In their article series called 'Hidden History,' the China Channel reveals little-known historic sites and stories around China. Their most recent piece uncovers haunting information about a seemingly ordinary park in Beijing.
Qingnianhu Park, first built in the 1950s, is a scenic stretch of land featuring modern art sculptures, an enormous water park, play areas for children, a manmade lake and a golf course. It's under this very golf course that a historic secret lies.
Unrevealed to parkgoers, deep beneath the perfectly trimmed fields of green are the remains of foreign casualties of war and a royal family – but not just any royal family. Family members of the last imperial dynasty to rule Russia, the Romanovs, were buried at this former Russian gravesite. Owned by the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission, the small cemetery housed some of the oldest graves dating back to the 17th century.
The Russian Imperial Romanov family. Image via www.orthochristian.com
Tsar Nicholas II and his family, among others, were brutally assassinated by members of the Bolshevik army in Yekaterinburg in 1918. The exact events surrounding that night and the imperial family's tragic fate remain in question to this day, with rumors circulating regarding who gave the orders and why. Eight other members of the Romanov family were executed a day later. Following the events that same year, those eight bodies were found and placed in a city crypt. Threats from the ongoing civil war between the Bolsheviks and the Red Army eventually forced some of the bodies to be smuggled via train into China for safekeeping.
The Romanov coffins were moved into Beijing, where they were to be buried at the All Holy Martyrs Church, now the Russian embassy, located inside the city. When city laws forbade this from happening inside Beijing, the eight coffins were moved outside city walls to an underground crypt at Saint Serafim Church, built on the cemetery grounds by the Russian Orthodox Mission in 1903. The coffins would be moved in and out of the city walls several times, until returning to the cemetery again almost a decade later.
Saint Serafim Church and cemetery grounds. Image via www.orthodox.cn
As the park grounds expanded, the Saint Serafim Church faced a dismal fate – construction replaced it with a warehouse in 1962 and later, the last traces of the chapel and gravesite faced complete demolishment by 1986. In its place? A golf course.
Today, unsuspecting visitors enjoy warm city days at Qingnianhu Park – indulging in water park thrills, leisurely strolling by the serene lake and golfing with the ghosts of Russian royalty.
[Top image via China Daily]
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