Author’s preface
It has been almost 90 years since the tragic event occurred in the basement of Ipatjev’s house, but even today the history of the disappearance of the last Russian Emperor Nikolay II and his family provokes frantic disputes. Unfinished investigation of Kolchak’s administration, memoirs of participants and witnesses of the events in Yekaterinburg led to the emergence of outrages rumors. Every new article or book on this subject excites minds of people, as they give the most inconsistent versions of what has happened. After the article which announced finding remains of tzar’s family near Yekaterinburg in 1991 has been published, the hope flashed that this secret finally would be revealed. Alas. The world saw again how the professional investigation has been substituted by hasty fulfillment of just another political order.
Three years ago I came across some documents, which made me look at this tragedy from the side unexplored before. Being neither professional historian nor journalist, I made an attempt to impartially analyze recently discovered documents and already known facts in order to try to find the truth about this tragedy together with you, dear reader.
Unfinished (uncompleted) investigation.
The city of Omsk, December, 12, 1918.
“I have honor to present you, Mister Minister, the following data, obtained by preliminary investigation on case of the murder of the former Emperor Nikolay II and his family.
On 30/17 of July, 1918, in the city of Yekaterinburg Comrade public prosecutor Kutuzov drew up the statement of the citizen of Yekaterinburg Fedor Nikiforovich Gorshkov about the following details of the murder of the Sovereign and his family, which he knew from forensic investigator Tomashevskiy, while the latter knows about it from someone who was either eyewitness himself or was very close to the Soviet Power. All the Imperial family, including former Sovereign Nicholay II was gathered in a dining room, where they were announced that they all would be shot, and what’s more, shortly after this Letts’ volley made all of them fall on the floor. After that Letts started to check if everyone was dead, and it appeared to be that former Grand Princess Anastasia Nikolaevna was left alive, and when they touched her, she terribly screamed. After that she was hit in her head by the butt of a gun and besides this twice stabbed with bayonet.
This record of Gorshkov statement became the reason to institute a preliminary investigation, which was presented to forensic investigator of the most important affairs Nametkin on the same 30 of June. Together with that charred remains of different things and Maltese cross were placed at forensic investigator’s disposal”.
That’s how public prosecutor Of Kazan Court Chamber Mr. Mirolyubov, supervising the course of investigation, described the beginning of the preliminary investigation on subject about the murder of Nikolay II and his family in his official report to minister of Justice of the Kolchak’s administration Starynkevich. “The list of tzar’s family belongings, which were left in Ipatyev’s house and which managed to be found at different people” has been enclosed to that report. In that list 461 belongings were specified and numbered, also testimonies of witnesses on their identification were given.
On 19th of February, 1919, Starynkevich wrote a letter to a manager of Ministry for foreign affairs, in which he told about the course of the preliminary investigation and conclusions on the case about murder of Nikolay II and his family.
“In June during the movement of Czechoslovakian detachments towards Yekaterinburg local Bolshevik authorities announced the shooting of the former Sovereign and his whole family, and since that moment two different versions spread over the city concerning the disappearance of the imperial family from Yekaterinburg. According to one of the versions all the members of tzar’s family were killed, while under another version they were taken to Verchotur’e or Perm.
Confirming the first version the preliminary investigation obtained the following data, with sufficient reliability establishing the fact of the murder of the whole imperial family: on 17th of July, peasants of Koptyaki village, Verchne-Isetskiy region, Andrey Sheremetevsky, Michail Alferov and others have noticed movements of the Red Army detachments in forests nearby above-mentioned village, 18 versts away from Yekaterinburg, and what’s more, after the leaving of Red Army men, the peasants, following their traces, came to their camp, and found an extinct bonfire nearby derelict mines; on digging up that bonfire they have found different things in it, such as: the cross with emeralds, 4 parts of corsets’, suspenders’ buckles, shoes, buttons, dress fasteners and beads; and on water surface of the mine a stick, bark, boards, fresh pine-needles and iron shovel have been noticed.
On more detailed examination of the locality by forensic investigator nearby the same mine, called Iset mine, the following things have been found: charred old female purse, rags, lace and some black shining fragments. At the same place then two little dirty splinters of emerald and pearls have been discovered, together with a fabric shred with the smell of kerosene, and finally a very contaminated watery-colored stone of considerable size in a platinum mounting, which has been evaluated by an expert- jeweller to be a diamond of a high value (about 100000 roubles). According to the expert’s conclusion, that diamond was a part of another decoration (a pendant) of highly-artistic work. At the very edge of the mine, in a clay hand bomb-splinter has been discovered, and on going down in the mine itself the signs of hand-bomb explosion have been found on its walls. After removal of water from the mine, sand and silt from the bottom have been panned and cut-off finger, artificial jaw, bomb-splinters, support for male tie and other things of little significance have come to light.
When the found diamond pendant and other things were presented to the above-mentioned witness Peter Zhiljar, the latter certified that this pendant had been sewed up in a button of costume of one of the Grand Princesses – either Olga’s or Tatiana Nikolaevna’s one, as for the earring with emerald the witness found it quite identical with earrings of the former Empress, the artificial jaw has been considered by Doctor Derevenko to look rather similar to what Docrot Botkin had been using. Concerning the earrings found nearby the mine, it has been moreover ascertained by collation, that it had certain similarity with the earrings in which the former Empress was represented on the photographic portrait which investigating authorities had at their disposal. Another earring has not been found in specified locality, but splinters of pearl have been found, regarding which an expert voiced a supposition based on quality of these splinters, that they form a twin-pearl with the one which had been found. Finally, concerning the cut-off finger, doctor-expert acknowledged, that this finger had belonged to a hand of a human, familiar with manicure, looked well-groomed and it could be assumed that he had belonged to a woman with long slender fingers.
To counterbalance the above-mentioned circumstances, establishing the fact of the murder of the imperial family, many witnesses testified against the fact of the murder of the tzar’s family saying that they had been taken from Yekaterinburg to Perm or Verhoturje. However, this version has not been corroborated by the objective facts of the investigation, and nobody among the witnesses certified that he personally saw the tzar’s family leaving.
The above-stated facts essentially settle the material, obtained so far by the preliminary investigation.
Attaching very great importance to the present case, Ministry of Justice does everything possible to ensure thorough, successful and fast process of investigation on this subject. In the same direction the investigation authorities work in the person of forensic investigator of the most important affairs Sokolov, to whom the investigation process is lately assigned. At the same time all due measures are taken to protect all the belongings of the Former Emperor and his family, which have been found during the investigation process and have historical significance in the aggregate”.
The duties on the investigation process have been assigned to Nikolay Alexandrovich Sokolov on Frebuary, 7, 1919. After acquainting himself with the data of the preliminary investigation, which had been obtained by the investigators Nametkin and Sergeev, he arrived at Yekaterinburg in May of 1919, where he continued the thorough investigation till the middle of the summer, that is till the moment when the city was captured by Bolsheviks. In 1924, being in Paris, France, he wrote his famous book “The murder of the Imperial family”, where the documents from investigation materials were included. It’s strange, but in his book Sokolov makes a number of “inaccuracies”, which change the picture of events. For instance, in chapter XXII, which was called “The belongings of the imperial family, found at the mine. Conclusions”, Sokolov gives the list and description of the things found at the mine near Four Brothers. Here is an extract from this chapter:
24. Charred parts of corsets, destroyed by fire:
a) 6 pairs of front sections;
b) side bones;
c) clasps;
d) fasteners and hooks;
e) units for lacing.
Examination by experts defined that these parts had belonged to 6 corsets. As for the quality of corsets the following was said: “The corsets were of good craftsmanshift. The fabric which was left from some of the clasps is the part of some garter’s elastic. Charred fabric in some clasps is the fabric of the corset itself. This fabric has been a crochet: it has been knitted from silk fabric”.
Witnesses testified:
Tegleva:
“I certify that the Empress, the princesses and Demidova used to wear corsets always. Only the Empress from time to time could took her corset off when she put her dressing gown on. In general she demanded this from the princesses and used to say that not wearing a corset means being dissolute”.
Zanotti: “The princesses and The Empress usually wore corsets. Demidova also wore corset”.
However, in the official report of the public prosecutor Mirolyubov and in the letter of the Minister Starynkevich only four front pairs of corsets were mentioned. At the same time Sokolov didn’t say anything about personal belongings of the imperial family, which have been found at the apartment of a courier and watchman of the Ural Regional Council Peter Illarionov Lylov on July, 30, 1918. Among them gold lockets, the wedding ring of 94 carat, chest icons of saints, and only five charms and five crosses have been registered. For the person who belongs to the Orthodox Church his cross – is his integral part even after his death. The crosses of the members of Imperial family have been registered on that list by following numbers:
365. Silver cross, not of the shape of orthodox crosses, with standing out crucifixion on it.
366. Gold orthodox cross.
367. Gold neck-lace. All the three crosses are on it.
Lylov explained during his interrogation at Yekaterinburg Criminal Investigation Department on September, 4, 1918, that the majority of the imperial family’s things had been stolen by Beloborodov during the flight of Bolsheviks from Yekaterinburg. He himself, Lylov, has stolen them from Beloborodov…”
These “omissions” of Nikolay Alexandrovich Sokolov confirm that the investigation group had the information about the fact that the funeral squad had “lost” the bodies of Alexey and one of the princesses.
Recollections of the superintendent of the House of special assignment Yakov Yurovskiy led to the same conclusion. In his memoirs he wrote the following: “We started to move dead bodies on lights carts, while the heavier carts were needed. It was very inconvenient. At that moment it has been noticed that there were some special corsets on Tatiana, Olga and Anastasia. It has been decided to strip them naked, but not here there, but at the place of their burial… When we started to undress one of the maidens, we saw the corset, torn by bullets at some places – in the hole diamonds could be seen… The diamonds have been ripped out immediately. All the diamond things have amounted to 1\2 of pood (more than 8 kilograms)… Packed all the valuable things in bags, the rest what have been found on the dead bodies were burned… ”
From the text follows that there were only three corsets with diamonds. And where have the corsets of Maria and Alexey been then? According to Tegleva’s evidence, the corsets with diamonds sewed up had been made “for an extraordinary case” for all of the children. And there is a mess in memoirs of participants of “burial” about burning the bodies. Yurovskiy mentioned Alexey and maid of honour, G.Suhorukov – Alexey and Anastasia, I. Rodzinskiy – Nikolay II, Doctor Botkin and Alexey, and M.Medvedev didn’t mention burning of the bodies at all. According to his words, only clothes had been burned.
Taking professional experience of the Investigator Sokolov into consideration, there is the question left unanswered: “What have made Sokolov agree to falsify the facts when the investigation materials were made public in his book?”. He was aware about the searches, which had been made by Bolsheviks in Yekaterinburg and Perm, related to hunting for runaway Anastasia, but the order to stop the investigation had been issued by Admiral Kolchak personally. Probably the reason which induced Admiral to make this decision was a letter from his wife, Sophia Fedorovna about her meeting with Anastasia. At all events, by having officially declared the fact that all the members of imperial family were dead, Admiral Kolchak gave The Grand Princess an opportunity to hide from persecutors.
George
The year of 1919. The aged town of Kamenez-Podolsk is turned into the capital of Ukraine. In the town the State authorities of The Ukraine National Republic are concentrated. The first Ukraine State University is founded. At the same time under the Brest’s agreement the town becomes a border town, as Besarabia gets joined to Roumania. There are a lot of refugees in the town. Among them there are a wife and a son of Admiral Kolchak. On the eve of 1919 New Year a lieutenant with his young wife Anna, whose maiden name was Romanovskaya, arrives in the town. He rents an apartment from the local householder Blonskiy and gets a job at one of the state institutions. The lieutenant himself came from peasants’ family of Poltava Province. Before The First World War started he graduated a college to become an accountant. In august of 1914 he was mobilized for the army. He graduated the school of praporschiks and in a rank of a cornet was directed in Cavalry Regiment. He was at war at the South-West Front. On summer of 1918 he was sent in Ural region, where he found his future wife. Anna Romanovskaya was 9 years younger than the lieutenant. She came from nobleman’s family. At her 17 years old she became an orphan as Bolsheviks had shot her parents. The lieutenant appeared to be not only her rescuer but also her husband. The lieutenant’s parents having found out the family name of their daughter-in-law decided that she was Pole. In august before his leaving for just another “business trip”, he brought his pregnant wife to a friend of his Maria Kuznetzova. His “business trip” appeared to be an august Petlyura’s army campaign against Kiev, which ended up with a severe wound and Polish captivity for the lieutenant.
On 29th (16th) of September of 1919 their son has been born. On capturing of the town by the Army of Budennyi on 17th of November Anna secretly escaped from the town. She left her son with Maria in hope to take him back after clearing the town from Red army men. To make him remember about herself she left her gold cross to her son. On 23d (10th) of December Maria brought the child to get him baptized at the Orthodox Church. The boy was christened to be a George. On his baptism Maria called Anna to be Elizaveta. Maria’s daughter Kseniya, who was 28 at that moment, became godmother to the child.
In 1921 Kseniya brought George at the place of the lieutenant’s parents. Together with his birth-certificate she left Anna’s gold cross. The lieutenant himself returned from captivity only in December, 1923 after the amnesty of the Soviet Government. Being back at home he got a job of an accountant at an agricultural commune. For reasons known only by him, he has made a new birth-certificate for his son at the registry office, where he specified the same fictitious name of his wife and changed name, date and place of birth of the child.
On January, 29, 1938, he has been arrested for “espionage for the benefit of Poland”, and on April, 15, 1938, he has been shot. In 1989 he was posthumously rehabilitated.
This story reminded me the story of Anastasia Chaykovskaya, or Anna Anderson, about her son.
In January, 2005, I wrote about this story to Anna Anderson’s biographer Peter Kurt. What was my astonishment when I got a respond from him in a couple of days. In his letter Peter wrote: “It has been and will always remain a genuine mystery and enigma. Still I am fascinated by what you say, because, as mentioned above, the *timing* and the *place* are exactly right. So please keep in touch with me, Vladimir, and let me know of any progress you make on this front” From his letter followed that George and Anna Anderson’s son were born at the same place and at the same time. What is this – is this a coincidence or…? This very “or”, my dear reader, made me study documents which had anything to do with the story of Anna Anderson, who is still called Pseudo-Ananstasia or Unknown girl (Froilein Unbekant).
Froilein Unbekant
Froilein Unbekant was the name of a girl, saved from her attempt to commit suicide, as it appeared in official record of Berlin Police on February, 17, 1920. She didn’t have any documents with her and refused to tell her name. She had light brown hairs shot with auburn and penetrating grey eyes. She spoke with pronounced Slavic accent, that’s why an addition has been made to her personal dossier – “an unknown Russian”. Dozens of articles and books have been written about her since the spring of 1922. Anastasia Chaykovskaya. Anna Anderson. Later Anna Manahan. These are the names of the same woman. The last name, written on her gravestone, is Anastasia Manahan. She died on February, 12, 1984, but even after her death, her destiny gives no peace either to her friends or enemies. I didn’t make it my goal to retell one more time her biography with stories about her friends’ attempts to prove that she had been the same very Anastasia, avoided death at the basement of Ipatjev’s house. My task was to collect and analyze materials concerning this unbelievable at first sight version. So, let’s take a look one more time at known facts and try to estimate them on present day.
On that very evening, on February, 17, she was placed at Elizaveta’s hospital on Lutzovstrasse. At the end of March she was moved in neurological clinic in Daldorf with diagnosis “mental disorder of depressive nature”, where she has been living for two years. In Daldorf, on her examination, she confessed that she tried to commit suicide, but refused to tell the reason or give any comments. During that examination her weight has been fixed to be 50 kilograms, and also her height – 158 centimeters. On examination doctors found out that she had confinement half a year ago. For a girl “under 20” this was not unimportant fact. On the chest and stomach of the patient they saw numerous scars from lacerated wounds. On her head, behind the right ear there was a scar 3,5cm length, deep enough for finger to go in there, and also there was a scar on her forehead, at the very roots of her hairs. On her right foot there was a typical scar of perforating wound. It was completely in accordance with form and size of wounds made by bayonet of Russian rifle. There were cracks in upper jaw. The next day after the examination she admitted to a doctor that she was afraid for her life: “She gives us to understand that she doesn’t want to name herself in fear of persecution. There is an impression of self-restraint generated by fear. More fear, than self-restraint”. In case history also was recorded, that the patient had a congenital orthopedic disease of feet hallux valgus of the third degree.
In this connection I appealed to doctors-orthopedists for consultation, and not in vain. Here is the brief information. The first work concerning this disease (big toe deviation towards external part of a foot) was published by Doctor Laforest in 1778. Among the biggest works, devoted to researches of causes of this disease, the monograph of D.E. Schklovskiy (1937), dissertations of E.I. Zajzeva (1959) and G.N. Kramarenko (1970) should be mentioned. Working in the Central scientific research institute of traumatology and orthopedics of Ministry of Health of the USSR, Galina Nikolaevna Kramarenko has worked up the statistic materials, collected as a result of mass women’s checking-up on diseases of static deformation of feet. As a result she obtained the following data. Hallux valgus, as a rule, appears when women reach the age of 30-35 years old. Kramarenko has found out that 0.95% of all the examined women suffer from “isolated” hallux valgus. Moreover 89% of women having given disease had the hallux valgus of the first degree, and only 1,6% of women had it of the third degree. Thus, one out of 65 hundred women at the age above 30 suffers from this sickness. As for cases of innate disease, they are single instances and can be found extremely rarely. At the head institute of Russia on this problem, The G.I. Turner’s Scientific research children’s orthopedic Institute during the last ten years only 8 cases of this disease have been registered. And this is for 150 million people of the population of Russia.
The disease which doctors of Daldorf clinic have found at their patient absolutely coincided with innate disease of Anastasia Romanova. As one of the orthopedists, consulting me, said: “It’s easier to find two girls of the same age with identical fingerprints, than with symptoms of congenital hallux valgus”. The girls we are talking about, besides this had the same height, the same foot size, the same hair-color and eyes-color and portrait similarity. From the case history it can be seen that the scars of “Froilein Unbekant” perfectly conform to the wounds which had been inflicted to Anastasia at the basement of Ipatjev’s house, according to words of forensic investigator Tomashevskiy. The scars on forehead also concur. Anastasia Romanova had such scar since childhood, that’s why she is the only one from daughters of Nikolay II, who always did her hairs with bang. Opponents of Anastasia Chaykovskaya since march, 1927, make attempts to pass her off as Franciska Shanzkovskaya. From the medical point of view it looks more than absurd. Franciska was 5 years older than Anastasia, she was taller, wore shoes 4 sizes bigger, never gave birth to children and didn’t have orthopedic diseases of feet. Besides this, Franciska Schanzkovskaya disappeared from home at the time when “Froilein Unbekant” already was at Elizaveta’s hospital on Lyutzovstrasse.
Meanwhile, Anastasia Chaykovskaya and Grand Princess had one more outstanding similarity. It had been discovered in a childhood of Grand Princess that wrinkles on her palms form “double line of life” if to use chiromantists’ vocabulary. The similar pattern of wrinkles was on the patient’s palms. At the beginning of XX century in Russia, as well as in European countries, new-born babies in rich families used to receive double names. One name was for secular society use, the second one was a secret name in honor of guardian angel. Anastasia Romanova hasn’t avoided this ceremony either. She was born on June, 18, 1901, and has been officially christened on the 30 of June. During that public christening she was given a name Anastasia. However, according to Orthodox canons, a child should have been baptized on seventh day of life. And this was the day of Saint Anna under the Orthodox calendar. Double line of life, such as her double name Anna-Anastasia…
In June of 1922, being at the house of former Russian dignitary baron Arthur Gustovich Kleist, “froilein Unbekant” bore her official testimony. The records of this testimony is known to readers from works published in the magazine “Illustrated Russia”, edited in Paris in 30-s, and from the article “Poor, poor imperial daughter” by Boris Neploh. I want to draw your attention only to a few details from her answers. She called her rescuer and husband Alexander Chaykovskiy. Many scientists tried to find any documents where this man would be mentioned, but failed. However, in Kamenez-Podolsk there is an Armenian church of Saint Nikolay. In that church portraits of philanthropists of Armenians – Chaykovskiy, his wife and Rozhok Bogdanovich, which had been painted as long ago as the second half of XIIX century, have been hanging till the middle of 20th century. Today these portraits are at the town museum. The church was the nearest temple from a house where the lieutenant with his wife lived. Probably here lies the solution of the secret of Anastasia Chaykovskaya. For the sake of safety of her son, she changed in her story the place and the time of his birth, and also the name and surname of her husband. Nevertheless the name Anna Romanovskaya, under which she has been hiding from persecutors before getting married, the name of Chaykovskiy’s “mother” Maria, and the age of “his sister” – 28 years old, absolutely conform to the data in the history of George. The chronicle of events which took place in Ekaterinburg and Kamenez-Podolsk also are in accordance.
Outcast Princess
In 1896 in the magazine “News and notes of the Kazan University” the article by professor of state law V. Ivanovskiy “The procedure to be followed to inherit the throne according to Russian valid laws” has been published. The appearance of this article was arranged for the forthcoming coronation of Nikolay II. Explaining in details the existing procedure of the throne inheritance, Ivanovskiy writes that “according to system of throne inheritance existing in Russia, men’s generation has preference of throne inheritance in accordance with first-born principle; after the last man’s generation stops, female generation inherits the throne. Hence it follows that first of all the oldest son of ruling Emperor inherits the throne, and then all his male generation; after this generation stops, the throne is passed to a family of the second son of the Emperor and his male generation, then it is passed in a family of the third son and so on. When the last male generation of the Emperor’s sons stops, the throne gets passed to female generation of the last reigning person with preference of male to female as well”. From this follows that after the death of Nikolay II, his son Alexey and older daughters the throne was supposed to be passed in Anastasia’s family. The phrase “with preference of male to female as well” means that her son was supposed to ascend the throne. Anastasia herself was supposed to become a ruler of the state until he attains his majority. Having known much sorrow of the civil war, in which the policy of Kerenskiy’s administration has resulted, the Russian nobility again turned its face to autocracy, as the only possible form of government in Russia. In 1922 there has been a fight between Russians from abroad for the throne. The main pretender to the throne was self-proclaimed Emperor Cyril Vladimirovich Romanov. He, as the most Russian emigrants, even couldn’t imagine that Bolsheviks’ government would drag on for long 70 years. Anastasia’s appearance in Berlin in summer of 1922 evoked confusion and division of opinions among monarchists. The information, being spread immediately after, about physical and mental indisposition of the princess, and the fact that she had a heir of the throne, who had been born in misalliance, bent the scales in favor of Cyril Vladimirovich. The Romanovs didn’t want to see a son of peasants who was either in Roumania, or in Soviet Russia as the one anointed by God to rule over the country. By the moment of meeting with her relatives in 1925 Anastasia had heavy consumption. Her weight was hardly up to 33 kilograms. People, surrounded Anastasia, considered her life to be close to the end. And who needed her “bastard” besides his mother? But she survived and after meetings with Aunt Olya and other close people she dreamt to meet her grandmother - widowed Empress Maria Fedorovna. She expected an admission from her relatives, but instead of this in 1928, on the second day after the death of the Widowed Empress, several members of the Romanov’s house renounced her in public, proclaimed her to be an impostor. The insult led to breaking off their relations. The relations with the relatives of mother were also spoiled. The reason for that appeared to be Anastasia’s na;ve story about her uncle’s Ernie Gessenskiy arrival in Russia in 1916. His visit was related to intentions to persuade Nikolay II to make separate peace with Germany. At the beginning of 20-s it still remained to be a political secret, and Ernie Gessenskiy had nothing else left but to accuse Anastasia of slander. Breaking off the relationships with most of her relatives made her to assert her rights by order of the court. That’s how court experts came into Anastasia’s life. The first graphological examination has been made in 1927 at Gessenskiys’ request. It has been made by scientific worker of the Institute of Graphology in Prisna Doctor Lucy Vaizsekker. Comparing handwriting on recently written samples with the handwriting on the samples which had been written by Anastasia during the life of Nikolay II, Lucy Vaizsekker came to a conclusion that the samples belonged to the same person. In 1960 according to Hamburg’s Court verdict a graphologist Doctor Minna Bekker has been appointed to be a graphological expert. Four years later reporting about her work on the session of the Supreme Appeal Court in Senate, grey-haired Doctor Bekker stated: “I have never seen before so many identical signs in two texts, written by two different people”. One more important comment of the Doctor is worth to mention here. For the examination the samples of handwritten texts in German and Russian have been presented. In her report, talking about Russian texts of Madam Anderson, Doctor Bekker noted: “There was an impression that she got into familiar environment again”. As there was not an opportunity to compare the fingerprints, anthropologists have been drawn into the investigation. Their opinion has been regarded by the court as “probability close to confidence”. The researches, being conducted in 1958 by Doctors Aikshtedt and Klenke in Mainz University and in 1965 by Professor Otto Rehe, the founder of the German Anthropological society, led to the same result, that is:
1. Madam Anderson is not the Polish factory worker Franziska Shanzkovskaya.
2. Madam Anderson is the Grand Princess Anastasia Romanova.
Their opponents pointed out the discrepancy between the form of Anderson’s right ear and the ear of Anastasia Romanova, referring to the examination made in 20s. One of the most famous forensic experts of The Federal Republic of Germany Doctor Moritz Furtmajer settled the last doubts of anthropologists. In 1976 Doctor Furtmajer managed to discover that by absurd accident experts used the photograph of the patient of Daldorf, made from turned over negative, for comparison of the external ears. In another words they have compared the right ear of Anastasia to the left ear of “Froilein Unbekant” and of course got negative result about on their identity. After comparison of the same photograph of Anastasia with the photograph of the right ear of Anderson (Chaykovskaya), Moritz Furtmajer received concurrence for 17 anatomical positions. In West Germany Court for acknowledgement of identity a fact of concurrence for 5 positions out of 12 considered to be enough. Having corrected this mistake, he led to the end scientists’ disputes on identification of Anastasia. Together with you, dear reader, we can only guess how her life would get arranged, if there were no that fatal mistake. Even in 60s years that mistake formed the basis of the verdicts of The Hamburg Court, and then also Supreme Appeal Court in Senate.
In 1991 the information about discovering the remains of the imperial family close to Yekaterinburg appeared. The absence of skeletons of two children in the burial place and the results of identification of the found remains have urged the public interest for the history of Anna-Anastasia again. In 1992 Governor Edward Rossel has invited American anthropologists headed by Doctor William Mapples, the director of The S.A. Pound’s Laboratory of identification of the human remains, to visit Yekaterinburg. Having studied the found remains, Dr. Mapples came to a conclusion that there were no remains of Grand Princess Anastasia Nikolaevna among them.
On his opinion the skeleton ¹ 6, which Russian anthropologists had identified as Anastasia’s remains, belonged to her sister Maria Nikolaevna. The given skeleton belonged to a girl of the 171cm height, which is 13 cm higher than the height of Anastasia, but corresponds with Maria’s height. According to the information I have, the expert Doctor Gill from Great Britain has come to the same conclusion. From 1994 to 1997 in Russia, USA and Great Britain several genetic examinations have been made, which have confirmed that the found remains belonged to the members of the family of Nikolay II. In June of 1994, thanks to the sample of tissue of Anna Anderson, survived in American hospital, in Oldermaston (Great Britain) Doctor Gill has analyzed mithohondrial DNA of the “material”, delivered to him. As a result of the examination British geneticist came to a conclusion that the DNA, excreted from that material, correlates with the DNA of Karl Mauter, the grandnephew of Franciska Snanzkobskaya. Without doubting professional skills and decency of Doctor Gill, I have to establish that those people who had quietly substituted the “material”, intended for the research, have the result of the examination mentioned above on their conscience. They have been evidently overzealous.
On January, 30, 1998, the Commission on investigating the questions, related to research and re-burying the remains of the Russian Emperor Nikolay II and the members of his family, ratified the report of Russian experts, where the skeleton ¹6 had been identified as the remains of the Grand Princess Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova. On July, 30, 1998 in Yekaterinburg the representative of the General public prosecutor’s department of Russia and members of Sverdlovsk region administration have signed “The Protocol of passing the remains of Russian Emperor Nikolay II, members of his family and close people” to G.V. Velimbahov, the Head of the State Gerold by the President of Russian Federation “for burying at the Petropavlovskiy Cathedral in Saint-Petersburg”.
This historical document with dozen of personal signatures appeared to be defective also. The remains of “Romanova Anastasia Nikolaevna, born in 1899” have been passed, that is there is the date of Princess Maria’s birth with the name of Anastasia in this document.
Dear reader, working on this article, I deliberately declined to use as arguments private opinions and facts, stated in the memoirs of the people, who knew Anna-Anastasia personally. About them you can read in a wonderful book by Peter Kurt “Anastasia – the mystery of Anna Anderson”. My goal was to tell you about the facts and materials of investigations, expounded in official documents and scientific publications, part of which has been unknown to the wide circles of readers till today. I hope that this information will help to stop flood of lie about Anastasia, which has been tipped out on pages of newspapers and TV-screens again, in connection with another anniversary of her death.
In conclusion I want to remind once again, that Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova was born on June, 18, 1901 in Petergof, and died on February, 12, 1984, in Sharlottsville. According to her will, her ashes after cremation have been transported to Bavaria and have been buried on the family cemetery of the Dukes Leihtenbergskiy in Zeeon. She has lived a difficult life, keeping honor and dignity of Grand Princess.
Yekaterinburg, 2007
Translated by Oksana Bushmanova