The Last Days of the Romanovs | National Geographic

I think it's a big tragedy, big tragedy for the country and for the world. For 300 years, the Romanovs ruled Russia as czars—loved, feared, revered, respected. But all too often, those who fly highest fall furthest. World War One brought Russia to revolution. In 1917, Tsar Nicholas II was overthrown. Lenin's Bolsheviks seized control, and for 78 days, Nicholas, his wife Alexandra, and their five children—Alexei, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia—were imprisoned here in what used to be Nikolai Patias' house, now the Church on the Blood in Yekaterinburg.

On July 17, 1918, the royal family members and their staff were woken and told they were being transferred. They were scored down here to what used to be the basement of the Party House. The firing squad entered, and twenty minutes later, the three hundred year reign of the Romanov dynasty was over. Russia had died; in that moment, when he was killed, Russia died.

Two years later, after the fall of communism, the church was built to commemorate them as holy martyrs. But after the crime, the Bolsheviks did everything possible to erase the Romanovs from history. After the execution, the Romanov family was brought here to God in a Yama and dumped in this old iron mine. The Bolsheviks poured acid over the bodies and burned them continuously for two days and three nights, trying to get rid of every last remnant of the czar's power.

The fishtail McSteamy machine most of us use to store, but you get to Odessa. But I do blogger regime—there is no simple way to look at the rule of the Romanovs, and many here feel that what followed was even worse. But from the ashes of Russia's past comes the promise of Russia's future. [Music]