The Coldest Case

Sergei Pogorelov, a Russian archaeologist working in Siberia, thinks he may have found the remains of the Tsarevich Alexei and one of the Tsar's daughters, possibly Grand Duchess Maria. Theirs were the only remains not found at the bottom of the mine shaft where the rest of the family was dumped in 1918, a site re-discovered only in 1989.

When the discovery was made public in 1991, the entire Royal Family were canonised by the Russian Orthodox Church. But the remains of the Tsarevich and one of the Grand Duchesses were neither disposed of nor found in the mine shaft. Rather, by most contemporary accounts they were taken away and thrown into a grave in a farmer's field, where they were burned.

It is this grisly site that Pogorelov has been investigating. Their remains - if that's who they are - have been more efficiently obliterated than those of the rest of the family, and so it may never be known to whom they belong. At the time of their murders, Russia was in a state of revolution, and there may be thousands of graves such as this around the country.

The rest of the family's remains were re-interred in 1998, but not as the Royal Family, as 'victims of the Revolution". Russian officials are said to be reopening the case, though exactly what they hope to achieve by doing so is unclear.

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