Sensational news was spread in the City of Ekaterinburg just in a few hours. It was about finding by local archeologists the burial place of grand Duke Aleksey and Princess Maria, the children of the last Russian Emperor Nikolay the Second.

Assistant Director of scientific production center of protection and use of the historical monuments in Sverdlovsk region Andrei Grigoryev told to the Novaya that a student of Ural history Vitaly Shitov told him about examination records kept in the former regional communist party’s archive. Those were made according to words by Yakov Yurovsky who commanded shooting of the royal family on 17 July 1918. “Having shot the royal family, Yurovsky took the dead bodies to the forest in a truck. The truck got stuck in the forest. According to the records, bolshevists didn’t burn the corpses of Aleksey and Maria in the place where the truck was stuck, as it has been assumed all this time. They buried them somewhere else. But there was a bog all around there so they could only go in two directions along Old Koptyakovsky road. This way we mapped out the direction of our search” Andrei Grigoryev said.

All the details regarding that burial were verified in 2006, but the search was suspended due to lack of sponsors. Everyone, who was applied to, assured that there was nothing to be found. So the researchers decided to act on their own. They only got help from volunteers. Starting from June 2007 they went to the place each weekend. 29 July the group got the first success. They found first remains. Professional archeologists were promptly brought to the site.

“During excavations we found traces of two fires similar to those described by Yurovsky”, a specialist from scientific production center of protection and use of the historical monuments of Sverdlovsk region Sergey Pogorelov said. “We also found the remains. The anthropologists defined that the bones belonged to a boy of 10-13 years old and the girl of 18-23 years old. Of course, thorough expertise must be done later”.

The archeologists also found fragments of ceramic ware that probably contained acid. The fragments are similar to those found in the main burial place of the rest of the royal family. Also found were nails and angles for the wooden boxes where the acid was kept, and cartridges for short-stemmed guns.

Specialists are careful about final conclusions. They only note that many facts and descriptions fit here. Russian Orthodox Church, however, refused to recognize the remains till the expertise gets done.