Royals who died Young Spam
Grand Duchess Olga ( November 15 1895 – July 17, 1918)
Grand Duchess Tatiana (10 June 1897 – 17 July 1918)
Grand Duchess Maria (June 26 1899 – July 17, 1918)
Grand Duchess Anastasia (June 18 1901 – July 17, 1918)
Tsarevich Alexei (12 August 1904 – 17 July 1918)
After an uprising in Russia against the Monarchy the Tsar abdicated in March 1917. At first the family was held under house arrest at Alexander Palace before being moved to Tobolsk due to the rising tide of revolution. There they lived in the former governor's mansion in considerable comfort
After the Bolsheviks came to power in October 1917, the conditions of their imprisonment grew stricter, and talk of putting Nicholas on trial grew more frequent. As the Bolsheviks gathered strength, the government in April moved Nicholas, Alexandra, and their daughter Maria to Yekaterinburg under the direction of Vasily Yakovlev. Alexei was too ill to accompany his parents and remained with his sisters Olga, Tatiana, and Anastasia, not leaving Tobolsk until May 1918. The family was imprisoned with a few remaining retainers in Yekaterinburg's Ipatiev House, which was designated The House of Special Purpose
The Romanovs were being held by the Red Army in Yekaterinburg, since Bolsheviks initially wanted to put them on trial. As the civil war continued and the White Army (a loose alliance of anti-Communist forces) was threatening to capture the city, the fear was that the Romanovs would fall into White hands.
The Ural Regional Soviet agreed in a meeting on 29 June that the Romanov family should be liquidated. Filipp Goloshchyokin arrived in Moscow on 3 July with a message insisting on the Tsar's execution. It was agreed that the presidium of the Ural Regional Soviet should organize the practical details for the family's execution and decide the precise day on which it would take place when the military situation dictated it, contacting Moscow for final approval. The killing of the Tsar's wife and children was also discussed but had to be kept a state secret to avoid any political repercussions; British consul Thomas Preston and German ambassador Wilhelm von Mirbach made repeated enquiries to the Bolsheviks concerning the family's well-being. As Trotsky would later explain, "The Tsar's family was a victim of the principle that form the very axis of monarchy: dynastic inheritance", for which their deaths were a necessity
There are several accounts of what happened and historians have not agreed on a solid, confirmed scope of events. According to the account of Yurovsky (the chief executioner), in the early hours of 17 July 1918, the royal family was awakened around 2:00 am, got dressed, and were led down into a half-basement room at the back of the Ipatiev house. The pretext for this move was the family's safety, i.e. that anti-Bolshevik forces were approaching Yekaterinburg, and the house might be fired upon.
Present with Nicholas, Alexandra and their children were their doctor and three of their servants, who had voluntarily chosen to remain with the family: the Tsar's personal physician Eugene Botkin, his wife's maid Anna Demidova, and the family's chef, Ivan Kharitonov, and footman, Alexei Trupp. A firing squad had been assembled and was waiting in an adjoining room, composed of seven Communist soldiers
Nicholas was carrying his son; when the family arrived in the basement, the former empress complained that there were no chairs for them to sit on. Yurovsky ordered two chairs brought in, and when the empress and the heir were seated, the executioners filed into the room. Yurovsky announced to them that they had been condemned to death by the Ural Soviet of Workers' Deputies. A stunned Nicholas asked, "What? What?" and turned toward his family. Yurovsky quickly repeated the order and shot the former emperor outright
The executioners drew revolvers and the shooting began. Nicholas was the first to die; Yurovsky shot him several times in the chest (sometimes incorrectly said to have been in his head, but his skull bore no bullet wounds when it was discovered in 1991). Anastasia, Tatiana, Olga, and Maria survived the first hail of bullets; the sisters were wearing over 1.3 kilograms of diamonds and precious gems sewn into their clothing, which provided some initial protection from the bullets and bayonets. They were stabbed with bayonets and then shot at close range in their head
The bodies were taken for burial in secret. The bodies were stripped of their clothing and valuables by Yurovsky's men, the former piled up and burned while Yurovsky took inventory of their jewellery. The plundered belongings became the property of the new Soviet government. The bodies were then lowered into the shallow pit and sprinkled with sulphuric acid. Yurovsky separated the Tsarevich Alexei and one of his sisters Anastasia, to be buried about 15 metres (50 ft) away, in an attempt to confuse anyone who might discover the mass grave with only nine bodies. Alexei and his sister were partially burned and their charred bones dismembered using spades and tossed into a smaller pit. Only 44 partial bone fragments from both corpses remained, which were not found until August 2007