Trips and Tales (Part 38)
Ekaterinburg’s Beaten Track (Continued)
Ganina Yama
Following on from the recent posts concerning the death of the Romanovs, it seems fitting to include Ganina Yama: temporary port of call for the bodies of Russia’s last royal family. The name translates as “Ganya’s Pit”, and refers to the 9ft-deep hole into which the bodies were thrown, at the Four Brothers mine, 15km north of Ekaterinburg.
The Bolsheviks were driven from the area one week after the murders by the royalist White Army, who subsequently discovered burnt bones and other evidence of fire at the site, but no complete bodies. Fearing (suspecting? knowing?) that the pit location and initial resting place of the dead Romanovs was no longer secret, the Red Army moved the bodies to what would hopefully be a more secure location. Whilst it was not overtly stated, inadvertent clues to the location of the second burial site remained in the Bolshevik report on the incident.
These clues would lead to the discovery in Porosenkov Ravine (approximately 4½ miles away) of charred remains in the late 1970s, though the information would be suppressed until 1989, when Russia’s political climate had changed enough to accommodate it. DNA tests in 1995 would confirm that the remains were indeed those of the Romanovs and their aides. There were 9 bodies in all: the Tsar and Tsarina, three daughters, and the four companions, all in a single mass grave. This left two family members unaccounted for…
In 2007, the remains of the two missing Romanov children were located in a second burial pit 70 meters from the site of the initial excavations. In 2008, these remains were identified as Tsarevich Alexei and, in all probability, the youngest daughter Anastasia: the two most famous Romanov children. The discovery was officially announced in 2009. Although there was – and possibly still is – some debate as to whether the female body in this second set of remains actually was Anastasia’s (as opposed to her sister Maria’s), the point is that, either way, all Romanov bodies are now accounted for. You can almost hear the commanding member of the Bolshevik entourage ordering some of his men to “Put the two smallest in a hole over there…”
Alexei, of course, was the sickly heir to the throne, controversially (supernaturally?) treated for his haemophilia by “Our Friend” Rasputin, whose subsequent influence over the Tsarina and the governance of Russia was to play a significant role in the Romanov dynasty’s downfall (as well as Rasputin’s own). Anastasia, in an appealing and romantic myth borne of wishful thinking, was the one Romanov rumoured to have survived the massacre. Pretenders to her name would subsequently present themselves years later, Anna Anderson being the most famous.
The site of Ganina Yama was declared holy ground by the Russian Orthodox Church, which commissioned the striking wooden “Monastery of the Holy Imperial Passion-Bearers”, built in 2001. Seven chapels (one for each family member) were also constructed, each dedicated to a saint or holy relic. Furthermore, a cross was erected to mark the mine-shaft entrance, now visible as only a depression in the Earth.
Next time: Trips and Tales (Part 39)
About the street sculpture in the Russian city of Ekaterinburg, from Soviet-style monuments to more humourous, whimsical works.
[Photo by Hardscarf]