Uploaded April 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 hours ago
It wasn’t until July of 2007, when Sergei Plotnikov, a 46-year old builder who was part of an amateur history group that spent free weekends looking for the lost Romanovs, stumbled upon a small hollow covered with nettles. While he was searching this clearing, he hit something hard. He and his friend Leonid began to dig, exhuming several bone fragments in the process. The pair shouted over to the archaeologist that was with them and they began a proper search. The bones were badly damaged like the rest, but these had also been burned with fire. It was clear that whoever these people were, they did not die peacefully. They were buried only 70 metres away from the first grave site.
Alongside 44 bone fragments, the archaeological team found fragments of Japanese ceramic bottles that were used to carry sulphuric acid, seven teeth, three bullets, a fragment of clothing, and a wire from a wooden box. Archaeologists confirmed that the remains were of a 10-13 year old boy, and an 18-23 year old woman. Presumably Tsarevich Alexei who was weeks away from his 14th birthday, and Grand Duchess Maria, who was 19 when the murders occurred. The female could also have potentially been Anastasia, who was 17.
Prosecutors reopened the investigation into the deaths of the Romanovs and in April of 2008, DNA tests performed by Dr. Anthony Falsetty and the US Army DNA laboratory proved that the remains found by Plotnikov belonged to two children of Tsar Nicholas II, Alexei and a daughter. He had finally reunited the Romanov family, simultaneously laying to rest all theories of a miraculous escape or surviving child and debunking every impostor that had come out of the woodwork over the years.
It wasn’t until July of 2007, when Sergei Plotnikov, a 46-year old builder who was part of an amateur history group that spent free weekends looking for the lost Romanovs, stumbled upon a small hollow covered with nettles. While he was searching this clearing, he hit something hard. He and his friend Leonid began to dig, exhuming several bone fragments in the process. The pair shouted over to the archaeologist that was with them and they began a proper search. The bones were badly damaged like the rest, but these had also been burned with fire. It was clear that whoever these people were, they did not die peacefully. They were buried only 70 metres away from the first grave site.
Alongside 44 bone fragments, the archaeological team found fragments of Japanese ceramic bottles that were used to carry sulphuric acid, seven teeth, three bullets, a fragment of clothing, and a wire from a wooden box. Archaeologists confirmed that the remains were of a 10-13 year old boy, and an 18-23 year old woman. Presumably Tsarevich Alexei who was weeks away from his 14th birthday, and Grand Duchess Maria, who was 19 when the murders occurred. The female could also have potentially been Anastasia, who was 17.
Prosecutors reopened the investigation into the deaths of the Romanovs and in April of 2008, DNA tests performed by Dr. Anthony Falsetty and the US Army DNA laboratory proved that the remains found by Plotnikov belonged to two children of Tsar Nicholas II, Alexei and a daughter. He had finally reunited the Romanov family, simultaneously laying to rest all theories of a miraculous escape or surviving child and debunking every impostor that had come out of the woodwork over the years.
