in crops making tough times for fall means. it's ninety two years exactly since the bolsheviks executed the last russians on the second and his family deaths and three centuries of grew by the roman of denah state also interviewed historian hadn't rapoport who's expert research is contained in her book the last days of the ramana of 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 pattern 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 courtroom 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 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 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 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. 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 that you can't remember 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 would tonight 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'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 word because there was so 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 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 alexei 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 the cell was a perfectly decent shot they never liked that sari tsa they always found her 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 clampdown and yaakov furor 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 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 and i say sion to really make the root 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 your ask it 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 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 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 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 forest in a truck or

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 thro 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 murder of them on 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 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 gala 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 signoff had worked as opposed to the agitation a 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 and me. going forward to the present day what would you say is the abiding legacy of that amount of 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 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 believe as a sense of nationhood in orthodoxy that they feel they've lost had enough of what thanks very much like you.

that are killing innocent. allies or base of course and that's never answered. in the song for the scholar me i think of it every day. i steal. from the memories. so much so long time are you serious right now. i was ashamed. i was ashamed that i had been muted i was ashamed that i had been eager. to go. my way. in the mosque. where i would be out in all the hours of four to. not believe where i would go. i think. that i was a good soldier. but now most older on the other side and i think i'm just an.

excuse. the mainstream medical view about the causes of aids comes under fire from skeptics

says twenty thousand scientists politicians and activists gathering yet for a conference to discuss ways of bottling the disease. week's top stories this hour security side so rest a group of suspected would be set aside bone is in the southern russian republic of kyrgyzstan among the world's fifteen year old guns sad that dead terrorist husbands train them. heroes the rare and rainy best scientists returns on sick maybe he was kidnapped by the cia but america has in the mix the accusation as for the smash that he might have been spying on washington some. under he's by the red coat breaking news way across russia is still true submitting tough times forbids. those in the headlines to me tricia guys up next with orphanages false names.

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 sport. unheralded 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 a leg fracture. and will start with golf 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 athlete westwood settle for a 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 locomotive moved into fifth sports that's after beating along a three nil goal. double from six sealed the victory for the muscovites in the meantime terakhir to. four ninth sports following a one. car i still dire from tiger three minutes before the break. gave the parson home crowd few reasons to celebrate a fresh new voice for one. had put the visitors in from eighteen minutes into the game and. start 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 survive an attempt to make up for his mistake yellow cards 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 free email me to wait for the second half . back of q to finish off a neat cross did pull one go back with a powerful trick. but survive the final nail tossed off and fourteen minutes from time final result for one. and 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 yashin side and one get 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 hockey league who's a former world champion and double olympic medalists for russia joint scant last

season but failed to help them going further than the opening playoff round. iraq to do better than that last sixteen exits and certain role just want to spend handle and. as well as experience russia goalkeeper you've got enough to help them make topple 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 christophe as the frenchman won the first stage in the pair nears but it's still and holds together. finished for ten seconds behind where men shot states fourth overall. for one hits moscow and f. one exhibition of and has been held in the russian capital there but there are no moscow city racing event fans a chance to see also the fast cars up close at center put up of once along.

for the third time were transformed into real racing track in the kremlin walls trembled as formula one chorus swept past with a rule it was this old moscow 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 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 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 true 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 they pull the hopes and i want to be like them or anything but i wouldn't pull the country all i swore in the formula one chorus but there were plenty races into driving in the kremlin to entertain enemies a crowd of. drivers. sure they're drifting skewers causing quite a spectacle. in his commercial also 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

a true born into to the audience to show the power and potential cause the success of such events has grown year to year in mourners who are fluent 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 is in the point where the plan would be to produce the first city trick on the f one circuit continue but out of. another motor sport knows jennifer just has won the german grand prix but the honda rider had to do i restart to the race following a three by crash involving ray dippin air alexis but and. the race was reduced to twenty one left as a result and took full advantage edging out fellows. who started on pearl runs or finishing over three seconds behind the winner to see his three race winning streak come to an end cases turn a complete at the podium on his ticket to after peping defending champ or volunteer

in an intense deal they tell on will but plays with of course his first race in structuring his leg six weeks ago a draw so i was happy with his first victory of the season. and the first race i was i was riding good then. 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 race for us most are the same you know because i start first and then here a day and by the end i feel like i'm being a lot but i can still fast so i overtake or hand and try to do it in. then finally i get these old hears it's amazing. tennis now and french open runner ups we draw been told nothing seemed on the verge of tears. of another clay court title the world number five was felled by a nickel and margaret in the final of his hometown went. top seed and defending

champion when it made sense to clinch the match seven five six six two their approach crumbled in the decider and charted for the twenty sixth title and first seventeen months. and finally able to give 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 very weird race the crew the member to me in a game when he won the race and hour we were on the base because he was very very

technique out there for. all he knew of. the we put the show on the shelf this said use it only called us they were the compass a movement that there was a shift doing. it so we gain a day but even the race of six weeks might add up or so well now days your two clubs are brimming with life but it's not so much about sports but mostly about tree creation there are multiple shots and water skiing but this is just a way to spend your free time well to support stalwarts 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. nineteen ninety eight. the russian empire.

from the soviets. five hundred tons of gold. dozens of counted. six hundred. in. the train. station. a century long the way. the mystery of the golden train. wealthy british. find out what's really happening to the global economy. financial headlines tune in

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a whole generation of young gay men in america. the mainstream medical view about the causes of aids comes under fire from skeptics says twenty thousand scientists politicians and activists gathering for a conference to discuss ways of backing the disease. the week's top headline is old enough to kill security services arrest a group of suspected would be suicide bombers in the southern russian republic of dagestan among them what fifteen year old gowns is said that husbands train them. all so they sound my heroes iraq and iran uniqueness scientists also claiming he was kidnapped by the cia but america has denied an accusation as reports that he may have been spying on washington's side. and he body heat and record breaking heat wave across russia is scorching crops making tough times with families.