Haemophilia, or hemophilia, is a mostly inherited genetic disorder that impairs the body's ability to make blood clots, a process needed to stop bleeding. This results in people bleeding for a longer time after an injury, easy bruising, and an increased risk of bleeding inside joints or the brain. Those with a mild case of the disease may have symptoms only after an accident or during surgery. Bleeding into a joint can result in permanent damage while bleeding in the brain can result in long term headaches, seizures, or an altered level of consciousness.
Alexandra Feodorovna, Princess Alix of Hesse and by Rhine at birth, was the last Empress of Russia as the consort of Emperor Nicholas II from their marriage on 26 November [O.S. 14 November] 1894 until his forced abdication on 15 March [O.S. 2 March] 1917. A favourite granddaughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, she was, like her grandmother, one of the most famous royal carriers of hemophilia and bore a hemophiliac heir, Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia. Her reputation for encouraging her husband's resistance to the surrender of autocratic authority and her known faith in the Russian mystic Grigori Rasputin severely damaged her popularity and that of the Romanov monarchy in its final years. She and her immediate family were all murdered while in Bolshevik captivity in 1918, during the Russian Revolution. In 2000, the Russian Orthodox Church canonized her as Saint Alexandra the Passion Bearer.
Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna of Russia was the second daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, the last monarch of Russia, and of Tsarina Alexandra. She was born at Peterhof Palace, near Saint Petersburg.
Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia was the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, the last sovereign of Imperial Russia, and his wife, Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna.
Alexei Nikolaevich was the last Tsesarevich. He was the youngest child and only son of Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. He was born with haemophilia, which his parents tried treating with the methods of peasant faith healer Grigori Rasputin.
Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia was the third daughter of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna. Her murder following the Russian Revolution of 1917 resulted in her canonization as a passion bearer by the Russian Orthodox Church.
Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny is a 1996 biographical historical drama television film which chronicles the last four years (1912–16) of Grigori Rasputin's stint as a healer to Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia; the heir apparent to the Russian throne as well as the only son of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna; who suffered from hemophilia. The film is narrated in the first person by Alexei.
Haemophilia figured prominently in the history of European royalty in the 19th and 20th centuries. Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, of the United Kingdom, through two of their five daughters – Princess Alice and Princess Beatrice – passed the mutation to various royal houses across the continent, including the royal families of Spain, Germany, and Russia. Victoria's youngest son, Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, also had the disease, though none of her three elder sons did. Tests on the remains of the Romanov imperial family show that the specific form of haemophilia passed down by Queen Victoria was probably the relatively rare haemophilia B. The presence of haemophilia B within the European royal families was well-known, with the condition once popularly known as "the royal disease".
Alexander Nikolayevich Avdonin is a Russian who was the first known person, in 1979, to begin exhuming the grave of the seven murdered Romanovs and four members of their household. He was born in Sverdlovsk in the Soviet Union, where the Romanovs were murdered in 1918.
Eleonora Albertova Krüger (Nora) was a Russian woman who lived in the village of Gabarevo, Bulgaria. According to Blagoy Emanuilov, retired Bulgarian senior magistrate, speculated that she was Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia.
Members of the ruling Russian imperial family, the House of Romanov, were executed by a firing squad led by Yakov Yurovsky in Yekaterinburg, Russia, on July 17, 1918, during both the Russian Civil War and near the end of the First World War.
Michał Franciszek Goleniewski, a.k.a. 'SNIPER', 'LAVINIA', was an officer in the Polish People's Republic's Ministry of Public Security, deputy head of military counterintelligence GZI WP, later head of the Polish Intelligence technical and scientific section, and in the 1950s a spy for the Soviet government.
Anatoly Ionov is a Russian man who claims to be the son of Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia.
The Tsarevich egg, also known as the Czarevich egg, is a Fabergé egg, one of a series of jewelled eggs made under the supervision of Peter Carl Fabergé. It was created in 1912 for Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna as a tribute by Fabergé to her son the Tsarevich Alexei (Alexei). The egg is currently in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, Virginia, US.
The Romanovs: An Imperial Family is a 2000 Russian historical drama film about the last days of Tsar Nicholas II and his family. The Russian title implies both the Imperial Crown of Russia and the crown of thorns associated with martyrs. The film premiered at the 22nd annual Moscow Film Festival. The film was selected as the Russian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 76th Academy Awards, but it didn't make the final shortlist.
The Assassin of the Tsar is a 1991 Soviet historical drama film, starring Malcolm McDowell and Oleg Yankovsky. It was entered into the 1991 Cannes Film Festival. There are two versions. One is filmed in English which later was dubbed over the Russian actors, and one in Russian. Malcolm McDowell pretended to speak Russian in the other version and was later dubbed.
AfrosinyaFedorova was a Finnish woman sold into Russian serfdom after being captured in war. She became the concubine of Alexei Petrovich, Tsarevich of Russia, son and heir of Peter the Great and fled with him on 26 September 1716 from his father. Information provided by her was crucial in sentencing Alexei to death after their return to Russia.
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.
Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna of Russia was the eldest child of the last Russian emperor, Nicholas II, and of his wife Alexandra.
Joy was an English Cocker Spaniel owned by Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia. Alexei Nikolaevich, born in 1904, was the youngest child and only son of Emperor Nicholas II. Joy, whose origins are unclear, appeared at the palace in 1914 and became closely bonded with Alexei, accompanying him on various trips and providing comfort during his struggles with hemophilia. Joy's quiet nature likely contributed to his survival following the murder of the Romanov family in 1918. After the family's execution, Joy was discovered by the White Army in Yekaterinburg. He was later taken care of by Colonel Pavel Rodzianko, with whom he moved to England after the defeat of the White Army. Joy lived out his final years in Windsor at Rodzianko's estate and died in the mid-1920s.
