This story always makes me feel a little sad because I never feel that the Romanovs deserved what they got. My history teacher was fairly sentimental too. She was the one who called it the fairy tale that went wrong and she had a picture of them behind her desk. All 7 of them together. They were such a beautiful family and that was all that they ever wanted to be.

Alexandra and Nicholas were madly in love with each other and their family. Our history class got the chance to see the Nicholas and Alexandra exhibition at the Chambers Street museum in Edinburgh during the short time it was there and they even had Alexandra's diary. They had a bit on the case and it was so beautiful and sweet and sad that it had my eyes watering. Alexandra talked about how when she finally married her Nicky, there would be no more separations, just the two of them together forever. And that was all either of them wanted.

To be honest, Nicholas II was not fit to rule Russia. He didn't have the patience to listen to a minister explain the situation fully or the best course of action and he really didn't want anything to do with it. He preferred his ministers to be witty and to have a solutioin ready, but it had to follow the reactionary principles of his father. He would rather have spent his time with his family. Alexandra felt the same way and the Mauve Room of the Alexander Palace was designed by her to reflect the style of life that she wanted.

Nicholas hadn't been trained for his position because his father had died prematurely. His father, Alexander III, had ruled with an iron fist in reponse to the assasination of his own father, Alexander II. Alexander II had been working towards giving the Russian people a break. He had wanted to give them basic rights and freedoms and try to modernise Russia. However, many people felt that he wasn't moving fast enough and, just to get their point across, assasinated him. His son did not react as expected. Instead he reversed the progress his father had made, casting Russia back into misery. It was this idea that the people did not want freedom that he passed on to his son. And it was these ideas that would doom Russia.

As if all of that wasn't enough, the Tsar's son, Alexei, heir to the throne and youngest of the Romanov children, suffered from haemophilia, a genetic condition carried by his mother which also affected the Spanish line and travelled throughout the genetics of Europe's inter-bred monarchies. In today's world, we know about haemophilia. We know what it is and ways to help to ease it and reduces the chances of death. But in the world in which the Tsar and his family lived, it was a curse, a bad omen and so had to be kept secret. It also meant that Alexei was extremely fragile. So much so that even a bruise could kill him. It was because of this that the Tsarina, desperate to save her son, turned to Rasputin. Rasputin claimed to be able to help with Alexei's disease, a claim substantiated by the fact that any bleeding would slow in the monk's presence, a fact which may simply come from him having a calming affect on the boy.

Because of this, the Tsarina kept the monk close, denying him nothing. Since few outside of the palace knew of her son's condition and Rasputin's role in this play, many suspected the Tsarina, who was already thought to be cold and aloof, of having an affair with her friend and advisor. This also added to the disquiet of the people.

Then in 1914, war was declared. Men were called up to fight and the Tsar sent his favourite officers out to lead his armies against his cousin, the Kaiser. His officers were incompetent and Russia simply was not industrialised enough to produce the number and standard of weapons needed to stand against the Triple Alliance. Soldiers were limited to the use of three bullets a day, if they had a rifle at all! Russia was by far the weakest of the Triple Entant and quickly began to lose ground. The leaders of Russia's forces commanded a scorched earth policy, choking food supply in the cities. Moral quickly began to dip. Nicholas himself went out to lead his armies and the Tsarina and her eldest 3 daughters learned the skills necessary to nurse the wounded.

This was not enough to stem the anger of the people and in March, 1917, the anger of the Russian people finally loosed itself upon the aristocracy. Nicholas abdicated in favour of his brother who then abdicated in favour of a "provisional government". However, the people had set up their own governments, the Soviets (which means council), of which the Bolsheviks and their sister party, the Mesheviks, did extremely well.

The Provisional Government was weakened by the Kornilov affair. link General Kornilov, in a bid for power, tried to take a force to Petrograd (St. Petersburg). This was stopped mainly thanks to the influence of the Bolsheviks, who were armed by Kerensky, the leader of the PV. Kerensky let many of the Bolsheviks out of prison and armed them in a bid to stand against Kornilov. However, the workers, under orders from the Bolshevik ruled Soviets, prevented Kornilov's train from reaching St Petersburg.

Newly armed and with the support of the people, the Bolsheviks finally conquered Russia in October of 1917, sparking civil war. During this time, the Romanovs were kept under house arrest but given a comfortable living as private citizens until, on the 17th of July, 1918, the White army was advancing on the spot in which they were held. In a bid to keep them from falling into enemy hands, the family were woken in the night and taken to the basement and shot. To ensure that the bodies would never be identified, they were burned with fire and acid and buried in a pit. Although 7 bodies were found, only 5 were identified as the Romanovs. The two missing were Alexei and one of his sisters, either Anastasia or Maria. In 2007, bone fragments found on the scene were identified as the remains of Alexei and his sister by use of mitochondrial DNA.

Did they really deserve that?

russian people starved and they lived in a palace. they were looked after and wanted for nothing, yet russian children went without.
hmm i wonder why they were shot??????

The reason may be that Tsarevich Alexi's body was not identified,he may have died of natural causes before they got to the place of detention. The Tsarevich was suffering from long standing haemophilia! The Bolsheviki would be the only ones to have that information,and perhaps chose not to make it public!

Tsar Nikolai ordered Cossacks to attack the peasants who were begging for bread outside the
Winter Palace in 1905!
Your attempt to make Nikolai the victim of evil ministers is a fairy tale,as is your attempt to make the Tsar wholly not responsible for the attrocities of his regime!