Ganina Yama was a 6 ft (2 m) deep pit in the Four Brothers mine near the village of Koptyaki, 15 km north from Yekaterinburg. In the pre-dawn hours of 17 July 1918, after the execution of the Romanov family, the bodies of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his family were secretly transported to Ganina Yama and thrown into the pit.
Nicholas II with his family. (left to right) Olga, Maria, Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, Anastasia, Alexei and Tatiana.
Image: Ganina Jama 1
Image: Ганина яма 1
Image: Ганина яма 2 шахта
Murder of the Romanov family
The Russian Imperial Romanov family were shot and bayoneted to death by Bolshevik revolutionaries under Yakov Yurovsky on the orders of the Ural Regional Soviet in Yekaterinburg on the night of 16–17 July 1918. Also murdered that night were members of the imperial entourage who had accompanied them: court physician Eugene Botkin; lady-in-waiting Anna Demidova; footman Alexei Trupp; and head cook Ivan Kharitonov. The bodies were taken to the Koptyaki forest, where they were stripped, mutilated with grenades to prevent identification, and buried.
The basement where the Romanov family was killed. The wall had been torn apart in search of bullets and other evidence by investigators in 1919. The double doors leading to a storeroom were locked during the murders.
Nicholas II, Tatiana and Anastasia Hendrikova working on a kitchen garden at Alexander Palace in May 1917. The family was allowed no such indulgences at the Ipatiev House.
Ipatiev House, with the palisade erected just before Nicholas, Alexandra and Maria arrived on 30 April 1918. On the top left of the house is an attic dormer window where a Maxim gun was positioned. Directly below it was the tsar and tsarina's bedroom.
The Church of All Saints in 2016 (top left), where the Ipatiev House used to be. Voznesensky Cathedral is in the foreground, where a machine gun was mounted in the belfry aimed at the tsar and tsaritsa's bedroom on the southeastern corner of the house.
