Church of Blood, Ekaterinburg, Russia. winter 2004. This is the huge church which was recently built to commemorate the exact position where the Tsar Nicholas II and his wife and family were murdered (shot and bayonetted to death) by the barbarian Bolsheviks in July 1918. At the time of the murders an old house stood at the site and was called the Ipatiev House, where the Tsar and his family were held prisoners until that fateful morning some 80 years ago. The Ipatiev House was ordered to be destroyed by Boris Yeltsin in the 1970's. At the time of my photograph, the Church of Blood was almost finished. The Tsar and his family are now proclaimed Saints of Russia and are regarded as heroes by the general populace. Photographs are forbidden inside in the church as a mark of respect for the dead Romanovs. However, whats inside is unbelieveable and the Russians have spared no expense in glittering gold icons and all kinds of glittering religious paraphenalia. It should be noted that virtually nobody speaks of Stalin these days and even old Vladimir Illyich Lenin, the father of Russian Communism, is almost on the way out too. So much for the men of steel - they all look rather rusty these days! But I guess the good will always be remembered and now we know the Romanovs would have been the best alternative for Russia after all.

(Photograph: T.J. Hawkeswood)