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Russians remember the Romanovs as burial of Tsar's mother planned
July 18, 2002
AFP

Thousands of people took part in religious processions throughout Russia on the anniversary of the Bolshevik execution of Tsar Nicholas and his family as plans were announced for a reburial of the remains of his mother.

In the Urals city of Yekaterinburg, where Nicholas, his wife Alexandra and five children were shot in June 1918, some 4,500 people marched in a night-time procession that ended with church services at the site of the massacre where a church is being built in the royal family's memory.

The Ipatiev House, in the centre of Yekaterinburg, where the tsar's family was imprisoned for 78 days before their executions, was destroyed in 1977 under orders from former president Boris Yeltsin, then the Communist first secretary of the region.

A senior official in Saint Petersburg announced, meanwhile, that the remains of Maria Fyodorovna, the mother of the last tsar, will be reburied in the city in September 2003, Interfax reported.

The head of the city's state protocol department, Ivan Artsishevsky, said that plans for the funeral had been sent to President Vladimir Putin for approval.

Empress Maria Fyodorovna, who was born as Princess Dagmar of Denmark but married Russian emperor Alexander III, returned to her native land after spending 52 years in Russia. She was buried in Copenhagen in 1928.

In Moscow, some 300 people belonging to religious and monarchist organisations marched up to Saint Basil's Church, on Red Square.

Other processions took place across the country, notably in Tula, 200 kilometres (120 miles) south of Moscow, Tobolsk (Siberia) and Saint Petersburg, the former imperial capital.

Nicholas II and his family were canonized in 2000 in the Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow.

The remains of Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra and three of their five children, Tatiana, Olga and Anastasia, were buried in July 1998 in the Peter and Paul Fortress in Saint Petersburg, the resting place of Russian emperors.

The Russian Orthodox Church, however, has disputed the authenticity of genetic tests which identified the remains of family members who were killed in Yekaterinburg.

Historians believe the whole Romanov family was killed by Bolsheviks in the aftermath of the 1917 Russian Revolution, but popular myth has held that at least one of the children may have survived, and there have been several pretenders claiming to be Anastasia, most recently a 100-year-old Georgian woman.

The authorities also said Wednesday that they have invited all members of the former imperial family to attend the celebrations marking the 300th anniversary of the foundation of Saint Petersburg in 2003.

All descendants of the murdered royal family live outside Russia, notably in the United States, France and Italy.

A relative of the last tsar, Prince Dmitry Romanov, took part Wednesday in a memorial service for the royal family at the Peter and Paul Cathedral in Saint Petersburg.

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