The Home of the Last Tsar - Romanov and Russian History

Yekaterinburg, May 20, Interfax - The Institute for Forensic Medicine in Innsbruck, Austria, has almost completed the examination of the so-called "royal remains", chief of the Sverdlovsk regional bureau of forensic medicine Nikolay Nevolin said.

"Basically, the U.S. laboratories have finished their tests," he told journalists in Yekaterinburg on Tuesday.

"Russian experts will also complete tests by June, if everything goes according to the plan," Nevolin said

"Then in July the commission will probably start work that will include both Russia and foreign specialists," he said.

The commission will evaluate the results of all the examinations conducted, and will also be able to recommend further tests to make sure they do not raise any doubts and meet all international standards, he said.

In July 2007, during the excavation on the Staraya Koptyakovskaya road near Yekaterinburg, two human bodies with signs of a violent death were found. Early data suggest that those were the remains of a child aged between ten and 14 and of a young woman aged 20.

The theory that is currently being investigated is that the found remains could be those of Crown Prince Alexey and Grand Duchess Maria, executed in 1918.