Anastasia Romanova



Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova was the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, the last sovereign of Imperial Russia, and his wife, Tsarina Alexandra Fyodorovna. She was born in 1901 in Peterhof, a complex of palaces in Saint Petersburg. Anastasia had four siblings Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Duke Aleksey who was heir apparent to the throne of the Russian Empire but was born with hemophilia.

When Anastasia was born, the imperial family was disappointed that she was a girl because they hoped for a son that would be heir apparent to the throne. The children in the family were raised as simply as possible. They were expected to tidy their rooms and do needlework to be sold at various charity events when they had free time. Like her siblings, Anastasia was educated at home and followed a very strict schedule.

Anastasia sometimes tripped the servants and played pranks on her tutors. As a child, she would climb trees and refuse to come down. Once, during a snowball fight at the family’s Polish estate, Anastasia rolled a rock into a snowball and threw it at her older sister Tatiana, knocking her to the ground. A distant cousin, Princess Nina Georgievna, recalled that Anastasia was nasty to the point of being evil, and would cheat, kick and scratch her playmates during games.



Tsarina Alexandra relied on the counsel of Grigori Rasputin. Hence, the children soon got used to sharing all their secrets with “the honourable old man.” Rasputin liked to talk with the children before they were sent to bed and when the family went on journeys he corresponded with the children. In her letters Anastasia called Rasputin “her only true friend” and expressed all the respect and love she could.



In February 1917, Nicholas II abdicated and Anastasia and her family were placed under house arrest at the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoye Selo during the Russian Revolution. As the Bolsheviks approached, Alexander Kerensky of the Provisional Government had them moved to Tobolsk, Siberia. When the Bolsheviks seized the control of the country they moved the family to Yekaterinburg.

At Tobolsk, Anastasia and her sisters sewed jewels into their clothing in hopes of hiding them from their captors, since Alexandra had written to warn them that she, Nicholas and Maria had been searched upon arriving in Yekaterinburg, and had items confiscated. Their mother used predetermined code words “medicines” and “Sednev’s belongings” for the jewels.

The stress and uncertainty of captivity took their toll on Anastasia as well as her family. However, even in the last months of her life, she found ways to enjoy herself. Anastasia together with other members of the household, performed plays for the enjoyment of their parents and audience in the spring of 1918. Anastasia’s performance made everyone howl with laughter.



On 14 July 1918 local priests in Yekaterinburg conducted a private church service for the family. They reported that Anastasia and her family, contrary to custom, fell on their knees during the prayer for the dead, and that the girls had become despondent, hopeless, and no longer sang the replies in the service.It is believed that the decision about the execution was made on 16 July because rumors had appeared about an allegedly discovered plot to save the Tsar and his family. On the night of 17 July after a short dispute about the way the family was to be executed, they were woken up and asked to descend to the cellar.

Until the very last moment the family members suspected nothing. In the cellar they were asked to sit on the chairs that had been brought in, and everyone obeyed. The girls took their hand-bags with them, and Anastasia even took Jimmy, her dog, along.

Some believe that after the first shots were fired Anastasia, Maria and Tatiana were still alive – the jewels sewn in their dresses had saved their lives – and the soldiers had to finish the wounded girls off by hitting them hard with bayonet caps and buttstocks.

The bodies were then wrapped into bed sheets and brought to Ganina Yama to be buried. Before the burial the faces of the victims were disfigured beyond recognition with sulfuric acid, knives and buttstocks.

Even though the murderers of the Tsar and his family were eager to keep the place of burial secret, it turned out to be impossible as Ganina Yama was located near the road that led to Yekaterinburg, and early in the morning on the day of the burial the grim cavalcade was noticed by Natalia Zykova, a peasant woman from a nearby village, and several other people. And though the Red Army men chased the peasants away, menacing them with guns, later the frightened witnesses let the information slip out.

Later on that same day the sounds of shell explosions were heard at the ominous spot; several days after the sad event the locals went to Ganina Yama and found some jewels that presumably belonged to the Tsar’s family and must have not been noticed by the executioners who were quite in a hurry to cover up the traces of the recent murders. Only in 1991, more than 70 years after the tragic event, at a depth of a little more than one meter, remains were found that were later identified as those of the members of the Tsar’s family. Still, anthropologists had grave doubts concerning the body of Anastasia – the left side of the face was broken into tiny pieces. It was practically impossible to piece the broken parts together, and the result of the long, painstaking work was highly questionable. Russian scientists tried to judge by the height of the skeleton, but as the measurements were done according to photographs only, foreign scientists challenged the authenticity of the find.

In 1998 the remains of the Tsar’s family were finally buried, but the last doubts were settled only ten years later – in 2007 when remains of a young lady and a boy were found in the so-called Porosenkovsy Meadow and were identified as Grand Duchess Maria and Cesarevitch (meaning “the eldest son of a tsar”) Aleksey. DNA tests confirmed the conclusions made by the scientists. A year later, the information was officially confirmed by the Investigative Committee attached to the Prosecutor General’s Office of Russia.

In 2000, Anastasia and her family were canonized as passion bearers by the Russian Orthodox Church. The family had previously been canonized in 1981 by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad as holy martyrs.


Source: http://meettheslavs.com/anastasia-romanova/