When Nicholas II was a little boy, the Romanov dynasty had been ruling since the year 1613. That had been a pretty long time and Nicholas was supposed to continue the tradition. His father, Alexander III was a strong ruler. He persecuted Jews and lower - class people. When Alexander III died in 1894, Nicholas II was not ready to rule and continued the ways of his father. A week after his father’s funeral, he married Princess Alix of Hesse, who was a German princess. Her new name was Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna. The new wedding couple continued to rule and live in Russia.
After a couple of years Alexandra gave birth to their first child, a baby girl. Three more girls followed her. The girls were Olga, Tatiana, Marie, and Anastasia. On Alexandra’s fifth pregnancy, the whole of Russia was praying for a boy. This was because only a male could rule. Their prayers were answered. They had a baby boy named Alexei. The heir, unfortunately, was a hemophiliac. He inherited this genetic disease from his mother. Hemophilia is when the blood does not clot properly and the slightest bruise can be extremely harmful. They family and the staff kept this a secret from the public because Nicholas and Alexandra did not wasn't them knowing that the heir was a sickly boy. The children’s lives were very unlike the average children of the day. Each of them had a nanny and all of them had private tutors. Alexandra made sure that all of her children were brought up properly. They all studied French, German, English, and Russian. During their spare time, the children would work on crafts and write letters. They always wrote letters to their father, mother, and close family friends. Most of the children’s lives were spent inside the palace gates or under close guard; so they didn’t have much interaction with outsiders.
In around 1917 the Russian Revolution broke out. Immediately, Nicholas took control of the army. Most of the time he was away from his family running the army. During this time, Alexandra took control of Russia. In other words, she was the tsar’s replacement while he was gone. Also, she and her two oldest daughters volunteered to be medical nurses. They went to medical training and started working in the hospital. Anastasia and Marie would also help in the hospital by talking and playing games with the wounded. While they were doing this the Revolution went on and Nicholas continued to lead the army. As time went on, Nicholas II was no longer the tsar. He was forced to give up his power to the Duma. It was a new government. The Romanov dynasty had ended after hundreds of years
On one day, the family was put under house arrest by the Bolsheviks, the forces against the former tsar. They were held captive in their own home, but they lived a similar lifestyle, but under guard. The children were allowed outside and were even allowed to plant a vegetable garden. After a while, the family was moved to many houses in Siberia. During this time, they were treated very badly. Guards fed them tea, black bread, and heated-up leftovers. They even took out all of the doors, even to the bathroom. The walls were covered with insulting and rude graffiti that made fun of the tsar and his family. Their last home, the Impaietiv house in Yekaterinburg, was where the family, doctor, and servants lived for the last months of their lives. On the night of June 17, 1918 the family was awakened by their Bolshevik guards. Everyone hurriedly dressed and reported to the cellar. An announcement was made that the tsar Nicholas and his family were to be executed. Immediately the room erupted in gunfire and the family was killed. They were buried in a nearby forest in a mas-grave. That was the last and one saw of them until their remains were discovered in 1991.