One thing I find odd

[Tania]

...one thing i find odd, that up to this point, no one who has been avidly involved in this discussion has read comprehensively, to the point that these latest points could have been discussed earlier than later, and that all these hypothesis could have been arrived at without so much wrangling here as on other threads...but again, there are still yet many things to be understood, which will never be brought to light, so I would imagine, the arguments will continue endlessely...for all readers to ponder over even more.

Tatiana

[Louis_Charles]

While I cannot speak for the others, I have read comprehensively. Sorry. And the exchange doesn't sound as if anyone is proceeding from a basis of ignorance. There are some agendas in the room, which is not the same thing.

In fact, none of this discussion is new, and the matter will probably never be settled until the remains are discovered or accounted for through other means. Failing those events, we can discuss probability, which is what we are doing here. I think we can all be trusted to play nice, but the idea that history is done by sitting around and exchanging information in hushed tones of respect is kind of silly. A little raucousness and sarcasm can be a welcome antidote.

Those arguing for survival have failed to present any evidence. I am still waiting for the name of a single historian or scientist who would espouse the notion that IF Alexei was in the cellar on July 16, 1918, that he could have survived the shootings for any significant amount of time (minutes as opposed to hours). If the real point of this is that Alexei was NOT in the cellar . . . well, Yurovski would have had some serious 'splainin' to do to the Supreme Soviet. I do concede that they probably didn't give two hoots about Anastasia, but the chance that the Heir was still alive would have perked everyone right up.

[J_Kendrick]

At the risk of sounding like a 12 year old American cheerleader, I'm going to say, 'You go, Simon!'.

The problem I have with people like Mr Kendrick, Chat_Noir, etc, is that they refuse to consider all evidence they don't agree with.

All the emphasis is placed on the missing bodies and what that may mean.  Well, why don't we focus on the evidence that explains why they are missing? Why was Yurovsky lying when he said he burned the two bodies and buried the remains elsewhere? Why can't this be the truth? 'Yurovsky was a lying murderer' isn't good enough- what reason, what EVIDENCE do you have, that this testimony wasn't true?

Why do you refuse to see that the fact those two bodies are still missing is the proof that Yurovsky was not telling the truth?

 Just because the bodies haven't been found yet, it doesn't mean they won't be.

It does not mean that they will be found in Pig's Meadow, either.

Those who can see a different answer than the Romanovphiles who are in love with the legend are not denying any of the evidence.  They have not changed the evidence in any way.  They are simply placing a very different interpretation on that same evidence.

No two people will ever see the world in exactly the same way.  The same is true of the evidence in the Romanov case.  Learn to deal with it.
 

As Annie rightly brought up, Michael Romanov's body was never found.  But no one disputes his death.  Why are people so worried about the missing bodies of Alexei and one of his sisters, but not about Michael's? Why is Michael considered to be safely dead, but the other two not?

You can't pick and choose in history.  You can't have one rule for one situation and another for others.

Rachel
xx

Michael has no heirs in the Imperial line of succession, other than his nephew Alexei.  The future of the Russian crown did not rest with the fate of Michael's generation.  The future of the crown rests with the fate of the generation that followed Michael.

jk

[Elisabeth]

It occurs to me that a lot of really smart people are utterly wasting their brainpower in this thread. There's no convincing conspiracy theorists of the illogic of their conspiracy theories. It's impossible.

Of course I realize that's not what anyone wants to hear on a very active thread, because if you took my advice to heart, the thread would now end. Just like that!

But maybe you are addressing your posts to newbies who don't know any better and might otherwise be swayed by obviously specious arguments.

[Ra-Ra-Rasputin]

Why do you refuse to see that the fact those two bodies are missing is the proof that Yurovsky was not telling the truth?

What? Yurovsky said that two bodies were burned and buried separately.  Two bodies ARE indeed missing from the mass grave.  Surely that corroborates Yurovsky's statement?

It does not mean that they will be found in Pig's Meadow, either.

Those who can see a different answer than the Romanovphiles who are in love with the legend are not denying any of the evidence.  They have not changed the evidence in any way.  They are simply placing a very different interpretation on that same evidence.

No two people will ever see the world in exactly the same way.  The same is true of the evidence in the Romanov case.  Learn to deal with it.

I can deal with it.  What I can't deal with is people putting a spin on a situation, using 'logic' and 'evidence' that has little basis in truth or reason. 

Michael has no heirs in the Imperial line of succession, other than his nephew Alexei.  The future of the Russian crown did not rest with the fate of Michael's generation.  The future of the crown rests with the fate of the generation that followed Michael.

jk

And this explains why no one doubts Michael's death despite the absence of his body how? Michael's body is missing.  Yet nobody presumes he somehow managed to escape.  Alexei and one of his sisters are missing, and yet somehow it becomes a logical possibility that they survived, despite the reams and reams of evidence to the contrary.  Far MORE evidence to the contrary, might I add, than there is about Michael.  Can you please explain to me why this double standard is supposed to be accepted by those of us who don't believe in the survival theories? I am eager to understand how your reasoning can explain away this quite crucial matter.

Rachel
xx

[Bev]

This is why people put in bids for a stale grilled cheese sandwich on EBay.  Despite all natural laws, statistical probability and logic they want to believe that Jesus Christ manifested his image on a piece of bread and they will pay money to see it.

[J_Kendrick]

Why do you refuse to see that the fact those two bodies are missing is the proof that Yurovsky was not telling the truth?

What? Yurovsky said that two bodies were burned and buried separately.  Two bodies ARE indeed missing from the mass grave.  Surely that corroborates Yurovsky's statement?

And despite 88 years of searching... now even with ground-penetrating radar... the bodies are still missing.  That does not corroborate Yurovsky's statement. 

After 88 long years of searching that same ground, the missing bodies are NOT where Yurovsky had said they would be.  Nor have they been found to have been burned and buried separately.  Yurovsky's statement has NOT been corroborated.

 

It does not mean that they will be found in Pig's Meadow, either.

Those who can see a different answer than the Romanovphiles who are in love with the legend are not denying any of the evidence.  They have not changed the evidence in any way.  They are simply placing a very different interpretation on that same evidence.

No two people will ever see the world in exactly the same way.  The same is true of the evidence in the Romanov case.  Learn to deal with it.

I can deal with it.  What I can't deal with is people putting a spin on a situation, using 'logic' and 'evidence' that has little basis in truth or reason. 

The Revolutionaries -- and in particular, those same members of the Bolshevik Cheka who had committed the murders -- are the ones who had first put the original "spin" on the evidence in the summer of 1918.  They were the experts at Revolutionary misdirection and disinformation. 

It is the Romanovphiles who are in love with the legend who have now bought in to that same revolutionary "spin" of 1918. 

Michael has no heirs in the Imperial line of succession, other than his nephew Alexei.  The future of the Russian crown did not rest with the fate of Michael's generation.  The future of the crown rests with the fate of the generation that followed Michael.

jk

And this explains why no one doubts Michael's death despite the absence of his body how? Michael's body is missing.  Yet nobody presumes he somehow managed to escape.  Alexei and one of his sisters are missing, and yet somehow it becomes a logical possibility that they survived, despite the reams and reams of evidence to the contrary.  Far MORE evidence to the contrary, might I add, than there is about Michael.  Can you please explain to me why this double standard is supposed to be accepted by those of us who don't believe in the survival theories? I am eager to understand how your reasoning can explain away this quite crucial matter.

Rachel
xx

And here you are demonstrating perfectly how the art of misdirection works.

The issue here is not Michael.  I say again, the future of the crown did not rest with the fate of Michael's generation.  The future of the crown rests with the fate of the generation followed Michael.

jk

[Tsarfan]

The issue here is not Michael.  I say again, the future of the crown did not rest with the fate of Michael's generation.  The future of the crown rests with the fate of the generation followed Michael.

Alexei was a lame, frail hemophiliac (and known to be so by most of the senior nobility).  Michael had been the heir before Alexei's birth, he would have become the heir after Alexei's death, and he was the person Nicholas named as his successor upon abdication.  Moreover, upon a suitable marriage, Michael was still capable of fathering children at the time he disappeared.  Alexei's chances of fathering a family were considerably more remote.

So exactly why would Michael's death have been of no consequence to those aspiring for a Romanov restoration?

This is not a diversionary question.  It goes to the very core of why it is that Alexei's fate is so vitally significant to conspiracy theorists.  It's certainly not because a Romanov restoration would be rendered more difficult by his death.

And it would be a whole lot easier to construct a scenario for Michael's survival.  He was a loosely guarded and healthy man, he circulated freely among a local population which was well-disposed toward him, his reported death involved no elaborate logistics . . . he and a single retainer were just put in a car and driven out into the countryside where they were shot as they tried to run away.  I can think of innumerable logical ways he could have escaped death.  Yet everyone just takes his death as a given, despite no body having been recovered.

But -- when it comes to Alexei -- imagination runs rampants.  He survived a firing squad in an enclosed space, he was spirited away unnoticed by those charged with wiping out the entire imperial family, Bolshevik troops searched trains while imprudently and unnecessarily informing the passengers they were looking for the escaped tsarevitch, and Yurovsky was still filing false reports 16 years later to cover the escape.

Think rationally about this reported train search for a moment.  If the Bolsheviks had lost their grip on the tsarevitch and did not want their masters in Moscow to know, why would troops searching a train announce to the passengers that they were looking for the tsarevitch?  If it happened at all, this sounds much more like a disinformation campaign to foster rumor that the children were not killed rather than a serious attempt to recover a missing tsarevitch.

[Louis_Charles]

JKendrick, any news about historians who would endorse the idea of Alexei's survival, or has this revelation not been vouchsafed to any but the inner circle of those who see the glass as half-full?

For fifty years we had no physical evidence that any of the Romanovs were shot, if you only accept skeletons. Does this mean that Yurovski's testimony was specious? In fact they were exactly where he said they would be, and in the condition that one could expect based upon his testimony concerning how he handled their remains. Oddly enough, he also said that the body of the Heir would not be in the grave, and one female --- whom he apparently misidentified. And one female is missing.

In fact, the issue of Michael is quite pertinent. One could also throw in the two grand dukes executed in Peter and Paul in 1919. Are their remains available? You actually think that there was some kind of sliding scale with the Bolsheviks, that Alexei would have been preserved? Upon what do you base this? In point of fact, Alexei was no longer the Heir at all, thanks to his father's terms of abdication. And why was Anastasia also spared in this scenario? Make-weight?

The speculation that the Boy survived does not have equal weight with the informed estimation that he did not with any save romantics; try and convince a jury of your position. For that matter, try and convince a historian.

Simon

[Belochka]

In fact, the issue of Michael is quite pertinent. One could also throw in the two grand dukes executed in Peter and Paul in 1919. Are their remains available? You actually think that there was some kind of sliding scale with the Bolsheviks, that Alexei would have been preserved? Upon what do you base this? In point of fact, Alexei was no longer the Heir at all, thanks to his father's terms of abdication.
Simon

Simon, respectfully there were four Grand Dukes who were assassinated at the Fortress. My understanding is that they were buried in the courtyard where they were shot. The Trubetskoi Bastion is undergoing "re-construction" at the moment. Perhaps its secrets will be dug up - along with the many others who met the same fate.

Margarita

[Belochka]

Here is a recent article published in CNEWS on 30 September, 2006.

See: http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Features/2006/09/30/1924843-cp.html

Missing heir to Russian throne buried in Burnaby: widow

By JEREMY HAINSWORTH

BURNABY, B.C. (CP) - Tucked next to a hedge in a cemetery rests a simple headstone covered in grass clippings, a grave that poses a complex historical question.

The marker bears the double-headed eagle of the Russian Imperial Family. Below the flag is the name Romanov His Imperial Highness Alexei Nicolaievich Czarevitch Sovereign Heir Grand Duke of Russia.

If the remains beneath the stone are those of that Alexei, he was son of Czar Nicholas II, heir to the Russian throne.

Alexei was allegedly killed with his family by the Bolsheviks in 1918 following the Russian Revolution the previous year, but his remains have never been identified, creating another mystery around a family that has many.

The Burnaby grave belongs to Alexei Tammet-Romanov, who died June 26, 1977.

..... snipped

Vancouver journalist and period historian John Kendrick believes Tammet-Romanov is the czarevitch.

Not so, say the academics.

Michael Futrell, a retired University of British Columbia professor, firmly believes Alexei Romanov died in 1918.

"There's been so many crooks and lunatics and swindlers involved in this thing for so many years," he said.

And he's got a friend of the Romanov Imperial family in his corner.

Marvin Lyons, also a historian, said Tammet-Romanov's story is ridiculous.

"I've known about this man and his claims since the mid-1970s," said Lyons, who now lives in Richmond, B.C.

"This is all make-believe."

Tammet-Romanov said her husband expected people would not believe his claims of nobility.

"'I know who I am,"' she says he told her. "'No one can say who I am or not."'

Tammet-Romanov could not forgive the Communists for the executions.

"'To kill father and myself (was acceptable given their positions), but to kill my mother and my beautiful sisters, I cannot forgive,"' she recounts him saying.

On Thursday, the remains of Maria Feodorovna, mother of Nicholas II, were returned to Russia and interred in the Imperial family tomb in St. Petersburg. She fled Russia after the Revolution and lived in Denmark, where she was buried after her death in 1928.

She would have been Tammet-Romanov's grandmother, if he is who Kendrick and his wife believe he is.

Kendrick readily acknowledges stories about pretenders to thrones often lack credibility.

But he said there are too many things about Tammet-Romanov he wants answers to.

When the Duke of Windsor died in 1972, Tammet-Romanov sent a letter of condolence to the Queen, signing it with his royal title.

The RCMP arrived at Tammet-Romanov's Burnaby home soon after.

He showed them a scar he said came from the butt of a rifle during the executions. He also showed them he had an undescended testicle, as did the czarevitch, his widow explains.

"You cannot have so much wound up in one person unless it is that person," she said.

It was Lyons who called the RCMP after the letter to the Queen.

He did so after being asked to look into Tammet-Romanov by Lord Louis Mountbatten, uncle to the Queen's husband, Prince Philip.

"There are all kinds of these people around," Lyons said. "Most of them are not criminals. They're not even mentally ill in the normal sense of the word.

"They're just people who are unhappy about their role in life and are trying to create something that is more interesting."

A year later, when the Queen's daughter, Princess Anne, married Mark Phillips at Westminster Abbey, Tammet-Romanov again sent a telegram.

A thank-you telegram came back addressed to Alexei Nicolaevich, Czarevitch, Grand Duke of Russia.

The same thing happened when King Carl Gustav of Sweden married Queen Silvia in 1976.

Kendrick asks why the crowned heads of Europe and their families would be responding to this man, addressing him with the titles of the heir to the Russian throne.
 
.... snipped

"Kendrick, however, remains mystified about one thing.

He said Tammet-Romanov's widow sent two of her husband's teeth for DNA analysis in England so the mystery could finally be solved, but the results have never been released.

Kendrick believes nothing will be released until after Tammet-Romanov's sons from one of his previous marriages have died.

"If he's for real, they are heirs and they can claim czar's rights," Kendrick said.

It seems that there are accredited historians who are challenging Kendrick for quite some time.

Margarita    
 

 

 

 

[Belochka]

Extract from Hainsworth's article:

"On Thursday, the remains of Maria Feodorovna, mother of Nicholas II, were returned to Russia and interred in the Imperial family tomb in St. Petersburg. She fled Russia after the Revolution and lived in Denmark, where she was buried after her death in 1928.

She would have been Tammet-Romanov's grandmother, if he is who Kendrick and his wife believe he is."

This derisory extract does speak for itself.

Margarita   

[Mazukov]

I’ve heard about this clamant before, but the one thing that always struck me odd was, why Buckingham Palace sends back a reply with a Royal heading? Did they know something that the rest of do not?

[Louis_Charles]

Do they have a house stationary that they use when the person receiving it is a commoner?

[Tsarfan]

"If he's for real, they are heirs and they can claim czar's rights," Kendrick said.

Since the children of a morganatic marriage would have had no dynastic rights, I assume this means that Mrs. Tammet-Romanov was of royal pedigree as well?  A descendent of Louis XVII perhaps?