Vasily Filatov

Who was Vasily Filatov?

In 1988, in a district center outside Astrakhan, a village geography teacher by the name of Vasily Ksenofontovich Filatov died. Shortly before his death, he began telling his wife and children--a son and three daughters--the fantastic story of his life. From his stories they learned that Vasily Filatov was not his real name, that in reality he was Alexei Romanov, son of Nicholas Romanov, the last Russian tsar, and that he had been rescued by soldiers when the rest of his family was executed in 1918. At the time Vasily told his story, the remains of the tsar's family had not yet been discovered on the old Koptyaki Road on the outskirts of Ekaterinburg. The fact of the tragedy had not become a hot topic among historians and had not yet attracted worldwide attention. When all that did happen, the astonished members of his family were convinced that many of the stories told by Vasily Filatov, down to trivial details, coincided with facts that had just become known. The eightieth anniversary of the execution served as impetus for identifying the Ekaterinburg remains and for new research utilizing modern methods.