The last Russian Emperor Nikolai II, members of his family and their attendants, were shot in Yekaterinburg on the night of 16/17 July 1918 on the orders of the Urals regional Soviet. Their remains were hidden in the abandoned Ganina Yama mine on the city outskirts and an attempt was made to destroy them. For decades people were convinced that the bodies of the executed had been destroyed or buried in this place.

Attempts to clarify the circumstances of their death began in 1919. The burial was discovered in the late 1970s at Porosyonkov Log on the Old Koptyakovskaya Road, a few kilometres from Ganina Yama. An official exhumation took place in 1991 on the order of the Sverdlovsk Region prosecutor’s office and the remains of nine bodies were found in the pit. In 1993 a criminal case No. 18/123666-93 was opened on the instruction of the Russian Prosecutor-General; the Russian government set up a commission to consider the investigation of the remains and the question of their reburial. Three genetic examinations in 1993, 1995 and 1997 identified the remains as being those of Nikolai II, his wife Alexandra, their daughters Olga, Tatyana and Anastasia, and their close attendants. In July 1998 the remains were buried in the Petropavlovsk cathedral in St Petersburg (government order of 27 February that year). The remains of Tsarevich Alexei and Grand Duchess Maria were officially considered lost.

In July 2007 60 metres from the site of the first burial were found the remains of two people with indications that they had died a violent death. In 2008 genetic investigation and the RF Investigative Committee confirmed that the bodies belonged to children of Nikolai II. In 2012 the Russian Orthodox Church officially announced that it considered the issue of the attribution of the remains discovered in 1991 and 2007 to members of the Tsar’s family to be open for further historical and genetic investigation.

The commemoration of the memorial site at Ganina Yama has been conducted since 1991 by the Yekaterinburg Diocese. In 1991 a memorial cross was placed and consecrated on the site. In 2000 a monastery dedicated to the Holy Tsarist Martyrs was established there. Today the Ganina Yama ecclesiastical ensemble including more than 13 items of religious and historical significance is located there. In July 1999 the Yekaterinburg “Attainment” foundation created the “Memorial of the Romanov dynasty” which includes various commemorative items. The burial place is marked by several commemorative crosses. The cross placed over the 2007 discoveries has been vandalised on a number of occasions.