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