January 18, 2020

Long Live Valeriy I!


Long Live Valeriy I!
Pretty sure Kubaryev can’t claim to be the descendant of this son. Painting by Ilya Repin | Wikipedia

Ivan Grozny (the Great and Terrible), who was notorious not only for being terrible, but also for killing his eldest son, leading to the end of a dynasty and “the Time of Troubles,” may have finally found his heir.

Valeriy Kubaryev has staked a claim to being the tsar’s direct descendant.

Is his goal to take the Russian throne? No, he has a far graver concern: personal responsibility to take care of his ancestor's tomb. Before that, however, he would like to dig up some bodies of other alleged ancestor princes in order to compare genes.

Certainly, Kubaryev's methods are more sophisticated than those of the various False Dmitriys who tried (pretty successfully – this was not only before genetics, but also well before photography) in the early 1600s to claim they were the Ivan the Terrible’s youngest son. 

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