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Location: Koptyaki village, 15 km (10 mi) North of Yekaterinburg Map
Ganina yama or Hole of Ganya is the resting place of the last Russian emperor Nicholas II with his wife Alexandra, son Alexi and daughters Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia. All were executed on 17 July 1918 in Yekaterinburg. Their bodies were burned and then buried here on a site of an abandoned mine. White Guard (anti- Bolshevik army) captured the city and its surroundings shortly thereafter, but special commission that was launched failed to retrieve or find the location of the burial.
In the middle of the 19th century, a contractor named Gabriel bought this plot of land in the hope of finding gold here. The inhabitants of the village of Koptyaki called the owner of the mine Ganya. Hence the name of the largest development of the mine - Ganina Yama. At the end of the 19th century, iron ore was mined at this mine and coal was burned for the blast furnace of the Verkh-Isetsky plant. At the beginning of the 20th century, the mine was abandoned, the mines collapsed and overgrown with young forest. Ganina Pit itself was a small quarry 20x30 meters in size, filled with rainwater, around it there were more than 30 old mines, pits and pits, in which ore was previously mined.
First examination
The initial stage of the
investigation was conducted by a group of officers of the General Staff
together with the investigator of the Yekaterinburg District Court A.
Nametkin. They interviewed the peasants of the village of Koptyaki, who
were the first to appear at the site of the destruction of the evidence
of the execution, finding a clay platform with two fires 100 meters from
mine No. 7. In the ashes, the peasants found several precious stones and
a platinum cross lined with emeralds. The peasants brought this cross to
the village and showed Lieutenant Sheremetevsky, who was hiding there,
who remembered that he had seen such a cross on the chest of Grand
Duchess Tatyana when she and her father were present at a military
review. Upon learning that Yekaterinburg had been taken by the White
troops, the lieutenant immediately went to the headquarters and reported
on the findings near Koptyakov. On July 30, an investigation into the
circumstances of the crime under Art. 1453 Regulations on punishments.
The first inspection of the Ganina Pit was carried out by officers
under the leadership of Lieutenant Colonel Igor Baftalovsky, the work on
pumping water out of the mines was entrusted to Lieutenant
Sheremetevsky, who was given prisoners of war to help.
Upon
inspection, Baftalovsky drew attention to "too small amounts of ash and
ash, which definitely indicated the cost of a small amount of fuel for
fires, absolutely insufficient to burn 18 human bodies." From this, it
was concluded that only an imitation of the destruction of the bodies
took place at Ganina Yama, they were taken away from there.
The
former tsar's valet Chemodurov, who was brought in as a witness,
explained that jewels were found in the fires by the fact that the
empress ordered them to be sewn up in folds of clothing so that they
would not be found during searches that were carried out repeatedly.
Corollary of N. A. Sokolov
On January 17, 1919, to oversee the
investigation into the murder of the royal family, the Supreme Ruler of
Russia, Admiral A. V. Kolchak, appointed the commander-in-chief of the
Western Front, Lieutenant General M. K. Diterikhs.
By order of
February 6, 1919, the investigation was entrusted to the investigator
for especially important cases of the Omsk District Court N. A. Sokolov.
On February 7, Sokolov in Omsk was transferred from Diterichs the
original proceedings and material evidence in the case.
In the
text of the report of the investigator N. A. Sokolov to the Dowager
Empress Maria Feodorovna, in a condensed form, it is said about how the
evidence was concealed by the regicides:
“When the atrocity was
committed, the corpses of the August Family and all the others were
immediately placed in a truck, on which Yankel Yurovsky, along with some
other well-known persons, took them outside the city of Yekaterinburg,
to a remote mine located in a forest cottage that once belonged to
Countess Nadezhda Alekseevna Stenbock-Fermor, and now owned by the
Verkh-Iset Joint-Stock Plants.
Simultaneously with the delivery
of corpses to the mine, this entire area was cordoned off by Red Army
cordons, and for three days and three nights it was not allowed to pass
or pass through this area. On the same days, July 4-6, at least 30
buckets of gasoline and 11 pounds of sulfuric acid were delivered to the
mine. The area where the corpses of the August Family were brought was
quite definitely and accurately established during the preliminary
investigation. She was all subjected to the most thorough, with the
participation of especially trusted persons from the military ranks,
examination and search.
Taking into account the data of the
inspection of this area and the totality of the finds discovered here,
the investigating authorities have no doubts and are completely
convinced that the corpses of the August Persons and all the others who
died with Them, near one of the mines, were first cut into pieces and
then burned on fires with gasoline. Parts that were difficult to succumb
to the action of fire were destroyed with sulfuric acid. At the site of
the destruction of corpses, many objects were found that make it
possible to recognize this fact without any doubt. The following objects
were found in the fireplaces, near them and in the mine itself: a)
jewels and pieces of jewels: one of the pearl earrings (with a diamond
at the top) of the Empress; crushed and fire-exposed parts of a pearl
from another earring; emerald cross of the Empress Empress, strewn with
diamonds; a large diamond of excellent properties and great value, which
was part of another large decoration of the Empress; small round pearls
from strings of pearls; fragments of rubies, amethyst and sapphire, the
latter very reminiscent of the shape and color of the stone in the
Sovereign's ring; b) parts of clothing, footwear and accessories of
clothing and footwear: pieces of an overcoat, very reminiscent of Alexei
Nikolaevich’s overcoat in their color and quality factor; many pieces of
burnt shoes, and many screws were found in these pieces, recognized by
experts as belonging to expensive shoes due to their quality; buttons,
loops, buttons, hooks, and some of the buttons are individual: they
belong to the upper suit of the Empress; the buttons are of fine French
work; hooks and loops are typical items put on their suits by the tailor
Brizak; metal parts of the corsets destroyed by fire: the front plaques,
six in number; bones, buckles and hooks from garters, silk from corsets;
moreover, the investigation established that the Empress, who usually
wore a corset, strictly demanded this from the Princesses, considering
his absence as promiscuity; wore a corset and the girl Demidova; buckles
from corsets (from garters) are typical in their properties, they are of
good work; buckle from the belt of the Sovereign Emperor; buckle from
the belt of Alexei Nikolaevich, very individual; three shoe buckles, one
of which is from the shoes of the Empress, and two pairs are from the
shoes of one of the Grand Duchesses; c) objects and parts of them that
belonged to the August Family: a portrait frame, travel, folding, in
which the Sovereign Emperor kept the portrait of the Empress; three
icons: the Savior, Nicholas the Wonderworker and the Holy Martyrs Guriy,
Aviv and Samon, and the very faces were almost destroyed by blasphemous
actions, and on one of the icons there was also a small pillow with a
ring for wearing it on the chest; a silver frame from an example of the
work of a Petrograd master; the remains of a frame of another image;
Uhlan jubilee badge of Her Majesty; a small bottle of Epsom salts; a
typical green glass bottle with the Royal crown in a broken form; a lot
of glass from other vials with salts, from frames and decorations that
had glass; perfectly preserved, despite the long period of time, thanks
to the low temperature in the mine, the corpse of the dog Anastasia
Nikolaevna Jamie, the beloved dog of the Empress, presented to Anastasia
Nikolaevna in 1915-1916 by one of the officers; this dog is a very
small, Nippon breed; Anastasia Nikolaevna usually carried her in her
arms.
It must be said that during a preliminary survey of the
area by a group of officers, only two and small sizes were found, and it
was difficult to immediately assume that the remains of 11 people were
destroyed on them, then Lieutenant Colonel Igor Baftalovsky reported.
The bonfires themselves were not deep, no traces of bones, much less
teeth, were found in them, from which it was concluded that the bodies
in the bonfires were not burned, but were taken out, and the things of
the royal family were burned on the bonfires.
However, according
to the testimony of Mikhail Konstantinovich Diterichs, who at the
beginning of 1919 was the head of the commission investigating the
murder of the royal family and was directly familiar with the entire
course of the preliminary investigation
“... On the surface of the
site, fresh traces of a shovel are visible in places, removing the upper
layer of the site in pieces. In one of the recesses of the site, quite a
lot of remnants of the fire had accumulated, which was originally even
taken for the fire itself. In reality, the bonfire was laid out behind
an open shaft, about 8 steps from it, towards a large birch; the
dimensions of this fire were significant, at least 3 arshins in
diameter. When the fire burned out, it was apparently scattered, and the
site of the fire, the remaining coals and ashes, were sprinkled with
fresh clay from the site. On the edge of the campfire site, Nametkin saw
in August a completely burnt rib. The other fire was further away; under
an old birch; in size, it was probably not less than the first, and
maybe even more. But Isaac Goloshchekin did not scatter it like the
first fire; it was found intact and already scattered by the peasants of
the village of Koptyakov. <...> The logical final conclusions from the
above examples are quite clear: in the first case, the shoes of the
Grand Duchesses were burned at the bonfire near the mine, and in the
second, the bullet hit the bonfire, falling out of the burning body.
In addition, revolver bullets of the revolver system, shells from
bullets and a lot of lead melted in the fire were found in the fires and
near them. Finally, a human finger and two pieces of human skin are
found. Scientific examination recognized that this finger was cut off
from the hand and belongs to a middle-aged woman who had thin, long,
beautiful fingers, familiar with manicure. Just before leaving
Yekaterinburg this year, which unfortunately interrupted further
searches, many chopped and, possibly, sawn bones were found, the nature
of which should be determined in the near future in the conditions of
the existing possibility. All the bones were ravaged by fire, but
possibly also by acids. The presence of jewelry, parts of them and
bullets in the mine seems clear to the investigating authorities.
By order of Diterichs, Sokolov was evacuated from Yekaterinburg on
July 11, 1919 and took out all the acts of genuine investigative
proceedings along with material evidence. Then he took part in the
export of materials in March 1920 from Harbin to Western Europe and
ensuring their safety.
It was thanks to the painstaking work of
N. A. Sokolov that the details of the execution and burial of the royal
family became known for the first time. He described them in detail in
his book "The Murder of the Royal Family."
In August 2000, at the Council of Bishops of the
Russian Orthodox Church, Nicholas II and his family were glorified as
martyrs. On September 23, 2000, during his visit to the Urals, Patriarch
Alexy II visited the Ganina Yama tract and, having blessed the
establishment of the monastic monastery, put his signature on the master
plan of the monastery. The builder of the monastery was shiigumen
Sergius (Romanov). The first stone of the monastery was laid on October
1, 2000. On December 27, the Holy Synod officially “blessed the opening
of the monastery in the name of the Royal Passion-Bearers in the Ganina
Yama tract”, on December 28 the monastery of the Holy Royal
Passion-Bearers was established here.
On the territory of the
monastery there is Open Mine No. 7 - this is how it is called by N. A.
Sokolov in the materials of the investigation into the circumstances of
the death of the Royal Family, where evidence of a crime was found.
Now there are seven temples in the monastery - according to the
number of killed members of the royal family.