The report last week that the presumed bones of two of the children of Czar Nicholas II of Russia had been unearthed in Yekaterinburg reminded me that I had once held the dental work of Czarina Alexandra in my hands.

Czarina Alexandra's skull - sketch: Tom Fenton

It was an exquisite bridge, fit for an empress and the wife of Russia's last Czar. The director of the city morgue in Yekaterinburg at that time, let me inspect this curious piece of history while he recounted how the bones of the Czar and all but two members of his family were found in nearby woods. I made a few sketches of the bones, which were laid out on the coroner's table in the town in the Urals where the Czar and his family were murdered by the Bolsheviks in 1917. The director was waiting for the Russian government to decide what to do with them. That was 1995, and Russia was still in the ferment of the post-Communist period when the old rules had been thrown out by the country's new Democrats and there were few new rules.

Foreign journalists found they could go anywhere in Russia and do almost anything. In pursuing the story of the Czar's bones, I was allowed free access to the government's secret archives in Moscow. I held history in my hands again while reading the private notes and letters of Nicholas and Alexandra and their children. There was a tender note from their son Aleksei, written in French to his “Chère Maman.”

Czars's skeleton - sketch: Tom Fenton

The bones in the morgue were later identified as belonging to the Czar's family by using DNA from relatives of the last Czar, including Prince Phillip, the husband of Britain's Queen Elizabeth. Most of the royal families of Europe were and still are related. The Russian Orthodox Church, which considers Czar Alexander to be a martyr, was reluctant to accept the authenticity of the bones, but eventually granted them a proper burial and funeral in 1998 at the cathedral in St. Petersburg.

I was there for that too, accompanying one of the Czar's relatives, His Serene Highness, Prince Paul Romanov Ilyinsky. Prince Paul, who has since died, was better known then as the Mayor of Palm Beach, Florida. An exile who came to America at the age of 11, he was a retired colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps and seemed thoroughly American. But when the new Russian government invited him and the other Romanov relatives to St. Petersburg for the funeral, he jumped at the chance to delve into his family's imperial past.

Prince Paul Romanov - photo: Tom Fenton

It was a grand funeral, not quite a state affair, but it made me wonder what ever happened to all the communists, because the people of St. Petersburg were on the streets, lining the route of the funeral cortege to pay their last respects to their last Czar. Many were making the sign of the cross. And later, as Prince Paul visited the sites in the former imperial capital where his ancestors once lived, the retired Marine colonel and his family were treated like royalty.

I remember the director of the morgue in Yekaterinburg had told me was that two of the skeletons were missing. The two that were found last week are believed to be those of Aleksei, who would have been the heir to the throne, and one of his sisters – possibly even Anastasia, who was the subject of a thousand hoaxes over the years as various people claimed to be the Czar's missing daughter.

Once again, the Russian Orthodox Church is sceptical about this new find, but if the bones are properly authenticated, the Russians will have a chance to bury the boy who might have become their Czar. That would be another funeral worth attending.

By the way, Lenin's mummified remains are still lying in his memorial on Moscow's Red Square, awaiting a proper burial. Russia's ex-communists can't make up their minds what to do with him.