100,000 Russians mark 100 yrs since murder of last tsar
Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill on Tuesday led some 100,000 people in a nightime procession marking 100 years since the Bolsheviks shot dead tsar Nicholas II and his family after he abdicated, authorities said on Tuesday.
The powerful church leader led the procession that began in the early hours of Tuesday from the murder site to a monastery commemorating the victims outside the city of Yekaterinburg just east of the Ural mountains.
Another 20,000 people joined the commemorations when the procession arrived at the monastery in Ganina Yama after covering the distance of 21km. The monastery was built to honor the site where the burnt bodies of the last Russian tsar and his family were thrown after their execution in the aftermath of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolu-tion, regional authorities said.
The Bolsheviks shot the abdicated tsar, his German-born wife and their five children along with their servants and doctor on the night from July 16 to 17, 1918 as they were living under guard in the Urals city of Sverdlovsk, now Yekaterinburg.
Addressing the pilgrims, Patriarch Kirill said Russia should draw lessons "from this difficult and bitter experience." "We truly should have lasting immunity against any ideas and any leaders who call on us to embrace some new, unknown happy future through the destruction of our life, our traditions and our faith," he said in a thinly veiled dig at the opposition to President Vladimir Putin. The state planned no official commemorations.
