Hello, my name is... Well, it does not matter what my name is these days. But a century ago, my name was Alexej Romanov. Or, Алексей Романов actually.

My birth on 30 July 1904 brought great joy to my parents. I mean, birth of any child tends to bring joy to the parents, but in my case, my parents were especially happy. I was their fifth child, mind you, but I was their first boy. And as it turned out, their only boy. And my parents really, really wanted a boy because, well, because my Dad, Nikolaj Romanov, was the Tsar, that is the Emperor of Russia, and now he had an heir, a tsarevitch, a crown prince.

Now, if this were a fairy tale, I could just say that we lived happily ever after. Alas, this is real life. We did live happily, oh, very happily, though not ever after. And even while we did live, our happiness was not without mar. The exstacy of having an heir to the throne of Russia was first marred when my parents—and my doctors—realized that I had a strange disease. A genetic disorder called hemophilia which prevented my blood from clotting. Even a small injury, such as are very common with active boys, could result in my bleeding to death.

So, my parents saw to it that I would never get such an injury. But they realized that in a twisted world of political intrigue someone might try to steal the throne from me. So, they decided to keep my disease a secret.

Because of my disease, I had good days, very good days, but I also had bad days. Very bad days. Days of excruciating pain. Luckily for me, I had the best Mom of all the Moms ever to walk on this planet, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria, Empress Alexandra Romanova. She spent much time by my side, caring for me. Alas, she also blamed herself for my health problem because my condition was caused by a genetic disorder transferred from a mother to her son, a disorder that several male descendants of Queen Victoria have suffered from. Of course, it was not Mom’s fault. I know that, everybody knows that. I have certainly never blamed her for it. But she blamed herself, and that just breaks my heart. Because she was the best mother any boy can have.

The picture on the left shows me with Mom aboard the Штандартъ (Štandart), a ship I have many fond memories of to this day. Unfortunately, I was in great pain when the picture was taken, so you cannot see my usual cheerful self in it. Well, you cannot see it in most pictures of me. Though many were taken, it was in the days when film was still slow, so you had to pose standing still. And you had to stare into the Sun, so you were always squinting. So, those pictures show what we used to look like, but they cannot quite show our personalities. That’s too bad, too, because these pictures do not tell the full story, but people tend to think that they do.

I spent much time with my Dad as well. He was the Tsar, the Emperor of the grandest empire in the history of this planet. Did you know that until Russia sold Alaska to the US, it spanned over three Continents? From Central and Northern Europe, through a major part of Asia, all the way to North America! During my time, the North America part was no longer within the confines of the Empire. But it still was vast. Very vast! Its people spoke many different languages, had different cultures, religions, traditions, and needs.

The administration of such an Empire was an unfathomable task. It started at the lowest level with local and municipal governments, then went further to the regional level of various regional governments, and finally on the top there was one man whose job it was to assure that all people get their justice, live in as good a condition as the land and times would allow, and also to protect them from crime within the Empire as well as from outside enemies. That man was my Dad.

And when the time would come that my Dad would no longer be able to administer the Empire, his job was to pass on to me. A job like that requires training. More training than any other job on Earth. There is no school that can prepare a future King, let alone a future Emperor. That is why traditionaly the job was passed on from father to son, and it was the father’s responsibility to train his son and prepare him for the task. That is why I spent so much time at my father’s side. You can see me marching by his side in the picture on the right.

But training to become the future Emperor was not the only reason I spent time with Dad. After all, first and foremost, he was my Dad. And he was a very good Dad. Take a good look at the picture to your left. That bearded man shoveling the snow is Dad. And that little tyke playing in the snow, that’s me. People often think of Kings and Emperors as some mysterious superhuman figures. But that’s not true. We are human, just like everybody else. So, please, take a good look at this picture and remember it. Tsar Nikolaj II was a very gentle and kind person. And an outstanding Dad. Not just to me, but to my sisters as well.

By now it should be very clear that there were two different sides to my life. One was very private. A boy, living with his parents and his sisters like any other family. The other was very public. A tsarevitch, future Emperor of Russia. Strangely though, most people seem to know more about the private aspect than the public one. I assume it is because of my disease and because of the brutal way my life, our life, ended in the basement of the Ipatiev house on 17 July 1918, barely two weeks short of my fourteenth birthday.

To a King or an Emperor—and to a future King or a future Emperor—his public life is of utmost importance. Any monarch worth his throne is first and foremost concerned with the prosperity of other people, the prosperity of the people of his kingdom or empire. And the main concern of anyone preparing to become a monarch is what he can do, when his time comes, to improve the quality of life and the prosperity of his people. Well, at least that was my main concern, but then I do not see how it could not be the main concern of any crown prince anywhere.

Therefore, quite frankly, I am rather puzzled by all those web sites that portray me as a sweet little kid with a halo around his head, a kid who spent all day every day praying, and all that saccharin. I was not a monk, nor a priest, nor any kind of religious figure. I was the future Emperor of Russia, and I took that role very seriously!

I had a dream that our Russia would become the most advanced and the most prosperous country on this planet, a country that all other countries would emulate and imitate, so a new era of prosperity would arise on this planet. And it was not just a dream. It was a plan! I was constantly thinking about how and what to do for this dream to come true.

And I did more than just think. I was not some nerd sitting at his desk, thinking and planning, producing mere theory that no one else knows about, let alone understands. I talked about my plan. I talked with my sisters, I talked with my parents, I talked with my friends. I discussed it with everyone. That way I was able to get their input, incorporate their ideas, and keep my plan growing bigger and better. And even if at times I disagreed with my Dad’s decisions, and told him so without hesitation, my parents believed that I had it in me to make this plan work, to make Russia the best place in this world ever.

You can rest assured that while we lived in palaces, we did not live in an ivory tower! That is true of both, Dad and me. And the rest of the family.

For example, we were fully aware of the talent of the people of Russia. And by Russia I do not mean just the section inhabited by the Slavic people called Russians, but all of the Russian Empire, from Finland and Poland in the West, all the way to the Far East. Many brilliant minds, many smart, talented, pioneering spirits lived in our country.

Take a look at the picture on the left for an example. Though it may look like some computer generated fairy tale produced by someone in Holywood, it is not. It is an example of the original creativity of the Russian people. A beautiful monastery complex, designed and built back in the Middle Ages by the people of Russia. The bridge is real, too. It is an actual photograph.

But, wait, there is more! Can you guess when this photograph was taken? Look at the brilliant colors. Not faded with age. Must have been taken by a digital camera made in Japan at the late twentieth or most likely early twenty-first century. Right?

Wrong!

That picture was taken by Сергей Михайлович Прокудин-Горский, or Sergej Michailovič Prokudin-Gorskij (Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii) in the year 1910. In color! And that color has not faded since and will not fade any time soon. He used regular black-and-white film. He took three separate shots, one using a red filter, one using a green filter, and one using a blue filter. And then he projected them on a screen using three projectors with the same filters, thus producing the brilliant colors seen in this picture and many other pictures.

A genius was he. A Russian genius. That’s him on the right.

That’s the kind of talented, smart, and innovative people we had in our Empire. And that’s the kind of talent we supported. When Prokudin-Gorskij came up with the idea of a photographic survey of the Empire, Dad welcomed him and fully suported him. In 1910-1912 and again in 1915 he took beautiful pictures covering life all over the Empire of Russia as it was during my life.

There were many other geniuses in Russia of our time. For example Mendeleev, the chemist who invented the periodic table, or Pavlov, the physiologist who discovered the conditioned reflex, or Popov, whose experiments led to the discovery of the radio.

It was a time of exciting changes in our Russia. While Dad still was the crown prince, he laid the ground stone of the Trans-Siberia Railway in 1891 and he saw to its completion after he became the Tsar. The Railway stretched six thousand miles all across the Empire, and is still in good use to this day. It has helped to usher the modern era into our Russia.

Building the Trans-Siberia Railway was a monumental task. It connected the North-West of Europe with the East of Asia. It ran through Siberia. Much of its land is frozen most of the year. And it had to cross a number of Siberian rivers, so truss bridges like the one on the right (another photo by Prokudin-Gorskij) had to be built.

Having seen all of these changes going on in front of my very eyes made me want even more. That is what inspired me to plan for a Russia that would be the leader of the whole world.

We were going to have a highly educated population that would be even more creative than anyone before. We were going to make everyone happy all through our Empire. Our people were going to be proud for living in our Russia, but were also going to help all people of the world to live happy and fulfilling lives.

That was my plan, that was my dream. Alas, my dream was shattered on the July night in 1918 when a group of thugs lured us into the basement of a Siberian house. We had already been treated poorly for months before. My health got so poor that Dad had to carry me in his own arms to that basement. Little did he know he was carrying me to slaughter.

They gave me a chair. They gave another to Mom. They declared us tried and condemned to death. Despite my poor health condition, I stood up from my chair in defiance. But they started shooting. Bullets hit my chest. They did not kill me because I had diamonds sewn into my shirt. My parents had a plan to smuggle me out of Russia, so I could lead the fight against the thugs. But the plan failed. Anyway, the diamonds acted like a bulletproof vest. The bullets shot at my chest did not kill me. But I felt their thrust as they pushed the diamonds violently in. I felt pain in my chest. I fell backwards, and then down. I fainted.

That is where my memory ends. I never woke up. We know from history that they did kill us all. What hurts is not that they killed me. What hurts is that they shattered my dream. They destroyed Russia. Now, almost a century later, my beloved Russia has yet to recover from the damage inflicted on it that night. They say that Rome was not built in a day. And, believe me, neither was Russia. Russia was not built in a day, but it was destroyed in one.

I never got to paddle the boat of Russia through the waters of time. I never got a world in which everyone prospered and was happy. But I have never stopped dreaming. It now is in your hands. Please put my dream back together. Make it real! All over the world. Whether in Russia or outside of that beautiful and wonderful land.

Stop fighting wars. Stop hurting each other. Instead, help each other. Live in peace, harmony, and prosperity. Make my dream come true.