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Romanov dynasty descendants to gather in Russia for centenary of Nicholas II’s death

Great-grandson of Emperor Alexander III said one of the issues the Romanovs were considering at present was a possible visit to Yekaterinburg

St PETERSBURG, July 18. /TASS/. Descendants of the Romanov dynasty currently living in different countries of the world may hold a major meeting in Russia in 2018 on the centenary anniversary since the tragic death of Czar Nicholas II and his family, Paul Edward Kulikovsky, the great-grandson of Emperor Alexander III told TASS on Monday.

He is a successor to Olga Alexandrovna Kulikovskaya-Romanova (b. 1882, d. 1960), Alexander III’s daughter.

Kulikovsky said one of the issues the Romanovs were considering at present was a possible visit to Yekaterinburg, a city in the Urals where the last Russian Czar’s family was executed on the night from July 16 to July 17, 1917. The members of the Imperial Family could gather there on the ‘Czar’s days’ in 2018.

Also, they might have a pilgrimage to the places linked to the tragic chapter in the history of the Imperial Family.

Kulikovsky said he did not rule out a possible general meeting of the dynasty members in Moscow or in St Petersburg. He added that it would be nice if the reconstruction of the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoye Selo near St Petersburg was over by that time and the descendants of the Imperial Family could either take part in its opening or simply visit it.

The Alexander Palace was Nicholas II’s most favorite residence and he lived there for many years even after accession to the throne, as well as after his abdication in February 1917 and through to the tragic interning in the West-Siberian city in Tobolsk on August 1 of the same year.

The Czar’s days have turned into an annual event in Yekaterinburg. They are held in July to mark a yet another anniversary since the extermination of the family and closest assistants in the basement floor of in the former house of mining engineer Nikolai Ipatyev.

During the Czar’s days, the Yekaterinburg diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church holds a range of cultural, musical and sports events, as well as special services devoted to the ‘new regal martyrs’ - the status in which the Church canonized Nicholas II, Czarina Alexandra, Crown Prince Alexis, and Grand Princess Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia in 2000.

On Monday, Paul Edward Kulikovsky attended a commemorative service in the St Peter and Paul’s Cathedral in St Petersburg marking the anniversary since Nicholas II’s death. Accompanying him was Prince Mikhail Romanov-Ilyinsky, a successor to Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich and a member of the Romanov Family Association.

Kulikovsky and Romanov-Ilyansky also visited Tsarskoye Selo and the Winter Palace, formerly the official residence of the Russian Emperors and now part of the world-famous St Hermitage Museum.

"Tsarskoye Selo is a special place for me, a place where I prosed to my wife," Kulikovsky said. "And the Hermitage Museum is a family place where we go to pay respect to our ancestors."

Overnight to Monday, July 17, a special service was held in the Fyodorovsky Cathedral in St Petersburg, consecrated in the name of the icon of the Virgin Mary of St Theodore. The cathedral was built to mark the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty.

Xenia Romanova, the mother of the first Romanov Czar Mikhail Fyodorovich blessed him for reigning with the icon of the Virgin Mary of St Theodore in 1613.

Czar Nicholas and his family kept a copy of that icon with them until their very death in the early hours of July 17, 1918.