That was how the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation stated its decision “about reopening of the criminal case investigation caused upon the fact of disclosure of the imperial family remains in 1991” on the 21st of August 2007, nine years later after burying the Romanov family’s remains in Peter and Paul Cathedral. The newly discovered facts were Ural archaeologists’ finding in Porosenkov Log. They found an old bonfire site with fragments of bone remains. Anthropologists made a conclusion that they found a scull fragment of a boy – a fourteen-year-old teenager and a fragment of a hip bone of a twenty-year-old girl. Later geneticists confirmed the archaeologists’ guess that the remains belonged to the imperial family children. After this finding was discovered the series of anthropological and genetic examinations followed. Scientists summed their work in Yekaterinburg on the 5th of December 2008. Despite impressive scientific results of geneticists’ researches most scientists claimed that archaeological works in Porosenkov Log should be continued. The amount of found bone remains and ash mass is obviously insufficient for conclusion that bodies of two persons were destroyed in this bonfire. How were scientists surprised and indignant when Senior Investigator of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation Solovyev V.N. at the press conference declared his intention to close the case on the 15th of January 2009. No sooner said than done, the case was closed. It was closed notwithstanding scientists’ requests and common sense. It was closed notwithstanding the fact that remains of Tsarevich Alexei, kitchen attendant Terekhov and two soldiers that refused to carry out the criminal order are still not found.
In my article “Epilogue has to be postponed” (http://www.proza.ru/2009/01/29/287), published on the 22d of December 2008 I wrote about problems that should be solved before the investigation is closed. They were not long in coming. So on the 8th of June 2009 the Prosecutor General's Office had to exonerate 6 members of the Romanov imperial family who died in Perm and Alapaevsk. It should be noted that the Investigative Committee however even doesn’t know where remains of Grand Prince Mikhail Alexandrovich Romanov are buried. Today Professor of the Institute of General Genetics of RAS and the University of Massachusetts of the USA Evgeniy Rogaev continues his work already beyond the bounds of the investigation. He has recently published a report on his researches due to which it was managed to extract the hemophilia gene from the bone remains found in 2007. In this August Ural archaeologists “returned” to Porosenkov Log and found there pieces of ceramic jars in which acid for destroying bodies was brought in 1918. Almost simultaneously with this event lawyers of Maria Vladimirovna Romanova applied to the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation for resuming the investigation. The cause of their application was blurred statement about people responsible for the tragedy. The Prosecutor General's Office in its statement about case termination didn’t specify surnames of organizers and participants of the murder. Member of the Prosecutor General's Office passed on this application to the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation. The reluctance of the Investigative Committee’s leaders to make their statements more precise grew to legal fights that continue up to this day in the highest courts of Moscow. Not criticizing the reason of the statement claim I think that today it is more essential to find remains of all victims of that murder and archive documents than to repeat again names of subhumans who gave and committed the criminal order. It should be added to the written above that all work on the truth search is done only due to personal enthusiasm of people without any government financing notwithstanding success reports of the Investigative Committee about termination of the case. Here is one more fact. At the end of August at the press conference Ural archaeologists told about method they used for searching the remains in Porosenkov Log. Its kernel is palpation of the surface layer of the soil with the tool of miners that is probing rod. In such a way the bonfire site with fragments of bone remains was found in 2007 and ceramic pieces in 2009. Unfortunately this method doesn’t allow to find a deep burial place more than 90 years old.
This made me go to geophysicists for help. On the 8th of September we left for Porosenkov Log together with one of the oldest Ural geophysicists, Candidate of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences Alexandr Yevgenyevich Rytsk. There it took him an hour and a half to do that what investigators of the Prosecutor General's Office weren’t be able or didn’t want to do during 18 years even when they got a unique tool – georadar. Encyclopedic knowledge and skills allowed Rytsk A.E. to detect two places where human remains were buried and several places concealing artifacts connected with the events of 1918. To check the results of the investigation of Alexandr Yevgenyevich members of the Institute of Geophysics UB RAS with deputy director of the Institute, Candidate of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences Ivanchenko Viktor Sergeevich at the head twice visited this place. Both times in the burial places specified by Rytsk A.E. with the help of tools it was registered the presence of metal items made of ferrous, non-ferrous materials and precious metals situated on the whole area of burial places at the depth from one meter to a meter and a half. The tools’ indications confirmed depth and size of burial places specified by Rytsk A.E. Taking into the account the fact that the burial places found by Alexandr Yevgenyevich are situated about ten meters away from the burial place found in 2007 a repeat examination should have been held in the presence of experts who were at the head of archaeological works in Porosenkov Log in 2007 and 2009. It was possible to be done only on the 13th of October. Till the moment of disclosure and examination of these burial places we can only conjecture whose remains lie there. Approaching winter and absence of financing didn’t allow archaeologists to begin examination of these burial places in this year. Of course these findings by no means cancel the necessity of systematic examination of all Porosenkov Log territory with the help of geophysical tools. The ravine has an area of 20 thousand square kilometers and without using modern geophysical tools archaeologists may need several years before they are able to end examination of such a territory. After another official termination of the case a question on status of the Porosenkov Log territory arose again. Management of the Center for Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments of the Sverdlovsk Region suggests that it should be preserved primordial as a historical monument. Church officers plan to create an orthodox cemetery at this place. In connection with this they added an item into a program of the visit of Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill planned in April 2010 - the dedication of the “foundation stone” for church building in Porosenkov Log. Both suggestions have right to exist but their realization is absolutely impossible before archaeological works are finished. It is essential to give scientists an opportunity to finish archaeological and historical investigations.
In this connection the latest interview with Senior Investigator of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation Solovyev V.N. published in the newspaper “Izvestia” (“News”) on the 12th of November 2009 (http://www.izvestia.ru/hystory/article3135243/) is very demonstrative. Answering questions of journalist Ella Maximova he already knew about new findings of Ural geophysicists in Porosenkov Log. He also knew that the information about found burial places was brought to the Government of Sverdlovsk Region and Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church. However he still insisted that the investigation was finished and that it was necessary only to reunite remains found in 2007 with remains buried in Peter and Paul Cathedral. But shouldn’t be remains of Tsarevich Alexei lying today in Porosenkov Log reunited with the remains of the imperial family members? The spring of 2010 will come. The archaeological investigation will be carried out and the Prosecutor General's Office again will have to make a decision about reopening of the criminal case investigation caused upon the fact of disclosure of the imperial family remains in 1991. Today Russian historians touched only a little part of archive documents connected with mystery of the Romanovs’ death. With present competence level of the Investigative Committee’s employees and their attitude to professional duties, the Prosecutor General's Office is doomed to further reopenings of the “Imperial case” in connection with newly discovered facts.
Vladimir Momot.
Yekaterinburg, December 2009
Translated by Anna Koksharova.