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MOSCOW (AP) — Thousands of pilgrims have begun a procession marking the 100th anniversary of the execution of Czar Nicholas II and his family.
Russia's last czar, his wife and five children were executed by Bolshevik soldiers in Yekaterinburg 18 months after Nicholas abdicated in the February 1917 revolution. They had been moved from detention in St. Petersburg and then in Siberia as the Russian Civil War raged.
The procession started out from the Church on the Blood, which was built on the site of the execution and was to end Tuesday at the site where the bodies were dumped some 21 kilometers (13 miles) away.
The procession was led by Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, which canonized the czar and his family as martyrs.
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