Tsar Nicholas II's murder 100 years on: The terrible fate of Russia’s imperial family

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Tsar Nicholas II, the Tsarina Alexandra and their five children, along with three servants and the family physician, Dr Yevgeny Botkin, were slain in cold blood in Yekaterinburg on the night of 16 July 1918. During that time, the family adapted to their circumstances: Nicholas reading and the boisterous grand duchesses Maria and Anastasia befriending their guards to stave off boredom, the former becoming romantically involved with one, Ivan Skorokhodov, and conspiring with him on how the Romanovs might escape. open image in gallery Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarevich Alexei The Bolsheviks could not afford to have the Romanovs fall into the hands of the Whites, lest they became symbols around which anti-communists could rally or provide foreign governments with an alternative head of state to recognise. The rediscovery of Nicholas, Alexandra, Olga, Tatiana and Anastasia’s bones in 1979 by amateur investigator Alexander Avdonin allowed them to be reburied in the family crypt in St Petersburg in 1998.