time, the statistics of a congenital disease are actually statistics of artifacts (there is no doubt about this), while DNA research is a complex procedure in which the possibility of accidental genetic contamination of the original tissue materials, or even their malicious substitution, cannot be ruled out.

Possible reasons for non-recognition
Why did some members of the House of Romanov in Europe and their relatives from the royal dynasties of Germany almost immediately, in the early 1920s, turn out to be sharply opposed to Anna-Anastasia? There are several possible reasons.
First, Anna Anderson spoke harshly about Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich (“he is a traitor”), while the latter laid claim to the empty throne.
Secondly, she unintentionally revealed a big state secret about the arrival of her uncle Ernie of Hesse to Russia in 1916. The visit was associated with the intention of persuading Nicholas II to a separate peace with Germany. This failed, and when leaving the Alexander Palace, Ernie even said to his sister, Empress Alexandra: “You are no longer the sun for us” - that’s what all German relatives called Alix in her childhood. In the early twenties, this was still a state secret, and Ernie Hesse had no choice but to accuse Anastasia of slander.
Thirdly, by the time she met her relatives in 1925, Anna-Anastasia herself was in very difficult physical and psychological state. She was sick with tuberculosis. Her weight barely reached 33 kg. The people surrounding Anastasia believed that her days were numbered. But she survived, and after meetings with Aunt Olya and other close people, she dreamed of meeting her grandmother, the Dowager Empress Maria Fedorovna. She was waiting for recognition from her family, but instead, in 1928, on the second day after the death of the Dowager Empress, several members of the Romanov dynasty publicly renounced her, declaring that she was an impostor. The insult led to a break in the relationship.
In addition, in 1922, in the Russian Diaspora, the question of who would lead the dynasty and take the place of the “Emperor in Exile” was being decided. The main contender was Kirill Vladimirovich Romanov. He, like most Russian emigrants, could not even imagine that the Bolshevik rule would drag on for seven long decades. Anastasia's appearance in Berlin in the summer of 1922 caused confusion and division of opinion among the monarchists. The following information was spread about the physical and mental ill health of the princess, and the presence of an heir to the throne, born in unequal marriage(either from a soldier, or from a lieutenant of peasant origin), all this did not contribute to her immediate recognition, not to mention the consideration of her candidacy for the place of head of the dynasty.
...This could conclude the story of the missing Russian princess. It is amazing that for more than 80 years no one thought to find out the medical statistics of hallux valgus foot deformity! It is strange that the results of an absurd examination comparing “the right ear of Anastasia Romanova with the left ear of “Fräulein Unbekant” (!), served as the basis for fateful court decisions, despite multiple graphological examinations and personal evidence. It is surprising that serious people can seriously discuss the issue of the “identity” of an illiterate Polish peasant woman with a Russian princess, and believe that Franziska could mystify those around her for so many years without revealing her true origin... And lastly, it is known that Anastasia gave birth to a son in the fall of 1919 , somewhere on the border with Romania (at that time she was hiding from the Reds under the name Tchaikovskaya, after the name of the man who saved her and took her to Romania). What is the fate of this son? Really, no one asked? Maybe it is his DNA that should be compared with the DNA of the Romanov relatives, and not the dubious “tissue materials”?

JUST THE FACTS:
Since the murder of the royal family in Yekaterinburg, about 30 pseudo-Anastasii have appeared in the world (according to data). Some of them did not even speak Russian, explaining that the stress they experienced in the Ipatiev House made them forget their native speech. A special service was created at the Geneva Bank to “identify” them, and none of the candidates could pass the exam. True, the bank’s interest in identifying the heiress of an amount of approximately $500 billion is also not obvious.
Among the many obvious impostors, in addition to Anna Anderson, several more contenders stand apart.

ELEANOR KRUGER
In the early 20s, a young woman with an aristocratic bearing appeared in the Bulgarian village of Grabarevo. She introduced herself as Eleanor Albertovna Kruger. A Russian doctor was with her, and a year later a tall, sickly-looking young man appeared in their house, who was registered in the community under the name Georgy Zhudin. Rumors that Eleanor and George were brother and sister and belonged to the Russian royal family circulated in the community. However, they did not make any statements or claims about anything.
George died in 1930, and Eleanor died in 1954. Bulgarian researcher Blagoy Emmanuilov believes that Eleanor is the missing daughter of Nicholas II, and George is Tsarevich Alexei. In his conclusions, he relies on Eleanor’s memories of how “the servants bathed her in a golden trough, combed her hair and dressed her. She talked about her own royal room, and about her children’s drawings drawn in it.”
In addition, in the early 50s, in the Bulgarian Black Sea city of Balchik, a Russian White Guard, describing in detail the life of the executed imperial family, said in front of witnesses that Nicholas II ordered him to personally take Anastasia and Alexei out of the palace and hide them in the provinces. He also claimed to have taken the children to Turkey. Comparing photographs of 17-year-old Anastasia and 35-year-old Eleanor Kruger from Gabarevo, experts have established significant similarities between them. The years of their birth also coincide. Contemporaries of George claim that he was ill and talk about him as a tall, weak and pale young man. Russian authors also describe the hemophiliac Prince Alexei in a similar way. In 1995, the remains of Eleanor and George were exhumed in the presence of a forensic doctor and an anthropologist. In the coffin of George they found an amulet - an icon with the face of Christ - one of those with which only representatives of the highest strata of the Russian aristocracy were buried.

Nadezhda Vladimirovna Ivanova-Vasilieva
In April 1934, a young woman, very thin and poorly dressed, entered the Church of the Resurrection at the Semenovskoye cemetery. She came to confession, and Hieromonk Afanasy (Alexander Ivanshin) directed her.
During confession, the woman announced to the priest that she was the daughter of the former Tsar Nicholas II - Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova. When asked how she managed to escape execution, the stranger replied: “You can’t talk about that.”
She was prompted to seek help by the need to get a passport to try to leave the country. They managed to get a passport, but someone reported to the NKVD about the activities of a “counter-revolutionary monarchist group,” and everyone who helped the woman was arrested.
File No. 000 is still kept in State Archives Russian Federation (GARF) and is not subject to disclosure. A woman who called herself Anastasia, after endless prisons and concentration camps, was sent to a mental hospital for compulsory treatment by the verdict of a Special Meeting of the NKVD. The sentence turned out to be indefinite, and in 1971 she died in a psychiatric hospital on the island of Sviyazhsk. Buried in an unknown grave.
Ivanova-Vasilieva spent almost forty years within the walls of medical institutions, but she was never tested for her blood type (!). Not a single questionnaire, not a single protocol contains the date and month of birth. Only the year and place that coincide with the data of Anastasia Romanova. Investigators, speaking about the defendant in the third person, called her “Princess Romanova,” and not an impostor. And knowing that the woman was living on a fake passport filled out in her own hand, the investigators never asked her a question about her real name.

Natalia Petrovna Bilikhodze
N. Bilikhodze lived in Sukhumi, then Tbilisi. In 1994 and 1997, she appealed to the Tbilisi court to have her recognized as Anastasia. However, the court hearings did not take place due to her failure to appear. She claimed that the WHOLE family was saved. She died in 2000. Posthumous genetic examination did not confirm her relationship with the Royal Family (more precisely, with the remains buried in 1998 in St. Petersburg).
Yekaterinburg researcher Vladimir Viner believes that Natalia Belikhodze was a member of a backup family (the Berezkins) who lived in Sukhumi. This explains her external resemblance to Anastasia and the positive results of “22 examinations conducted by commission and judicial procedure in three states - Georgia, Russia and Latvia.” According to them, there was “a number of matching features that can only be found in one out of 700 billion . cases." Perhaps the story of the confession was started in anticipation of the monetary inheritance of the royal family, with the goal of returning it to Russia.

“Where is the truth,” you ask. I will answer: “The truth is out there somewhere...”, because it is “Fiction must remain within the boundaries of the possible. Truth is not” (Mark Twain).

Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna, the fourth daughter of Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, was born on June 5 (18), 1901 in Peterhof.

Tsar Nicholas wrote in his diary: “At about 3 o’clock Alix began to have severe pain. At 4 o'clock I got up and went to my room and got dressed. At exactly 6 am, daughter Anastasia was born. Everything happened when excellent conditions soon and, thank God, without complications. Thanks to the fact that it all started and ended while everyone was still sleeping, we both had a sense of peace and privacy! After that, I sat down to write telegrams and notify relatives in all corners of the world. Fortunately, Alix is ​​feeling well. The baby weighs 11½ pounds and is 55 cm tall."

The full title of Anastasia Nikolaevna sounded like Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess of Russia Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova, but it was not used, in official speech they called her by her first name and patronymic, and at home they called her “little, Nastaska, Nastya, little pod” - for her small height (157 cm .) and a round figure and a “shvybzik” - for his mobility and inexhaustibility in inventing pranks and pranks.

According to the memoirs of contemporaries, the emperor’s children were not spoiled with luxury. Anastasia shared a room with her older sister Maria.

The walls of the room were gray, the ceiling was decorated with images of butterflies. There are icons and photographs on the walls. The furniture is in white and green tones, the furnishings are simple, almost spartan, a couch with embroidered pillows, and an army cot on which the Grand Duchess slept all year round. This cot moved around the room in order to end up in a more illuminated and warmer part of the room in winter, and in summer it was sometimes even pulled out onto the balcony so that one could take a break from the stuffiness and heat. They took this same bed with them on vacation to the Livadia Palace, and the Grand Duchess slept on it during her Siberian exile. One large room next door, divided in half by a curtain, served the Grand Duchesses as a common boudoir and bathroom.

Early in the morning it was supposed to take a cold bath, in the evening - a warm one, to which a few drops of perfume were added, and Anastasia preferred Koti perfume with the smell of violets. This tradition has been preserved since the time of Empress Catherine I. When the girls were small, buckets of water were carried to the bathroom by servants; when they grew up, this was their responsibility. There were two baths - the first large one, left over from the reign of Emperor Nicholas I (according to the surviving tradition, everyone who washed in it left their autograph on the side), the other, smaller, was intended for children.

Sundays were especially looked forward to - on this day the Grand Duchesses attended church, and then children's balls at their aunt, Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna. “The girls enjoyed every minute,” recalled Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna. - My dear goddaughter Anastasia was especially happy, believe me, I can still hear her laughter ringing in the rooms. Dancing, music, charades - she plunged into them headlong."

Like other children of the emperor, Anastasia was educated at home. Education began at the age of eight, the program included French, English and German, history, geography, the law of God, natural sciences, drawing, grammar, arithmetic, as well as dance and music. Anastasia was not known for her diligence in her studies; she hated grammar, wrote with horrific errors, and with childish spontaneity called arithmetic “sinishness.” Teacher in English Sydney Gibbs recalled that she once tried to bribe him with a bouquet of flowers to improve his grade, and after his refusal, she gave these flowers to the Russian language teacher, Pyotr Vasilyevich Petrov.

Basically, the family lived in the Alexander Palace, occupying only part of several dozen rooms. Sometimes they moved to the Winter Palace.

In mid-June, the family went on trips on the imperial yacht "Standard", usually along the Finnish skerries, landing from time to time on the islands for short excursions. The imperial family especially fell in love with the small bay, which was dubbed Standard Bay. They had picnics there, or played tennis on the court, which the emperor built with his own hands.

We also rested in the Livadia Palace. The main premises housed the imperial family, and the annexes housed several courtiers, guards and servants. They swam in the warm sea, built fortresses and towers out of sand, and sometimes went into the city to ride a stroller through the streets or visit shops. It was not possible to do this in St. Petersburg, since any appearance of the royal family in public created a crowd and excitement.

They sometimes visited Polish estates belonging to the royal family, where Tsar Nicholas loved to hunt.

Despite the widespread campaign of slander against Grigory Efimovich Rasputin, Anastasia, like all the royal children, completely trusted the elder and shared her experiences and thoughts with him.

Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna recalled how one day, accompanied by the Tsar, she went into the children's bedrooms, where Rasputin blessed the Grand Duchesses, dressed in white nightgowns, for the coming sleep. “It seemed to me that all the children were very attached to him,” noted the Grand Duchess. “They had complete confidence in him.”

The same mutual trust and affection is seen in the letters of Elder Gregory, which he sent to the imperial family. Here is an excerpt from one of the letters dated 1019: “Dear children! Thank you for the memory, for the sweet words, for the pure heart and for the love for God’s people. Love God's nature, all of His creation, especially the light. The Mother of God was always busy with flowers and needlework.”

Anastasia wrote to Rasputin: “My beloved, precious, only friend. How I want to meet you again. Today I saw you in a dream. I always ask Mom? when you visit us next time, and I am happy that I have the opportunity to send you this congratulation. Happy New Year to you and may it bring you health and happiness. I always remember you, my dear friend, because you have always been kind to me. I haven’t seen you for a long time, but every evening I certainly remembered you. I wish you all the best. Mom promises that when you come again, we will definitely meet at Anya’s. This thought fills me with joy. Your Anastasia"

The enemies of the Russian Autocracy organized such dirty rumors in St. Petersburg that the brothers and sisters of the emperor took up arms against Rasputin, and Ksenia Alexandrovna sent her brother a particularly harsh letter, accusing Rasputin of “Khlystyism”, protesting that this “lying old man” has unrestricted access to children . Significant letters and cartoons were passed from hand to hand, which depicted the elder’s relationship with the empress, girls and Anna Vyrubova. But the treachery of attackers and envious people did not affect the relationship of the imperial family towards Rasputin and continued until his brutal murder on December 17, 1916.

A. A. Mordvinov recalled that after the murder of Rasputin, all four Grand Duchesses “seemed quiet and noticeably depressed, they sat closely huddled together” on the sofa in one of the bedrooms, as if realizing that Russia had come into a movement that would soon become uncontrollable. An icon signed by the Emperor, Empress and all five children was placed on Rasputin’s chest. Together with the entire imperial family, on December 21, 1916, Anastasia attended the funeral service. It was decided to build a chapel over the elder’s grave, but due to subsequent events this plan was not realized.

According to the memoirs of contemporaries, following her mother and older sisters, Anastasia sobbed bitterly on the day the 1914 war was declared.

On the day of their fourteenth birthday, according to tradition, each of the emperor’s daughters became an honorary commander of one of the Russian regiments. In 1911, after her birth, the name of St. Anastasia the Pattern Maker received the Caspian 148th Infantry Regiment in honor of the princess. He began to celebrate his regimental holiday on December 22, the holy day. The regimental church was erected in Peterhof by the architect M.F. Verzhbitsky. At 14, the emperor’s youngest daughter became his honorary commander (colonel), about which Nicholas made a corresponding entry in his diary. From now on, the regiment became officially known as the 148th Caspian Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess Anastasia infantry regiment.

During the war, the empress gave many of the palace rooms for hospital premises. The older sisters Olga and Tatyana, together with their mother, became sisters of mercy; Maria and Anastasia, being too young for such hard work, became patronesses of the hospital. Both sisters gave their own money to buy medicine, read aloud to the wounded, knitted things for them, wrote letters home under their dictation, and in the evenings entertained them with telephone conversations, sewed linen, prepared bandages and lint.

“Today I sat next to our soldier and taught him to read, he really likes it,” noted Anastasia Nikolaevna. - He began to learn to read and write here in the hospital. Two unfortunate people died, and just yesterday we were sitting next to them.”

Maria and Anastasia gave concerts to the wounded and tried their best to distract them from difficult thoughts. They spent days on end in the hospital, reluctantly taking time off from work for lessons. Anastasia recalled these days until the end of her life: “I remember how we visited the hospital a long time ago. I hope all our wounded survived in the end. Almost everyone was later taken away from Tsarskoye Selo. Do you remember Lukanov? He was so unhappy and so kind at the same time, and always played like a child with our bracelets. His business card remained in my album, but the album itself, unfortunately, remained in Tsarskoe. Now I’m in the bedroom, writing on the table, and on it there are photographs of our beloved hospital. You know, it was a wonderful time when we visited the hospital. We often think about this, and our evening conversations on the phone and everything else..."

According to the memoirs of contemporaries, Anastasia was small and dense, with reddish-brown hair, and large blue eyes, inherited from her father. The girl had a light and cheerful character, loved to play lapta, forfeits, and serso, and could tirelessly run around the palace for hours, playing hide and seek. She easily climbed trees, and often, out of pure mischief, refused to go down to the ground. She was inexhaustible in her inventions; for example, she loved to paint the cheeks and noses of her sisters, brother and young ladies-in-waiting with fragrant carmine and strawberry juice. With her light hand, it became fashionable to weave flowers and ribbons into her hair, which little Anastasia was very proud of. She was inseparable from her older sister Maria, adored her brother, and could entertain him for hours when another illness put Alexei to bed. Anna Vyrubova recalled that “Anastasia seemed to be made of mercury, and not of flesh and blood.” Once, when she was just a baby, three or four years old, at a reception in Kronstadt, she climbed under the table and began to pinch the legs of those present, pretending to be a dog - for which she received an immediate severe reprimand from her father.

She also had a clear talent as a comic actress and loved to parody and imitate those around her, and she did it very talentedly and funny. One day Alexey told her: “Anastasia, you need to perform in the theater, it will be very funny, believe me!”

To which I received an unexpected answer that the Grand Duchess cannot perform in the theater, she has other responsibilities. Sometimes, however, her jokes became harmless. So she tirelessly teased her sisters, once playing in the snow with Tatyana, she hit her in the face, so hard that the eldest could not stay on her feet; however, the culprit herself, scared to death, cried for a long time in her mother’s arms. Grand Duchess Nina Georgievna later recalled that little Anastasia did not want to forgive her high stature, and during games she tried to outwit, trip her leg, and even scratch her rival.

“She constantly reached the dangerous edge with her jokes,” recalled Gleb Botkin, the son of a physician who was killed along with the royal family. “She was constantly at risk of being punished.”

Drawing of Grand Duchess Anastasia

Little Anastasia was also not particularly neat and loving of order. Hallie Reeves, the wife of an American diplomat accredited at the court of the last emperor, recalled how little Anastasia, while in the theater, ate chocolate, not bothering to take off her long white gloves, and desperately smeared herself face and hands. Her pockets were constantly filled with chocolates and Creme Brulee sweets, which she generously shared with others.

She also loved animals. At first, she lived with a Spitz named Shvybzik, and many funny and touching incidents were also associated with him. So, the Grand Duchess refused to go to bed until the dog joined her, and once, having lost her pet, she called him with a loud bark - and succeeded, Shvybzik was found under the sofa. In 1915, when the Pomeranian died of an infection, she was inconsolable for several weeks. Together with his sisters and brother, they buried the dog in Peterhof, on Children's Island. Then she had a dog named Jimmy.

She loved to draw, and did it quite well, enjoyed playing the guitar or balalaika with her brother, knitted, sewed, watched movies, was fond of photography, which was fashionable at that time, and had her own photo album, loved to use the phone, read or just lie in bed . During the war, she began to smoke, with her older sisters keeping her company.

The Grand Duchess was not in good health. Since childhood, she suffered from pain in her feet - a consequence of congenital curvature thumbs legs She had a weak back, despite the fact that she did her best to avoid the massage required to strengthen her muscles, hiding from the visiting masseuse in the cupboard or under the bed. Even with small cuts, the bleeding did not stop for an abnormally long time, from which the doctors concluded that, like her mother, Anastasia was a carrier of hemophilia.

As General M.K. testified. Dieterichs, who participated in the investigation of the murder of the royal family, “Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna, despite her seventeen years, was still a perfect child. She made this impression mainly with her appearance and her cheerful character. She was short, very dense, “a little girl,” as her sisters teased her. Her distinctive feature was to notice weak sides people and skillfully imitate them. He was a natural, gifted comedian. She always used to make everyone laugh, maintaining an artificially serious look.”

She read the plays of Schiller and Goethe, loved Malo and Moliere, Dickens and Charlotte Bronte. She played the piano well and willingly performed four-handed pieces by Chopin, Grieg, Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky with her mother.

French teacher Pierre Gilliard recalled her this way: “She was a spoiled person - a flaw from which she corrected herself over the years. Very lazy, as sometimes happens with very bright children, she had an excellent pronunciation of French and played little pranks. theater scenes with real talent. She was so cheerful and so able to dispel the wrinkles of anyone who was out of sorts that some of those around them began, remembering the nickname given to her mother at the English court, to call her “Sunbeam”

According to the memoirs of Lily Den (Yulia Alexandrovna von Den), a close friend of Alexandra Feodorovna, in February 1917, at the very height of the revolution, the children fell ill with measles one after another. Anastasia was the last to fall ill, when the Tsarskoe Selo palace was already surrounded by rebel troops. At that time the Tsar was at the headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief in Mogilev; only the Empress and her children remained in the palace.

On the night of March 2, 1917, Lily Den stayed overnight in the palace, in the Raspberry Room, with Grand Duchess Anastasia. So that they would not worry, they explained to the children that the troops surrounding the palace and the distant shots were the result of ongoing exercises.

Alexandra Feodorovna intended to “hide the truth from them for as long as possible.” At 9 o'clock on March 2, they learned about the forced abdication of the Tsar.

On Wednesday, March 8, Count Pavel Benkndorff appeared at the palace with the message that the Provisional Government had decided to subject the imperial family to house arrest in Tsarskoye Selo. It was suggested that they make a list of people who wanted to stay with them. Lily Dehn immediately offered her services.

On March 9, the children were informed about their father’s removal from power. A few days later Tsar Nicholas returned. Life under house arrest turned out to be quite bearable. It was necessary to reduce the number of dishes during lunch, since the menu of the royal family was announced publicly from time to time, and it was not worth giving another reason to provoke the already angry mob. Provocateurs and bloodthirsty traitors to Russia often watched through the bars of the fence as a family walked in the park and sometimes greeted it with whistling and swearing, so the walks had to be shortened.

On June 22, 1917, it was decided to shave the girls’ heads, since their hair was falling out due to persistent fever and strong medications. Alexei insisted that he be shaved too, thereby causing extreme displeasure in his mother.

Despite everything, the children's education continued. The entire process was led by Pierre Gilliard, a French teacher; Nikolai himself taught the children geography and history; Baroness Bexhoeveden took over English and music lessons; Mademoiselle Schneider taught arithmetic; Countess Gendrikova - drawing; Dr. Evgeniy Sergeevich Botkin - Russian language; Alexandra Fedorovna - God's Law.

The eldest, Olga, despite the fact that her education was completed, was often present at lessons and read a lot, improving on what she had already learned.

At this time, there was still hope for the family of the former king to go abroad; but the English King George V, the Tsar’s cousin, decided not to risk it and chose to sacrifice the royal family, thereby causing shock in his own cabinet.

Ultimately, the Provisional Government decided to transfer the family of the former tsar to Tobolsk. On the last day before leaving, they managed to say goodbye to the servants and visit their favorite places in the park, ponds, and islands for the last time. Alexey wrote in his diary that on that day he managed to push his older sister Olga into the water. On August 12, 1917, a train flying the flag of the Japanese Red Cross mission departed from a siding in the strictest secrecy.

On August 26, the imperial family arrived in Tobolsk on the steamship Rus. The house intended for them was not yet completely ready, so they spent the first eight days on the ship.

Finally, under escort, the imperial family was taken to the two-story governor's mansion, where they were henceforth to live. The girls were given a corner bedroom on the second floor, where they were accommodated in the same army beds captured from the Alexander Palace. Anastasia additionally decorated her corner with her favorite photographs and drawings.

Life in the governor's mansion was quite monotonous; The main entertainment is watching passers-by from the window. From 9.00 to 11.00 - lessons. An hour break for a walk with my father. Lessons again from 12.00 to 13.00. Dinner. From 14.00 to 16.00 walks and simple entertainment such as home performances, or in winter - skiing down a slide built with one’s own hands. Anastasia, in her own words, enthusiastically prepared firewood and sewed. Next on the schedule was the evening service and going to bed.

In September they were allowed to go to the nearest church for morning services. Again, the soldiers formed a living corridor right up to the church doors. The attitude of local residents towards the royal family was favorable, to the displeasure of the new self-appointed authorities.

Suddenly, Anastasia began to gain weight, and the process proceeded at a fairly rapid pace, so that even the empress, worried, wrote to her friend: “Anastasia, to her despair, has gained weight and her appearance exactly resembles Maria a few years ago - the same huge waist and short legs... Let's hope , this will pass with age...

Anastasia wrote to Grand Duchess Ksenia Alexandrovna: “These days we have the sun almost all the time, and it’s already starting to warm up, it’s so nice! Therefore, we try to be outside more. - We don’t ride down the mountain anymore (although it’s still standing), since it was ruined and a ditch was dug across it so that we wouldn’t go, well, so be it; It seems that they have calmed down on this for now, since for a long time it seems to be an eyesore for many. Terribly stupid and weak, really. - Well, now we have found a new activity. We saw, chop and chop wood, it's useful and a lot of fun to work with. It's already coming out pretty good. And with this we help many more, and for us it’s entertainment. We are also cleaning the paths and entrance, we have turned into janitors. - I have not yet turned into an elephant, but this may yet happen in the near future, I don’t know why suddenly, there may be little movement, although I don’t know. - I apologize for the terrible handwriting, my hand doesn’t move well. This week we are all fasting and singing at home. We were finally in church. And you can also take communion there. - Well, how are you all doing and what are you doing? We don't have anything special to write about. Now we need to finish, because now we will go to our yard, work, etc. - Everyone hugs you tightly, and I too, and everyone else too. All the best, Aunt Darling"

In April 1918, the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the fourth convocation decided to transfer the former tsar to Moscow for the purpose of his trial. After much hesitation, Alexandra decided to accompany her husband; Maria was supposed to go with her “to help.”

The rest had to wait for them in Tobolsk; Olga’s duties included taking care of her sick brother, Tatyana’s responsibility was to run the household, and Anastasia’s was to “entertain everyone.” However, in the beginning things were difficult with entertainment, on the last night before departure no one slept a wink, and when finally in the morning, peasant carts were brought to the threshold for the Tsar, Tsarina and those accompanying them, three girls - “three figures in gray” saw off those leaving with tears right up to the gate.

In the empty house, life continued slowly and sadly. We read aloud to each other and walked. Anastasia was still swinging on the swing, drawing and playing with her sick brother. According to the memoirs of Gleb Botkin, the son of a life physician who died along with the royal family, one day he saw Anastasia in the window and bowed to her, but the guards immediately drove him away, threatening to shoot if he dared to come so close again.

On May 3, 1918, it became clear that for some reason, the former Tsar's departure to Moscow was canceled and instead Nikolai, Alexandra and Maria were forced to stay in the house of engineer Ipatiev in Yekaterinburg, which had been requisitioned new government specifically to accommodate royal family. In a letter marked with this date, the empress instructed her daughters to “properly manage their medications” - this word meant the jewelry that they managed to hide and take with them. Under the guidance of her older sister Tatyana, Anastasia sewed the remaining jewelry she had into the corset of her dress - with a successful combination of circumstances, it was supposed to be used to buy her way to salvation. On May 19, it was finally decided that the remaining daughters and Alexey, who was by then quite strong, would join their parents and Maria at Ipatiev’s house in Yekaterinburg. The next day, May 20, all four boarded the ship “Rus” again, which took them to Tyumen. According to the recollections of eyewitnesses, the girls were transported in locked cabins; Alexey was traveling with his orderly named Nagorny; access to their cabin was prohibited even for a doctor.

On May 22, the ship arrived in Tyumen, and then the four children were taken to Yekaterinburg on a special train. At the same time, Anastasia maintained an excellent mood; in the letter telling about the trip, one can hear notes of humor: “My dear friend, I’ll tell you how we drove. We left early in the morning, then got on the train and I fell asleep, followed by everyone else. We were all very tired because we hadn't slept the whole night before. The first day it was very stuffy and dusty, and we had to close the curtains at each station so that no one could see us. One evening I looked out when we stopped at small house, there was no station there, and you could look outside. A little boy came up to me and asked: “Uncle, give me a newspaper if you have one.” I said: “I’m not an uncle, but an aunt, and I don’t have a newspaper.” At first I didn’t understand why he decided that I was “uncle,” and then I remembered that my hair was cut short and, together with the soldiers who accompanied us, we laughed for a long time at this story. In general, there were a lot of funny things along the way, and if there is time, I will tell you about the journey from beginning to end. Goodbye, don't forget me. Everyone kisses you. Your Anastasia"

On May 23 at 9 a.m. the train arrived in Yekaterinburg. Here, the French teacher Gilliard, the sailor Nagorny and the ladies-in-waiting, who had arrived with them, were removed from the children. Crews were brought to the train and at 11 o'clock in the morning Olga, Tatyana, Anastasia and Alexey were finally taken to the house of engineer Ipatiev.

Life in the “special purpose house” was monotonous and boring - but nothing more. Rise at 9 o'clock, breakfast. At 2.30 - lunch, at 5 - afternoon tea and dinner at 8. The family went to bed at 10.30 pm. Anastasia sewed with her sisters, walked in the garden, played cards and read spiritual publications aloud to her mother. A little later, the girls were taught to bake bread and they enthusiastically devoted themselves to this activity.

On Tuesday, June 18, 1918, Anastasia celebrated her last, 17th birthday. The weather that day was excellent, only in the evening a small thunderstorm broke out. Lilacs and lungwort were blooming. The girls baked bread, then Alexei was taken out to the garden, and the whole family joined him. At 8 pm we had dinner and played several games of cards. We went to bed at the usual time, 10.30 pm.

It is officially believed that the decision to execute the royal family was finally made by the Ural Council on July 16 in connection with the possibility of surrendering the city to the White Guard troops and the alleged discovery of a conspiracy to save the royal family. On the night of July 16-17 at 11:30 p.m., two special representatives from the Urals Council handed a written order to execute the commander of the security detachment P.Z. Ermakov and the commandant of the house, Commissioner of the Extraordinary Investigative Commission Ya.Ya. Yurovsky. After a brief dispute about the method of execution, the royal family was woken up and, under the pretext of a possible shootout and the danger of being killed by bullets ricocheting off the walls, they were offered to go down to the corner semi-basement room.

According to the “testimony” of Yakov Yurovsky, the Romanovs did not suspect anything until the last moment. At the empress’s request, chairs were brought to the basement, on which she and Nicholas sat with their son in her arms. Anastasia stood behind with her sisters. The sisters brought several handbags with them, Anastasia also took her beloved dog Jimmy, who accompanied her throughout her exile.

After the brutal murder, he was found in the room of the Grand Duchesses last drawing, made by Anastasia’s hand, is a swing between two birches.

The place where the royal bodies were destroyed was the Four Brothers tract, located a few kilometers from the village of Koptyaki, not far from Yekaterinburg. One of its pits was chosen by Yurovsky's team to bury the remains of the royal family and servants.

It was not possible to keep the place a secret from the very beginning, due to the fact that literally next to the tract there was a road to Yekaterinburg; early in the morning the procession was seen by a peasant from the village of Koptyaki, Natalya Zykova, and then several more people. The Red Army soldiers, threatening with weapons, drove them away.

Later that same day, grenade explosions were heard in the area. Interested in the strange incident, local residents, a few days later, when the cordon had already been lifted, came to the tract and managed to discover several valuables (apparently belonging to the royal family) in a hurry, not noticed by the executioners.

From May 23 to June 17, 1919, investigator Sokolov conducted reconnaissance of the area and interviewed village residents. From June 6 to July 10, by order of Admiral Kolchak, excavations of the Ganina Pit began, which were interrupted due to the retreat of the Whites from the city.

The canonization of the family of the last tsar in the rank of new martyrs was first undertaken by the foreign Orthodox Church in 1981. Preparations for canonization in Russia began in 1991. With the blessing of Archbishop Melchizedek, a Worship Cross was installed in the tract on July 7. On July 17, 1992, the first bishop's religious procession took place to the burial site of the remains of the royal family.

In 2000, the decision to canonize the Royal Family was made by the Russian Orthodox Church. In the same year, with the blessing of the patriarch, construction began monastery"Ganina's pit"

On October 21, 2000, His Eminence Vincent, Archbishop of Yekaterinburg and Verkhoturye, laid the first stone for the foundation of the future church in honor of the Saints Royal Passion-Bearers. The monastery is built mainly from wood and contains seven main churches.

Russian poet N.S. Gumilyov, being an ensign during the First World War Russian army and while in 1916 in the Tsarskoye Selo infirmary, dedicated it to Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna on her birthday next poem:

Today is Anastasia's day, And we want that through us Love and affection from all Russia I thanked you. What a joy it is for us to congratulate You, the best image of our dreams, And put a modest signature Below are the welcome verses. Forgetting that the day before We were in fierce battles We are the fifth of June holiday Let's celebrate in our hearts. And we take off to a new battle Hearts full of delight Remembering our meetings In the middle of the Tsarskoye Selo Palace.

Grand Duchess Anastasia, the youngest daughter of Emperor Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna, can be considered the most famous of the royal daughters. After her death, about 30 women declared themselves to be the miraculously saved Grand Duchess.

Why "Anastasia"?

Why was the youngest daughter of the royal family named Anastasia? There are two versions on this matter. According to the first, the girl was named in honor of a close friend of the Russian Empress Anastasia (Stana) Nikolaevna, a Montenegrin princess.

The Montenegrin princesses, who were disliked at the imperial court for their passion for mysticism and were called “Montenegrin spiders,” had a great influence on Alexandra Fedorovna.

It was they who introduced the royal family to Grigory Rasputin.

The second version of the choice of name was outlined by Margaret Eager, who wrote the memoir “Six Years at the Russian Imperial Court.” She claimed that Anastasia was named in honor of the pardon granted by Nicholas II in honor of the birth of his daughter to students of St. Petersburg University who participated in anti-government unrest. The name "Anastasia" means "returned to life", and the image of this saint usually shows chains torn in half.

Unexpected daughter

When Anastasia was born, the royal couple already had three daughters. Everyone was waiting for the boy-heir. According to the Act of Succession to the Throne, a woman could take the throne only after the termination of all male lines of the ruling dynasty, so the heir to the throne (in the absence of a prince) was the younger brother of Nicholas II, Mikhail Alexandrovich, which did not suit many.

Dreaming of a son, Alexandra Fedorovna, with the assistance of the already mentioned “Montenegros,” meets a certain Philip, who introduces himself as a hypnotist and promises to provide the royal family with the birth of a boy.

As you know, a boy will be born into the imperial family three years later. Now, on June 5, 1901, a girl was born.

Her birth caused a mixed reaction in court circles. Some, for example, Princess Ksenia, sister of Nicholas II, wrote: “What a disappointment! 4th girl! They named her Anastasia. Mom telegraphed me about the same thing and writes: “Alix gave birth to a daughter again!”

The emperor himself wrote the following in his diary about the birth of his fourth daughter: “At about 3 o’clock Alix began to have severe pain. At 4 o'clock I got up and went to my room and got dressed. At exactly 6 am, daughter Anastasia was born. Everything happened quickly under excellent conditions and, thank God, without complications. Because it all started and ended while everyone was still asleep, we both had a sense of peace and privacy.”

"Schwibs"

Anastasia was different from childhood difficult character. At home, for her cheerful, irrepressible childishness, she even received the nickname “Schwibs.” She had undoubted talent as a comic actress. General Mikhail Diterikhs wrote: “Her distinctive feature was to notice the weaknesses of people and skillfully imitate them. He was a natural, gifted comedian. She always used to make everyone laugh, maintaining an artificially serious appearance.”

Anastasia was very playful. Despite her physique (short, dense), for which her sisters called her “little egg,” she deftly climbed trees and often refused to climb down out of mischief, loved to play hide and seek, rounders and other games, played the balalaika and guitar, introduced It is fashionable among her sisters to weave flowers and ribbons into their hair.

Anastasia was not particularly diligent in her studies, she wrote with errors, and called arithmetic “disgusting.”

English teacher Sydney Gibbs recalled that the younger princess once tried to “bribe” him with a bouquet of flowers, then gave the bouquet to the Russian teacher Petrov.

The Empress's maid of honor Anna Vyrubova recalled in her memoirs how once, during a reception in Kronstadt, a very little three-year-old Anastasia climbed on all fours under the table and began to bite those present on the legs, pretending to be a dog. For which she immediately received a reprimand from her father.

Of course she loved animals. She had a Spitz, Shvibzik. When he died in 1915, the Grand Duchess was inconsolable for several weeks. Later she got another dog - Jimmy. He accompanied her during her exile.

Army bunk

Despite her playful disposition, Anastasia still tried to comply with the customs of the royal family. As you know, the emperor and empress tried not to spoil their children, so in some matters the discipline in the family was almost Spartan. So, Anastasia slept on an army bed. What is significant is that the princess took this same bed with her to the Livadia Palace when she went on vacation. She slept on the same army bed during her exile.

The daily routine of the princesses was quite monotonous. In the morning it was supposed to take a cold bath, in the evening a warm one, to which a few drops of perfume were added.

The younger princess preferred Kitty's perfume with the scent of violets. This “bathroom tradition” has been observed in the royal dynasty since the time of Catherine the First. When the girls grew up, the responsibility of carrying buckets of water to the bath began to fall on them; before that, servants were responsible for this.

The first Russian "selfie"

Anastasia was not only fond of pranks, but was also partial to newfangled trends. So, she was seriously interested in photography. Many unofficial photographs of the royal family were taken by the hand of the younger Grand Duchess.
One of the first “selfies” in world history and probably the first Russian “selfie” was taken by her in 1914 with a Kodak Brownie camera. A note to her father dated October 28 that she included with the photo read: “I took this photo looking at myself in the mirror. It wasn’t easy because my hands were shaking.” To stabilize the image, Anastasia placed the camera on a chair.

Patroness Anastasia

During the First World War, Anastasia was only fourteen. Due to her young age, she could not, like her older sisters and mother, be a sister of mercy. Then she became the patroness of the hospital, donated her own money to buy medicine for the wounded, read aloud to them, gave concerts, wrote letters from dictation to their loved ones, played with them, sewed linen for them, prepared bandages and lint. Their photographs were then kept at her home; she remembered the wounded by their first and last names. She taught some illiterate soldiers to read and write.

False Anastasia

After the execution of the royal family, three dozen women appeared in Europe, declaring that they were miraculously saved by Anastasia. One of the most famous impostors was Anna Anderson, she claimed that the soldier Tchaikovsky managed to pull her out wounded from the basement of Ipatiev’s house after he saw that she was still alive.

At the same time, Anna Anderson, according to Duke Dimitri of Leuchtenberg, with whom she visited in 1927, did not know Russian, English, or French. She spoke only German with a North German accent. I didn’t know Orthodox worship. Also, Dimitri Leuchtenbergsky wrote: “Doctor Kostritsky, the dentist of the Imperial Family, testified in writing that the teeth of Mrs. Tchaikovsky, a cast of which we sent to him, made by our family dentist in 1927, have nothing in common with the teeth of Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna.”

In 1995 and 2011, genetic analysis confirmed already existing assumptions that Anna Anderson was in fact Franziska Shantskovskaya, a Berlin factory worker who suffered mental shock during an explosion at the factory, from which she could not recover for the rest of her life.

Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova is the daughter of Nicholas II, who, along with the rest of the family, was shot in July 1918 in the basement of a house in Yekaterinburg. In the early 20s of the 20th century, numerous impostors began to appear in Europe and the United States, declaring themselves to be the surviving Grand Duchess. The most famous of them, Anna Anderson, was even recognized as the youngest daughter by some surviving members of the imperial house. Litigation lasted for several decades, but did not resolve the issue of its origin.

However, the discovery in the 90s of the remains of the executed royal family put an end to these proceedings. There was no escape, and Anastasia Romanova was still killed that night in 1918. This article will be devoted to the short, tragic and suddenly cut short life of the Grand Duchess.

Birth of a princess

Public attention was riveted to the next, already fourth, pregnancy of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. The fact is that according to the law, only a man could inherit the throne, and the wife of Nicholas II gave birth to three daughters in a row. Therefore, both the king and the queen counted on the appearance of their long-awaited son. Contemporaries recall that Alexandra Feodorovna at this time was increasingly immersed in mysticism, inviting people to the court who could help her give birth to an heir. However, on June 5, 1901, Anastasia Romanova was born. The daughter was born strong and healthy. She received her name in honor of the Montenegrin princess, who was a close friend of the queen. Other contemporaries claimed that the girl was named Anastasia in honor of the pardon of students who participated in the unrest.

And although the relatives were disappointed by the birth of another daughter, Nikolai himself was glad that she was born strong and healthy.

Childhood

Parents did not spoil their daughters with luxury, instilling in them modesty and piety from early childhood. Anastasia Romanova was especially friendly with her older sister Maria, whose age difference was only 2 years. They shared a room and toys together, and the younger princess often wore the clothes of the elders. The room in which they lived was also not luxurious. The walls were painted grey colour, they were decorated with icons and family photographs. Butterflies were painted on the ceiling. The princesses slept in camp folding beds.

The daily routine in childhood was almost the same for all sisters. They got up early in the morning, took a cold bath, and had breakfast. They spent their evenings doing embroidery or playing charades. Often at this time the emperor read aloud to them. Judging by the memoirs of contemporaries, Princess Anastasia Romanova especially loved the Sunday children's balls at her aunt Olga Alexandrovna. The girl loved to dance with young officers.

From early childhood, Anastasia Nikolaevna was distinguished by poor health. She often suffered from pain in her feet because her big toes were too crooked. The princess also had a rather weak back, but she flatly refused a strengthening massage. In addition, doctors believed that the girl had inherited the hemophilia gene from her mother and was its carrier, since even after small cuts her bleeding did not stop for a long time.

Character of the Grand Duchess

From early childhood, Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanova was significantly different in character from her older sisters. She was overly active and mobile, loved to play, and was constantly playing pranks. Because of her violent temper, her parents and sisters often called her “little egg” or “shvybzik”. The latter nickname appeared due to her short stature and tendency to be overweight.

Contemporaries recall that the girl had a cheerful character and got along with other people very easily. She had a high and deep voice, she loved to laugh loudly, and smiled often. She was her closest friend to Maria, but was close to her brother Alexei. She could often entertain him for hours when he was lying in bed after illness. Anastasia was a creative person, she was constantly inventing something. At her instigation, it became fashionable at court to braid ribbons and flowers into hair.

Anastasia Romanova, according to contemporaries, also had the talent of a comic actress, because she really loved to parody her loved ones. However, sometimes she could be too harsh, and her jokes could be offensive. Her pranks were not always harmless either. The girl was also not very neat, but she loved animals and was good at drawing and playing the guitar.

Training and education

Due to her short life, the biography of Anastasia Romanova was not full of bright events. Like the other daughters of Nicholas II, the princess began home schooling at the age of eight. Specially hired teachers taught her French, English and German. But she was never able to speak the last language. The princess was taught world and Russian history, geography, religious dogmas, and natural sciences. The program included grammar and arithmetic - the girl did not particularly like these subjects. She was not known for her perseverance, did not learn the material well, and wrote with errors. Her teachers remembered that the girl was cunning, sometimes she tried to bribe them with small gifts in order to get a higher grade.

Anastasia Romanova was much better at creative disciplines. She always enjoyed attending art, music and dance classes. The Grand Duchess was fond of knitting and sewing. As she grew up, she took up photography seriously. She even had her own album in which she kept her works. Contemporaries recalled that Anastasia Nikolaevna also loved to read a lot and could talk on the phone for hours.

World War I

In 1914, Princess Anastasia Romanova turned 13 years old. Together with her sisters, the girl cried for a long time when she learned about the declaration of war. A year later, according to tradition, Anastasia received patronage over the infantry regiment, which now bore her name.

After the declaration of war, the Empress organized a military hospital within the walls of the Alexander Palace. There, together with the princesses Olga and Tatiana, she regularly worked as sisters of mercy, caring for the wounded. Anastasia and Maria were still too young to follow their example. Therefore, they were appointed patronesses of the hospital. The princesses donated their own funds to buy medicine, prepared dressings, knitted and sewed things for the wounded, and wrote letters to their families and loved ones. Often the younger sisters simply entertained the soldiers. In her diaries, Anastasia Nikolaevna noted that she taught the military to read and write. Together with Maria, they often gave concerts in the hospital. The sisters carried out their duties with pleasure, diverting from them only for the sake of lessons.

Until the end of her life, Anastasia Nikolaevna fondly remembered her work at the hospital. In letters to her loved ones from exile, she often mentioned wounded soldiers, hoping that they would subsequently recover. On her table were photographs taken in the hospital.

February Revolution

In February 1917, all the princesses became seriously ill with measles. At the same time, Anastasia Romanova was the last to fall ill. The daughter of Nicholas II did not know that there were riots in Petrograd. The Empress planned to hide news about the flaring revolution from her children until the last moment. When armed soldiers surrounded the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoe Selo, the princesses and the crown prince were told that military exercises were being held nearby.

Only on March 9, 1917, the children learned about their father's abdication and house arrest. Anastasia Nikolaevna had not yet fully recovered from the illness and suffered from otitis media, so she completely lost her hearing for a while. Therefore, her sister Maria described in detail what happened on paper especially for her.

House arrest in Tsarskoe Selo

Judging by the memoirs of a contemporary, house arrest did not greatly change the measured life of members of the royal family, including Anastasia Romanova. The daughter of Nicholas II continued to devote all her free time to studying. Her father taught her and her younger brother geography and history, her mother taught her religious dogmas. The remaining disciplines were taken over by the retinue loyal to the king. They taught French and English, arithmetic, and music.

The Petrograd public had an extremely negative attitude towards the former monarch and his family. Newspapers and magazines harshly criticized the Romanovs' way of life and published offensive cartoons. A crowd of visitors from Petrograd often gathered at the Alexander Palace, who gathered at the gates, shouted offensive curses and booed the princesses walking in the park. In order not to provoke them, it was decided to reduce the walking time. I also had to give up many dishes on the menu. Firstly, because the government was cutting funding for the palace every month. Secondly, because of newspapers that regularly published detailed menu former monarchs.

In June 1917, Anastasia and her sisters were completely shaved bald, as after a serious illness and taking a large number of drugs, their hair began to fall out significantly. In the summer, the Provisional Government did not prevent the royal family from leaving for Great Britain. However, Nicholas II's cousin, George V, fearing unrest in the country, refused to accept his relative. Therefore, in August 1917, the government decided to send the family of the former tsar into exile in Tobolsk.

Link to Tobolsk

In August 1917, the royal family, in the strictest secrecy, was sent by train, first to Tyumen. From there they were transported to Tobolsk on the steamer "Rus". They were supposed to be accommodated in the former governor's house, but it was not prepared before their arrival. Therefore, all family members lived on the ship for almost a week and only then were transported under escort to their new home.

The Grand Duchesses settled in a corner bedroom on the second floor on camp beds that they brought with them from Tsarskoe Selo. It is known that Anastasia Nikolaevna decorated her part of the room with photographs and her own drawings. Life in Tobolsk was quite monotonous. Until September they were not allowed to leave the premises of the house. Therefore, the sisters, together with their younger brother, looked at passers-by with interest and studied. Several times a day they could go for short walks outside. At this time, Anastasia loved to collect firewood, and in the evenings she sewed a lot. The princess also took part in home performances.

In September they were allowed to attend church on Sundays. Local residents treated the former monarch and his family well; fresh food was regularly brought to them from the monastery. At the same time, Anastasia began to gain a lot of weight, but she hoped that over time, like her sister Maria, she would be able to return to her previous shape. In April 1918, the Bolsheviks decided to transport the royal family to Yekaterinburg. The emperor and his wife and daughter Maria were the first to go there. The other sisters and their brother had to stay in the city.

The photo below shows Anastasia Romanova with her father and older sisters Olga and Tatyana in Tobolsk.

Relocation to Yekaterinburg and the last months of life

It is known that the attitude of the guards of the house in Tobolsk towards its residents was hostile. In April 1918, Princess Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova and her sisters burned their diaries, fearing searches. Only at the end of May did the government decide to send the remaining Romanovs to their parents in Yekaterinburg.

Survivors recalled that life in the house of engineer Ipatiev, where the royal family was housed, was rather monotonous. Princess Anastasia, together with her sisters, was engaged in everyday activities: sewing, playing cards, walking in the garden next to the house, and in the evenings reading church literature to her mother. At the same time, girls were taught to bake bread. In June 1918, Anastasia celebrated her last birthday; she turned 17 years old. They were not allowed to celebrate it, so all family members played cards in the garden in honor of this and went to bed at the usual time.

Execution of a family in Ipatiev's house

Like other members of the Romanov family, Anastasia was shot on the night of July 17, 1918. It is believed that until recently she was unaware of the guard’s intentions. They were woken up in the middle of the night and ordered to urgently go down to the basement of the house because of the shooting that was taking place in the streets nearby. Chairs were brought into the room for the empress and the sick crown prince. Anastasia stood behind her mother. She took with her her dog Jimmy, who accompanied her during her exile.

It is believed that after the first shots, Anastasia and her sisters Tatyana and Maria were able to survive. The bullets could not hit because of the jewelry that was sewn into the corsets of the dresses. The Empress hoped that with their help they would, if possible, be able to buy their own salvation. Witnesses to the murder said that it was Princess Anastasia who resisted the longest. They could only wound her, so after that the guards had to finish off the girl with bayonets.

The bodies of the royal family members were wrapped in sheets and taken out of the city. There they were first doused with sulfuric acid and thrown into the mines. For many years the burial place remained unknown.

The appearance of the false Anastasius

Almost immediately after the death of the royal family, rumors about their salvation began to appear. Over the course of several decades of the 20th century, more than 30 women claimed to be the surviving Princess Anastasia Romanova. Most of them failed to attract attention.

The most famous impostor posing as Anastasia was the Polish woman Anna Anderson, who showed up in Berlin in 1920. Initially due to external resemblance she was mistaken for the surviving Tatiana. To establish the fact of kinship with the Romanovs, she was visited by many courtiers who were well acquainted with the royal family. However, they did not recognize her as either Tatiana or Anastasia. However, the trials lasted until Anna Anderson’s death in 1984. Essential evidence was the curvature of the big toes, which both the impostor and the deceased Anastasia had. However, Anderson’s origins could not be accurately determined until the remains of the royal family were discovered.

Discovery of remains and their reburial

The story of Anastasia Romanova, unfortunately, did not receive a happy continuation. In 1991, unknown remains were discovered in Ganina Yama, which allegedly belonged to members of the royal family. Initially, not all the bodies were found - one of the princesses and the crown prince was missing. Scientists came to the conclusion that they could not find Maria and Alexei. They were discovered only in 2007 near the burial place of the remaining relatives. This discovery put an end to the story of numerous impostors.

Several independent genetic examinations determined that the remains found belonged to the emperor, his wife and children. Thus, they were able to conclude that there could be no survivors of the shooting.

In 1981, the Russian Church Abroad officially canonized Princess Anastasia along with the rest of the deceased family members. In Russia, their canonization took place only in 2000. Their remains, after all the necessary research, were reburied in the Peter and Paul Fortress. On the site of Ipatiev’s house, where the execution took place, the Temple on the Blood is now built.

Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna.

Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna

The youngest of the Grand Duchesses, Anastasia Nikolaevna, seemed to be made of mercury, and not of flesh and blood. She was very, extremely witty and had an undeniable gift for mime. She knew how to find the funny side in everything.

During the revolution, Anastasia turned only sixteen - after all, not such an old age! She was pretty, but her face was intelligent, and her eyes sparkled with remarkable intelligence.

The “tomboy” girl, “Schwibz,” as Her family called her, might have wanted to live up to the Domostroevsky ideal of a girl, but she couldn’t. But, most likely, She simply did not think about it, because the main feature of Her not fully developed character was cheerful childishness.

Anastasia Nikolaevna was... a big naughty girl, and not without guile. She quickly grasped the funny side of everything; It was difficult to fight against Her attacks. She was a spoiled person - a flaw from which She corrected herself over the years. Very lazy, as sometimes happens with very capable children, She had an excellent pronunciation of French and acted out small theatrical scenes with real talent. She was so cheerful and so able to dispel the wrinkles of anyone who was out of sorts, that some of those around her began, remembering the nickname given to Her Mother at the English court, to call Her “Sunbeam”

Birth.

Born on June 5, 1901 in Peterhof. By the time of her appearance, the royal couple already had three daughters - Olga, Tatyana and Maria. The absence of an heir aggravated the political situation: according to the Act of Succession to the Throne, adopted by Paul I, a woman could not ascend to the throne, therefore the younger brother of Nicholas II, Mikhail Alexandrovich, was considered the heir, which did not suit many, and first of all, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. In an attempt to beg Providence for a son, at this time she becomes more and more immersed in mysticism. With the assistance of the Montenegrin princesses Militsa Nikolaevna and Anastasia Nikolaevna, a certain Philip, a Frenchman by nationality, arrived at the court, declaring himself a hypnotist and a specialist in nervous diseases. Philip predicted the birth of a son to Alexandra Fedorovna, however, a girl was born - Anastasia.

Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna with daughters Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia

Nikolai wrote in his diary: “About 3 o’clock Alix began to have severe pain. At 4 o'clock I got up and went to my room and got dressed. At exactly 6 am, daughter Anastasia was born. Everything happened quickly under excellent conditions and, thank God, without complications. Thanks to the fact that it all started and ended while everyone was still sleeping, we both had a sense of peace and privacy! After that, I sat down to write telegrams and notify relatives in all corners of the world. Fortunately, Alix is ​​feeling well. The baby weighs 11½ pounds and is 55 cm tall.”

The Grand Duchess was named after the Montenegrin princess Anastasia Nikolaevna, a close friend of the Empress. The “hypnotist” Philip, not at a loss after the failed prophecy, immediately predicted her “an amazing life and a special destiny.” Margaret Eager, author of the memoir “Six Years at the Russian Imperial Court,” recalled that Anastasia was named in honor of the fact that the emperor pardoned and restored the rights of students of St. Petersburg University who took part in the recent unrest, since the very name “Anastasia” means “returned to life”; the image of this saint usually shows chains torn in half.

Childhood.

Olga, Tatyana, Maria and Anastasia Nikolaevna in 1902

The full title of Anastasia Nikolaevna sounded like Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess of Russia Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova, but it was not used, in official speech they called her by her first name and patronymic, and at home they called her “little, Nastaska, Nastya, little egg” - for her small height (157 cm .) and a round figure and a “shvybzik” - for his mobility and inexhaustibility in inventing pranks and pranks.

According to the memoirs of contemporaries, the emperor’s children were not spoiled with luxury. Anastasia shared a room with her older sister Maria. The walls of the room were gray, the ceiling was decorated with images of butterflies. There are icons and photographs on the walls. The furniture is in white and green tones, the furnishings are simple, almost spartan, a couch with embroidered pillows, and an army cot on which the Grand Duchess slept all year round. This cot moved around the room in order to end up in a more illuminated and warmer part of the room in winter, and in summer it was sometimes even pulled out onto the balcony so that one could take a break from the stuffiness and heat. They took this same bed with them on vacation to the Livadia Palace, and the Grand Duchess slept on it during her Siberian exile. One large room next door, divided in half by a curtain, served the Grand Duchesses as a common boudoir and bathroom.

Princesses Maria and Anastasia

The life of the grand duchesses was quite monotonous. Breakfast at 9 o'clock, second breakfast at 13.00 or 12.30 on Sundays. At five o'clock there was tea, at eight there was a general dinner, and the food was quite simple and unpretentious. In the evenings, the girls solved charades and did embroidery while their father read aloud to them.

Princesses Maria and Anastasia

Early in the morning it was supposed to take a cold bath, in the evening - a warm one, to which a few drops of perfume were added, and Anastasia preferred Koti perfume with the smell of violets. This tradition has been preserved since the time of Catherine I. When the girls were small, servants carried buckets of water to the bathroom; when they grew up, this was their responsibility. There were two baths - the first large one, left over from the reign of Nicholas I (according to the surviving tradition, everyone who washed in it left their autograph on the side), the other, smaller, was intended for children.

Grand Duchess Anastasia

Like other children of the emperor, Anastasia was educated at home. Education began at the age of eight, the program included French, English and German, history, geography, the law of God, natural sciences, drawing, grammar, arithmetic, as well as dance and music. Anastasia was not known for her diligence in her studies; she hated grammar, wrote with horrific errors, and with childish spontaneity called arithmetic “sinishness.” English teacher Sydney Gibbs recalled that she once tried to bribe him with a bouquet of flowers to improve his grade, and after he refused, she gave these flowers to the Russian language teacher, Petrov.

Grand Duchess Anastasia

Grand Duchesses Maria and Anastasia

In mid-June, the family went on trips on the imperial yacht “Standart”, usually along the Finnish skerries, landing from time to time on the islands for short excursions. The imperial family especially fell in love with the small bay, which was dubbed Standard Bay. They had picnics there, or played tennis on the court, which the emperor built with his own hands.

Nicholas II with his daughters -. Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia

We also rested at the Livadia Palace. The main premises housed the imperial family, and the annexes housed several courtiers, guards and servants. They swam in the warm sea, built fortresses and towers out of sand, and sometimes went into the city to ride a stroller through the streets or visit shops. It was not possible to do this in St. Petersburg, since any appearance of the royal family in public created a crowd and excitement.

Visit to Germany

They sometimes visited Polish estates belonging to the royal family, where Nicholas loved to hunt.

Anastasia with her sisters Tatyana and Olga.

World War I

According to the memoirs of contemporaries, following her mother and older sisters, Anastasia sobbed bitterly on the day war was declared.

On the day of their fourteenth birthday, according to tradition, each of the emperor’s daughters became an honorary commander of one of the Russian regiments.

In 1901, after her birth, the name of St. The Caspian 148th Infantry Regiment received Anastasia the Pattern-Resolver in honor of the princess. He began to celebrate his regimental holiday on December 22, the holy day. The regimental church was erected in Peterhof by the architect Mikhail Fedorovich Verzhbitsky. At 14, she became his honorary commander (colonel), about which Nikolai made a corresponding entry in his diary. From now on, the regiment became officially known as the 148th Caspian Infantry Regiment of Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess Anastasia.

During the war, the empress gave many of the palace rooms for hospital premises. The older sisters Olga and Tatyana, together with their mother, became sisters of mercy; Maria and Anastasia, being too young for such hard work, became patronesses of the hospital. Both sisters gave their own money to buy medicine, read aloud to the wounded, knitted things for them, played cards and checkers, wrote letters home under their dictation, and entertained them with telephone conversations in the evenings, sewed linen, prepared bandages and lint.

Maria and Anastasia gave concerts to the wounded and tried their best to distract them from difficult thoughts. They spent days on end in the hospital, reluctantly taking time off from work for lessons. Anastasia recalled these days until the end of her life:

Under house arrest.

According to the memoirs of Lily Den (Yulia Alexandrovna von Den), a close friend of Alexandra Feodorovna, in February 1917, at the very height of the revolution, the children fell ill with measles one after another. Anastasia was the last to fall ill, when the Tsarskoe Selo palace was already surrounded by rebel troops. At that time the Tsar was at the headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief in Mogilev; only the Empress and her children remained in the palace. .

Grand Duchesses Maria and Anastasia look at photographs

On the night of March 2, 1917, Lily Den stayed overnight in the palace, in the Raspberry Room, with Grand Duchess Anastasia. So that they would not worry, they explained to the children that the troops surrounding the palace and the distant shots were the result of ongoing exercises. Alexandra Feodorovna intended to “hide the truth from them for as long as possible.” At 9 o'clock on March 2 they learned of the Tsar's abdication.

On Wednesday, March 8, Count Pavel Benckendorff appeared at the palace with the message that the Provisional Government had decided to subject the imperial family to house arrest in Tsarskoe Selo. It was suggested that they make a list of people who wanted to stay with them. Lily Dehn immediately offered her services.

A.A.Vyrubova, Alexandra Fedorovna, Yu.A.Den.

On March 9, the children were informed about their father’s abdication. A few days later Nikolai returned. Life under house arrest turned out to be quite bearable. It was necessary to reduce the number of dishes during lunch, since the menu of the royal family was announced publicly from time to time, and it was not worth giving another reason to provoke the already angry crowd. Curious people often watched through the bars of the fence as the family walked in the park and sometimes greeted her with whistling and swearing, so the walks had to be shortened.

On June 22, 1917, it was decided to shave the girls’ heads, since their hair was falling out due to persistent fever and strong medications. Alexei insisted that he be shaved too, thereby causing extreme displeasure in his mother.

Grand Duchesses Tatiana and Anastasia

Despite everything, the children's education continued. The entire process was led by Gillard, a French teacher; Nikolai himself taught the children geography and history; Baroness Buxhoeveden took over English and music lessons; Mademoiselle Schneider taught arithmetic; Countess Gendrikova - drawing; Alexandra taught Orthodoxy.

The eldest, Olga, despite the fact that her education was completed, was often present at lessons and read a lot, improving on what she had already learned.

Grand Duchesses Olga and Anastasia

At this time, there was still hope for the family of the former king to go abroad; but George V, whose popularity among his subjects was rapidly falling, decided not to take risks and chose to sacrifice the royal family, thereby causing shock in his own cabinet.

Nicholas II and George V

Ultimately, the Provisional Government decided to transfer the family of the former tsar to Tobolsk. On the last day before leaving, they managed to say goodbye to the servants and visit their favorite places in the park, ponds, and islands for the last time. Alexei wrote in his diary that on that day he managed to push his older sister Olga into the water. On August 12, 1917, a train flying the flag of the Japanese Red Cross mission departed from a siding in the strictest secrecy.

Tobolsk

On August 26, the imperial family arrived in Tobolsk on the steamship Rus. The house intended for them was not yet completely ready, so they spent the first eight days on the ship.

Arrival of the Royal Family in Tobolsk

Finally, under escort, the imperial family was taken to the two-story governor's mansion, where they were henceforth to live. The girls were given a corner bedroom on the second floor, where they were accommodated in the same army beds captured from the Alexander Palace. Anastasia additionally decorated her corner with her favorite photographs and drawings.

Life in the governor's mansion was quite monotonous; The main entertainment is watching passers-by from the window. From 9.00 to 11.00 - lessons. An hour break for a walk with my father. Lessons again from 12.00 to 13.00. Dinner. From 14.00 to 16.00 there are walks and simple entertainment such as home performances, or in winter - skiing down a slide built with one’s own hands. Anastasia, in her own words, enthusiastically prepared firewood and sewed. Next on the schedule was the evening service and going to bed.

In September they were allowed to go to the nearest church for morning services. Again, the soldiers formed a living corridor right up to the church doors. The attitude of local residents towards the royal family was rather favorable.

The news that Nicholas II, exiled to Tobolsk, and the royal family were going to see the monument to Ermak, spread not only throughout the city, but also throughout the region. Tobolsk photographer Ilya Efimovich Kondrakhin, passionate about photography, with his bulky cameras - a great rarity in those days - hastened to capture this moment. And here we have a photograph showing several dozen people climbing the slope of the hill on which the monument stands so as not to miss the arrival of the last Russian Tsar. Vladimir Vasilievich Kondrakhin (grandson of the photographer) took a photo from the original photograph

Tobolsk

Suddenly, Anastasia began to gain weight, and the process proceeded at a fairly rapid pace, so that even the empress, worried, wrote to her friend:

“Anastasia, to her despair, has gained weight and her appearance exactly resembles Maria a few years ago - the same huge waist and short legs... Let's hope this will go away with age...”

From a letter to sister Maria.

“The iconostasis was set up terribly well for Easter, everything is in the Christmas tree, as it should be here, and flowers. We were filming, I hope it comes out. I continue to draw, they say it’s not bad, it’s very pleasant. We were swinging on a swing, and when I fell, it was such a wonderful fall!.. yeah! I told my sisters so many times yesterday that they were already tired, but I can tell them a lot more times, although there is no one else. In general, I have a lot of things to tell you and you. My Jimmy woke up and coughs, so he sits at home, bows to his helmet. That was the weather! You could literally scream from pleasure. I was the most tanned, oddly enough, like an acrobat! And these days are boring and ugly, it’s cold, and we were freezing this morning, although of course we didn’t go home... I’m very sorry, I forgot to congratulate all my loved ones on the holidays, I kiss you not three, but a lot of times to everyone. Everyone, darling, thanks you very much for your letter."

In April 1918, the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the fourth convocation decided to transfer the former tsar to Moscow for the purpose of his trial. After much hesitation, Alexandra decided to accompany her husband; Maria was supposed to go with her “to help.”

The rest had to wait for them in Tobolsk; Olga’s duties were to take care of her sick brother, Tatyana’s was to run the household, and Anastasia’s was to “entertain everyone.” However, at the beginning things were difficult with entertainment, on the last night before departure no one slept a wink, and when finally in the morning, peasant carts were brought to the threshold for the Tsar, Tsarina and those accompanying them, three girls - “three figures in gray” saw off those leaving with tears right up to the gate.

In the courtyard of the governor's house

In the empty house, life continued slowly and sadly. We told fortunes from books, read aloud to each other, and walked. Anastasia was still swinging on the swing, drawing and playing with her sick brother. According to the memoirs of Gleb Botkin, the son of a life physician who died along with the royal family, one day he saw Anastasia in the window and bowed to her, but the guards immediately drove him away, threatening to shoot if he dared to come so close again.

Vel. Princesses Olga, Tatiana, Anastasia () and Tsarevich Alexei at tea. Tobolsk, governor's house. April-May 1918

On May 3, 1918, it became clear that for some reason, the former Tsar's departure to Moscow was canceled and instead Nicholas, Alexandra and Maria were forced to stay in the house of engineer Ipatiev in Yekaterinburg, requisitioned by the new government specifically to house the Tsar's family . In a letter marked with this date, the empress instructed her daughters to “properly dispose of medicines” - this word meant the jewelry that they managed to hide and take with them. Under the guidance of her older sister Tatyana, Anastasia sewed the remaining jewelry she had into the corset of her dress - with a successful combination of circumstances, it was supposed to be used to buy her way to salvation.

On May 19, it was finally decided that the remaining daughters and Alexey, who was by then quite strong, would join their parents and Maria at Ipatiev’s house in Yekaterinburg. The next day, May 20, all four boarded the ship “Rus” again, which took them to Tyumen. According to the recollections of eyewitnesses, the girls were transported in locked cabins; Alexey was traveling with his orderly named Nagorny; access to their cabin was prohibited even for a doctor.

"My dear friend,

I'll tell you how we drove. We left early in the morning, then got on the train and I fell asleep, followed by everyone else. We were all very tired because we hadn't slept the whole night before. The first day it was very stuffy and dusty, and we had to close the curtains at each station so that no one could see us. One evening I looked out when we stopped at a small house, there was no station there, and you could look outside. A little boy came up to me and asked: “Uncle, give me a newspaper if you have one.” I said: “I’m not an uncle, but an aunt, and I don’t have a newspaper.” At first I didn’t understand why he decided that I was “uncle,” and then I remembered that my hair was cut short and, together with the soldiers who accompanied us, we laughed for a long time at this story. In general, there were a lot of funny things along the way, and if there is time, I will tell you about the journey from beginning to end. Goodbye, don't forget me. Everyone kisses you.

Yours, Anastasia."

On May 23 at 9 a.m. the train arrived in Yekaterinburg. Here, the French teacher Gillard, the sailor Nagorny and the ladies-in-waiting, who had arrived with them, were removed from the children. Crews were brought to the train and at 11 o'clock in the morning Olga, Tatyana, Anastasia and Alexey were finally taken to the house of engineer Ipatiev.

Ipatiev House

Life in the “special purpose house” was monotonous and boring - but nothing more. Rise at 9 o'clock, breakfast. At 2.30 - lunch, at 5 - afternoon tea and dinner at 8. The family went to bed at 10.30 pm. Anastasia sewed with her sisters, walked in the garden, played cards and read spiritual publications aloud to her mother. A little later, the girls were taught to bake bread and they enthusiastically devoted themselves to this activity.

The dining room, the door visible in the picture leads to the Princesses' room.

Room of the Sovereign, Empress and Heir.

On Tuesday, June 18, 1918, Anastasia celebrated her last, 17th birthday. The weather that day was excellent, only in the evening a small thunderstorm broke out. Lilacs and lungwort were blooming. The girls baked bread, then Alexei was taken out to the garden, and the whole family joined him. At 8 pm we had dinner and played several games of cards. We went to bed at the usual time, 10.30 pm.

Execution

It is officially believed that the decision to execute the royal family was finally made by the Ural Council on July 16 in connection with the possibility of surrendering the city to the White Guard troops and the alleged discovery of a conspiracy to save the royal family. On the night of July 16-17, at 11:30 p.m., two special representatives from the Urals Council handed a written order to execute the commander of the security detachment, P.Z. Ermakov, and the commandant of the house, Commissioner of the Extraordinary Investigative Commission, Ya.M. Yurovsky. After a brief dispute about the method of execution, the royal family was woken up and, under the pretext of a possible shootout and the danger of being killed by bullets ricocheting off the walls, they were offered to go down to the corner semi-basement room.

According to the report of Yakov Yurovsky, the Romanovs did not suspect anything until the last moment. At the empress’s request, chairs were brought to the basement, on which she and Nicholas sat with their son in her arms. Anastasia stood behind with her sisters. The sisters brought several handbags with them, Anastasia also took her beloved dog Jimmy, who accompanied her throughout her exile.

Anastasia holding Jimmy the dog

There is information that after the first salvo, Tatyana, Maria and Anastasia remained alive; they were saved by jewelry sewn into the corsets of their dresses. Later, witnesses interrogated by investigator Sokolov testified that of the Tsar’s daughters, Anastasia resisted death the longest; already wounded, she “had” to be finished off with bayonets and rifle butts. According to materials discovered by historian Edward Radzinsky, Anna Demidova, Alexandra's servant, who managed to protect herself with a pillow filled with jewelry, remained alive the longest.

Together with the corpses of her relatives, Anastasia’s body was wrapped in sheets taken from the beds of the Grand Duchesses and taken to the Four Brothers tract for burial. There the corpses, disfigured beyond recognition by blows from rifle butts and sulfuric acid, were thrown into one of the old mines. Later, investigator Sokolov discovered the body of Ortino’s dog here.

Grand Duchess Anastasia, Grand Duchess Tatiana holding the dog Ortino

After the execution, the last drawing made by Anastasia’s hand was found in the room of the Grand Duchesses - a swing between two birch trees.

Drawings of Grand Duchess Anastasia

Anastasia over Ganina Yama

Discovery of remains

The “Four Brothers” tract is located a few kilometers from the village of Koptyaki, not far from Yekaterinburg. One of its pits was chosen by Yurovsky's team to bury the remains of the royal family and servants.

It was not possible to keep the place a secret from the very beginning, due to the fact that literally next to the tract there was a road to Yekaterinburg; early in the morning the procession was seen by a peasant from the village of Koptyaki, Natalya Zykova, and then several more people. The Red Army soldiers, threatening with weapons, drove them away.

Later that same day, grenade explosions were heard in the area. Interested in the strange incident, local residents, a few days later, when the cordon had already been lifted, came to the tract and managed to discover several valuables (apparently belonging to the royal family) in a hurry, not noticed by the executioners.

From May 23 to June 17, 1919, investigator Sokolov conducted reconnaissance of the area and interviewed village residents.

Photo by Gilliard: Nikolai Sokolov in 1919 near Yekaterinburg.

From June 6 to July 10, by order of Admiral Kolchak, excavations of the Ganina Pit began, which were interrupted due to the retreat of the Whites from the city.

On July 11, 1991, remains identified as the bodies of the royal family and servants were found in the Ganina Pit at a depth of just over one meter. The body, which probably belonged to Anastasia, was marked with number 5. Doubts arose about it - the entire left side of the face was broken into pieces; Russian anthropologists tried to connect the found fragments together and put together the missing part. The result of the rather painstaking work was in doubt. Russian researchers tried to proceed from the height of the found skeleton, however, the measurements were made from photographs and were questioned by American experts.

American scientists believed that the missing body was Anastasia's because none of the female skeletons showed evidence of immaturity, such as an immature collarbone, immature wisdom teeth or immature vertebrae in the back, which they expected to find in the body of a seventeen-year-old girl.

In 1998, when the remains of the imperial family were finally interred, the 5'7" body was buried under Anastasia's name. Photos of the girl standing next to her sisters, taken six months before the murder, show that Anastasia was several inches shorter than them Her mother, commenting on the figure of her sixteen-year-old daughter, wrote in a letter to a friend seven months before the murder: “Anastasia, to her despair, has gained weight and her appearance exactly resembles Maria several years ago - the same huge waist and short legs... Let's hope with it will go away with age..." Scientists believe it is unlikely that she grew much in the last months of her life. Her actual height was approximately 5'2".

The doubts were finally resolved in 2007, after the discovery in the so-called Porosenkovsky ravine of the remains of a young girl and boy, later identified as Tsarevich Alexei and Maria. Genetic testing confirmed the initial findings. In July 2008 this information officially confirmed investigative committee at the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation, reporting that an examination of the remains found in 2007 on the old Koptyakovskaya road established that the discovered remains belonged to Grand Duchess Maria and Tsarevich Alexei, who was the emperor's heir.

Fire pit with “charred wooden parts”

Another version of the same story was told by the former Austrian prisoner of war Franz Svoboda at the trial, at which Anderson tried to defend her right to be called a Grand Duchess and gain access to the hypothetical inheritance of her “father.” Svoboda proclaimed himself the savior of Anderson, and, according to his version, the wounded princess was transported to the house of “a neighbor in love with her, a certain X.” This version, however, contained quite a lot of clearly implausible details, for example, about violating the curfew, which was unthinkable at that moment, about posters announcing the escape of the Grand Duchess, allegedly posted all over the city, and about general searches, which, fortunately , they didn’t give anything. Thomas Hildebrand Preston, who was the British Consul General in Yekaterinburg at that time, rejected such fabrications. Despite the fact that Anderson defended her “royal” origins until the end of her life, she wrote the book “I, Anastasia” and for several decades led litigation, no final decision was made during her lifetime.

Currently, genetic analysis has confirmed already existing assumptions that Anna Anderson was in fact Franziska Schanzkovskaya, a worker in a Berlin factory that manufactured explosives. As a result of an industrial accident, she was seriously injured and suffered mental shock, the consequences of which she could not get rid of for the rest of her life.

Another false Anastasia was Evgenia Smith (Evgenia Smetisko), an artist who published “memoirs” in the USA about her life and miraculous salvation. She managed to attract significant attention to her person and seriously improve her financial situation, capitalizing on the public's interest.

Eugenia Smith. photo

Rumors about Anastasia's rescue were fueled by news of trains and houses that the Bolsheviks were searching in search of the missing princess. During a brief imprisonment in Perm in 1918, Princess Elena Petrovna, the wife of Anastasia's distant relative, Prince Ivan Konstantinovich, reported that guards brought a girl into her cell who called herself Anastasia Romanova and asked if the girl was the Tsar's daughter. Elena Petrovna replied that she did not recognize the girl, and the guards took her away. Another account is given more credibility by one historian. Eight witnesses reported the return of a young woman after an apparent rescue attempt in September 1918 at the railway station at Siding 37, northwest of Perm. These witnesses were Maxim Grigoriev, Tatyana Sytnikova and her son Fyodor Sytnikov, Ivan Kuklin and Marina Kuklina, Vasily Ryabov, Ustina Varankina and Dr. Pavel Utkin, the doctor who examined the girl after the incident. Some witnesses identified the girl as Anastasia when they were shown photographs of the Grand Duchess by White Army investigators. Utkin also told them that the injured girl he examined at the Cheka headquarters in Perm told him: “I am the daughter of the ruler, Anastasia.”

At the same time, in mid-1918, there were several reports of young people in Russia posing as escaped Romanovs. Boris Solovyov, the husband of Rasputin's daughter Maria, deceitfully begged money from noble Russian families for the supposedly saved Romanov, in fact wanting to use the money to go to China. Solovyov also found women who agreed to pose as grand duchesses and thereby contributed to the deception.

However, there is a possibility that one or more guards could actually save one of the surviving Romanovs. Yakov Yurovsky demanded that the guards come to his office and review the things they stole after the murder. Accordingly, there was a period of time when the bodies of the victims were left unattended in the truck, in the basement and in the hallway of the house. Some guards who did not participate in the murders and sympathized with the grand duchesses, according to some sources, remained in the basement with the bodies.

In 1964-1967, during the Anna Anderson case, Viennese tailor Heinrich Kleibenzetl testified that he allegedly saw the wounded Anastasia shortly after the murder in Yekaterinburg on July 17, 1918. The girl was looked after by his landlady, Anna Baoudin, in a building directly opposite Ipatiev's house.

“Her lower body was covered in blood, her eyes were closed and she was white as a sheet,” he testified. “We washed her chin, Frau Annuschka and I, then she moaned. The bones must have been broken... Then she opened her eyes for a minute.” Kleibenzetl claimed that the injured girl remained in his landlady's house for three days. The Red Army soldiers allegedly came to the house, but knew its landlady too well and did not actually search the house. “They said something like this: Anastasia has disappeared, but she’s not here, that’s for sure.” Finally, a Red Army soldier, the same man who brought her, arrived to take the girl away. Kleibenzetl about her future fate I didn't know anything else.

Rumors were revived again after the release of Sergo Beria’s book “My Father - Lavrentiy Beria,” where the author casually recalls a meeting in the lobby of the Bolshoi Theater with Anastasia, who allegedly survived, and became the abbess of an unnamed Bulgarian monastery.

Rumors of a “miraculous rescue,” which seemed to have died down after the royal remains were subjected to scientific study in 1991, resumed with renewed vigor when publications appeared in the press that one of the grand duchesses was missing from the bodies found (it was assumed that it was Maria) and Tsarevich Alexei. However, according to another version, among the remains there might not have been Anastasia, who was slightly younger than her sister and almost the same build, so a mistake in identification seemed likely. This time, Nadezhda Ivanova-Vasilieva, who spent most of her life in the Kazan psychiatric hospital, where she was assigned by the Soviet authorities, allegedly fearing the surviving princess, was claiming the role of the rescued Anastasia.

Prince Dmitry Romanovich Romanov, great-great-grandson of Nicholas, summed up the long-term epic of impostors:

In my memory, the self-proclaimed Anastasias ranged from 12 to 19. In the conditions of the post-war depression, many went crazy. We, the Romanovs, would be happy if Anastasia, even in the person of this very Anna Anderson, turned out to be alive. But alas, it was not her.

The last dot was put to rest by the discovery of the bodies of Alexei and Maria in the same tract in 2007 and anthropological and genetic examinations, which finally confirmed that there could not have been any rescued among the royal family