three stooges free. and free volunteers in videos for your media projects a free medio john darche dot com. it's just very warm welcome or to live here in moscow twenty four hours a day top stories now the global markets end the week walloped by massive sun all investors panic over full cost of recession in the us and europe. and. the middle east is inflamed once again as a mouse pulls out of a ceasefire following two days of his radio strikes on gaza the exchange of far between the sides came israel targeted those it plain for a deadly attack on its territory on thursday. and russia marks the anniversary of a crucial turning point in the failed coup by communist hardliners bloody

resistance of democratic activists twenty years ago opened the era of a new post conservative russia. talk about with more news stories more developments in half an hour from now in the meantime our interview program spotlight it's where we meet newsweek's moscow bureau chief oh in methods now he first came to moscow to find out the truth about his grandfather who died in start in prison camps but he quickly became fascinated by the country and its people that is next on r.t. . hello again welcome to spotlight the end of the show on r.t. i'm al gore no three my guest is matthew chance the book he dedicated to his family called stolen children three generations of love and war has become

a bestseller and britain and was translated into several languages recently it was published in russian children today how one is the guest of spotlight to tell us about the fascinating story of his parents'. newsweek bureau chief in moscow and will matthews has been roaming around the world searching for great stories but he found his best story in moscow trying to track his family tree born in london to the russian market and a well started he became a journalist and arrived in moscow to plunge into work and break away on his own instead and stumbled upon his roots and started searching for more dug from the k.g.b. archives until he found a tragic story of his grandfather died at the hands of stalin seqlock leagues and we became fascinated by russia and says despite his relatives having to escape from this country they still carry something a bit inside themselves can explain more in his dramatic them a story i want matthews joins us today on spotlight.

it's a show thank you very much for being with us. here i want to go first of all you. spent quite a while and russia you speak fluent russian you have. from russian family and so do you consider yourself to be russian at least half russian or you prefer to observe as a foreigner and i think from a distance well i'm not sure what i would i prefer but the fact is that i was born and raised in london so. although i was spoke russian with my mother and indeed i do speak excellent russian but that's i can't count it as my cheapness because my mother told me from childhood. and although it turns out now spent actually pretty much half my adult life in russian i'm still a foreigner i'm still a foreigner and one of the things that i think a lot of russians why i was slightly nervous about this book appearing in russian is that above all it's a journey of someone to a foreigner albeit

a foreigner with my close ties i'm with i'm with rose of the russian language it's a foreigners journey into russia trying to explain so i'm trying to explain some for myself and try to explain for the reader so it's not a russian book about russia it's a it's a problem is but in your book you're here you take a view of the foreigner. and for yourself you always consider yourself to be a londoner rather and that russian world russian is something something probably here for you this is early because actually i'm now my my wife is russian an hour before my children are three quarters so i mean i should probably feel more at home in moscow. and i certainly find it more interesting to to live in moscow than i do to spend time in one of the restaurants or. taste. but this is the other thing there's a there's a great letter for which you know russia great russian per million to over wrote

from paris because she got the revolution she spent some years in paris and she writes to her friend on a not a guy who's he remains in in learning to read the she can't bear this the she she misses the visitor or a little on the little wind in russia all the people in russia are subjected to be sort of seismic events of history and and so i was thought even before i lived in russia that there was some. you know i'm all real if you do have this feeling for this ted arkenstone then please tell me was it your idea to change the name the time of your novel and because in russian it was published under a name quite a nice name anti soviet novel which is where we should always can be translated as an anti studied romance exactly so so you think it's justified well here's here's the thing i'll i think the title in english style instilled in. it when you first

hear it your presumption is more that it's the that it's it's not literally about the children because of style and with some a ton of question you. put more about you know the generation who are stalin's children and in russian i think the tendency is more to presume but it's literally about style as children so there's a technical issue that i didn't want to you know sort of fool people into into thinking it was a book literally about their lives children but also there's a more important aspect of this and that is that that actually unfortunately tragically the story which makes up the first half of the book is of the the life and death of my grandfather a party he was executed. it was executed in ninety seven and his children my mother and her aunt were raised by the state that hard as i see much more familiar tragically to millions of russian families so i wanted

a little bit to sort of change the emphasis of the book for the for the russian reader true story which is less familiar and less usual in a certain sort of which is a list of this is the second which is the sort of romantic story of my my father a welshman. and his fiance and how they struggle for six years to to to get married it. got a question about the russian version the russian translation the russian version of the book the picture. and the car cover shows your parents like resembling the famous statue of a worker and a peasant but if they if there's a mistake should carry a hammer and sickle you are scary next. whose idea of. actually it was it was just a really odd is it if it's just a joke but it's actually from a series of very funny photographs that were taken with my mother who is very young

and she was a librarian and it's her. fooling around. to pretending to be the work in the presence of an actual picture and i mean it's no surprise it is that the shock of today it's a real blow to go home because it's taken like twenty years you have taken one. that was you weren't far but it was just it was just just playing around. so they had neither am i nor sit. in the library i don't know what place numbers they found that i could only dissolute because it was a series of sort of funny for existence ok well this sort of kidding would be considered anti-semitism stuff that you know very much so ok now. it's only about the book tell me about the book first of all the critics already said that there are too many clichés able to be cliches about russia that they're going to go like you're a journalist a specialist in this country and half russian should have no no this country better

then she's a cliche what it were what did you get well the i think what's what they describe as cliches is actually. particularly i think what people might take objection to is that my. my journey into russia in the one nine hundred ninety s. when i arrived as a young journalist. there's there's a great phrase from jarvis cocker everybody hates a tourist and especially one who thinks it's all such a laugh especially those who work in the tourist industry and i suspect it would have been but it in a more found sense i mean indeed i mean the whole idea of a sort of rather spoiled young journalist coming to moscow and. having this feast in the time of famine you know how they enjoy being in sort of. descending into all the sort of moscow underworld which i describe because i was a young city reporter the moscow times at that point i can see how people would be

would be offended that i was sort of enjoying all these sort of you on the world of moscow while the people were suffering but actually i think that i also balance that because i actually sort of saw a lot of the people very nasty underbelly and it affected me very deeply to homeless children and prisons and so on and i think part of the criticism is because people don't like to be reminded of that world because it was a very nightmarish and last time and i don't i certainly make it clear i hope that russia has changed since then and russia is no longer about sort of a market wild dark last place that it was in the ninety's happening a human chain. grandfather and this and this is where your book started as far as and they said you found you found the archives of the end of a dead now and the k.g.b. know it was and then there are the f.s.b. and their archives away you actually like the story of your grandfather boris

because her was was a party a party apparatus can and he was very well to do and then he disappeared. and he was he was actually prosecuted but by the k.g.b. so how come you found them you just you don't just walk into the into the k.g.b. building like verkhovna well actually the for the historical purposes i was very fortunate in in insofar as that he was at all how all this happened in ukraine. in russia even today the has been archives are closed there was a brief period of slight liberalization in the early one nine hundred ninety s. but basically i could not have written a book had my grandfather be short in russian. largely because the f.s.b. still likes to keith's its secrets in the closet and. the people in power in the kremlin prefer to close that hole in the stores which is why i was part of the k.g.b.

archives they were kept by the by the ukrainian bureau link you still there and unlike in russia in crane there's actually constitutional rights for relatives to sue to get the documents so fortunately it didn't require any any any any great some technical difficulties i just wrote to them and sure enough i got a letter back saying you know your you know your kind of person he is here and you can you can you can view it and it's indeed and in a terrifying document you have you know you just walk into the building you give yourself a pass and then they and they give you the files and then go find a there's a pretty good photo copy of what you can put a copy there's some technical issue. something far different from pittsburgh but it was interesting detail is that. he the ukrainian s.b.u. the successor of the k.g.b. also wanted to protect its own because there was a part of the file that was close to me taped together and i was sitting with the

young officer for the two days in defense of this file and. as you know old russian script is really hard to read so it was a help to me to read it and this part of the file was taped. tape together and he eventually succumbed also to curiosity and taped and we looked through it together and it was the part of the file that was a part of the rehabilitation of restitution of nine hundred fifty six when all of the when he was rehabilitated and he was proved proved to be innocent and all of those all of the investigators that had been involved in the case had themselves by nine hundred thirty nine been shot those are the pudge consumed it's own and there's no nobody left in the neighborhood because there were they didn't want people to know about you but why did they give you the tape just kept it was still because it it's all it's all the police on the ground together. says that he is a journalist a true journalist as we hear and author of a book called stolen children part right will be back shortly right after

a break so then go stay with us we'll continue with them. well. bringing you the latest in science terms technology from around russia. we've got the future covered. hands. and i'm going to approach. each flight. i party takes to the max air show.

welcome back to spotlight our no in just a reminder that my guest in the studio today is owen nephews a british journalist and author of a book called stamina children recently recently it was published a russian here in this country. and he just told us about your grandfather where his big. was a party apparatus times very well to do member of the soviet nomenclature and later he was prosecuted why what was the reason why did issue world the several answers to that question the immediate reason was that. the stalin was at that point confirming himself as establishing himself in power and

there was still. a large number of. people who didn't necessarily support starr because in the year of the great depression the great the great purge so basically almost all of the leadership of the ukrainian party had supported cynically cute of who was a challenger in one who was murdered and most of the devil hadn't seen exactly so it was briefly an internal power power struggle within the party and stalin was eliminating his enemies but for me i think the more important question is how did this happen and sultan its inputs this question alexander solzhenitsyn put this question much better than i ever could he says he asks you where does this wolf tribe come from where did it come from the become from among us because the line that divides good from evil goes through the heart of every man who wants to cut out a piece of his own heart. so this this this paradox of this incredible. aura could

be unleashed by russian men doing what they thought was right but actually make poses a very complex moral question because my grandfather key field his personal revolution in bricks and mortar he was very active in building one of the great giant factories of the first five year plan for the men who killed him shared the exact same philosophy they'd build personal revolution in the enemies of the bodies of the people they considered to be or had been told were enemies of the people the only thing that was different was their probably their attitude to stalin some of them love them. some of them less good because i don't just die well i think goes deeper than that i mean is that person wants you to murder because it's very it's very earlier but you know. when you quoted this this phrase from soldier notes and i think it's true not only in this country but any country about the great inquisition you can see the same thing about it allianz this line that goes through

the heart of the people here but not not not not and not many countries have practiced also genocide on the scale of russians somebody right here right now. some countries in europe practiced have said it's not something that not also genocide not of people even that even who were nazis kill people who they consider to be. germany germany was pretty happy. ok ok. we're going to be able to hear your grandmother that your grandmother. disappeared too and you were able also to find her trace there but that wasn't in the in the archives in the in the same secret service or was it you know was she she she was sent to the gulag where wish where she she spent nearly fifty years sent to the gulag because of what her husband. you are. because it has

a wife as a as the wife an enemy of the people. and in the she she survived and she she came back to moscow and lived with her with her daughters but unfortunately she went in sane with them in the in the gulag and i met her. i remember it slightly but very clearly when i was five she came to england once to meet her daughter who would by that time married a young britain and emigrated and she says and i i met her as a child but my my portrait of her was really composed of the memories of my daughters primarily my aunt and my mother you know where your great grandparents was very. into. my grandparents. my grandfather was buried in his unmarked grave of which there were hundreds around

russia for one was just under your body but still france and. if you will know now before we start talking about your father and your mother the second point in the book this empty soviet romance well i should say that in the closed society as the us is travelling abroad or even communicate guess your mother with foreigners was virtually unheard of any contact of somebody from abroad could mean big problems spotlighting to the media person. in one thousand twenties so young idealists from around the world coming to russia to take part in creating would be believed to be a better society fascination with the ideas of socialism brought an estimated twenty thousand americans and canadians to the us a sad little nine hundred twenty and nineteen twenty five many of them found their law here the luckiest who disillusioned by the regime quickly enough to go home before the stalin's repressions of the 1930's many of those who stayed. there who gulags

russian families of the foreigners couldn't escape the same fate in one nine hundred forty seven cross border marriages were completely prohibited by soviet law it was difficult to break the law since very few soviets were allowed to go abroad after it was a bore wished on stalin's death things didn't become any simpler for those russians with foreigners the foreigners were in the cause supervision by the key do you believe in the right of the russia their loved ones who were regarded as potential spies the suspicion was enough for a person to lose their job and exulted to montreal germans it was not until the nineteen seventies early immigration was allowed russians had to realize that once they married a foreigner and went to group it was in most of the cases the one we get out of the country relatives in france were stigmatized in the soviet union has not been fooled to the regime a real freedom in their in somebody from abroad came on there with the coup apps of

the u.s.s.r. . so we just saw how difficult it was the communicating for years how did your father ok me to russia in the sixty's managed to meet his future wife your live or to fall in love with her well to get real close to what he was actually one of the very first generation of postgraduate students there with their work but were allowed to study it was the university's part of the. as part of an academic exchange and that was about thanks to short because already and after the death of stalin and the thaw first it was the festival of youth from nine hundred fifty seven the second week of the first time my father came to russia along with several well you know he was part of that for he was a he was the first he did not meet you monday no no and he didn't leave so i'm not a child of the. but the i was more than fifty seven. but actually that means that and that also doesn't make me because i was bored during the

festival. so and i think i was enormous the importance of turning point for soviet society in fact and by the time my. my father my father came to moscow several times first is a research in the in the british embassy briefly in the ninety's fifty eight and then again as a as a as an academic in one hundred sixty three and then it was actually it was dangerous for people with something to lose to meet foreigners because you could get in trouble with your job but my mother was a plant working as a young librarian so actually she and the university actually the institute of marxism and leninism. how did the how how did he a young british guy go to the market is that it was an instinct they had they met somewhere somewhere they were it through mutual friends how my father knew from the first and how i see the connection with the bolshoi theatre. it was

a by letter much so so much of my mother loved the ballet and under some mutual friend of the ballet and he said and introduce each other but in fact even when they were introduced. their mutual friend called political elites and didn't didn't introduce it was as an innocent and he said he said he and the stone you know what i will because it was sort of so as not to frighten her son but if you do speak russian my father speak of her. broken russian we could which could sound like this like it but is it going to discredit better than brute. he said he writes russian what about me the next and tell you he said this is why your mother could have taken him from someone from the bottom of course and made an immense and. different in love and if i had a naive leader it seems to us that they believe that they could get married on it and then they register it's good to get married at that point. the k.g.b. and. they had been trying to. recruit my father for some for some years i'm

not quite sure what they wanted why they thought he would be important or interesting but when he finally had got a sober. fiance they they had something on him and they gave him they offered him a deal an offer which they thought he couldn't refuse which was either i mean you work for us or you don't marry your fiance and he took a very brave decision i'm not sure i could have had this but the moral courage to do that but he. he told him to get lost and he. he was kicked out of the countrymen persona non-grata years before he was deported and what was the reason the official reason for dating a russian gal what little know they actually set him up there they persuaded a. fellow graduate student to accuse him of economic speculation by selling jean le jeans are going to something and it was really really nasty story i mean when

the oven to throw this guy out of university you know it was it was a sort of typical summer nasty k.g.b. story so basically they set him up i mean very obviously who didn't even conceal that it was you that should have been very brave after that because she continued keeping in touch with him and entertain trying to meet him and trying to get him to leave them in a then i mean this was really brave indeed and that's what makes the whole story so extraordinary because to us it seems almost incredible it's ninety sixty three it is the height of the cold wars and it's to sapphic you cuban missile crisis and these two young people who've been separated very forceful forcibly by the soviet state decide that they're not going to take that for an answer they're not going to take no for an answer we're going to fight to be together and in that decision only partly it's naive but it's also it insanely great and it would be crazy if it weren't for the fact that they eventually succeeded six years later because in fact

the. one of the oddest things about the whole story and something that might surprise many western readers was that they were allowed to correspond to each other every day and the correspondence is magnificent it's incredibly moving it's beautiful. but a lot is going to go through some of them are read but they can respond freely ok well thank you very much for this interview that i hope of a read of all the more from reading your book thank you and just reminding that my guest today it was how when he was journalist and author of a book called stallions children let's find out from was he felt like. back with more until then stay on artsy and take care thank you. chad.

little. league one the t.v. newsman still and my belly. ring while.