Ready to lose yourself into the wild world of true crime and famous worldwide mysteries? Buckle up because my series is your free ticket to a rollercoaster ride through the darkest corners of human history and the most baffling unsolved puzzles. Fro...
Since I was young, like many others, I've been into animated movies. But for two of them, I've made it a tradition to watch them every year on my birthday. And I've been sticking to this tradition for over 20 years now. One of them is the one I decided to research deeper into. I even went to libraries to hunt down every bit of info I could find about the tragic fate of the Romanov imperial dynasty. As you might've guessed, our story today is about the real story behind the first animated feature from 20th Century Fox produced by its own animation division, 20th Century Fox Animation: Anastasia.
While hopping from one library to another, I stumbled upon a diary, a diary from one of the few witnesses of the end of the Romanovs, Pierre Gilliard. So, it's on me to spill the tea on what went down in their tragedy. Thanks to the scribbles in this diary, I can tell you the extraordinary events this witness went through for 16 years.
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I have to warn you that this story is going to be VERY long because of the amount of pictures and details. It is still a true crime story as this family had lost their lives in a tragic way and there is a killer(s) - so we are in the theme, but I'm giving a lot more context. Look at it this way: history class + true crime.
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"One late July morning in 1918, I walked into the villa with Nikolai Sokoloff where the Romanovs were executed. The rooms were in an unimaginable mess. In the basement, we found a room with walls riddled with bullets. What really went down in that cellar on the night of July 16th to 17th? How did it come to this? Did they all perish?"
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To tell this incredible story, we gotta go back to November 1904 when Pierre left Switzerland for the first time.
At that time, Pierre paused his literature studies to help out his dad financially by taking up a job as a French teacher with the Russian imperial family. Little did he know that by becoming the tutor of the Romanov children, he'd get up close and personal with the family and stick with them till the end.
On the train taking Pierre to unknown lands, a mix of nerves and excitement fills him up. He's eager to explore this vast empire while also feeling anxious about these regions where he doesn't even know the language. On September 22, 1904, he finally left his family home. Ahead of him, five thousand kilometers to reach distant and mysterious Russia. It's a huge leap into the unknown. Even in his wildest dreams, he wouldn't have dared to embark on such an adventure.
