Church-on-the-Blood, the site of the Romanovs' executions, Yekaterinburg, Russia

The front of Church-on-the-Blood in the Name of All Saints Shone Forth in the Land of Russia, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018

This is the church built on the site where Tsar Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra, their five children and four staff members were shot and bludgeoned to death on July 17, 1918.  Its formal name (based on a plaque pictured below) is Church-on-the-Blood in the Name of All Saints Shone Forth in the Land of Russia, Yekaterinburg. It was consecrated in 2003.  

The murders happened in the basement of the Ipatiev House which stood here until the Soviet government demolished the house in 1977. The main altar on the first floor of the church is directly over the site of the murders.

The Ipatiev House was the last place the Romanovs lived, imprisoned there for 78 days until the Bolsheviks, under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin, ordered their deaths.

The front of Church-on-the-Blood in the Name of All Saints, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018

A statue of the Romanov family at the front of Church-on-the-Blood, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018

Nicholas II holds his son, Alexei, at the front of Church-on-the-Blood, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018

Another view of the statue at Church-on-the-Blood, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018
 
The statue as seen from the top floor of Church-on-the-Blood, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018

The statue as seen from the top floor of Church-on-the-Blood, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018

Another view of the statue at Church-on-the-Blood, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018

Inside on the top floor of Church-on-the-Blood, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018

The ceiling of the Church-on-the-Blood, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018

The Romanov family tree at Church-on-the-Blood, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018
 
In honor of Nicholas II's patron Saint (Stephen?) at the Church-on-the-Blood, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018

On the ground floor, a few steps from the execution site, is an exhibition with photographs and artifacts of the Romanovs and the Russian Revolution at Church-on-the-Blood, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018 

In the exhibition is a framed newspaper photo of the demolition of the Impatiev House which stood at the site of the Church-on-the-Blood, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018

Romanov artifacts at the museum at Church-on-the-Blood, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018

A display at the exhibition in honor of Grand Duchess Elisabeth Feodorovna, who became a nun after the 1905 assassination of her husband, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, the fifth son of Tsar Alexander II, assassinated in 1881.  The Grand Duchess was Empress Alexandra's older sister, they, the granddaughters of Queen Victoria and great-aunts of Prince Philip of Great Britain (whose DNA helped identify the bodies of Alexandra and the children).  Because Elisabeth was royalty, she was one of many family members killed by the Bolsheviks who beat her and others on July 18, 1918,  threw them down an iron pit and when they kept singing hymns and would not die, tossed lighted hand grenades down on top of them in the pit. When the prisoners continued singing, the killers ignited a bon fire.  Despite all this, three months later when their bodies were recovered, it was discovered that Elisabeth was able to bandage a fellow victim's wounds while they all were undergoing  torture in the pit.

After he learned of her death, Wikipedia quotes Lenin: "Virtue with the crown on it is a greater enemy to the world revolution than a hundred tyrant tsars^."/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018

Members of the clergy who were killed by the Bolsheviks, in a display at the exhibition at Church-on-the-Blood, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018

This is the Royal Spiritual and Educational Center on the side of Church-on-the-Blood, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018
 
Note the flowers and large photographs of the Romanovs (center, above the flowers) at the front of Church-on-the-Blood, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018

The front of Church-on-the-Blood in the Name of All Saints Shone Forth in the Land of Russia, Yekaterinburg with large family photographs displayed outside the church/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018

A plaque in Russian and English languages at Church-on-the-Blood in the Name of All Saints Shone Forth in the Land of Russia, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018

From the Vysotsky Viewing Platform, Church-on-the-Blood in the Name of All Saints Shone Forth in the Land of Russia, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018

At right center in this photo of the city of Yekaterinburg, is Church-on-the-Blood in the Name of All Saints Shone Forth in the Land of Russia, taken from the Vysotsky Viewing Platform/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018

 The Church-on-the-Blood in the Name of All Saints Shone Forth in the Land of Russia occupies the sky from all angles in Yekaterinburg. This was taken from the new (2015) Boris Yeltsin Presidential Center/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018

On July 27 or September 6 or September 15, 16, and 17 or 22 (Wikipedia and other sources list different days but they give the same year: 1977), the Ipatiev House was destroyed under orders of the Politburo of the Soviet government.

Alarmed by the increasing number of curiosity seekers, historians and religious members who came to the house, and the growing interest shown by Western governments, the Soviets feared the reality of rumors that the Ipatiev House might become a UNESCO World Heritage site.

They were afraid the site would become a shrine. 

It has become a shrine.

The public reason the Soviets gave for the demolition (which was carried out in the middle of the night like the murders) was a "rehabilitation of the street." 

Which they covered with asphalt. 

Boris Yeltsin, the local Soviet leader in 1977, states in his autobiography, that he was ordered to destroy the house, and he, most agree, had no choice. Documents support him.


At this link is his description that visitors "...even came to look at it [the house] from other cities.

"I can well imagine that sooner or later we will be ashamed of this piece of barbarism. Ashamed we may be; but we can never rectify it."

Pictures are not permitted in the holy space where many icons of the family, crosses, candles, and kneeling pads exist to help visitors assuage their pain and agony, and pray for hope, it will not happen again.

A large icon like this one above of the Imperial Family, Tsar Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra, and their children, Maria, Anastasia, Tatiana, Olga, and Alexei, the youngest and heir to the throne, hangs adjacent to the execution spot at Church-on-the-Blood, Yekaterinburg/From the website of the Church

Some of the first icons of the family have been found in Serbia, made in the 1920s. 

On the centennial of the deaths on July 17, 2018, the Vatican estimated a crowd of 75,000 turned out for a liturgy at Church-on-the-Blood. Then, thousands walked four hours, about 9.5 miles, along the route the bodies were carried and dumped in an abandoned mining shaft, Ganina Yama.  

75,000 came to honor the memory of the Romanovs on July 17, 2018 at Church-on-the-Blood, Yekaterinburg/From the Vatican

Two days after the murders, on July 19, 1918, the killers carried the bodies to another site, fearful their enemies, the Whites who were fast approaching, would try to rescue the Imperial Family and use them for oppositional purposes. 

Royal Russian News has many links, photographs, and drawings of the palaces, contents, and information about the Romanovs.


Here is a link to an interview dated July 2, 2018 with the head of the Department of Archives of the Sverdlovsk Region, Alexander Kapustin about the possible reconstruction of the Ipatiev House. Kapustin says:  "...the foundation of the Ipatiev House is actually buried under the road. Therefore, we are not talking so much about reconstruction as that of a new construction."

The link contains more information about the Ipatiev House, including a 3D video of the reconstructed house. 

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