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Romance Scams and the Romanovs: What Online Deception Can Tell Us About Russia's Last Imperial Family

For decades, imposters pretending to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia successfully conned their host families. Research into the reasons people fall for online scammers can help explain how.

By Emilie Le Beau Lucchesi
Apr 15, 2022 1:15 PMApr 19, 2022 3:45 PM
Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna
A photo of Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna taken before her execution in 1918. (Credit: George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress/Wikimedia Commons)

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This story is the second in a two-part series about the Romanovs. Read part 1 here.


In the early 1920s, Russian exiles living in Germany were reeling from the loss of their monarchy. Just a few years earlier, their Tsar, Nicolas II, and his family were executed by the Bolsheviks, a revolutionary party that carried out the overthrow of Russia's Provisional Government. Royal supporters had few details, but there was hope that one of the Tsar’s children had survived the massacre.

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