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Mystery of the Romanovs | National Geographic


00:00:11on the night of July 16th 1918 the last

00:00:17living Tsar of Russia and his family

00:00:19sleeps soundly unaware that the bloody

00:00:22civil war sweeping the country will soon

00:00:25overtake them for 78 days the family has

00:00:29lived in a drab compound in the remote

00:00:31city of Yekaterinburg near the siberian

00:00:33border prisoners of communist

00:00:35revolutionaries fighting to control

00:00:37russia just past midnight with troops

00:00:42loyal to the tsar fast approaching the

00:00:44city

00:00:44the guards wake the royal family telling

00:00:47them that they are being moved to a safe

00:00:49location but the guards have no

00:00:54intention of protecting the family and

00:00:56this night will soon become the brutal

00:00:59closing chapter of three centuries of

00:01:01Romanov rule

00:01:08at the height of his reign Tsar Nicholas

00:01:11had been the richest most powerful man

00:01:13in the world controlling one-tenth of

00:01:16the Earth’s surface and fortune were

00:01:19thirty billion dollars until the

00:01:23Revolution the Tsar was considered the

00:01:26Anointed of God he controlled the

00:01:28government he was the supreme head of

00:01:31the Orthodox Church he was worshipped as

00:01:34a demigod by most of his subjects and

00:01:38his word was considered law in every

00:01:41aspect of life every decision was his

00:01:44even the most simple name change had to

00:01:47go across his desk with his marriage to

00:01:50Alexandra a German princess and

00:01:53granddaughter of Queen Victoria the Tsar

00:01:56had expanded his sphere of influence to

00:01:59include the courts of Europe in st.

00:02:02Petersburg the Tsar and his family lived

00:02:04in a breathtaking palace with a thousand

00:02:06rooms hundreds of servants attended

00:02:09their every whim and it seemed like a

00:02:12fairytale existence I think the picture

00:02:15that most people had of the Romanovs was

00:02:18of a very privileged family but a family

00:02:21with which they could identify Nicholas

00:02:26was extremely clever in the way he used

00:02:29his family he had four gorgeous

00:02:31daughters he had a beautiful son they

00:02:34were very photogenic I think he used

00:02:36them to sort of boost the very early on

00:02:39celebrity of the ruling family

00:02:43but the Romanovs Harbor dark secrets

00:02:46behind these carefully orchestrated

00:02:47images once omnipotent their

00:02:50far-reaching powers were inexorably

00:02:52slipping from their grasp inside the

00:02:59palace the long-awaited heir to the

00:03:01throne was diagnosed with hemophilia the

00:03:04slightest of injuries can bring on

00:03:06premature death for alexei and a crisis

00:03:09of succession for the royal family

00:03:12guards protected the young czarevitch

00:03:14day and night and kept his condition

00:03:17secret from the Russian people alexandra

00:03:20was desperate to help her son so she

00:03:22turned to a mystic healer named grigori

00:03:25rasputin

00:03:26despite his questionable reputation

00:03:28Rasputin quickly became one of the

00:03:30Czarina’s closest advisors fueling the

00:03:33Russian people’s growing mistrust of the

00:03:36german-born Zarina

00:03:42you