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Thank you. It's the early hours of the morning of July 17, 1918.

In a remote forest in Russia, a group of 30 revolutionaries wait around in the dark,

smoking cigarettes and taking turns swigging from a bottle of vodka.

Occasionally, they cast anxious, expectant glances toward the forest road that leads to the nearby town of Yucaterinburg.

One of the revolutionaries, a young man with a dark beard and flat cap, steps away from the group and lights up another cigarette. As he exhales a long ribbon

of smoke, he reflects on the state of Russia today, a nation plagued by war, factionalism,

and ideological discord. But the man's thoughts are interrupted when the faint rumble of an

approaching vehicle cuts through the still night air. Young man flicks away the cigarette, squints into the darkness.

A pair of headlights looms through the trees as a truck comes trundling along the road.

After the vehicle rolls to a stop, a group of fellow revolutionaries clamber down.

They greet their comrades, then gesture toward the truck bed with the point of their bayonets.

Whatever's in there is covered by a large sheet of woven burlap, but it appears like a mess of misshapen logs.

At the senior officer's instruction, two men step forward and pull aside the burlap covering.

Immediately, a foul stench reaches the young man's nostrils, making

him recoil in disgust. Piled in the truck bed is what looks like an assortment of bloody animal

carcasses. But as the young man peers closer, he realizes they are not slaughtered animals, but human

bodies. Specifically, the mutilated corpses of the entire Russian

imperial family. The young man and his comrades are Bolsheviks, members of a revolutionary

...