it's ninety two years exactly since the bolsheviks executed the last russian tsar nicholas the second and his family their deaths ended three centuries of rule by the roman have been a city r.c. interviewed historian helen rappaport whose expert research is contained in her new book the last days of their monitors 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 pattern both during the bolshevik revolution helen rappaport thanks very much for talking to r.t. now you focus on the last thirteen days of that are moneths lives 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 realized 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 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 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 soft. example must of 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 i 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 he cuts 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 were denied 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 for 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

would because they 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 romanovs to your culture and it was very uncertain what was going to happen to them they might must have had some sense that it might all end horribly so their 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 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 alex a 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 this all was a perfectly decent chap they never liked that sorry tsa they always found a very. stuck up and still demanding 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 clampdown and yaakov furore skee 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. to 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 checa 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 clamp down 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 on a focal point on the railway line amongst the guards 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 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 your oscar didn't plan it he didn't check out whether they were these guys were good shots they didn't check. guns they had

a mixture of some efficient guns browning's and coats 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 brutally finish 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 pot pot shot at the cellar 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 of 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 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 leonard 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 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 them all and me. 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 went to catch a bug was this incredible developments 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 thanks very much thank you.

the train carries away the russian empires gold reserve. to save it from the. five hundred tons of gold. dozens of counted. six hundred fifty million dollars ruble. that is still awaiting the arrival. sentry long way. mystery of the. wealthy british. high. markets why not. come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy

with much stronger for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines in two counties a report on our. culture is that so much i was on different angles i was in a film was a little bit of a real pain because i was told is to remain in the making of our western ideas about economics trade and even democracy in the balance and what model. stories which are made to police children. harmed their health. ministers should treat illness is the only nurse in the. place. to secure their shells against. the law to mainstream medical hear about the horrors of any comes under fire from

skeptics as twenty thousand scientists politicians and activists gathering dnipro comes to discuss ways of monitoring the disease. most of this week's top stories six years he said says arresting a group of suspected cases side was in the south and russian republic of kyrgyzstan among them with fifteen year old downs who sad that dead terrorist husbands trains that. he wrote was the word of an iranian nuclear scientist returns home and also claiming he was kidnapped by the cia a demand for president let's head to zation as reports imagine that he may have been spying in washington state. on the day he died it means a radical breaking heat wave across washington school campuses meaning tough times for families. as the headlines now well support is up 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. unheralded hasan dominated the british open to win his first major title. russia's first formula one driver and defending champion jenson button competed in moscow. and jennifer draw so wins the 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 settles 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.

now to football with more action in the russian premier league today where lokomotiv moved into fifth sport's that's after beating along a three nil goal from the double from six sealed the victory for the muscovites in the meantime terakhir to. four ninth sports following one in the car i still dial from tiger three minutes before the break. gave the parson few reasons to celebrate with fresh new boys for one. had put the visitors in from eighteen minutes into the game and one starts to go into the interval. prove costly for the siberian side. the goal 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 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 . which is back earth cute to finish off a nice cross did pull one go back with a powerful trick. but survive the final nail stuff and fourteen minutes from time sealing the final result for one. cent have received another big boost in their bit to lay their hands on the cover to get a cup after their veteran forward alex a yes sion side and 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 what 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 matson as well as experienced russia goalkeeper you've got enough to help them make title dream come true the new season faces off on the eighth of september. in cycling denise mitchell has finished second in the fourteenth stage of the two difference the russian wanted to finish with spent similar sanchez who finished third to victory and 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 the winner mention offsets fourth overall. follow on 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 the top 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 must go public it turned out in droves to hear as thousands attended the band in the very center of the capital in spite of the tropical heat this hero reigning world champion jenson button joining 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 it for 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 list of course i want to have a passion for imprint here this is a way that maybe i can help something bring the 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 believe it's something you know all i swear in the formula one chorus but there were plenty more races on four wheels into driving wrong to cram into an amazing world. driving. sure they're drifting skewers causing quite a spectacle. in his commercial also too poor in the first two. because 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 and more to sports 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 that it would be to produce the fastest city trick 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 rider had to do a restart to the race following a three by crash involving dippin air alexis but and. the race was reduced to twenty one left as a result and the droste took full advantage edging out fellow spaniard who started on pearl runs a finishing over three seconds behind the win it see his three race winning streak come to an end cases down a complete at the podium on his ticket to after peping defending champ and volunteer in an intense deal they tell and will be plays with of course his first

race in structuring his leg six weeks ago i was happy with his first victory. and the first race i was i was riding good in were saying they would also we were going away from their group in when they when they start the race and the feeling is leg. and then when we restart their race 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 feel fast so i overtake organ and try to kill it. then finally i get these all here so it's amazing. tennis now and french open runner ups we drop in sword ling seemed on the verge of tears as sith shots of the now the clay court title the world number far worse. in the far north his hometown went to odds with the top seed and defending champion when it needed to clinch the match seven

five six six two are prone sword link crumbled in the decider and charted the tour twenty six title and first seventeen months. and finally you all 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 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 of the crew the member to meet pretty good when he won the race our week he was on the base because he was very very technical they forget

all the new. revenue we put the show on the shave they said use it only call us they were in the compass to move that there was a shift doing it and so we gained it they believe in the race for six weeks money and i thought 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 two 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. wealthy british style. is not on.

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the causes of aids comes under fire from skeptics says twenty thousand scientists politicians and docs it is gathering ghana for a conference to discuss ways of tackling the disease. the week's top stories this hour old enough to kill the security side this is a rest a group of suspected would be suicide bombers in the summer fashion republic of dagestan among them was detained on dolls his sad that has been strained. the rosier and ran a nuclear scientist returns and also claiming he was kidnapped by the cia but america has denied the accusation as. imagine that steve i have been spying in washington something. island paid by the heat i record breaking heat wave across russia is scorching hot meaning tough times for follows.