The events, which took place on the night of June, 17 1918, when the tsar`s family were executed in the house of the military engineer Ipatiev in Yekaterinburg, changed the history of Russia. The epoch of the monarchic Russia ended and the epoch of the Soviet Russia began. On the site of Ipatiev house in Yekaterinburg, a Church-on-Blood was built.
So it was set to happen that in 1613 the first tsar Mikhail Romanov came to the throne at the Ipatiev Monastery near Kostroma, and the last tsar Nicholas II Romanov was executed by the Bolsheviks 300 years later at the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg. It is for this reason that the city became the place of pilgrimage for tourists from all over the world who are interested in the history of the Russian tsar dynasty.
Ipatiev House was a two-story house commissioned by an official Ivan Redikortsev. In 1907 the house was acquired by a military engineer Nikolai Ipatiev. After the October Revolution the house was confiscated by the Bolsheviks, and the Romanov family were moved in there from Tobolsk.
In the night from 16 to 17 of July all family were executed and thrown into an abandoned pit of the nearby mine, unofficially called Ganya Pit, 20 kilometers to the north from Yekaterinburg. Later the Monastery of Holy Royal Martyrs was built there. These tragic events has forever related Yekaterinburg to the history of the Romanov dynasty.
In 1977 the Ipatiev House was demolished as it was steadily becoming a place of pilgrimage for those who wished to honour the memory of the last Russian emperor. However, at the beginning of the 2000th it was decided to build the Church on Blood on the site of the Ipatiev House where the Romanov Imperial family were killed. It would be the third church on spilled blood. The first such church was built in Uglich on the spot where the prince Dmitry was killed and the second one – in St. Petersburg, on the site where Emperor Alexander II was assassinated.
Yekaterinburg`s Church on Blood (or Church on Blood in Honour of All Saints Resplendent in the Russian Land) was consecrated in 2003. It has two churches - upper and lower ones. The upper church is very big. It has a lot of windows and is very light.
On the contrary, the lower church has low vaults and no windows. It is always semi-darkness in there. The layout of the lower church resembles that of the Ipatiev House. There was also reconstructed the basement room where the last Emperor and his family were executed.
