Anastasia Romanova: the fate of the last Russian princess. The examination confirmed that Anastasia Romanova is alive

According to the memoirs of contemporaries, the emperor's children were not pampered with luxury. Anastasia shared a room with her older sister Maria. The walls of the room were gray and the ceiling was decorated with images of butterflies. On the walls are icons and photographs. The furniture is in white and green tones, the furnishings are simple, almost spartan, a couch with embroidered cushions, and an army bunk on which the Grand Duchess slept all year round... This bed moved around the room in order to find itself 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. The same bed was taken with them on vacation to the Livadia Palace, on which the Grand Duchess slept during her Siberian exile. One large room next door, divided in half by a curtain, served as a common boudoir and bathroom for the Grand Duchesses.

The life of the grand duchesses was rather monotonous. Breakfast at 9 o'clock, lunch at 13.00 or 12.30 on Sundays. At five o'clock - tea, at eight - a general dinner, and the food was quite simple and unassuming. In the evenings, the girls would solve charades and embroider 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 Kochi's perfume with the scent of violets. This tradition has been preserved since the time of Catherine I. When the girls were small, the servants carried buckets of water to the bathroom, when they grew up, it was their responsibility. There were two baths - the first large one, left over from the reign of Nicholas I (according to the preserved tradition, everyone who washed in it left their autograph on the side), the other, smaller, was intended for children.

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

Like other children of the emperor, Anastasia was educated at home. Teaching began at the age of eight and included French and English, history, geography, the law of God, science, drawing, grammar, as well as dancing and lessons in good manners. Anastasia was not very diligent in her studies, she could not stand grammar, wrote with horrific mistakes, and called arithmetic with childish spontaneity "swinish". Teacher of English language Sydney Gibbs recalled that once she tried to bribe him with a bouquet of flowers in order to raise his mark, and after he refused, she gave these flowers to the teacher of the Russian language, Petrov.

Grigory Rasputin

As you know, Grigory Rasputin was introduced to Empress Alexandra Fedorovna on November 1, 1905. The Tsarevich's illness was kept secret, because the appearance at the court of a "peasant", who almost immediately acquired considerable influence there, aroused speculation and speculation. Under the influence of the mother, all five children got used to completely trust the “holy elder” and share their experiences and thoughts with him.

The 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.

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 1909:

Anastasia wrote to Rasputin:

The governess of the imperial children, Sofia Ivanovna Tyutcheva, was shocked that Rasputin had unlimited access to the children's bedrooms and reported this to the tsar. The tsar supported her demand, but Alexandra Feodorovna and the girls themselves were completely on the side of the "holy elder".

At the insistence of the Empress Tyutchev was dismissed. In all likelihood, the "holy elder" did not allow himself any liberties, but rumors spread around St. Petersburg so dirty 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 "Khlysty", protesting against that this "lying old man" has unrestricted access to children. Anonymous letters and cartoons were passed from hand to hand depicting the relationship of the elder with the empress, girls and Anna Vyrubova. In order to put out the scandal, to the great displeasure of the empress, Nicholas was forced to temporarily remove Rasputin from the palace, and he went on a pilgrimage to the holy places. Despite rumors, the relationship of the imperial family with Rasputin continued until his assassination on December 17, 1916.

A. A. Mordvinov recalled that after the assassination of Rasputin, all four grand duchesses "seemed subdued and noticeably depressed, they sat tightly huddled together" on the sofa in one of the bedrooms, as if realizing that Russia had set in motion, which would soon become uncontrollable. An icon was placed on Rasputin's chest, signed by the emperor, empress and all five children. Together with the entire imperial family, on December 21, 1916, Anastasia attended the funeral service. It was decided to build a chapel over the grave of the "holy elder", but due to subsequent events this plan was not realized.

Maria and Anastasia gave concerts to the wounded and did their best to distract them from heavy thoughts. They spent their days in the hospital, reluctant to break away from work for the sake of lessons. Anastasia remembered these days until the end of her life:

Under house arrest

According to the recollections of Lily Den (Yulia Aleksandrovna von Den), a close friend of Alexandra Feodorovna, in February 1917, in the midst of the revolution, children one after another fell ill with measles. Anastasia was the last to take to her bed, when the Tsarskoye Selo palace was already surrounded by the insurgent troops. The tsar was at that time in the headquarters of the commander-in-chief, in Mogilev, only the empress and the children remained in the palace.

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 for the last time they visited their favorite places in the park, ponds, and islands. 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 left the siding in the strictest confidence.

Tobolsk

Ekaterinburg

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

Together with the corpses of 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 to complete unrecognizability by blows of butts and sulfuric acid, were thrown into one of the old mines. Later, investigator Sokolov found the body of Jimmy's dog here. After the shooting, the last drawing made by Anastasia's hand was found in the room of the grand duchesses - a swing between two birches.

Character. Contemporaries about Anastasia

Anastasia in another mimic scene

According to the memoirs of contemporaries, Anastasia was small and dense, with light-brown hair with reddish hair, with large blue eyes inherited from the father. The girl was distinguished by an easy and cheerful character, she loved to play rounders, forfeits, and cerso, she could endlessly run around the palace for hours, playing hide and seek. She easily climbed trees, and often, out of sheer mischief, refused to go down to the ground. She was inexhaustible on 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. From 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 Alexei was put to bed by another illness. Anna Vyrubova recalled that "Anastasia was as if made of mercury, and not of flesh and blood." Once, being quite a toddler, three or four years old, at a reception in Kronstadt, she climbed under the table and began pinching those present by the legs, pretending to be a dog - for which she received an immediate severe reprimand from her father.

She also had an obvious talent for a comic actress and loved to parody and imitate others, and she did it very talented and funny. Once Alexey told her:

To which he received an unexpected answer that the Grand Duchess could not perform in the theater, she had other responsibilities. Sometimes, however, her jokes became not harmless. So she tirelessly teased the sisters, once playing snowballs with Tatyana, hit her in the face, so hard that the older one could not stay on her feet; however, the culprit herself, frightened to death, cried for a long time in her mother's arms. The Grand Duchess Nina Georgievna later recalled that little Anastasia did not want to forgive her tall stature, during the games she tried to outwit, substitute her leg, and even scratch her rival.

Little Anastasia also did not differ in particular accuracy and love of order, Halle Reeves, the wife of an American diplomat accredited at the court of the last emperor, recalled how little Anastasia, being in the theater, ate chocolate, without 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 had a spitz named Shvybzik, and many funny and touching cases 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 Pomeranian died of an infection, she was inconsolable for several weeks. Together with their sisters and brother, they sang the burial service for the dog and buried it in Peterhof, on Children's island... Then she had a dog named Jimmy.

She loved to draw, and she did it very well, she enjoyed playing the guitar or balalaika with her brother, knitting, sewing, watching movies, was fond of photography, which was fashionable at that time, and she had her own photo album, adored hanging on the phone, reading or just lying in bed ... During the war, secretly from her parents, she began to smoke, in which her older sister, Olga, kept her company.

The Grand Duchess was not in good health. Since childhood, she suffered from pain in the feet - a consequence of the congenital curvature of the big toes, the so-called lat. hallux valgus- a syndrome by which she will later begin to be identified with one of the impostors - Anna Anderson. She had a weak back, despite the fact that with all her strength she dodged the massage required to strengthen the muscles, hiding from the coming masseuse in the buffet or under the bed. Even with small cuts, the bleeding did not stop for an abnormally long time, from which the doctors concluded that, after her mother, Anastasia was a carrier of hemophilia.

As General M.K.Diterichs, who participated in the investigation of the murder of the royal family, testified:

Drawing grand duchess Anastasia

Teacher French Gilliard recalled her this way:

Finding the remains

Cross over Ganina pit

The tract "Four Brothers" 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 secret from the very beginning, due to the fact that the road to Yekaterinburg passed literally next to the tract, 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 men, threatening with weapons, drove them away.

Later, on the same day, explosions of grenades were heard in the tract. Interested in the strange incident, the local residents, a few days later, when the cordon had already been removed, came to the tract and managed to find several valuables (apparently belonging to the royal family) in a hurry, unnoticed by the executioners.

American scientists believed that the missing body belonged to Anastasia, because none of the female skeletons showed evidence of immaturity, such as an immature collarbone, undeveloped 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 buried, a 5'7 "body was buried under the name of Anastasia. 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 her friend seven months before the murder: “Anastasia, to her despair, grew fat and looks exactly like Maria a few years ago - the same huge waist and short legs ... Let's hope with with age, it will pass ... "Scientists believe it is unlikely that in the last months of her life she grew much. Her real height was approximately 5'2".

The doubts were finally resolved in 2007, after the discovery of the remains of a young girl and a boy on the so-called Porosenkovsky meadow, later identified as Tsarevich Alexei and Maria. Genetic testing confirmed the initial findings. In July 2008, this information was officially confirmed by the Investigative Committee under the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation, saying that an examination of the remains found in 2007 on the old Koptyakovskaya road established that the discovered remains belong the grand duchess Mary and Tsarevich Alexei, who was the emperor's heir.

Fake Anastasia

The most famous of the false Anastasias is Anna Anderson

Rumors that one of the tsar's daughters managed to escape - either by running away from the Ipatiev house, or even before the revolution, being replaced by some of the servants, began to circulate among Russian emigrants almost immediately after the execution of the tsarist family. Attempts by a number of people to use for their own ends the belief in the possible salvation of the youngest princess Anastasia led to the emergence of over thirty false Anastasias. One of the most famous impostors was Anna Anderson, who claimed that a soldier named Tchaikovsky was able to pull her wounded from the basement of the Ipatiev house after he saw that she was still alive. Another version of the same story was presented by the former Austrian prisoner of war Franz Svoboda at the trial, at which Anderson tried to defend her right to be called the Grand Duchess and gain access to the hypothetical inheritance of her “father”. Freedom 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 H.”. This version, however, contained quite a lot of obviously implausible details, for example, about the violation of the curfew, which was unthinkable at that moment, about posters announcing the Grand Duchess's escape, allegedly pasted all over the city, and about general searches, which, fortunately , gave nothing. Thomas Hildebrand Preston, who was at that time the British Consul General in Yekaterinburg, rejected such fabrications. Despite the fact that Anderson defended her "royal" origin until the end of her life, wrote the book "I, Anastasia" and for several decades led legal proceedings, final decision during her lifetime it was not carried out.

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

Another fake 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, speculating on the interest of the public.

Rumors about the salvation of Anastasia were fueled by news of trains and houses that the Bolsheviks searched in search of the missing princess. During a short imprisonment in Perm in 1918, Princess Elena Petrovna, the wife of Anastasia's distant relative, Prince Ivan Konstantinovich, reported that the guards brought a girl to 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 message is given more credibility by one historian. Eight eyewitnesses reported the return of a young woman after an apparent rescue attempt in September 1918 at a railway station at Sid 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, whom 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 the surviving Romanovs. Boris Solovyov, the husband of Rasputin's daughter Maria, deceived noble Russian families for money for the allegedly escaped Romanov, actually wanting to go to China with the proceeds. Solovyov also found women who were willing to impersonate the Grand Duchesses and thereby contributed to the introduction of deception.

However, there is a possibility that indeed one or more of the guards could have saved one of the surviving Romanovs. Yakov Yurovsky demanded that the guards come to his office and review the things they had stolen 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 corridor of the house. Some of the guards who did not participate in the killings and sympathized with the Grand Duchesses, according to some reports, remained in the basement with the bodies.

The last of the fake Anastasias, Natalia Bilikhodze, died in 2000.

Rumors revived again after the publication of Sergo Beria's book "My Father is Lavrenty Beria", where the author casually recalls a meeting in the foyer of the Bolshoi Theater with Anastasia, who allegedly escaped, who became the abbess of an unnamed Bulgarian monastery.

Rumors of a "miraculous salvation", seemingly subdued after the royal remains were subjected to scientific study in 1991, resumed with new strength, when publications appeared in the press that one of the grand duchesses (it was assumed that it was Maria) and Tsarevich Alexei were absent among the bodies found. However, according to another version, Anastasia, who was few younger sister and almost as complex, so a mistake in identification seemed likely. This time Nadezhda Ivanova-Vasilyeva claimed the role of the rescued Anastasia, who spent most of her life in the Kazan psychiatric hospital, where she was assigned Soviet power, allegedly feared by the surviving princess.

Canonization

The canonization of the family of the last tsar in the rank of new martyrs was first undertaken by the foreign Orthodox Church (1981). Preparations for canonization in Russia began in the same 1991, when excavations in Ganina Yama were resumed. With the blessing of Archbishop Melchizedek, on July 7, the Bow Cross was installed in the tract. On July 17, 1992, the first bishop's religious procession took place to the burial place of the remains of the royal family.

The image of Anastasia in literature and cinematography

Poem by Nikolai Gumilyov

Other

Notes (edit)

1. At home, however, he had a reputation as a charlatan and was even prosecuted for practicing medicine without an appropriate education.
2. Makeevich, A .; Makeevich, G. Waiting for the heir to the throne. Tsarevich Alexey... Retrieved August 21, 2008.
3. Massie (1967), p. 153

On the night of July 16-17, 1918, in Yekaterinburg, in the Ipatiev house on the corner of the former Voznesensky Prospekt and Voznesensky Lane, an event took place, which some consider the most terrible crime, while others - a triumph of justice: together with his wife, children and servants, the abdicated was shot last Russian emperor Nicholas II. Testimonies of contemporaries testimonies of contemporaries preserved the details of history - from touching to creepy: Grand Duchess Anastasia did not part with her beloved dog Jimmy until the last, and it was not possible to kill her and her sisters right away - the bullets bounced off the girls' corsages, where the jewelry was sewn up. Princess Anastasia was finished off the longest with rifle butts. Perhaps for this reason, soon after the execution, rumors spread: Anastasia had not died. Either the girl managed to escape, or she was replaced, or she, wounded, was carried out of the house by some soldier ... As you know, people most of all believe in what they want to believe - and Russian emigrants wanted to believe that at least someone from the royal family managed to escape.

... This story began in 1920 - not at all remarkable: a Berlin policeman rescued a girl who was trying to throw herself off a bridge. Suicides occur daily, sometimes law enforcement officers manage to prevent them, but the story told by the failed suicide was, frankly, atypical: the unfortunate woman found her aunt in Berlin, but she refused to recognize her. Everything would be fine, but the aunt turned out to be ... Princess Irene - the sister of the last Russian empress. Well, what were the police supposed to think - especially when you consider that the girl did not answer questions, looked exhausted and did not have any documents with her? Of course, she was taken to a charity hospital, and from there to a psychiatric clinic.

In the hospital where she spent a year and a half with a diagnosis of "psychiatric depressive disorder", she was called Unbekant (unknown). She recalled the Cathedral of St. Basil the Blessed, talked about Russian politics, understood Russian speech, but did not speak Russian, the same was the case with Polish... One day a nurse brought a newspaper into the ward with the headline: "Is one of the royal daughters alive?" A neighbor in the ward, Maria Poitert, found that Unbekant looked like one of the great princesses in the photograph, but she kept repeating: "Be quiet!"

M. Poitert was impressed by the situation. After being discharged from the clinic, she met with Russian émigrés - officer M. Shvabe, Zinaida Tolstoy - and persuaded them to visit the mysterious patient. They talked for a long time with the woman in the hospital, she did not answer questions and covered her face with a blanket - but this did not prevent the emigrants from being convinced that this was Grand Duchess Tatiana, suffering from amnesia. This confidence was dispelled by another emigrant - Baroness S. Buxgewden: it turned out that the supposed Grand Duchess did not know English, which Tatiana knew perfectly ... But interest in the mysterious personality was already excited.

After being discharged, she was unknown for some time in the house of the former police chief Kleist. Because she still refused to give her name, they called her Anna - after all, she had to be called somehow. And so, in the spring of 1922, the stranger finally told who she was: Grand Duchess Anastasia! The girl claimed that during the execution she managed to hide behind her sister's back, and then a certain soldier carried her out and hid her in his house, and then she and the soldier's wife left for Romania, and after her death she made it to Germany alone - a very strange act I must say, because the Romanian queen Maria was also her aunt ... She even named the soldier's surname - Tchaikovsky. It is noteworthy that among the guards of the Ipatiev house there was not a single person with such a surname ...

However, the alleged Anastasia did not come across so stupidly so often - she was very smart. So, once a visitor mentioned that she should remember the porcelain dog standing on the fireplace - and she very conveniently "remembered" this in a conversation with another visitor.

Further biography of "Princess Anastasia" is the story of endless wanderings with periodic premises in psychiatric clinics. People who knew the real Anastasia met her more than once - for example, the former valet of her mother, Alexei Volkov. His "sentence" was unequivocal: "Anastasia" did not recognize him, answered questions inappropriately, and did not speak Russian at all. Pierre Gilliard, a former educator of the imperial children, made the same conclusions: the real Anastasia had a straight short nose, a small mouth and thin lips, and this woman has an upturned nose, a large mouth, puffy lips ... maybe tuberculosis of the bones, which she was sick at that time, as well as a blow to the face, which she could receive during the execution of the royal family, and can distort her appearance - but not to the same extent! F. Yusupov called her "a hysterical and terrible actress".

Despite such an abundance of testimonies from people who knew the real Anastasia, many continued to believe this woman, also known as Anna Anderson (this is how she checked into a hotel in the United States). The main argument was twisted thumb legs - an anomaly, of course, rare, but not unique! But she definitely did not speak Russian and did not know Orthodox customs.

This woman died in 1984, bequeathed to write on the tombstone: “Anastasia Romanova. Anna Anderson ".

The point in her case was already put in the 90s: tissue samples of Anna Anderson, preserved in an American hospital, were compared by mitochondrial DNA with the exhumed remains of the royal family and Duke Philip of Edinburgh, the grandson of the Empress Alexandra's sister. In both cases, the relationship was not confirmed. Obviously, it really was about a mentally ill woman.

This is only one false Anastasia, and there were more than thirty of them. We have already mentioned one impostor who called himself Tsarevich Alexei. There were other impostors - some of them were also mentally ill, someone deliberately wanted to improve their financial situation. The discovery of the remains of the royal family in 1991 again stirred up these rumors - there were no remains of a boy and one of the princesses (presumably Mary), but in 2007 their remains were also found, and now we can say with certainty: neither Anastasia, nor someone another from the royal family did not escape execution.

Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova was born on June 18, 1901. The sovereign waited for an heir for a long time, and when the long-awaited fourth child turned out to be his daughter, he was saddened. Soon the sadness passed, and the Emperor loved his fourth daughter as much as his other children.

They were waiting for a boy, but a girl was born. Anastasia, in her agility, could give odds to any boy. She wore simple clothes inherited from her older sisters. The bedroom of the fourth daughter was not richly decorated.

Be sure to take a cold shower every morning. It was not easy to see behind her. As a child, she was very nimble, she loved to climb where she could not, to hide.

When she was still a child, the Grand Duchess Anastasia loved to play pranks, as well as make others laugh. In addition to gaiety, such character traits as wit, courage and observation are reflected in it.

In all the tricks, the princess was considered the ringleader. Consequently, she was not devoid of leadership qualities. In pranks, later Anastasia was supported by her younger brother, the heir to the royal throne -.

Distinctive feature the young princess had the ability to notice weak sides people and very talented to parody them. The girl's playfulness did not develop into something indecent. On the contrary, brought up surrounded by the Christian spirit, Anastasia turned into a creature that delighted and comforted all the close people around her.

When during the war she worked in a hospital, they began to say about her that even the wounded and sick were dancing in the presence of the princess. Before that, she was beautiful and cheerful, and when necessary - a sincere compassion and comforter. In the hospital, the princess prepared bandages and lint, sewed for the wounded and their families.

She did this with Maria. Then they lamented for a couple that, due to their age, they could not, like their older sisters, fully be sisters of mercy. Visiting the wounded soldiers, with her charm and wit, Anastasia Nikolaevna made them forget about the pain for a while, she consoled all the suffering with her affection and tenderness.

Among the wounded, with whom she managed to see, was an ensign. That same Gumilyov is famous. While in the infirmary, he wrote a poem about her, which you can find in his collections. The work was written on June 5, 1916 in the Infirmary of the Grand Palace, and is called "To the birthday".

Years later, officers and soldiers who visited hospitals remembered the Grand Duchesses very fondly. The military, recalling those days from their memory, seemed to be illuminated by an unearthly light. The wounded soldiers were interested in their fate. , assumed that all four sisters would marry four Balkan princes. The Russian soldier wanted to see the princesses happy, and prayed for them, for them the crowns of the queens of European states. However, everything turned out quite differently ...

The fate of Anastasia, like the fate of all, ended in the basement of the Ipatiev House. Here the Romanov dynasty ended, where Great Russian Russia ended with them.

Since the beginning of the 20s of the 20th century, girls have constantly appeared in Europe posing as Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanova. All of them were impostors with a desire to cash in on the grief of the Russian people. All the royal gold was bequeathed to Anastasia Nikolaevna. Therefore, there were adventurers who wanted to get their hands on him.

The mystery of the execution of the family of the last Emperor Nicholas II never ceases to haunt the minds of researchers throughout the 100 years that have passed since the day of the execution. Were the members of the royal family exactly shot, or did their counterparts die in the basement of the Ipatiev house? Is it true that some of those sentenced to death still managed to survive?

And were those who called impostors right those who tried to declare themselves as miraculously saved children of Nicholas II? Of course, there were a lot of fraudsters among the latter, but still sometimes the question arises: what if one of them was telling the truth?

In 1993, Anatoly Gryannik, who worked at the Baltika Foundation, discovered Natalia Bilikhodze living there in Georgia, who confessed that she was the surviving daughter of Nicholas II, Anastasia Romanova. In 2000, the Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanova Foundation was established with its headquarters in the State Duma of the Russian Federation. The purpose of the foundation was to return the royal values ​​to their homeland. In the imperial family, as stated, the youngest daughter Anastasia was assigned a special role. The Romanovs knew about several predictions of the seers about tragic fate their families and believed them. Therefore, from an early age, Anastasia was forced by her parents to memorize account numbers in foreign banks, which made it possible, if Anastasia alone survived, to get her what the Romanovs placed abroad.

Princess from Georgia

One of the members of the foundation, Doctor of Historical Sciences Vladlen Sirotkin, is convinced that in 1918 the Bolsheviks shot not the Romanovs, but their counterparts, the Filatovs. Moreover, the Filatovs were not only doubles, but also distant relatives of the Romanovs - precisely because of this, in his opinion, examinations carried out in the 90s revealed their genetic similarity. In addition, Professor Sirotkin devoted 20 years of his life to the search for Russian values ​​abroad. It was he who discovered that the bulk of the tsarist inheritance was placed in European banks, and Russia gave 48.600 tons (according to Professor Vladlen Sirotkin) of gold to the US Federal Reserve System in a trust for 99 years. In this regard, the members of the Princess Anastasia Foundation planned to return the lost trillions to Russia with the help of the found princess, who, as it was stated, turned out to be Natalia Bilikhodze.

Bilikhodze told the story of her salvation. As she said, Pyotr Verkhovsky took her out of the Ipatiev House, who at the court of Nicholas II was responsible for the preparation of doubles - backup members of the imperial family

The organizers of the fund actively defended their idea in the media, proclaiming that in order to return gold to Russia, Bilikhodze needed support. The fact that Bilikhodze is Anastasia Romanova, according to the members of the foundation, is evidenced by the results of 22 examinations. In addition, Bilikhodze herself told the story of her salvation. As she said, Pyotr Verkhovsky took her out of the Ipatiev house, who at the court of Nicholas II was responsible for the preparation of doubles - backup members of the imperial family. Then from Yekaterinburg Anastasia was taken first to Petrograd, from there to Moscow, and then to the Crimea, from where she, together with Verkhovsky, arrived in Tbilisi. Here Anastasia was subsequently married to a certain citizen Bilikhodze and named Natalia Petrovna. In 1937, her husband fell under a wave of repression and died, at the same time all documents in the name of Anastasia Romanova allegedly disappeared. However, it was difficult to verify this story, since the archive of the local KGB burned down, and the documents of the Tbilisi registry office about marriage were not found.

On this topic

After her husband's death, Natalia Petrovna got a job at the Tsentrolit plant, where, at the insistence of the director who sympathized with her, she changed her year of birth from 1901 to 1918.

Then she married again - to a certain Kosygin, who later died in the 70s. It is very likely that both husbands were members of the special services. How do you know about all this? From the book "I am Anastasia Romanova" - memoirs recorded from the words of Bilikhodze. The memoirs also describe the children's stories of the princess in the background historical events, her escape from the Ipatiev house (by the way, during its destruction, a previously unknown underground passage was found, about which Bilikhodze recalled) and life in Georgia. The main thing that Bilikhodze-Romanova asked was to return her name to her. For this, she was ready to transfer to the state everything that could be returned from abroad.

22 "yes" and 1 "no"

As reported, 22 examinations were carried out in relation to Natalia Bilikhodze in Russia, Latvia and Georgia on her identification with Princess Anastasia. The experts compared literally everything: the features of the structure of bones and ears, features of the skeleton and gait, biological age, handwriting, physical activity, blood, hereditary diseases, mental state, they also used photo and video materials that captured the daughter of the last Russian sovereign. According to representatives of the foundation, all researchers came to the conclusion: Natalia may well be the youngest daughter of Nicholas II. At the same time, the best psychiatrists in Georgia argued that Bilikhodze was mentally healthy and she did not have sclerosis. According to the totality of the coinciding signs of Natalia Bilikhodze and Princess Anastasia, this can only happen "in one of 700 billion cases," the members of the foundation said.

Subsequently, they transported Bilikhodze to the Moscow region. Moving from warm Georgia to not too good conditions middle lane led to the development of left-sided pneumonia and cardiac arrhythmias in her, in connection with which in December 2000 she was hospitalized in the Central Clinical Hospital of the UDP. There she soon died. However, the death certificate was issued by the Kuntsevo registry office in Moscow only in February 2001. For almost two months, Anastasia's body lay in the morgue of the Central Clinical Hospital - at the initiative of the members of the fund, experts conducted a genetic study of Bilikhodze. The examination was carried out by Pavel Ivanov, Doctor of Biological Sciences, at the Russian Center for Forensic Medicine of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation. The result of the DNA test was as follows: “The mitotype of Bilikhodze NP, which characterizes the matrilineal (maternal) branch of her pedigree and should normally be present in all her maternal blood relatives, does not coincide with the DNA profile (mitotype) of the Russian empress A. F. Romanova (from the burial?). The origin of N.P. Bilihodze from the maternal genetic line of Queen Victoria of England has not been confirmed. On this basis, maternal consanguinity in any capacity Bilikhodze N.P. and Alexandra Feodorovna Romanova is excluded ... ".

Queen Victoria was Anastasia Romanova's great-grandmother, that is, the comparison went through two generations. Why did the geneticist not take the biomaterial of Anastasia's mother's sister, Elizaveta Fedorovna? It is also unclear who double-checked Ivanov's conclusions, as well as what technique he used. By the way, it is very likely that the conclusion could not have been different, if we take as a basis the version according to which all those executed in the Ipatiev House, with the exception of Anastasia, were doubles of members of the royal family.

$ 2 trillion

This is what the members of the foundation wrote to Vladimir Putin. “Today foreign banks are ready at the request of A.N. Romanova to resolve issues with her personal funds and the funds and values ​​of the entire Romanov family. It is possible to receive about $ 2 trillion. Anastasia Romanova - the legitimate key of return Money through the US Federal Reserve. 12 of the world's largest banks formed the Federal Reserve in 1913 with money belonging to Russian Empire in the person of Tsar Nicholas II. At present, their approximate commodity coverage is about $ 163 trillion. "

Why there is a problem with obtaining these funds was described in a letter sent to the Security Committee State Duma... “We believe that this situation has arisen in connection with the possibility of obtaining the indicated funds by another applicant, namely Queen Elizabeth of Great Britain, her mother (she died in 2002), since she is a dynastic relative of A. Romanova. The British royal family has repeatedly appealed to the Government of the USSR with a request to issue certificates on the death of the family of Nicholas II, but the response of the country's leadership was negative, since it knew about the availability of funds and the desire of the royal family to receive them. For example, it even went so far that M.S. Gorbachev was given an ultimatum: "If you do not bury the family (which means confirmation of the fact of the death of the family), England will not support Russia." But M.S. Gorbachev did not agree to this. "

Well, if all this is so, then the Russian side should collect all the documents and present them to the western side in order to return the values. Probably, here it is necessary to involve the Western detective agencies "Kroll" and the "Pinkerton agency", which have already carried out work on the search for Russian values ​​and, probably, are ready, under certain conditions, to present the materials they have. In particular, "Kroll" worked on the instructions of Yegor Gaidar in 1992, and "Pinkerton's agency" in the 1920s on the instructions of the People's Commissar Leonid Krasin, apparently collecting a significant database on Russian values ​​abroad.

She signed her letters at will with the name of Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanova

For nearly twenty years, this story has haunted me. Ever since, in the archives of the Kazan psychiatric hospital, with intensive observation, a yellowed with time history of the illness of Nadezhda Vladimirovna Ivanova-Vasilyeva, posing as Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanova, was discovered. There were many false princesses, but the authorities did not treat any of them so cruelly. Her life became a series of incessant torment in camps and prison mental hospitals.

And here again a call from the past. Quite recently, her letters to Stalin and Ekaterina Peshkova were found in Pompolit's archives ("EP Peshkova. Help for political prisoners").

Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanova.

Moscow. Kremlin. The Red Square. Joseph Vissarionovich personally to Stalin. Urgently.

“Dear Joseph Vissarionovich! Forgive me for disturbing you, but I would like to speak with you urgently. I'll be waiting. This writes to you ex-daughter Nicholas II, the youngest Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova. Then I must inform you that my relative, the former King of England Eduard Georgievich, is to come to me. I wrote him a letter and look forward to his arrival. I warn you, Iosif Vissarionovich, that I have been arrested, I have been suffering for 20 years in prisons, concentration camps, and exile. I was in Solovki and now I am in the NKVD special corps. However, all my life, from the age of 15, as a girl, as she was saved from death by a Red Guard commander, wounded, since then I have suffered only for one of my origins. And so I wrote to my relatives and I want an end to my suffering and me to be taken from the borders of the Soviet Union. I am sending this letter through the wife of Maxim Gorky, Ekaterina Pavlovna Peshkova. Respecting you A. Romanova. June 22, 1938, Kazan ".

Moscow, Kuznetsky Most, 24. Assistance to political prisoners. Ekaterina Pavlovna personally to Peshkova.

“Hello, beloved, dear Ekaterina Pavlovna! I send you my heartfelt greetings. Forgive me for bothering you, but I decided to make a small request. Please, do not refuse, if you can, help me in view of the fact that some things were stolen from me in the clothing warehouse where I am, and there is no one to ask ... When I was in Moscow in 1934, I received foreign things through the Swedish embassy from my friend Gretti Janson ... Please send me, if you can, a coat and a stocking as soon as possible, for which I will be sincerely grateful and will try to thank you as soon as possible ...

The daughter of the former Nicholas II is writing to you, 20 years ago I was saved from death, wounded, a 15-year-old girl ... Now I am 36 years old. I personally suffered a lot, survived the horror. And now I am glad that my relatives found out about me, and we should be together. I don't know if they will give me up or not. I am sitting for only one of my origins, I am not guilty of anything else. I had a fake passport in the name of Ivanova-Vasilyeva, but for that I departed ...

These letters were found in Pompolit's archives by Liya Dolzhanskaya, a historian, archivist, employee of the Memorial scientific information and educational center and the author of a book about the life of Yekaterina Peshkova, the first wife of Maxim Gorky.

Nadezhda Vladimirovna Ivanova-Vasilieva wrote dozens of letters and petitions. All of them are filed into her medical history and, naturally, did not go beyond the confines of a closed institution. She, of course, guessed that she was writing to nowhere, because she had never received an answer. The prisoner tried to send her letters through the nurse, as evidenced by the entry in the medical history, and once this miraculously succeeded. There was a man who believed in the story of the "tsarina" so much that he was not afraid to violate the strict procedures of the special corps and take the letters out of the regime institution, and then deliver them to Moscow. It was a courageous act with enormous risks. Scribbled in flying handwriting, leaves from the dungeons reached the addressee - Ekaterina Peshkova. And they went to the archive.

A strange patient, who stood out from the surrounding friends in misfortune in her appearance, manners, and stories about the royal life, was believed. As, incidentally, during a short period of her life outside the prison and hospital walls, when, according to the investigation, a counter-revolutionary group of monarchist-minded believers formed around her.

Nun Valeria Makeeva, who shared the ward with Ivanova-Vasilyeva, told me that in the hospital Nadezhda Vladimirovna was not considered an impostor, and every year on her name day, January 4, tea was even arranged in the building. Nurses and nannies brought pastries from home with the words: "Today the queen is celebrating!" The head physician once asked Valeria: "What do you think, maybe our patient is Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna?"

The participant of the Great Patriotic War Antonina Mikhailovna Belova, who was admitted to the prison hospital for "seditious entries in the diary" and from 1952 to 1956 was also in the same ward with the "tsarina", wrote in a letter to the editor: "Knowing a lot about the" treatment ", I was silent on leaving the hospital about everything. But, having heard about your article, I decided to tell about my meeting face to face with Anastasia. I was motivated by the duty of a Christian woman. She was the true youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II. She had an almost non-Russian face: almost oval in shape, her nose was longer than usual, with a slight hump. Dark eyebrows are shifted to the bridge of the nose, eyes are large, sharp. Most of all, I was amazed by the out-of-date, beautiful, high hairdo ... Anastasia told me about her miraculous salvation, that an earring with diamonds was pulled out of her ear. She lifted a strand of hair: her ear from below was half ugly torn off ... I was numb. There was no doubt in me that there is a great prisoner in department No. 9 ”.

Anastasia said: “I lost consciousness and I don’t remember anything further. I woke up in some basement. In such a tragic way, one of the entire House of Romanov, on my own grief, I survived; more than once, envying the members of the executed family, she asked for death. "

Moscow, Kuznetsky Most, 24, - the address of Pompolit, like a password, was passed from hand to hand. This was the last hope for the "enemies of the people" and their families.

For fifteen years, until July 1938, a service was legally operating in the USSR, which by all possible ways tried to alleviate the fate of people who fell under the millstones of repression! Of course, unlike the political Red Cross that existed until 1922, Pompolit could not provide legal protection, but still his help was invaluable. He supported the prisoners and their families with money, food, clothing, medicine, petitioned for a reconsideration of the case, and a reduction in the term of imprisonment. The organization practically did not work for the last six months. In 1937, Ekaterina Pavlovna's assistant, Mikhail Vinaver, was given 25 years, and Peshkova was powerless. She could no longer help anyone.

On the letter of Ivanova-Vasilyeva - Ekaterina Pavlovna's own handwritten note: “Mentally ill. E.P. " This meant that the letters would not be given a go, and they would remain hidden. But was it possible to do anything at all at that time without risking, at best, being branded as crazy?

I first met the name Ivanova-Vasilyeva in the investigative case of A.F. Ivanshin. This is the case of the underground church-monarchist organization of 1934, says Lia Dolzhanskaya. - Several letters from Ivanova-Vasilyeva were found in Pompolit's archive. So, a letter from "Romanova Anastasia Nikolaevna" from the Vishersky concentration camp (1933) has survived, where she asks to inform her aunt Ksenia Alexandrovna Dolgorukova, who lives in Germany, so that she will provide her with material support. Why did Ekaterina Pavlovna make the note “mentally ill”? There can be two options. Perhaps it seemed to her, and it is highly probable, that the letter writer was indeed suffering. mental illness(after all royal family shot, and this is a well-known fact). At the same time, Ekaterina Pavlovna understood that it was possible to save the life of a long-suffering prisoner only by declaring her “mentally ill”. This mark is only on the last letters dated 1938, when Pompolit practically finished his work.

Who was this strange Ivanova-Vasilyeva? Why did she carry, like a cross, someone else's name, realizing that she would never be released?

Sick Impostor or Grand Duchess?

Only last year, the State Archives of the Russian Federation (GARF) gave me case # 15977 for the first time. Previously, all my attempts to get through to the case of a political prisoner ended in constant refusal.

I turn the pages. Interrogation protocols, testimony of witnesses. In the column “place of service and position”, the arrested woman indicated that she was a teacher of a foreign language, answered the question about the property status “not available,” and refused to give information about her father's property. In the clause "social origin" it says "from the nobility." The interrogation is signed laconically: “A. Romanova”.

It is striking and inexplicable that the investigators, having established the fact that the prisoner lives with a false passport, did not even try to find out her real name.

The file contains an envelope made of thick paper with the inscription "Confidential". What's in there: photographs, secret documents? The criminal case is almost 80 years old ...

Journalistic curiosity makes you look at the envelope through the light, but, alas, you can't see anything. All that remains is to write an official letter to the GARF leadership with a request to reveal the secret contained in the envelope. The answer is disappointing: there is a medical report in the envelope.

I have already seen this document in the archives of the Kazan Psychiatric Hospital. Here are some fragments: "The subject of average height, asthenic constitution, looks much older than the indicated age ... In the area of ​​the lower third of both bones of the shoulder, there are extensive soft scars, according to the conclusion of a specialist, of a gunshot origin ... In the upper jaw, most of the teeth are missing." The act also noted that “communication is possible only within the framework of a conversation about her supposedly royal origin. She is completely filled with delusional thoughts about her origin from the Romanov family ... This delusion does not lend itself to any correction. "

Combined portrait. Right - Grand Duchess Anastasia, left - Nadezhda Ivanova-Vasilyeva.

After rehabilitation, Nadezhda Vladimirovna Ivanova-Vasilyeva was transferred to a clinical psychiatric hospital, and then out of sight - to a boarding school for psychochronics on the island of Sviyazhsk, where she ended her days. She was buried as ownerless. It is only known in which part of the rural cemetery.

Could the Grand Duchess have survived? An eyewitness account is described who allegedly saw the wounded, but live Anastasia in a house on Voskresensky Prospect in Yekaterinburg (almost opposite the Ipatiev house) in the early morning of July 17, 1918. It was a certain Heinrich Kleinbetzetl, a tailor from Vienna, an Austrian prisoner of war, who in the summer of 1918 worked in Yekaterinburg as an apprentice for the tailor Baudin. In the early morning of July 17, a few hours after the brutal massacre in the basement of the Ipatiev house, the princess was brought to this house by one of the guards, who probably sympathized with the family.

Of course, it cannot be ruled out that the Viennese tailor's testimony is just a figment of the imagination. And this is understandable. Murder committed at mysterious circumstances always generates rumors. Especially when the victims are famous people, the more crowned persons. They laid claim to the role of members of the royal family different people... Most of all there were pseudo-Alekseev and pseudo-Anastasiy. When the remains of two people were missing in a burial near Yekaterinburg, rumors of a miraculous salvation began to spread with renewed vigor.

But, as you know, only in 2007, half a kilometer from the main burial, the remains of Tsarevich Alexei and Grand Duchess Maria were found. Experts confirmed their authenticity back in 2008, but so far these fragments remain unburied and await their final rest in the safe of the State Archives of Russia.

The official point of view: all members of the family of Nicholas II and he himself were shot in Yekaterinburg in 1918, and no one was able to escape. And all applicants for the role of the survivors of Anastasia and Alexei are impostors.

Having numbered all members of the royal family, Russian Orthodox Church has not yet recognized the results of the genetic examination and has not officially participated in the ceremony of burying the remains of the royal family in the tomb of the Peter and Paul Cathedral in 1998. In 2000, the murdered Romanovs were glorified as martyrs for the faith. To clarify the current position of the Church, I called the Moscow Patriarchate.

We do not accuse anyone of falsification and trust scientific conclusions, if only because the Church is not a research institute that can verify the results of an examination, explains Vakhtang Kipshidze, head of the analytical department of the Synodal Information Department of the Russian Orthodox Church, but our restrained position regarding the remains is connected with the fact that there was not enough openness when collecting samples for research. The royal family has been canonized, that is, canonized, and people want to be sure that the relics they will worship are precisely the remains of those very people. And we cannot afford uncertainty. Doubts are easily cleared by re-examining samples taken in a more public manner.

The mystery of the mysterious prisoner went away with her. And we will probably never know who she really was. A noblewoman with a broken psyche? Or Anastasia?