In 1918, Bolshevik revolutionaries marched the royal Romanov family down to a small,
bleak cellar in Yekaterinburg, Russia, telling them they would be moved to a safe house.
Minutes later, Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, and his five children were facing
a firing squad.
The guards shot at the tsar and his family until they believed that each and every one
of them lay dead.
However, in the years after the revolution, many women came forward claiming to be the
missing royal daughter, Anastasia.
Some surviving friends and relatives of the Romanov family were convinced that one of
these women was telling the truth.
When the bodies of the murdered Romanovs were found 61 years later, two of the children,
son Alexei and one of his sisters, weren’t with them.
Did young Anastasia manage to escape her family’s tragic fate that night?
Born to Tsar Nicholas II, Emperor of all Russia, and his wife Alexandra on June 18, 1901, Anastasia
was the youngest of four sisters.
Her parents had been praying for a boy to pass on the imperial title, so the birth of
their fourth daughter was somewhat of an upset.
Nicholas had to take a walk and compose himself before being led to his newborn girl.
His sister, Grand Duchess Xenia, exclaimed “My God!
What a disappointment!
A fourth girl”.
You could say their reaction to Anastasia wasn’t exactly “woke”.
The youngest Romanov sister preferred climbing trees and running around outdoors to being
tutored inside a classroom.
She was the biggest troublemaker in the royal Russian household.
Anastasia may not have been the male heir Tsar Nicholas was hoping for, but she definitely
grew into a tomboy.
Visitors described her as charming, spirited, and very energetic.
She had a great sense of humor and loved playing practical jokes.
Others thought she was a brat.
Either way, most people agreed that the short, strawberry-blonde, blue-eyed girl was extremely
gifted and bright.
If you’ve heard of the Russian Revolution, you might have imagined that the royal family,
including Anastasia, was living a life of lavish opulence while the Russian population
starved.
You may be surprised to hear that you were probably living larger in your dorm room than
Anastasia was at the Winter Palace.
The five kids slept on simple cots without pillows, took cold – and we’re talking
about Russian cold – showers, and were expected to tidy up their rooms, do their own chores,
and do needlework for charities during their free time.
Anastasia was almost never addressed by her royal title within the household either, instead
being referred to by her first name.
The royal children’s lifestyle was less “MTV Cribs” and more “Little House on
the Prairie”.
The lives of most of the royal children were also marred by illness.
Anastasia’s little brother Alexei had a form of hemophilia, which was not uncommon
in the somewhat inbred royal families of the time.
However, his hemophilia was so severe it rendered the heir to the throne permanently disabled
– the tiniest cut or bruise could kill him.
In the early 20th century, anyone with Alexei’s condition would not be expected to survive
to adulthood.
This created a problem for the royal family, who worried about Alexei’s health and worried
they would have no legitimate heir to the Russian throne.
Things for the royal family took a turn for the worse during World War I.
Three years of food rationing and endless bloodshed had severely tested the patience
of the Russian population.
1.7 million Russian soldiers died in World War I, while almost 5 million soldiers were
wounded.
This put Russia’s casualty rate at over 76% of their mobilized forces.
Hungry, demoralized, and permanently cold, the exhausted Russian population started rioting
in February 1917, with many Russian soldiers abandoning their posts and joining the protests.
Public sentiment had already turned against the royal family because Nicholas II had involved
his country in the bloody World War.
Further creating discontent, the equivalent “National Enquirers” of the time had ignited
unfounded rumors that Tsarina Alexandra’s trusted advisor, Rasputin, was having an affair
with both the queen and all four of the grand duchesses.
After eight days of rioting in February, many Russians called for Tsar Nicholas II to step
down.
Nicholas eventually gave up, abdicating the throne on March 2 and nominating his brother,
Grand Duke Michael, as his successor.
The Grand Duke, recognizing a sinking ship when he saw one, politely but firmly rejected
the offer, leaving Russia without a monarch.
In August of 1917, the Red Guards captured the royal family and sent them to Tobolsk,
Siberia, the land where winter is permanently coming.
Shortly after, the family was moved to Ipatiev House, also known as the vaguely named House
of Special Purpose, in Yekaterinburg.
It would be the last place where Anastasia and her family would be definitively recognized
before the terrible fate that was about to befall them.
The Bolsheviks took over Russia, and in October 1917 Russia fell into the midst of a violent
civil war between the Red Guards and the White Guards, who clearly needed better branding
skills.
Months later, a Bolshevik revolutionary by the name of Yakov Mikhailovich Yurovsky described
the supposed last night of the Romanov family.
On July 17, 1918, Yurovsky claims the family was told to get dressed in the middle of the
night so they could be moved to another safe house.
Nicholas and Alexandra, along with their five children and a handful of close servants,
were taken to a small basement room and told to wait.
Anastasia, who had turned seventeen just a month ago, walked down to the cellar holding
her dog, Jimmy.
The guards then let the family know they weren’t going to be moved, but instead, executed.
Nicholas barely had time to react before he and his wife were immediately gunned down
in a hail of bullets.
As Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Alexei and Anastasia started screaming, the guards shot at all
of them, including family doctor Yevgeny Botkin, chambermaid Anna, cook Ivan, and valet Alexei,
even killing Anastasia’s small dog.
However, the guards hadn’t counted on the fact that, unknown to them, the princesses
had some protection.
Before Anastasia and her sisters arrived in Yekaterinburg, the Tsarina warned them that
her personal valuables would be confiscated.
Writing in code, she instructed her daughters to sew their jewels into the lining of their
corsets.
Presumably, Alexandra was hoping to retain some items of value they could use down the
line to buy their freedom and a way out of Russia.
When the guards shot at the Romanov family in that small, dark cellar, the girls had
sewn so many jewels into their clothing that many of the bullets actually got deflected
instead of piercing their skin.
When the smoke from the initial gunfire cleared, many of the Romanov daughters, shockingly,
were still alive.
The guards then resorted to bayoneting and knifing the survivors.
But because they had chosen such a small room for the execution and crowded so many assassins
and victims into it, it was hard to even see who was alive or what was happening most of
the time, especially as the room fogged up with gun smoke.
The Soviet government hid the evidence of this crime.
They later publicly claimed to have killed Tsar Nicholas II, but said they were taking
care of his wife and children in an undisclosed location.
Many people suspected this was a lie and the rest of Nicholas’ family had been killed
as well, something the government admitted later.
But when rumors started swirling that Anastasia might still be alive, the Soviet government
refused to definitively refute the gossip.
Decades later, the bodies of five of the seven members of the Romanov family were found in
1979 in a forest outside Yekaterinburg.
Forensic scientists definitively identified Nicholas, Alexandra, Olga, and Tatiana, but
couldn’t agree on whether the last body was Maria or Anastasia.
Regardless, the bodies of Alexei as well as one of the Romanov daughters were missing
from the burial site.
This discovery further fueled rumors of Anastasia’s possible escape.
Though many people came forward over the years to impersonate various deceased members of
the Romanov family, people believed Anastasia was the most likely survivor, and that’s
why her body was missing from her family’s resting place.
Even though Alexei’s body was also missing, it was unlikely that a child with Alexei’s
severe hemophilia could have escaped alive and well.
The smallest wounds would have ended his life without immediate medical attention, which
it is unlikely he would have received.
Anastasia, on the other hand, had the bullet-deflecting jewels sewn into her bodice.
She was tough, crafty, and resourceful; a fighter by any account.
The guards had been sloppy.
They kept thinking they had killed the entire Romanov family with each new firing, only
to discover that some of the girls were still alive and moving after each attempt.
In fact, the guards had to make repeated attempts over a period of 20 minutes to kill this small
group of people.
What if the seventeen-year-old Anastasia had survived, wounded but not mortally so, and
played dead until she could hatch an escape plan?
In the confusion surrounding the aftermath of the Romanov family’s disappearance from
the public eye, yet another rumor emerged supporting the theory of Anastasia’s survival.
This time, the facts came from an official source.
Prior to the massacre, the Bolsheviks had been negotiating the release of Alexandra
and her daughters with Germany.
Since Tsarina Alexandra was of German descent, the Germans, who Russia wanted as an ally
at the time, demanded “the safety of the princesses of German blood”.
When news of the massacre started spreading internationally, the Bolsheviks told the Germans
that the official account was wrong.
The Soviet government stated that the two youngest princesses, Anastasia and Maria,
had escaped before the massacre even started, and could not be located.
Of course, many people thought this was a lie told by the Soviets to placate the German
government.
But others believed it supported the idea that Anastasia had escaped, especially when
the Romanov grave was discovered with two of the children’s bodies missing.
Believers thought the government had simply misidentified which two children had escaped.
One woman, named Anna Anderson, came forward years later in 1922 and proposed perhaps the
most widely believed theory.
Anderson had been confined in Dalldorf Asylum in Germany after a suicide attempt in Berlin
in 1920.
At the time, Berlin and Paris both served as refuges for aristocratic Russians who had
managed to flee the Bolshevik Revolution and the ensuing bloodshed.
After a couple of years at the institution, Anderson wouldn’t say much about who she
was, where she was from, or what had happened to her.
Some guards and other patients started asking her if she was one of the Romanov daughters,
as she bore a striking resemblance to Tatiana.
Anderson eventually claimed that she was, in fact, the Grand Duchess Anastasia.
Since most people need more evidence than the word of an asylum patient to declare someone
royalty, Russian tsarist friends and relatives flocked in to meet the possible princess.
Upon meeting her, a fair number of them agreed; they had found the missing Anastasia!
To those curious about how she managed to survive the Bolshevik assassination, Anna
explained that after the guards had slain her family, one of the men carrying her out
realized she was unconscious, but still alive.
Feeling guilty and sympathetic to the young girl, the guard helped her escape out of the
room undetected.
This story wasn’t that hard to believe, as we know for a fact that three of the Latvian
guards in the room that night refused to participate in the execution of the Tsar’s family at
the last minute.
If one of them had noticed Anastasia was still alive, he might have helped the poor young
princess flee.
There were other details that seemed to back up Anna Anderson’s story.
Her body had several prominent scars, scars she said she got from being knifed by the
Bolsheviks during the execution.
One man in particular, Gleb Botkin, the son of the Romanov family physician, swore up
and down that the woman not only bore a striking resemblance to Anastasia, but remembered many
small details that it would have been impossible for anyone but Anastasia to know.
Others were less convinced.
The real Anastasia was well-versed in not only Russian, but English and French as well.
Anderson had little knowledge of these languages.
She also didn’t seem to remember major events in the young Grand Duchess’ life.
However, supporters of Anderson’s claim pointed to the fact that Anderson had clearly
gone through a major trauma, followed by a life in hiding and mental illness.
All this would affect not only her memory, but also any skills and knowledge she had
in her previous life as Grand Duchess Anastasia.
Anderson eventually died in 1984, after courts had repeatedly denied her any rightful claim
to the Romanov title.
Her DNA was tested, and the results shocked all the people who had supported her.
Anderson was identified as Fraziska Schanzkowska, a Polish factory worker prone to mental illness,
reported missing years earlier.
It’s possible Fraziska, due to her mental state, truthfully believed she was the Grand
Duchess.
However, Anderson wasn’t the only Anastasia imposter.
If Anastasia hadn’t really survived, why did so many other women claim to be her?
One motive could have been stories of the immense Romanov fortune held in banks in England
or Switzerland.
These claimants may have been unpleasantly surprised to learn that most of the Romanov
fortune had been spent by Tsar Nicholas during World War I to help pay for hospitals and
hospital trains.
Other women may have been mentally ill and truly believed they were a Romanov, like Anna
Anderson.
Whatever the motives of the impersonators, one of the reasons the mystery of Anastasia
survived for so long is because it provided a glimmer of hope in a grim situation; that
a young, resourceful girl might have found a way to escape the terrible massacre of her
family.
Endless books, musicals and movies have been made over the years, telling the story of
Anastasia’s survival and keeping this optimistic version of events alive.
However, this hope all but disappeared in 2007, when two more bodies were found near
the initial Romanov burial site.
Using DNA evidence, the Russian government identified them as Alexei and Maria.
This led them to conclude that the third daughter found at the first burial site wasn’t Maria
after all, but instead was Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova.
Finally, the mystery had conclusively been solved.
On that tragic day in Yekaterinburg, just a month after turning seventeen, Anastasia
was brutally killed along with the rest of the royal Romanov family.
And now that you've solved this royal mystery, why not continue watching to discover more
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