80 Years Later, Czar and Family to Rest in Peace

By air, by hearse and by shoulder, the remains of Russia’s last czar and his family ended their tortured 20th century journey home to this imperial capital Thursday for a belated burial on today’s 80th anniversary of the Romanovs’ deaths before a Bolshevik firing squad.

While the ceremonial conveyance of nine small coffins from the Ural Mountains scene of their slayings was respectfully modest, today’s funeral for Nicholas II, his wife, Alexandra, three of their five children--daughters Olga, Tatiana and Anastasia--and four servants was elevated to a state affair at the eleventh hour with President Boris N. Yeltsin’s surprise decision to attend.

Yeltsin had earlier said he would follow the lead of Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexi II, who has prohibited church prelates from the services because the Holy Synod refuses to accept DNA tests proving that bones unearthed seven years ago are those of the czar.

But the 67-year-old president with a penchant for emotional gestures said in a televised address that he had reflected on the significance of the funeral and reconsidered his own role.

“This truth has been concealed for 80 years, but now we need to tell this truth, and I should take part,” Yeltsin told his countrymen, apparently more mindful of his historical legacy than any short-term political ripples.

Because the church has skirted the ceremonies, partly to avoid the divisive issue of whether to accord Nicholas sainthood, most political figures and some descendants of the Romanov dynasty that fled abroad amid the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution have decided against risking censure by Russia’s legions of newly faithful.

In the early hours of July 17, 1918, the Romanovs were gunned down by Bolshevik soldiers, then cut up in the basement of Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg. The family had been exiled and detained there after Nicholas abdicated in March 1917 as the revolution was brewing.

On orders of the Communist Party, the bodies were trucked out to a remote wooded area and dumped in a pit, burned and, a few hours later, reburied nearby. They were discovered by a historian and a geologist nearly 20 years ago, but their location was kept secret until the Communists’ grip on power began slipping at the end of the last decade. An official party retrieved the remains in 1991, and they were warehoused at the Yekaterinburg city morgue until Wednesday morning.

The nine sets of bones--those of Crown Prince Alexei and his sister Marie have yet to be found--were placed in 4-foot-long caskets by an honor guard and taken to the Ascension of the Lord Church for a requiem.

After spending the night in the Yekaterinburg church, they were flown on an Aeroflot cargo jet to St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo Airport on Thursday for another short ceremony and dirges.

The cortege of teal hearses slowed as it carried the Romanovs past their imperial home at the Winter Palace, in a symbolic bow to the Russian tradition of returning loved ones after death to their last home.

The remains were then escorted across the broad Neva River to the Peter and Paul Fortress, where they will be entombed in today’s ceremonies of repentance and atonement.

Army officers in full regalia hoisted the coffins onto their shoulders for the last few hundred yards’ journey through flanks of uniformed soldiers and camouflage-clad security troops. The last steps to the fortress cathedral were serenaded by church bells that rang out a tuneless cacophony for the 20-minute procession.

Only a few hundred officials and well-wishers were on hand for the by-invitation-only ceremonies, as the czar’s last rites have driven a new wedge among the suffering people of Russia.

While those who have flourished in the freer atmosphere of the post-Communist era tend to acknowledge a need to correct the wrongs of their forebears, many Russians are simply too overwhelmed with the demands of survival to care much about political murders that took place decades ago.

“By laying them to rest, maybe we can also put to rest this historical conflict,” said Yulia Kuzovleva, 15, a student who managed to get a pass for the procession from her father, who works in the mayor’s office. “This process of remembering is important and necessary.”

Eleanora Mezeneva, a teacher, called the two-day ritual “the event of the century” and said she approved of the modesty typifying the czar’s last rites.

“Everyone who is able should be taking part in this, though,” she said of the services, referring to the officials who have split along political lines in deciding whether to attend. For those who are boycotting to further their political interests, she said, “let this someday weigh on their conscience.”

While Yeltsin will be joined by presidential hopefuls Alexander I. Lebed, now a Siberian governor, and liberal economist Grigory A. Yavlinsky, Communist and other opposition politicians declined invitations.

Moscow Mayor Yuri M. Luzhkov and Yekaterinburg regional Gov. Eduard Rossel both waged ardent but unsuccessful campaigns to have the Romanovs buried in their cities, and their decisions to boycott the St. Petersburg ceremonies smacked of resentment.

But some local residents dismissed the procession and funeral as overly political or irrelevant rituals adding to the debts of a government that already is deeply in arrears on state wages and pensions.

“What’s all the fuss about? I’d rather they were concerned about paying people who are still alive,” said Pavel, a taxi driver who had been unaware of the ceremonies until police began closing city streets for the cortege.

Despite the days of mourning proclaimed across Russia by the Orthodox Church for “all those tortured and killed in the years of bitter persecution for the faith in Christ,” an atmosphere of business-as-usual prevailed.

Among the few signs of a historic event in the making were the sidewalk stands crowded with czarist memorabilia and new books alleging fantastic escapes by Romanovs proven to have been killed by the firing squad. Others displayed previously unseen photographs of the royal family. Museums here and in Moscow also have been displaying special exhibits devoted to the life of the last czar, reflecting the determination of a small segment of Russian society to put the Romanovs in their proper historical perspective.

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