Yeltsin Approves Of Burial For Czar

In a sign that the remains of Russia’s last czar may soon be laid to rest, President Boris Yeltsin said Friday that Nicholas II and his family should be buried in St. Petersburg with other Romanov rulers.

American and Russian experts last week announced that a DNA test had confirmed that bones unearthed in the Ural Mountains in 1991 were those of Nicholas II and his family and servants, who were murdered by Bolsheviks in 1918.

The announcement led to widespread speculation in Russia that the czar and his family can now be given a religious burial that was delayed while the painstaking investigation to identify the bones was carried out.

However, Yeltsin said it was not yet decided whether the bones would be reburied in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg, where the royal family was killed, or in St. Petersburg, where Russian rulers since Peter the Great are buried. Yeltsin supported burying them in St. Petersburg.

A government panel deciding what to do with the remains is to meet Sept. 20.