well know it's ninety two years to the day since the bolsheviks executed the last russians are nicholas the second and his family the deaths ended three centuries of rule by the roman of dinner parties talk to historian helen rappaport about her book the last days of the romanovs on the tragedy and its mark on the country's history a special interview next on r.t. . 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 but 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 new culture in berg 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 coffee or ski who was in charge of the party of 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 a 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 a book 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 him because your book 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 arrived in 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 but 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 newspaper said to night letters and parcels no visitors so they were effectively cut off 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 image sure of their age very on worldly they've 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 pretty so used to being only in each other's company but it wasn't just the family who were in their pattern 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 culture 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 docked to 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 interesting lee although they could empathize with the children especially and came to like the girls actually and even thought this all was a perfectly decent chap they never liked that sorry tsa they always found a very. stuck up and still demanding that people bow and scrape to 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 furore 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 murderer 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 man 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 all stock right in far the far west of russia working their way back to walk along the translight be a rare way towards a culture which was then a focal point on the railway line amongst the gods was there anything lang 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 pushing 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. italy finished them off the only one of them the family really who had a quick death was actually nicholas because the minute they the order came to fire they all want to take pop pot shot at the star 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 details take the bodies out into the forest in a truck a very rapidly old fear truck arrived dead drunk and late so with one shovel.

one shovel to bury some people that 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 persons 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 them on a family is often attributed to a sort of maverick branch of the castor and the bolsheviks but you believe that the order can be traced directly to learn it 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 soviet who went back and forth quite a few times to moscow now got a shock and was very good friends with the arc of spirit love who was lenin's right hand man said lapham had 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 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 that i'm on a family to me the most interesting thing i found when i went to russia when i when she was this incredible development is the 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 a terrible terrible 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 believers a sense of nationhood an orthodoxy that they feel they've lost thanks very much like you.

lists lists lists lists lists. at least sleep sleep sleep sleep. is. legal stories

this hour skeptics of challenge traditional theories behind aids as tells of scientists and politicians gathered in vienna to discuss nothing but the spread of these. russian security services broke up a suspected terrorist some of the southern republic of dagestan this week included a man linked to the deadly moscow metro tech earlier this year. and iranian nuclear scientists who claims he was kidnapped and held by the cia in the u.s. for more than the able to turn tones of the list in american history with reports in america that it was spying for washington. and russia remains in the sweltering grip of a heat wave summer region suffering a severe drought and farmers with elsa harvest. a lot more on those new stories in less than fifteen minutes from now in the meantime the sports is next with dmitri.

you know this is today and it's very good to have a company again let's take a look at what's going on in the world of sports. russia's first formula one driver tell it with trophies in moscow and sas is confident of a new contract with. plus there's more action from the russian premier league ways and it remains the only unbeaten side's. burned down at the draw so wins german grand prix wild finish this fall for his return from the left front. but with football more action in the russian premier league today well a combative have the chance to take fifth sports but this one a late this evening and three points would see them. in the meantime terakhir the. sport's full and one male victory at. a so different target three minutes before the break. gave that boss and home crowd

a few reasons for joy as there were fresh boys on g four one. i got a lot of head that put the visitors in for ten minutes of the game and one was to go into the to how the bike at the cigarette break through a costly for the siberian side the stone and left to go miles but failed to collect the ball and it's arrive and attempt to make up for his mistake and the powder followed. on making no mistake from the sports drink time you know the sense of sold a way side make it through midway through the second half to get it back up to you to finish cross over did pull one goal back with a powerful frick three minutes later i survived but the final nail in tomsk often full ten minutes from time sealing the final result for one. i mean the mid terms in it are still the only one

bits and seem in the russian prime a lake that to know the mainstay of now gone thought seen games without defeat and seven points clear at the top the goals coming just each side of half time at the stadium ends in it could have easily had a few more but that was from the colon up nicholas slim but it's getting to his head and to make it one off to toughen our bedroom our shop of made it sunil and the fifty minutes into real page to be read by kill sets him up and his thoughts this is the base flaws of the season for the book some bits in it fans in general number ten you will split see doing no wrong so far. we're going to go second to one victory over spot moscow here in the russian capital the defending champ and getting on the school board to just four minutes or so now the man on target tough to deceptive cross that day if the head of the coaches his opposite

number coppin with a lot to pond spots not want for drawn four and lost four games to remain in the table. and just above spots are called to normal more scored one of five go for it against a still have to consider another goal to him on a dime of some heads and on a one to two delayed with two play goals the equaliser was from dennis collodion a great volley from the russian international straight into the corner and then injured ron and showed his strength to get to know my two one laid off to making all the rides moves in the area. and into tending first half to get the bank a level that is just before half time with spring free kick but it was nama at the last laugh while demurred. giving the sides. three points. i didn't transfer news now and spurs boss harry redknapp says it's likely he'll

sign spartak moscow goalkeeper stupid boots of course so the croatia international is wanted by the north london club on a season long loan to act as compared to the garnish said there was a chance of a deal after his side's goalless draw with their son who set earthquakes on such a day political status for now to play that spot as the club struggles and the question premier league rules limiting the amount of foreign players. and the scar sent because burke have received another big boost and bit to lay their hands on the cup to go to cup after their veteran forward alex signed a one year extension on his deal with the north side of the to six year old is going nowhere despite previous reports it could be on the move to another team in the concert of the hockey league yashin who is a former world champion and double elim took medalists for joint scar last season but failed to help them going further than the opening player frowned. to do better

than that last sixteen exit and have also and rolled with his two of mata spent hard and toni morrison as well as experienced russia go. to help them make title dream come true the new kitchell susan faces off on the eighth of september. in cycling denise finished second at the fourteenth stage of the tour de france the russian won the duel at finish against spend its summer sanchez to finish. the big trip went to christophe as the french ment won the first stage in the pyrenees but it still ended schleck holds the yellow jersey finished fourteen seconds behind the winner. fourth overall. formula one hits more school an f one exhibition event has been held in the russian capital the veron moscow seat a racing event. a chance to say all sorts of fast cars up close concert at the top of white along for the. for the third

tour a must whose roots were transformed into really great interest in the criminals trembled as formula one chorus went past with a rule it was this must go public it turned out in droves to hear as thousands attended t.v. and even there were essential to kept it in spite of the trip sheet this year reigning world champion jenson button will join the ranks of famous f one drivers who have come to moscow the russian fans were pleased to see him i've always been excited about coming to moscow and i think you know i'm very lucky to have this opportunity and i feel very privileged to have this opportunity to drive a formula long around the kremlin and i mean not many people get that opportunity so i'm very much looking forward to today this is not a day of work for me this is a day of enjoyment there were other stars too including the first ever russian driver to compete in formula one. for the local crowd he was the main story of this

exhibition race the twenty five year old driver hopes that very soon he will be able to drive his racing car on a full training fossil force i want to have a passion run print here this is a way maybe i can help something that will bring the more one here versus country but i don't know with full when it will be i hope so i want to be here later on one of the thing but i wouldn't believe it's something you know all i swear in the form of course but there were plenty more races on four wheels into driving in the kremlin to entertain enemies equal. drivers sure their drifting ski was causing quite a spectacle. i am going to mature again in his commercial for eclipse to. say that it's a very. exciting event even though these cars are not for driving on the roads they're supposed to be driven and deserves. to the audience to show the power and

potential cause the success of such events is good year to year who are parents across the country hoping soon because to do it should one of. the project to build a trade way to close in twelve isn't the point where the plan would be to produce the first a city trick on the f one circuit continue but out of. another motor sports news jennifer joss has won the john one grand prix but the honda rider had turned tail for a start to brace up to bad spell on the texan circuits. crash involving brenda deploy net access program and a viral protester was the reason why the race was reduced to twenty one laps as a result and just took full advantage edging out fellow spanair gio gather round circle started on the run so finishing the three seconds behind the winner to see his great race winning streak come to an end cases turner completed the podium when

his took a after peping defending noted to be champ involved in a row in an intense deal will be fully the fourth place was his first race since fracturing his leg six weeks ago and the draw so this is first victory of the season. and the first race i was i was reading good then they were saying they would also we were going away from they will be in when they when they start the race and the feeling is leg. and then when we do start their race for us most are the same you know because i start first and then here a day and by the end i feel i'm being a lot but i can still fast so i overtake or hand and try to do they do it fast then finally i get a good result here so it's amazing. and finally a yachting event has been held just start side moscow to mark the fiftieth

anniversary of the country's first limp a gold in the discipline to open eggen was the man behind it soviet union success and the star class competition at the round games back in nineteen sixty now eighty three his still active in the sport heading a foundation aimed at reviving yachting and russia are caught up with the man and his old friend and rival who spoke about the l. times and sports future. remember. the crew. member to meet beneath the really warm days. you want because you were very ready. for. the new. where it would be we could be sure this is. the only be called boss and when he becomes both move he would refuse we docked with it so he gave the race weeks and weeks might have of course the well now days your two clubs are brimming with life but it's not so much

about sports but mostly about recreation the romal to boats and water skiing but this is just a way to spend your free time well to support stalwarts few and far between and the russian guy has become a world champion i haven't seen any good results recently as far as olympics are concerned. ok up to date now more sports news from around the globe in toss time here not by foot. that i kill innocent kid allies across the face of course and that's never and. the songs on those cars filled with me i think of it every day. i still have the flashbacks from the memories. that. i saw my soul

a long time i'm just here trying to help. i was ashamed. i was ashamed that i did i was ashamed that i hadn't been a hero why i got my arm i got my legs. in the mine. when i went to vietnam i was a forward. i don't believe what i was going on once or i think. that i was a good soldier. but now most older on the other side and i think i'm just in a good.

nazi has. a whole generation of young gay men in america. behind a just thousands of scientists and politicians gathered to discuss how to prevent the spread of the disease. the week's top headlines here at all to russian security services break up a suspected terrorist cell in the southern republicans which includes a man linked to the deadly moscow metro attacks this year.