Taganrog was the resort on the Black Sea where Tsar Alexander I was staying when his death was announced late in 1825. His body was taken to Odessa by an English merchant ship and from there to St. Petersburg. Almost immediately rumours began that he had not in fact died but had staged his own death in order to abdicate. There were subsequently reported sightings of him in Siberia dressed as a monk. Some support is given to these theories by the disappearance of the English ship's log and the fact that his coffin was found to be empty when it was opened after the revolution.