Local MPs want Tsar’s family back in Russia, suggest Crimean palace as residence

A regional lawmaker has addressed the heirs of the Romanov imperial house with a request to return to Russia promising them a special legal status and one of historic palaces in Crimea or St. Petersburg.
Vladimir Petrov of the legislative assembly of the Leningrad Region wrote letters to Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna and Prince Dimitri Romanovich asking them to become symbols of national culture and maintaining traditions, like in many European nations that retained their monarchies to this day.
“For the whole length of its reign the Romanov imperial dynasty remained a foundation of the Russian statehood. At present Russia is undergoing a complicated process of regaining its glory and worldwide influence. I am sure that in this historical moment the Romanovs would not stay away from all processes that are taking place in Russia,” Petrov writes in his letter.

The politician suggested that this move would help to smooth political controversies within Russia and help to restore the “spiritual power” of the nation.

Petrov added that he and his colleagues from the Leningrad regional legislature would very soon develop and draft a bill “On the special status of representatives of the Tsars’ family” that would give some guarantees to the returning Romanovs. He also said that the royals could use one of the palaces that belonged to them before the revolution and that now remain vacant or are misused.

“To this day a lot of wonderful Tsar’s palaces near St. Petersburg are either empty or used not according to their destination. I think if one of these palaces is used as an official residence of the Romanov family it would only be for everyone’s benefit,” the lawmaker said in comments to Izvestia daily. He noted that another option was to settle the royals in the Livadia Palaces in Crimea.

The head of the Chancellery of the Russian Imperial House, Aleksandr Zakatov, told Izvestia that some representatives of the dynasty were ready to move to Russia. However, he noted that Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna held a high post of the head of the imperial house and therefore her return should be decent and solemn.

“She has no claims for property or political privileges and powers, she only wants the imperial house to become a historical institution and part of the national legacy, similar to royal houses of many other countries. And this recognition must be manifested in a legal act,” Zakatov said.
Currently there are two major competing branches of the Romanov dynasty – one is headed by Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna and the other by Prince Nikolai Romanovich. Their representatives often visit Russia and take part in various events, but so far none of them have made any political claims.
An opinion poll conducted in 2013 in connection with the 400th anniversary of the Romanov royal house showed that 28 percent of Russian citizens would agree to the rule of Tsars, but only 6 percent said that this modern monarch must be from the Romanov dynasty. About 13 percent hold that a contemporary Russian politician could become a new Tsar and suggested a nationwide referendum to decide on the candidate.
The majority of the people - 67 percent - said that Russia should leave monarchy in the past and remain a democracy.

Source: Russia Today

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Visita de l'Emperadriu Maria a Rússia

La Gran Duquessa va visitar el seu país el mes de juny. A Sant Petersburg va participar en una recepció organitzada per l'Associació de la Noblesa Tàrtara i al Mausoleu Gran Ducal de Sant Petersburg, a la Catedral de Pere i Pau la Cap de la Casa Imperial de Rússia, va dur a terme una cerimònia en memòria de la vídua de la Gran Duquessa Leonida Georgievna en el cinquè aniversari de la seva mort. Del 9 al 13 de juny va visitar la regió de Novgorod. Posteriorment va ser rebuda amb honors militars a Konigsberg i va visitar la flota russa al Bàltic.

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A Memorial Service in the US Capital for the Cossacks Repatriated to the USSR

One of the most tragic pages in the history of the Russian diaspora was marked by a solemn panikhida held on Monday, June 1, 2015, at St John the Baptist Cathedral in Washington, DC. The tens of thousands of Cossacks who were repatriated by the Western powers to the USSR in 1945 were honored.

“Many parishes in the emigration since World War II have marked the anniversary of the betrayal by the Allie of tens of thousands of Russian Cossacks who were repatriated to the USSR. They naively believed that in collaborating with Hitler, they could emancipate Russia from the Communist yoke,” said Protopriest Victor Potapov to RIA Novosti. " He noted that “within the framework of the agreement signed at the Yalta Conference, Stalin demanded that all Soviet citizens found in the West be returned to the USSR. I grew up in the emigration, and I know from our older generation that the Allies felt obliged to execute their agreement with Stalin,” he said.

“The battalions of Russian Cossacks handed over their arms in the Austrian city of Lienz. They believed the Allied forces’ assurances and never dreamed that they would be betrayed, handed over to certain death,” said Fr Victor. “At the end of May and beginning of June, 1945, British officers gathered the Cossack atamans [leaders] and told them that they would be sent to a conference, then returned to their families. In reality, there was no such conference. When the Cossacks learned the truth, they asked their clergymen to celebrate Liturgy. But the British lost their patience and did not allow the service to continue. Many Cossacks then committed suicide, mothers threw their children into the river, hoping they would somehow be saved.”

Fr Victor said that the grandmother of his daughter-in-law endured the Lienz tragedy. “She was miraculously able to save her child by throwing him in the river. She, too, was also able to survive, and later the family was reunited,” he said.

The priest noted that “Many of the Cossacks betrayed at Lienz were not even Soviet citizens, and so were not in principle subject to deportation to the Soviet Union.” Many were executed upon their return, or enslaved in Stalin’s concentration camps.

“This is a tragic page in history which we cannot forget,” noted Fr Victor.

The cathedral’s clergyman noted that “On May 8, the eve of the Day of Victory, we also performed a memorial service to commemorate all those who gave their lives in the struggle against Hitler.”

After the pannikhida for the Cossacks, a film by renowned director Alexei Denisov on the tragedy in the Alps was shown in the parish hall. During the discussion that followed, many parishioners shared the history of their own families relating to the fate of the Cossacks in World War II.

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