Russia exhumes remains of executed Tsar Nicholas II, wife Alexandra

Almost 100 years after the last tsar and his family were killed, Russian investigators are re-examining the case and exhuming the bodies of Tsar Nicholas II and his wife, Alexandra.

Samples are being taken from both the tsar and his wife as well as the bloodstained uniform of his grandfather, Alexander II, who was killed in 1881, so the Russian Orthodox Church can be certain that remains found in 2007 belong to two of the royal couple's children: Maria and Alexei. Nicholas, Alexandra, Alexei, Maria, and the three other grand duchesses — Anastasia, Olga, and Tatiana — were executed along with four royal staff members by the Bolsheviks in the cellar of a home in Yekaterinburg in 1918; those who weren't killed by the bullets from a firing squad were hit with bayonets.

In 1991, the remains of all but Maria and Alexei were found in a mass grave in the Urals, and in 1998, DNA proved their identities. Maria and Alexei were discovered in a different spot in the Urals in 2007, and before they can be buried with the rest of their relatives at St. Petersburg's Peter and Paul Cathedral, the Orthodox Church wants them to be authenticated once more by DNA, the BBC reports. The tsar, Alexandra, Anastasia, Olga, and Tatiana were formally canonized by the Orthodox Church in 2000, and Alexei and Maria — whose remains are now with the Russian State Archives — will likely be canonized before 2018, the 100th anniversary of their death.

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