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				Political Intrigue Surrounds House of Romanov

DECEMBER 29 - JANUARY 4 // COPYRIGHT 1997 THE ST. PETERSBURG TIMES

By Yevgenia Borisova, STAFF WRITER

"Without a tsar in Russia there is discord ... When supreme power weakens, civil war develops." - First Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov, in an interview last month on NTV.

While many Russians have at one time or another expressed such sentiments, until recently it was rare to see someone from the government - particularly someone with Nemtsov's stature - do so on national television.

Yet in the past few months, the monarchy has been very much on the minds and the tongues of the Russian political elite. President Boris Yeltsin has taken to referring playfully to himself as Boris I (he apparently does not recognize or remember the reign of the other Boris I, Boris Godunov); Nemtsov, in turn, has stated he sees Yeltsin's Russia as "a constitutional monarchy."

Such talk, coupled with the on-going debate over where to bury the bones of the murdered last tsar and his family, has fed media speculation that Russia may indeed restore the monarchy in some form.

How, why or whether to do this remains an open question. But perhaps not as open as it seems - this summer, Russia apparently came very close to naming an heir apparent to the throne: 16-year-old Prince Georgy Hohenzollern Romanov.

Nemtsov was supposed to be one of the key figures at a ceremony planned for June 21 at the Ipatyevsky Monastery in Kostroma, a city about 600 kilometers southeast from St. Petersburg, to swear in the teen-aged prince. The ceremony was prepared by the Moscow-based Russian Nobleman's Assembly.

This same monastery provided sanctuary for the first Romanov tsar, Mikhail, also 16, when he was appointed the Tsar and Grand Prince of all Russia by the zemsky sobor, or "assembly of the land." Kostroma is thus the cradle of the Romanov tsarist dynasty. Prince Georgy's planned trip there to swear his loyalty to Russia would have been a significant first step toward his potential future coronation.

Yeltsin canceled that ceremony in May - but not before the Moscow-based travel agency Kalevtia, working on behalf of the Russian Nobleman's Assembly, had begun to prepare trip packages to Kostroma for potential participants.

A spokeswoman for Kalevtia who wished to remain unnamed confirmed as much in an interview with The St. Petersburg Times, as did an impressive itinerary of the trip the paper obtained from Ivan Artsishevsky, the general director of the Congress of Compatriots, an international organization representing Russians living abroad.

Under this itinerary, Prince Georgy and his mother, Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna Romanova, would have visited Russia from June 18 to June 25 for ceremonies in which he would have taken an oath to Russia, a preliminary step in becoming heir apparent to the Russian throne.

The Romanovs were supposed to meet with such high-placed officials as Nemtsov, Culture Minister Yevgeny Sidorov, the chief justice of the Russian Constitutional Court, the governors of the Kostromskaya and Astrakhanskaya oblasts, the archbishops of Kostroma and Astrakhan, the commanders of the strategic missile troops of Russia, the commanders of the Caspian Sea Navy, the head of a chemical protection college in Kostroma and other officials.

Then Prince Georgy - the great-grandson of Kirill Vladimirovich Romanov, who in 1924 proclaimed himself head of the Russian Imperial House - was to head for Kostroma for the oath and ceremony.

As the Kostroma events were being planned, the Kremlin was also preparing a presidential decree to give Prince Georgy and other descendants of Kirill Vladimirovich "special status" - yet another stamp of government approval for their claim to the throne - said Artsishevsky. But he said Yeltsin rejected that proposed decree without signing it.

In a reference to First Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly Chubais, who has red hair, Artsishevsky said that the unrealized decree had "red-haired handwriting." Artsishevsky said he had no evidence that Chubais was involved in designing the decree, but that did not stop him from speculating on a possible motive.

"Why would Anatoly Chubais want [to restore the monarchy via Prince Georgy?] Everything is simple," Artsishevsky said. "The year 2000 comes [when new presidential elections are scheduled]. Why do we need a president? We have a boy [tsar]. And what about a regent? The boy is only 18, he does not know Russia. Why can't the regent have red hair?"

Whatever intrigue may have surrounded the aborted ceremony, there was little interest in the event among tourists, said the spokeswoman for the Kalevtia travel agency.

"A few calls from America and Leningrad" came to the agency requesting bookings, she said, and no packages from anywhere else had been sold by the time the ceremony had been canceled in May.

On learning of the planned ceremony, Artsishevsky said his congress immediately convened a conference of scholars and genealogists in St. Petersburg last spring. That conference prepared a statement harshly criticizing the ceremony.

"Do the Russians need a monarchy at all? Talks about restoration of the monarchy are extremely complicated because Russian autocracy was not just stopped 80 years ago - it was physically exterminated," the statement read. "The issues of succession are greatly confused and, of course, cannot be resolved by way of 'He is heir to the throne who arrives to Russia first."

Although German heritage among Russia's ruling elite was common, Prince Georgy's affiliation with Germany's Hohenzollern dynasty in particular troubled the widely respected historian Dmitry Likhachyov, who wrote a letter denouncing the idea of Prince Georgy as a monarch.

"Georgy Hohenzollern has even less rights [than his mother] to the Russian throne, as he belongs to the relatives of the German Emperor William II, who brought numerous troubles to Russia," Likhachyov wrote.

The congress sent its statement to security council chief Ivan Rybkin, who, according to Artsishevsky, spoke to Yeltsin. On the strength of this meeting, Artsishevsky said, Yeltsin then stopped the ceremony.

But in interviews after the conference, Artsishevsky said the matter was far from decided. He said Prince Georgy would be a shoe-in when the question of who would be the next Romanov tsar was eventually decided, because Kremlin politics and a desire to avoid future presidential elections are driving the decision.

"Supposing the boy [had been] sworn in in Kostroma, like Mikhail Romanov ... Then imagine the 850th anniversary of Moscow comes. Who is behind the President? The boy. He is sort of officialized, has been sworn in. So he stays at one event behind the president, at another, commentators say - here he is, such and such a boy. A year [passes], another year. The president's term ends. And we are suddenly told - do we need a president at all? And public opinion is ready - we have a boy!"

Even among those who favor the idea of reviving the monarchy, few support doing so quickly.

Nikolai Romanovich Romanov, 73 - who heads the Union of the Members of the Romanov House, an organization that unites the 42 holders of the Romanov family name, said that the matter ought to be put to a popular vote.

"It should be the people of Russia who will elect the new monarch, because Nikolai II abdicated," he said at a press conference in St. Petersburg this summer, adding such a vote should only be held when "Russian citizens will start to openly speak out in favor of restoration of the monarchy."

But he has also stated that Russia has more pressing problems to deal with than restoring the monarchy.

The Russian Orthodox Church has also called for a future vote on reviving the monarchy.

The Party of the Monarchist Center, meanwhile, argues that the Moscow Patriarchy ought to convene a zemsky sobor to choose a new tsar. Candidates would have to display involvement in Russian Orthodoxy and knowledge of Russia's language and culture, said Viktor Antonov, an executive with the group's St. Petersburg branch.

"If there are no male candidates suitable, female Romanovs will be discussed," said Antonov. "And if no one matches the criteria, the zemsky sobor will start to discuss [other] candidates worthy of representing the Russian people."