Thank you! Here it is in four posts:
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“I am pleased we did it!”
“Yakov Mikhailovich Yurovsky died in the Kremlin’s hospital exactly 20 years after the tsar’s family had been assassinated.
Every Ural official, who had signed the execution order, was shot in Stalin’s camps.
Everyone involved in the execution itself died in their beds, which was what the last tsar had pleaded God for. When the grave of the tsar family was opened, they did find Anastasia’s body. However, the remains of Maria and Alexei were missing. And no traces of anything which would point to the fact that the bodies had been burnt, despite lengthy searches, could be found…”
Edward Radzinsky. Epilogue to the play, The Last Night of the Last Tsar.
“No traces could be found”. This was true until only recently. A month ago a small group of scientists and volunteers found the place where two people, a boy and a young woman, had been burnt and hidden underneath fifty meters away from the spot known since 1991 as the one where the nine members of the tsar family had been buried. Less than a week ago a sensation was publicised: the remains found on Staraya Koptyakovskaya Road are very likely to be those of Alexei and Maria Romanovs.
The interview published today is very much first-hand. All the items of the recent historical dig in the infamous Porosenkov Log went through the hands of Sergei Pogorelov, Deputy Head of Department of Archaeological Research of the Scientific Centre for Protection of Monuments of History and Culture in Sverdlovsk Region. Sergei Pogorelov, an archaeologist, a frequent contributor to our newspaper, answers OG’s questions.
‘Sergei Nikolayevich, in those days when you and your colleagues involved in the dig and cameral treatment of materials became the centre of extreme attention, you must have been bombarded with questions like: who ordered? Or even: who allowed?’
“I say to that: we live in a free country. Our task at the Centre where I and my research colleagues work is to identify and protect the monuments of history and culture. We have an appropriate licence, a memorandum, a resolution to cooperate with the Regional Ministry of Culture. All the necessary requirements were followed when the works were carried out.
“Do you remember the careless excavation of the main site in 1991? Liudmila Koryakova, an archaeologist from the Institute of History and Archaeology, was asked to help. She says she had no adequate working conditions, no necessary tools were provided. And such work requires accurate tools, layer-by-layer uncovering, perfect clearing, horizontal fixing.
“I had a chance to see some footage of filming in 1991. Awful! The officers, soldiers were standing in a pit, all damp. Someone was digging something out right underneath their feet…”
‘But still your predecessors, let’s call them Avdonin’s group, achieved a substantial result. Even though not many believed them. Didn’t and still don’t.’
“We, historians and archaeologists, had no doubts about the authenticity of the remains found then. We were a hundred percent sure: It’s THEM. But those who were uncovering the burial site didn’t think of recording the results properly. And created problems. Caused doubts. The word went round: It’s falsified, it’s the KGB who placed the bones there.
“The work on the burial site was continued by A. Avdonin. It was then passed on to the Institute of History and Archaeology. Having abandoned their projects and halted their expeditions, they worked in Porosenkov Log until 1997, covering large areas. Then everything stopped. And not just because of under-financing. The topic lost its appeal. And what they were looking for was just about eight meters away.”
‘Why couldn’t they find what you did? After your news conference the media said you had some new sources of information. Allegedly the so called Yurovsky’s message was deciphered. The one that wasn’t really a secret, it was published 15 years ago. Just open numerous books of those years and read it…’
“Here it is on my desk, a copy of that archive document. Yes, everyone writes they followed this Message… There are no leads to follow there!”
‘How about the statement that two bodies were separated from the rest?’
“Yes, but where to look for them? There is an opinion that the Message gives an indication. It doesn’t! Apart from the words: “started a fire there and then”. What is meant by “there and then”? I think Avdonin and our colleagues from the Institute of History and Archaeology interpreted these words “there and then” as “nearby”. The famous photo of Ermakov, the executioner, added to the confusion: He was standing on the railway sleepers, where, as it transpired later, nine human bodies were hidden. And just three-five meters away there was some kind of cloth or piece of clothing like a jacket on the grass. And the searchers “made an intelligent guess” that there was another, smaller, burial site underneath.
