Golden Dragon Productions

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FIREBIRD

In July 1998 the remains of the last Tsar, Nicholas II, and his family were finally laid to rest in the St. Peter and St. Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg, eighty years after their murder by Bolshevik guards. Yet were the bones they interred really those of the Imperial Family? 

 

Not only did the Russian Orthodox Church refuse to officiate at the ceremony but a DNA analysis by Stanford University in the United States in 2004 has questioned the previous DNA tests carried out in the 1990’s.  Far from bringing closure to an event that has haunted the Russian psyche for decades, the latest evidence threatens to destroy the accepted story of the massacre.

 

In January 2010 the Russian authorities, compelled by surviving members of the Romanov family and public demand for answers, reopened the criminal investigation into the deaths.    


2018 will mark the centenary of the mystery surrounding the events at Ekaterinburg. Will Russia finally be able to exorcise her ghosts and heal the rift between the Russian Orthodox Church and the ROC in exile? ‘Firebird’ - a gripping, suspenseful docudrama in 6 parts currently in preparation - investigates the mystery surrounding the last days of Imperial Russia and presents new scientific evidence that challenges accepted history.

  1. What really happened in Ekaterinburg in July 1918?
  2. Do the scientific facts overturn Yurovsky’s official account of the executions?
  3. Why has analysis of the Siberian “bones” been surrounded by political double-dealing, scientific sleight of hand and lies?
  4. What secret is the Russian Orthodox Church hiding?  Why do they refuse to accept the ‘bones’ as genuine?
  5. Does sensitive information concerning the Romanovs exist in British Intelligence files?

Read on for a glimpse of how the background for Part 1 starts:
Tikhvin Station, 200 miles east of St. Petersburg, present day, winter.

"Journalist Valentin Chernenko, 50’s, writes in his notebook as he waits for the train to St. Petersburg.  He is returning from the funeral of a childhood friend, the first time he has been back to his birthplace in over twenty years.  Occasionally he looks out at the huge flakes of snow swirling in eddies outside the cold waiting-room, the pristine whiteness contrasting with the grimy windowpanes.

 

He hears the shrill toot of a whistle and checks his watch.  It’s 3.45pm.  Surprised, he jumps up, notebook in hand, and walks out onto the platform, pulling his coat tightly around him to keep out the icy wind.  In the distance the ghostly outline of an old-fashioned steam locomotive appears, puffing heavily in the driving snow. He watches as it pulls into the station, momentarily obliterating everything around him with jets of smoke and steam as it passes and the train slows to a stop.


 Through the clearing mist he sees two young women disembark from a coach up ahead, both richly dressed in what looked like 'Edwardian' clothes - ankle-length skirts, close-fitting jackets, luxurious fur stoles and feathered hats and pearls. Amused, he stands and watches.

Up front the locomotive takes on water. As if in a dream, Valentin sees the women walk down the platform and stop directly in front of him. He is overwhelmed by their delicate beauty and the unmistakable scent of roses. They smile, hold out their hands, the taller gently taking hold of his book.  From her purse she removes a gold pen, writes with it and hands it back. The whistle blows, the guard waves his flag and the girls hurry to get back on board.  With a great eruption of smoke and steam the engine lurches, then begins to ease forward picking up speed as the coaches roll by.  Valentin notices a crest - the Imperial crest! - emblazoned on the sides of the cars as they pass. Puzzled, he sees the two women smiling and waving at him from their carriage window as it glides silently past. Their eyes meet and then they are gone. Valentin is left standing, notebook in hand, bewildered and confused on the freezing platform. 

 

The stationmaster walks out of his office announcing the imminent arrival of the express to St. Petersburg.  Valentin hurries over and asks about the train that had just left, but the man denied having seen any such thing and tersely informed Valentin that his train - the real train - will be here in just a few minutes. Incapable of taking in what had happened, it is only when Valentin is seated in his first class compartment that he remembers the taller girl writing in his book.  Opening it, he reads the neat copperplate, ‘Love is light, and it has no end ……’  But this cannot be, he muses; yet, much as he wants to dismiss the ‘ghost train’ as a trick of his imagination, he is completely unable to explain the writing.


He tries recalling schoolboy History. There had been talk that one daughter, maybe a second, had escaped, but had apparently been badly injured and only eventually had managed to reach England.  Could any of that possibly be true?  He knew only two facts surrounding the so-called massacre could be proven with any certainty - first, that none of the victims’ bodies had ever been found, and second, that not one of the family had been 'officially' seen or recognised alive again even though there had been numerous sightings of the Tsarina and three of her children right up until January 1919......."