Michael son, Tsar Alexei, succeeded his father. Alexei was a peaceful tsar, called "Alexei the Mild," "Alexei the Peaceful." But he was very authoritative. Many revolts by the rogue Cossacks occurred during his reign. They later began to be the official guards.

After his death, Alexei was succeeded by his son Fedor III who was, upon his death, succeeded by his brothers, Ivan V and Peter I. Sophia, the daughter of Tsar Alexei, acted as regent for her brothers when they co-ruled. She tried to claim the throne herself, but was outmaneuvered by Peter. Peter became tsar.

Peter was later known as Peter the Great. He traveled through Europe to see what the modern world was like. Upon his return, he saw that Russia was out dated. So he Westernized Russia. As I mentioned before, he built St. Petersburg, his "window to Europe." He reformed the Russian church and so forth. Thinking his son Alexei was plotting against him, he had his son killed!

Peter died and his wife, Catherine I, became ruler. She built the tsarist town of Tsarskoe Selo. After her, came Peter the Great's grandson, Peter II. Then came Anna, the niece of Peter the Great. Empress Elizabeth took the throne after Anna. Elizabeth was Peter the Great's daughter.

Elizabeth had the reforms of her father made permanent. She arranged the marriage of her nephew, Peter III, and a German princess, later to be known as Catherine the Great. Peter III was only tsar for six months before he was killed. His wife became Empress.

Catherine II or Catherine the Great, completed Peter the Great's job of modernizing Russia. She expanded Russia all the way to the Black Sea, which had been a dream of Russian rulers for centuries. She came to rule during the Enlightenment, a time of intellectual progress, which means the people started setting up better schools and started to think more. She also established the Russian culture and made it firm.

When Catherine II died in 1796, her son, Paul I, became Tsar. He didn't like his mother, so he changed the law of succession to where only men could rule Russia. He was assassinated in 1801.

Alexander I became Tsar after his father was killed. He wasn't too great of a ruler, but when Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Russia, Alexander defeated him, although the mud and snow had already played a part in giving Napoleon's French army the boot. He died and his brother, Nicholas I, became emperor.

Nicholas I was raised in a military kind of way, so that's how his reign looked: military. He thought that he was only responsible to God, that he had total control over everything. His belief was told in this way: "Orthodoxy, autocracy and nationality." He stopped the Russian Poland rebellions and died during the Crimean War, which was a big embarrassment to Russia because they lost.

Alexander II became emperor during the Crimean War. He helped create many reforms for Russia. He freed the enslaved people, called serfs, who worked land for nobles. It made the people happy to be free. He was killed by revolutionaries and his son, Alexander III, became tsar.

Alexander III ended up undoing the reforms his father had made. He was a gigantic, imposing, hot-tempered titan, built like the bears of Russian legend. He had enormous strength and spartan habits. He tried to be Russian to the smallest detail. He and his wife, Marie Fedorovna, had five children, the eldest of which was Nicholas, the father of Anastasia. Alexander III didn't coddle his children. He made them sleep on hard army cots without pillows! They also had to take cold baths. He tried to toughen Nicholas up, but it didn't take root.

During a train accident, Alexander III got really bad internal injuries, which caused his death after ruling for 13 years. At 26, Nicholas became Russia's last tsar.

Nicholas became Tsar of all the Russias in 1894. He knew nothing about running the government. Everyone thought Alexander would rule for many more years, so he didn't prepare Nicholas for the job, which was a bad situation. Nicholas married a German princess, Alix, who took the Russian name Alexandra, right after the death of his father and they had five children: Olga, Tatiana, Marie, Anastasia and the heir, Alexei.

Nicholas and his family lived in the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoe Selo. Anastasia and her siblings played in the Imperial Park and had lots of fun. They went on trips during the year. Like to their palace in the Crimea on the Black Sea, and they spent two weeks each summer on their yacht. In 1904, Russia went to war with Japan, whom they had never liked. Then, their was a revolution in 1905, which ended with Nicholas giving the people what they had wanted: an elected Duma, a constitutional monarchy. It didn't go to well though.

You may be asking: Where does Rasputin come in? Well, he met the empress and tsar in 1905. Over time, the empress believed Rasputin could heal her son of his bleeding decease. You see, Alexei was born with hemophilia, a decease that caused him to bleed if he hit any part of his body. Many times, he was in danger of bleeding to death! But Rasputin somehow stopped the bleeding and Alexandra had a lot of faith in him.

In 1913, Russia celebrated the 300th anniversary of Imperial Russia, not 1916 like the movie says. But they had no balls, the last one was actually in 1903, right before the war with Japan.  Then, in 1914, Austria declared war on Serbia. Russia was Serbia's "big brother" if you will, so they went to war to protect it. Then, after they went to war, Germany declared war on Russia! Thus began World War 1.

The war went bad. Millions of men died and Russia became upset with Nicholas II. In fact, so much, it cause the revolution! One cause was the food shortage in St. Petersburg. Another was because Nicholas had gone to oversee the war, so Alexandra was ruling the empire while he was gone. She ran it very bad. One reason was because she was under the influence of Rasputin! He gave her bad advice that upset the government. He was killed in 1916.

In 1917, the revolutionary group known as the Bolsheviks came to power in the elected government Nicholas had set up in 1905. Soon, in March 1917, riots broke out in St. Petersburg, the workers' group known as the Soviets came into power and took control of the government. They were allied with the Bolsheviks. The revolution was playing out. Soon, Nicholas was forced to give up the throne for himself and his 13-year-old son. The crown was given to Nicholas's brother, Michael, but he gave it up. The government was now given to the Duma, now called the Provincial Government. But things didn't go well. Within the same year of the revolution, the Provincial Government collapsed, giving Russia over to Vladimir Lenin and his Bolshevik forces.

The Romanovs were held in captivity at the Alexander Palace until August 1917. They left there because their safety was being questioned. They were taken by train to Siberia. They would never return.

Anastasia, her siblings, her parents and many loyal servants were taken to a small Siberian town. They stayed their until May of 1918. They left there for another town, Ekaterineburg. They lived there until July.

it was then, on the night of July 16-17, 1918, that Nicholas II, his wife, and their five children, and four servants were cruelly murdered by revolutionaries. After all were shot, they were wrapped up and taken into the woods and buried in a shallow grave. They stayed there until 1992.

17 Romanovs were murdered that year, while 35 escaped over the next two years, one of whom was the Dowager Empress Marie, the grandmother of Anastasia.

So that is how the Romanov dynasty ended : In a torrent of bullets. Many Romanovs still live today, although they are only princes and princesses, mere decedents of the House of Romanov. I hope I could gave you a good understanding on the Romanovs, the family of Anastasia.