On July 17, 1918 the Romanov family was executed in the basement of the Ipatiev House. Immediately afterwards, rumors began to spread of the survival of one of the Grand Duchesses, either Anastasia or her sister Maria. This was fueled by the fact that the location of her burial was unknown during the decades of Communist rule. The mass grave near Ekaterinburg which held the remains of the Tsar, his wife, and three daughters was revealed in 1991, but the bodies of Alexei Nikolaevich and one of his sisters—either Anastasia or her older sister Maria—were not discovered there.
Although the supposed survival of anyone in the family has been totally disproved since then, the idea still manages to captivate audiences.
Now, assuming that Grand Duchess Anastasia somehow manages to escape the massacre relatively unscathed, where does she go and what does she do? This has always bothered me. She is in the middle of hostile territory with no means of transportation and her prospects look rather grim. Would she even be able to prove her identity if she escaped the country?