meantime it's ninety two years exactly since the bolsheviks executed the last russians are nicholas the second and his family their deaths ended three centuries of rule by the romanov dynasty and r.t. interviewed historian helen rappaport whose expert research is contained in her book the last days of the room elves telling the story of the tragedy and its impact on russia'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 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 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 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 are 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 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 so regionalized letters and parcels no visitors so they were effectively cut off and what kind of family were they at that stage well 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 had 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

word 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 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 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 factory workers who volunteered for 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 shot they never liked that sarita 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 cool furor ski was brought in and the whole thing changed and so it's made it more about yeah of 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 enforce clan. on the first 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 byram rare way towards a cattery by which isn't a focal point on the railway line amongst the gods was there anything 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 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 count 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 any 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 this hour 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 sub worst of it was that the man in charge of the detail to take the bodies out into the forest in a truck at a very rapidly old fear truck arrived dead drunk and late so with one shovel.

one shovel to bury from 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 peasants 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 merger of the 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 wrongness 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 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 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 developments this sense of identification of the romanovs

with all of the 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 to believe as a sense of nationhood an orthodoxy that they feel they've lost for the rest of what thanks very much like you. did i kill innocent. or was it a base of course and that's never answered. i'm

a song that's called for me i think of it every day. life by trying to memorise. so much so that long time are you surprised. i was ashamed. i was ashamed that i did i was ashamed that i hadn't been a hero. i got to go my way. but in the modern. car would be our knowledge of our fortress. and our belief or i would go. no wonder i think. that i was a good soldier. for the most soldier on the other side and i think i'm just going to go. out.

to. live in the.

top stories here and tease skeptics challenge traditional theories behind aides to styles a scientists and politicians gather in vienna discuss how to prevent the spread to see. the security services broke up a suspected terrorist cell is something the public of this week including the link to the deadly moscow metro attacks earlier this year. an iranian nuclear scientist who claims he was kidnapped and held by the cia in the u.s. for more than a year returns home. every mistreat with reports in america that the spy for washington. and his russian remains in the grip of a heat wave some regions of it is a bit of a mess with alz. brings up today for the moment with more news for you more developments in less than fifteen minutes from now in the meantime sports is next with dmitri.

you know this is what to do things for joining us first let's take a quick look at what's going on in the world of sports. and how the tasing dominated the british open to win his first major title. russia's first formula one driver and defending champ and jenson button competed in moscow. and. german motive. finishes fourth on his return from the leg. and we'll start with gulf south africa has won the british open by seven strokes the twenty seven year old shot a one under seventy one in the fourth and final round for a sixteen under total local favorite westwood circles for runner up finish world number one tiger woods managed only three and it's their first major win for. the

defies the old dominate the field from the early stages. not football with more action in the russian premier league today where lokomotiv moved into fifth sport's that's after beating along your three nil goal. double from six sealed the victory for the muscovites in the meantime terakhir to. four ninth sports following a one in the car i still get three minutes before the break. gave the parson home crowd few reasons to celebrate as they were fresh new boys for one. put the visitors in from eighteen minutes into the game and one starts to go into the interval. keep a cigarette break prove costly for the siberian side left to go mouth but failed to collect the ball and fouled it survive an attempt to make up for his mistake

a yellow card and pounce a followed because make no mistake from the spot in first half injury time another defensive blips all the way side make it three nil may do it for the second half. back of cute to finish off a neat cross did pull one go back with a powerful trick for a minute but survive the final nail tossed off and fourteen minutes from time selling the final result for one. in the case sent have received another big boost in their bit to lay their hands on the cover to get a cup after their veteran forward alexei yasha inside and one year extension on his deal with the northern side the thirty six year old is going nowhere despite previous reports he could be on the move to another team in the continental. who's a former world champion and double olympic medalists for why should join scott last season but failed to help them going further than the opening playoff round scarred

iraq to do better than that last sixteen exit and certain role just with his two of martha's friend handle antonio as well as experienced russia goalkeeper you've got enough to make toppled dream come true the new season faces off on the eighth of september. in cycling denise mitchell face finish second in the fourteenth stage of the two difference the russian wanted to finish with spent similar sanchez who finished third to victory went to restore as the frenchman won the first stage in the pyrenees but it's still and holds together. finished for ten seconds behind where mention offsets fourth overall. for a one hits moscow and f. one exhibition of and has been held in the russian capital the barren moscow city of racing event fans a chance to see also the fast cars up close up of once along. to

the through terrain miscues roads were transformed into real racing track in the criminals trembled as formula one course went bust with a rule it was this sound must go public it turned out in droves to hear as thousands attended the event in the very center of the capital in spite of the tropical heat this hero reigning world champion jenson button joined 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 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 better opportunities 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 stories too including the first ever russian driver to compete in formula one through off 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 home track plus of course i want to have a russian grand prix here this is a way maybe i can help something bring the more one here. but i don't know with people when it will be hopeless and i want to be like one of them but i wouldn't believe it's something all i swear in the form of course but there were plenty more races on four wheels into driving round the kremlin to entertain enemies a cruel. driver. sure their drifting skew is causing quite a spectacle. in his commercial also too for in the first two. 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 does it's. into to the audience to show the power

and potential cause the success of such events has grown year to year and mourners who are fans across the country hoping grand prix will soon be hosted in russia where i'm going to raise a said project to build a trade by two thousand and twelve isn't the point where the plan would be to produce the first city track on the f one circuit continue but out of. another motor sport knows jennifer just has won the john one grand prix but the honda had to do i restart to the race following a three by crash involving ray dipping their excess but and. the race was reduced to twenty one left as a result. of full advantage edging out fellow spanish who started on pearl lorenza finishing over three seconds behind the winner to see his three race winning streak come to an end cases down a complete to the podium on his ticket to after peping defending champ or volunteer in an intense deal they tell on will but plays with. first race in structuring his

leg six weeks ago a draw so i was happy with his first victory of the six. and the first race i was i was riding good then they were saying they would also we were going away from their group in when they when they start the race and the feeling is late. and then when we restart their eyes for us most are the same you know because i start first and then hear it big and by the end i feel i'm being a lot but i can still fast so i overtake organ and try to do it in. then finally i get this all here so it's amazing. tennis now and french open runner ups we drop in sword knowing seemed on the verge of tears as sith shots of the now the clay court title the world number five. in the final of his hometown went to odds with top seed and defending champion who spent it needed to clinch the match seven

five six six two era prone sword link crumbled in the decider and charted for the tour twenty six title and first seventeen months. and finally y'all together and has been held just outside moscow to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the country's first ever limpid gold in the discipline to me it was the men behind this service unit success in this competition at the games spec in one nine hundred sixty now eighty three is still active in the sport having a foundation aimed at reviving yachting in russia r.t. caught up with him and his old friend and rival who spoke about the times and the sports future. remember a radio wave grace the crew the member to me in a game when he won the race. he won the race because he was very very technique out there for. all the new. revenue we put the

show on the shelf they said use it only called us and when he become press a move that there was a shift doing. it so we gain a day but even the race of six weeks might and i thought oh 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 with a 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 that's all from me and this process for now more enticed on handouts a guy. and lasted for almost a floozy is the jewel of two super powers and brains. of

the two miles jewel of the spins congress. will give you the future we help you understand how and what to bring the best in science and technology from across russia and around the world join us for a technology update on our g. tori's which i made to police children's. health. insurance illnesses. nurse and. a

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a generation of young american skeptics traditional fear is behind aids as thousands of scientists and politicians gather in vienna to discuss how to prevent the spread of the sea. the week's top headlines here in russian security services break up a suspected terrorist cell in the cell the republic of dagestan. to the deadly moscow metro tracks this year. she was kidnapped and held by the cia in the u.s. for more than a year to turn turn the mystery still a story with american media reporting he was spying for washington. and his russian remains in the sweltering grip of a heat wave to report from the region. without a home.