group of the heat wave some regions suffering a severe drought have left farmers without a harvest. it's ninety two years to the day since the bolsheviks executed the last russians on nicholas the second and his family where the death ended three centuries of rule by the romano did a city artes to a historian how to wrap up poor about her book the last days of the remodels on the tragedy under small called the country's history. today i'm in oxford with helen rappaport she's an expert on the russian imperial family particularly the last days of that arm on us who were assassinated in a classroom by a jury in the bolshevik revolution helen rappaport thanks very much for talking to r.t. now you focus on the last thirteen days of that amount of slides in your catron book why did you choose that period well when i looked at the stories of. the end of the

dentistry i suddenly realised that although we knew the broad span of nicholas's rain and the overall story no one had looked at any great detail in those final few days particularly a new culture in vogue and the main reason for that was because until the collapse of communism there was no access to some of the important eyewitness testimonies by the guards and your crew for your oscar who was in charge of the party so we didn't have enough evidence to look at that really closely and when i did start looking at it closely i found it absolutely fascinating and gripping and it was the story i wanted to tell the city was in a terrible state of panic the bolsheviks were basically taking everything they could out of your culture and work that was worth anything because it was the center of the mining industry so it was gold semi precious minerals and they wanted to get that all out before the city fell so in terms of taking the

imperial family there what do you think the saw for example must've felt when he knew they were going to catch the culture in vogue had a large factory and industrial population a very heavily politicized workers who were very loyal bolsheviks and the sars heart sank when he was told that he was going to be taken there he said i would go anywhere but if you catch him but because the people there are so against me. once the family writing a pattern back they lived in increasingly horrible circumstances they were actually told the minute they arrived you are now entering a prison regime and there was a big difference between how things were in some polls square they had a rare relative degree of freedom to move about to go to church to go outside to see people in the outside world the awful thing that happened when they arrived at you catherine but they're immediately greeted by a place surrounded by an enormous stockade

a wooden stockade was built right around the house the windows were painted white so the family once they're inside that house could not see the outside world they were denied newspapers they were denied letters and parcels no visitors so they were effectively cutoff and what kind of family were they at that stage while they were incredibly close knit family very devoted to each other and i think the thing that one of the fundamental things that held them so closely together was they had this very deep very profound orthodox faith and they did take a rather fatalistic attitude to god's will and what would happen happened to to them also the girls in many ways were very immature for their age very on worldly they lived such a cuckoo life that the alexander palace in outside some petersburg once alexei was born found to be hemophiliac everyone closed in to protect him to protect the

family so in that way they managed to survive better i think than other families would because they were so proud so used to being only in each other's company but it wasn't just the family who were in their party of house was that they were also accompanied by some of their old retainers while the retainers were intensely loyal they volunteered to go with the roman australia and it was very uncertain what was going to happen to them they might must have had some sense that it might all. and horribly so they're intensely loyal particularly dr port king who i think of all of them had a sense that this might end in something dreadful he was very pragmatic very realistic and one of the last letters he wrote from the house an unfinished letter said basically i don't expect to get out of here alive but what was interesting was that when the romanovs first arrived there was an obvious in intensely hostile attitude to them from the guards many very young local fact she workers who

volunteered what they considered was an honor to guard in this bloodthirsty tsar and his family and as time went on a strange thing happened some of these young guards began to develop a sympathy for the family especially the girls and especially aleksei who was very very sick but interestingly although they could empathize with the children especially and came to like the girls actually and even thought the cell was a perfectly decent shop they never liked that sari tsa they always found a very. stuck up and still demanding that people bow and scrape to her even in that situation but as time went on the guards began to fraternize a bit too much became a bit too friendly with the girls especially and that was when there was a massive clamp down and your call fewer or ski was brought in and the whole thing changed and so it's made it more about yakov little ski he is often portrayed sort

of maniac all merger us but in fact you sort of bring out a slightly more complex side to his personality well he was an absolutely ruthless cope blooded pragmatic dedicated bolshevik he was also a local checker manner chica was the precursor of what became the k.g.b. the the russian political secret service so he was there for a purpose he was sent in to inforce clan. on the press nice ation to really make the route regime there a very strict prison regime and effectively to prepare for what was now an increasing venture as he was that they might have to kill the family because the white and the counter-revolutionary forces were working their way east from blood of our stock right in far the far west of russia working their way back to walk along a trance iberian rare way towards a culture which was then

a focal point on the railway line amongst the guards was there anything len that they weren't going to go through with it yes absolutely just before they came to kill the family you're asking was issuing orders about who was supposed to kill whom they were all given an individual target and some of the guards immediately said we will not kill the girls and the number of killers in the end was reduced because of that and in fact the ultimate solution was putting all in a room and and killing them all together but that turned into a bloodbath didn't it and you've spoken to a forensic expert tell me what you what his opinion of what happened was well what concerned me was the terrible inefficiency with which they murdered them i mean some some people think they were just lined up in a row bang bang bang you're dead it was not like that it was a dreadful ill conceived ill executed murder you can't say it was an execution it was brutal because you know you're also didn't plan it he didn't check out whether

they were these guys were good shots they didn't check the guns they had a mixture of some efficient guns browning's and colts and also old army issue not guns which probably didn't work they didn't account the fact they were killing eleven people in a small dark basement room which rapidly became full of acrid smoke noise panic hysteria people screaming and running around it was an absolute catastrophe because they then had to brew. salie finish them off the only one of them the family really who had a quick death was actually nicholas because the minutes they the order came to fire they all want to take pop pot shot at the czar of course so they could say well i shot nicholas so he died immediately but the others suffered horribly particularly the children and then the burial also. total. total mismanaged from the start worst of it was that the man in charge of the

detail to take the bodies out into the forests in a truck at a very rapidly old fear truck arrived dead drunk and late so with one shovel. one shovel to bury some people it was it was just silly and the other thing was they hadn't properly checked out the site they'd chosen which was a mine working in the forest and when they got there they discovered first of all it was too shallow and secondly it was full of water and that to get throw eleven bodies down there they'd almost immediately be found by the local presence so they had to go back the next morning hold the bodies out and go in dump them somewhere else it was just dreadful now the murder of a man a family is often attributed to a sort of maverick branch of the castor and bolsheviks but you believe that the order can be traced directly to lenin well lenin was very careful to always cover his tracks and he he never ever took responsibility for anything as controversial

as the merger of the roman arts but he said categorically we must not have a living banner we must not have anyone surviving from the family around whom the counter-revolution could could gather and gain a you know gain gain power so the decision was made in moscow during meetings with gul a short in a man from the book soviet he went back and forth quite a few times to moscow now got a shock and was very good friends with the archives feared love who was lenin's right hand man said lawford worked as opposed to tater new country but he knew the city he knew the bolsheviks there and i think fundamentally a tacit agreement was given by lenin that when the time came and the judgment of when that time came was left to the culture and bolsheviks when they knew that the game was up and the city was going to fall to go in and kill more i mean. going forward to the present day what would you say is the abiding legacy of that i'm on a family to me the most interesting thing i found when i went to russia when i went

to catch a bug was this incredible development with this sense of identification of the romanovs with off the top sea and specifically with everything of mother russia of nationhood of a united country but everything that russia lost under the depredations of seventy years of communism this is terrible nostalgia for the roman also because nicolas wasn't a good saw he was terrible terribly incompetent in many respects but the biting thing is this terrible sense of the merger of innocence and the roman also represent for ordinary russians for believe as a sense of nationhood an orthodoxy that they feel they've lost for the rest of what thanks very much like you.

are killing innocents here or was it a race of course and that's never answered. on the song that's called for me i think of it every day. i steal the flyers try to memorise. the same i saw the one time are you serious right now. i was assure you. i was ashamed that i did i was ashamed that i had been a cure. i got my go my way. but in the mine. where i would be out in all the hours of poetry. that i believe or i would go. no work right. there always a good feel for. where you are all shoulder on the other side and i think i'm just

from the good. to. the.

skeptics that challenge traditional theories behind a does a pill of the sun to some politicians gather in vienna to discuss prevent the spread of the disease. russian security services of broke up a suspected terrorist out on the southern republican douglas done this week it included among the deadly. this year. their reign in new designs is you claims he was kidnapped and held by the cia in the u.s. for more than a good returns home but there's still an air of mystery reports in america that he was spying for washington. does russia remains in the sweltering in a grip of the heat wave some regions is suffering a severe drought of last fall. this fall's update now with dmitri stay with us.

hello there welcome to the sports update here are two things for joining us this. story to tell about here are the headlines. russia's first formula one driver telepictures off is in moscow and says he is confident of a new contract with. plasters more action from the russian from a league where isn't it remain the only unbeaten side. and a new name looks likely on the clara jug who stays in leeds golf's open. but will start with football with more action in the russian premier league today have the chance to take faith sport they face a lot late this evening points would see them leapfrog costs meanwhile threshed

home away for one and a lot of back up and survive on the scoreboard for the visitors tear akin to ten in the other game which has just kicked off. in the midterms and it are still their own and bits unseen in the russian premier league that victory over said it means they have now gone thirteen games without defeat and are seven points clear of rubin at the top the goals coming just each side half time at the trough ski stadium ends in it could have fazeli had a few more but the opener was from my corner nicholas alone but it's getting his head in it to make it one nil after half an hour. then remand should rock with made it in the fifty fourth minutes into real peace to a great back hill sets him up and it's. this is city's loss of the season i thought from the ball some bits in it. the turn you possibility wrong so far.

we're going to go second one no win over spots of moscow here in the russian capital the defending champions getting on the scoreboard after just four minutes on the ball at the man on target to deceptive cross the day if the head of the. opposite number coppin with a lot to ponder spots of want for drawn four and last four games to remain in the table. and just do no more screw they want to go through again through a stall after considering another go to ramana dumbest scene here to number one tentacle late with two quick goals the equaliser was from denise collodion gratefully from the russian international straight into the corner and then under ron and showed the strength to give to nama see one leads off to making the right moves the air and entertaining first half a good lead then the levelled matters just before half time with this rusting free

kick but it was to naama that the last laugh would emerge from not giving their home side's three points. some chance for news and spurs boss harry redknapp says it's likely he'll sign sponsor to a goalkeeper stip it was a call so the question international is wanted by the north london club on a season long loan to act as competitive. said there was every chance of a deal off the sides build a stroll with the sun have set of quakes on saturday physicals has full knowledge of favor at spot as that club struggles to meet russian premier league rules limiting the amount of foreign players. myself and in the case start center it is burke have received another big boost in that to lay their hands on the cover to get a cup after their veteran forward alex a young side a one year extension to his deal with the northern side the thirty six year old is

going nowhere. previous reports he could be on the move to another team in the continental hotel a passion who is a former world champion and double olympic medalist joined scott last season but failed to help them go into further than the opening frowned scar on right to do better than that last sixteen exit and have also unveiled this with his. handle and toni morrison as well as experience to russia goalkeeper you're going in a book to help them make title dream come true the new season faces off on the eighth of september. russia's first formula one driver retarded petrov says he's confident he'll be offered a new contract with the red no the twenty five year old is in moscow this weekend to promote the sport with an exhibition race around the kremlin was taking a stroll around that square this morning before taking part in the fundraising of a one costs through the heart of the capital i have faced while champion jenson button but the talk was about the child's future read up on discussions with their

first drive it will be about a new contract but so far a new one hasn't been offered to patrol lies fifteen in the driver's championship over the russian says he's not know the submarkets future. well before they knew we were working he still hopeful that it would be helpful to see them not to but in the whole have a good reason why that is the mother but then you will win next season and. the rule be will be. thinking about the want to play that will not go. without getting to see things go a little bit later so you feel confident. but it is just. a lot of things but i mean it doesn't work that. it's the third time in a row this f one exhibition event has been held in moscow it's proper name is that verin moscow city a racing event giving fans that chance to see all sorts of fast cars up close and boats and relapse of the kremlin. the hope is one day russia will host

a grand prix patrol for skeen to do all he can to make that reality. for the of course i want to over a grand prix year this is the way maybe i can build something to bring the one year versus three hundred but i don't know with when the will be i hope so i want to be a little bit more than anything but i wouldn't believe they've done pretty well in other motor sport news has won the german grand prix the honda rider needed twenty eight minutes and fifty seconds to complete the distance this managed a johnston pictures we're going to run to we started on the rent a finishing over three seconds behind the winner australian cases turn a complete to the podium to take the defending champ involved in a ross who has returned to gracie only six weeks after breaking his leg came home fourth. it's a final day of open sent andrews and several minutes south african louis stays in

the will start his last round with a four stroke lead over england's paul casey. led the failed by five strokes at the halfway stage but was never taken from yesterday to do to support three under par round of sixty nine to his final three holes including face quarter for part of the sixteenth paul casey at one of the lowest scholes of the day a sixty seven for putting the englishman in contention for his first ever major title germany's martin kaymer is another three shots back in third so it looks like they are going to aim to clara jug as that chasing pack of three all tied in fourth including lee westwood and it's janssen and. while world number one tiger woods struggled to get in and he's tied in eighteenth place but despite him being out running the loser all getting carried away. is probably not going to be tonight because i want to go straight to rid. it's amazing opportunity and you know

tomorrow's another round of golf then just going to try and remember there is a big gap. is tom watson said earlier this week you know what she gives away today she takes away tomorrow and. you know i believe. i had a great round of golf going yesterday in made seven on seventeen through really not doing too much wrong then that's the nature of this golf course or a loss of birdies out there will yield birdies but it will and it can bite if you get it wrong. to and well then once you're in a williams has withdrawn from next month's raw just after cutting right foot on a broken glass at a restaurant she's seen here all smiles at the wimbledon gallop while they walk down the red carpet when all the surface for some time at twenty eight year old needs surgery and missed three events leading up to the u.s. open williams offers no other details about what happened but says she's upset

having to skip the tournament assembled sonata and natural. and finally a yachting event has been held just outside moscow to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the country's first ever lent the gold in the discipline to meet the neg and was the man behind the soviet union success in this competition at the rome game spec in one nine hundred sixty now eighty three is still active in the sport having a foundation aimed at reviving the opting in russia r.t. caught up with him and his old friend and rival who spoke about the times and sports future. but i remember a very weird race of the crew the i remember to me in a game when he won the race and hour he won the race because he was a very very technique out there for good old he didn't need you if you read only we put the show on the shave they said use it only called bus and when he

become plus the movement that there was a shift doing. it so he gained it they believe in the race of six weeks my dad of course the well now days your two clubs are brimming with life but it's not so much about sports but mostly about tree creation the romal to boats and water skiing but this is just a way to spend your free time well to sports told it's a few and far between and though a russian guy has become a world champion i haven't seen any good results recently as far as olympics are concerned ok that's all from this and almost sports news from around the globe and exact a tossed on how nazi sent. well

geez available in hotels i'm going to do. toto publish these congress photos these twist never told. nobody. historical. culture in the city. because most. men do as a good up until the struggle for us to become a her toe. conventional

treatment has actually caused the death of a whole generation of young gay men in america skeptics challenge traditional theories behind tells of the sun to some politicians gather in vienna to discuss prevent the spread of the disease it's. on the. headlines russian security services a breakup of suspected terrorists out of assaulting the public of the sun which includes the money linked to the deadly attacks earlier this year. on a rainy and it is ukraine's he was kidnapped and held by the cia in the u.s. for more than a year. but mystery still surrounds a story with american media reporting he was spying for washington. remains in the sweltering grip of a hit we report from.