YEKATERINBURG (Russia) - HUNDREDS of Russians on Wednesday flocked to the site where Bolsheviks shot the last Tsar 90 years ago, a man they consider a martyr and symbol of Russia's imperial power.
Family photos of Tsar Nicholas II, his wife, four daughters and son were on show at the Yekaterinburg church, built on the spot where the entire family was shot by Bolshevik executioners in a dirty basement in July 1918.
Groups of mainly older Russian Orthodox believers had journeyed for days to the Church on the Blood to commemorate Nicholas II. The women wore headscarves and dresses, the mainly bearded men wore shirts and carried rucksacks.
'His life ended in tragedy but then it began again. That's what we're celebrating today,' Ms Nadia Basharova, 50, said as she listened to a priest sing.
By mid-morning around 300 people had gathered at the church.
At one side soldiers manned a soup kitchen to feed the crowds.
The Romanov family ruled Russia for three centuries before World War I helped trigger social upheaval. Nicholas II abdicated in 1917 amid escalating instability that led to the Bolshevik Revolution when Vladimir Lenin took power.
During the civil war which followed, the Bolsheviks shot the family in the basement of a merchant's house in Yekaterinburg, 1,450 km (900 miles) east of Moscow.
Attempts were made to destroy the bodies, then Russia's former imperial rulers were dumped into pits. -- REUTERS
