Mystery of the Romanovs | National Geographic

on the night of July 16th 1918 the last
living Tsar of Russia and his family
sleeps soundly unaware that the bloody
civil war sweeping the country will soon
overtake them for 78 days the family has
lived in a drab compound in the remote
city of Yekaterinburg near the siberian
border prisoners of communist
revolutionaries fighting to control
russia just past midnight with troops
loyal to the tsar fast approaching the
city
the guards wake the royal family telling
them that they are being moved to a safe
location but the guards have no
intention of protecting the family and
this night will soon become the brutal
closing chapter of three centuries of
Romanov rule
at the height of his reign Tsar Nicholas
had been the richest most powerful man
in the world controlling one-tenth of
the Earth’s surface and fortune were
thirty billion dollars until the
Revolution the Tsar was considered the
Anointed of God he controlled the
government he was the supreme head of
the Orthodox Church he was worshipped as
a demigod by most of his subjects and
his word was considered law in every
aspect of life every decision was his
even the most simple name change had to
go across his desk with his marriage to
Alexandra a German princess and
granddaughter of Queen Victoria the Tsar
had expanded his sphere of influence to
include the courts of Europe in st.
Petersburg the Tsar and his family lived
in a breathtaking palace with a thousand
rooms hundreds of servants attended
their every whim and it seemed like a
fairytale existence I think the picture
that most people had of the Romanovs was
of a very privileged family but a family
with which they could identify Nicholas
was extremely clever in the way he used
his family he had four gorgeous
daughters he had a beautiful son they
were very photogenic I think he used
them to sort of boost the very early on
celebrity of the ruling family
but the Romanovs Harbor dark secrets
behind these carefully orchestrated
images once omnipotent their
far-reaching powers were inexorably
slipping from their grasp inside the
palace the long-awaited heir to the
throne was diagnosed with hemophilia the
slightest of injuries can bring on
premature death for alexei and a crisis
of succession for the royal family
guards protected the young czarevitch
day and night and kept his condition
secret from the Russian people alexandra
was desperate to help her son so she
turned to a mystic healer named grigori
rasputin
despite his questionable reputation
Rasputin quickly became one of the
Czarina’s closest advisors fueling the
Russian people’s growing mistrust of the
german-born Zarina
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