Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
into their dresses, some of the bullets were deflected at crazy angles, making the execution
far from surgical. Originally buried in an unmarked grave, the remains of most of the fam-
ily members were only rediscovered in 1991, and reburied here in 1998.
Persistent legends surround the fate of the Romanov daughter
Anastasia,
who was
rumored to have escaped the execution. In the decades since the massacre, different women
emerged claiming to be the long-lost Anastasia—most famously Anna Anderson, who
turned up in Berlin in the 1920s. But very recent DNA testing has positively identified the
remains of the real Anastasia (found only in 2007 and now interred here), while similar
tests disproved Anderson's claim.
Exit the cathedral through the chapel to the left of the iconostasis. This hallway features
the graves of the siblings of the czars—
Grand Dukes and Grand Duchesses.
The quite
recent dates on some of these graves are a reminder that many of these Romanov cousins
long outlived their ancestors' reign.
The czars incarcerated political prisoners in
TrubetskoyBastionPrison
in the late 19th
and early 20th centuries. While famous among Russians as the place that held many of its
revolutionaries, it's is difficult for Americans to appreciate. You'll wind your way through
long, somber hallways past cells marked with plaques (in Russian and English) identifying
former inmates. American visitors may recognize the names of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Leon
Trotsky, Maxim Gorky, and Lenin's brother, Alexander Ulyanov. The Soviets closed the
prison, disdaining it as a symbol of czarist oppression, but it's now a popular attraction.
