Geologist Avdonin, who discovered the remains of the royal family, died at the age of 94.

Geologist Alexander Avdonin, who was the first to find the burial of the remains of the family of Emperor Nicholas II, died at the age of 93. This is his friend Valentin Gribenyuk.

As the man told the newspaper Kommersant, the funeral service and funeral of the geologist will take place on Sunday, February 22. The ceremony will take place in the village of Kurganovo, Sverdlovsk region, where Avdonin recently lived.

The geologist was born in 1932. He graduated from the Sverdlovsk Mining and Metallurgical College, then in 1957 from the Faculty of Geology and Geophysics of the Sverdlovsk Mining Institute. From 1957 to 1991, he worked at the Ural Geological Management, led experimental and methodological research in the Ural Geophysical Expedition.

In 1967, he defended his PhD thesis, and in 1989, based on a scientific report, he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences.

In the summer of 1979, together with the screenwriter Geliy Ryabov, with the assistance of the USSR Interior Minister Nikolai Shchelokov, Avdonin found the burial of nine people in Porosenkov's Lair. Modern investigators believe that it belonged to Nicholas II and his family, who were shot by the Bolsheviks on the night of July 16-17, 1918 in Yekaterinburg. The burial site was classified in the USSR.

The remains found by Avdonin and Ryabov were buried back — they did not disclose the information because of the political situation, although the KGB knew about the discovery. In 1991, after Avdonin's statement, official excavations began at the site. In 1998, the royal family was buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg. In 2007, another burial was discovered — as the examination established, Tsarevich Alexei and Grand Duchess Maria.

All important news is on the Izvestia channel in the MAX messenger.