The mystery in the shadow of the two-headed eagle

I agreed to describe moments from the dramatic story of Nora not with the intention to fan the flame of the sensation. Since 1920 many historians, journalists and writers worldwide tried, although unsuccessfully, to clear up the facts about the last days of Emperor Nikolay II and his family. After 1993 in Bulgaria also came out dozens of newspaper publications, and two books in 1998: “The Romanovs – the End of a Mystery” by the journalist from Stara Zagora Donka Yotova, and “The Secret of Nikolay II” by the examining magistrate Blagoy Emanuilov. At present he is completing his second book “Nikolay II and the Conspiracy of the Century”, where he sets forth two versions: First, in order to save the crown prince Alexey and one of his daughters, long before his execution the emperor replaced them with duplicates and the real ones were taken out of the country. Second, the execution of the tsar’s family was not a work of the Bolsheviks but the result of an international conspiracy.

My aim is different. If I could stir the interest of the diplomatic circles to help at last uncover and publish the truth about this mystery of the past 20th century. I think the statesmen, politicians and diplomats of several countries owe this much to the people of Russia in the first place, and then to the European and world community. This is necessary because after the American film “Anastasia” (1956), in the late 1990s 20th Century Fox released a cartoon fairytale “Princess Anastasia”, which impresses on the children worldwide untruths about the fate of a historical personality. And this is a crime against history!

Absurd hypothesis or version close to the truth?

It first appeared on the pages of the Kazanlak newspaper Weekly News (Sedmichni Novini No 1 of March 22, 1993) under the title “Are the Two Graves in Gabarevo Royal?” Its author, the writer Dr. Dimiter Nyagolov, neurologist in the Kazanlak Hospital, is son of the Gabarevo priest Hristo Nyagolov. The publication was provoked by an article printed in Trud newspaper (No 8 of January 11, 1993) that in 1991 from a common grave near Ekaterinburg skeletons were dug out which, according to information from the French journal Express, by comparative genetic examinations were identified as the remains of Emperor Nikolay II, his wife and three of his daughters, shot on July 17, 1918. The remains of two of the tsar’s children were not found – Alexey (born in 1907) and Anastasia (b. 1901).

This news stirred up excited comments in the home of the old priest. His daughter Maria reminded her brother Dimiter of mysterious conversations they heard in their childhood. “Write to some newspaper what we know!” Maria insisted. After much hesitation and apprehension least he would become a laughing-stock, Dr. Nyagolov made come checkups in the municipal and church archives to back up his version and finally decided to make public the secret kept by his family for over 40 years. The two graves he writes about in his article are those of Eleonora Albertova Kruger (Nora), who died on July 20, 1954, and of Georgi (Georges) Zhudin, who died in December 1930. As according to the inhabitants of Gabarevo he was Nora’s brother, it is logical to suppose that the missing Prince Alexey was hiding under this name. Metropolitan Prof. Yordan Yordanov, comparing the pictures of the 13-year-old Alexey and the 18-year-old Georges, affirms they are one and the same person! (Duma, March 16, 2004)