Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, October 21, 1993                   TAG: 9310210019
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-14   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MOSCOW                                LENGTH: Medium

PROPER BURIAL PLANNED FOR CZAR, FAMILY

Sergei Filatov, President Boris Yeltsin's chief of staff, made the announcement Wednesday, one day after Moscow officials urged the government to remove the bodies of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin and other Communist leaders from Red Square.

The proposed burials are part of Russia's efforts to come to grips with its past - efforts that have gained new impetus following Yeltsin's bloody crackdown on pro-Communist and nationalist opponents this month.

"We have to rebury the remnants of the czar's family," Filatov said at a news conference Wednesday. "Today it is becoming a painful question."

The burial likely would take place within the next few months, he said.

Nicholas abdicated in March 1917, ending three centuries of Romanov rule. He, his family and their servants were shot to death in Yekaterinburg overnight on July 16-17, 1918, apparently on Lenin's orders.

The whereabouts of the bodies remained a mystery until July 1991, when skeletons of five females and four males were excavated from a pit near the city.

British geneticists said last year that the bones were almost certainly those of the czar, his wife and three of their five children. The other skeletons were identified as those of three servants and a doctor.

Remains of the youngest daughter, Anastasia, and the heir, Alexei, have never been found. Stories have persisted that Anastasia survived and escaped abroad.

Filatov gave no indication where the bones would be buried. Russian czars since the time of Peter the Great are buried in St. Petersburg.

As for Lenin, whose mummy is displayed in a mausoleum, Filatov said the government should "proceed in a consistent manner" and decide what to do with Lenin after the czar's family is brought to rest.

Moscow's mayor, Yuri Luzhkov, urged the government Tuesday to bury Lenin and also remove the remains of Josef Stalin and other Communist leaders buried along and inside the Kremlin wall.

"There are several proposals by the Moscow mayor's office and the Moscow Patriarchate to restore the Red Square to its historic image," Filatov said. "These questions are being worked upon."

Lenin died in 1924. His squat granite and marble mausoleum was untouched after the failed 1991 Soviet coup. But on Oct. 6, a few days after Yeltsin crushed the hard-line opposition, the ceremonial guards outside the tomb were withdrawn.