Some researchers believe that the graves of the Romanov dynasty in the Peter and Paul Fortress are actually empty. This point of view is shared, for example, by the famous historian Prince Dmitry Shakhovskoy. He claims that the Bolsheviks simply threw out the bones of the emperors they hated, leaving only the sarcophagi. The directorate of the Peter and Paul Fortress refutes this, indicating that there were two cases of opening the graves, and in both the bones were in place. So the grave of the Greek princess Alexandra Georgievna was opened in 1939, and her ashes were transferred to Greece.
The daughter of King George I of Greece in 1889 married the Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich (1860-1919). But on September 12, 1891, due to an accident that led to premature birth in the seventh month of pregnancy, she died. The child, Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich, survived. Alexandra was buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral.
In 1939, at the request of the Greek government (at that time Alexandra's nephew, King George II was on the throne), the Soviet government allowed the ashes of the Grand Duchess to be transferred to their homeland.
The coffin of Alexandra Georgievna was removed from the crypt, taken from Leningrad to Athens and reburied in the royal cemetery in the Tatoi palace. The marble tombstone in the Peter and Paul Cathedral remained in its place.
According to legend, when Stalin was informed about the request of the Greek government, he agreed to give the ashes in exchange for a powerful excavator. The exchange, judging by the subsequent events, took place.