turn the land into a first third world come. close up on our jeanne. here is our t.v. live from moscow our top stories global markets end the week wall of try a massive sell off investors panic over four counts of recession in the u.s. and europe. and. the middle east is inflamed once again as the mass pulls out of a ceasefire following two days of israeli airstrikes on gaza exchange of fire between the sides came as israel targeted those it claims for a deadly attack on its territory on thursday. and russia marks the anniversary of a crucial turning point

a failed coup by communist hardliners and the bloody resistance of democratic activists tried to years ago that open the era of a new cold soviet russia. now install i remain newsweek's moscow bureau chief owen matthews who first came to the russian capital to find out the truth about his grandfather who died in stalin's prison camps but he quickly became fascinated by the country and its people that's next. hello again welcome to spotlight the interview show on r.t. i'll go now then play my guest is matthew it's the book he dedicated to his family called stolen children three generations of love and war has become a bestseller in britain and was translated into several languages recently it was

published in russian children today is the guest of spotlight to tell us about the fascinating story of his parents. newsweek bureau chief in moscow where matthew chance has been running around the world solution for great stories but he found his best story in moscow trying to track his family tree born in london to a russian model and a welsh father he became a journalist and arrived in moscow to plunge into work and break away on his own instead he stumbled upon his roots and started searching for more dogs from the k.g.b. archives until he found a tragic story of his grandfather died at the hands of stalin seqlock leaks uncle 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 his story on matthew's joins us today on spotlight. it's a show thank you very much for being with us. a year i want to go first of all you

. spent quite a while and russia you speak fluent russian you have. some russian family in this and so do you consider yourself. to be russian but he's half russian or you prefer to observe as a foreigner from a distance well i'm not sure what i would have preferred 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 that as my cheapness because my mother told me from childhood and although it turns out that i've now spent actually pretty much half my adult life in russia i'm still a foreigner if 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 all of someone a foreigner albeit a foreigner within my quiz time i'm with i'm with the russian language it's

a foreigners journey into russia trying to explain so i'm trying to explain some for myself i'm trying to explain for the reader so it's not a russian book about russia it's a problem as both in your book here here you take a view of the foreigner. and insert yourself you always consider yourself to be a londoner rather and that russian here russian is something something from a book here for you this is early because actually i'm now my my wife is russian and therefore my children are three quarters so i mean i should probably feel more at home in moscow going to undergo and i certainly find it more interesting to. live in moscow than to spend time in one of the restaurants with them taste. but this is the way that i think there's a great letter from. russia great recent per million took over wrote from paris because she got the revolution she spent some years in paris and she writes to her friend ana my people who say he remains in in learning grow that she can't bear

this the she she misses the the view to talk a little on the little wind in russia. all the people in russia are you know subjected to be sort of seismic events of history and. so i was thought even before i live in russia that there was something you know more real people if you do have this feeling for this that arc and stuff there then please tell me was it your idea to change the name the time to love your novel when it could be because in russian it was published under a name quite a nice name anti soviet novel which is that we were we shock always can be translated as an anti-semite romance exactly so so you think it's justified well here's here's the thing. i think the title in english style instilled in. when you

first hear it your presumption is more that it's the that it's it's not literally about the children of those of style and it's a little unabashedly. but yucca but more about you know the generation who is stalin's children and in russian i think the tendency is more to presume that it's literally about stalin's 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 stalin's children but also there's a more important aspect of this and there's that that actually unfortunately tragically the story which makes up the first half of the book is of the bird the life and death of my grandfather a party who was executed in morris b. because he was executed in ninety seven and his children and my mother. were raised by the soviet state that part is actually 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 to a story which is less familiar and less usual and certainly it's one of which is the list. is the second which is the romantic story of my my father a welshman and and his. if you don't say and how they struggle for six years to. get married and have a question of their russian version of russian translation the russian version of the book the picture on the car cover shows your parents like resembling the famous statue of a worker and a present but if they if there is an especially carry a hammer and sickle you are scary an axe. whose idea. it was it was just a joke really thought it was just a joke it's actually from a series of very funny photographs that were taken my mother who is very young and she was a librarian and it's her. fooling around. pretending

to be the work of the president of the distance and actually maybe an intern as i suppose it is that the shock of today it's a real political hell is going to take unlike many years you have taken money. that was you weren't far there it was just it was just just playing. so they had neither a hammer nor sit. in the library i don't know but based on this they come back and they just sort of give us a series of sort of funny photographs and ok well this sort of kidding would have been considered anti-semitic stance and you know i pretty much. 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 to use the cliche what it well what did you get. that i think what's what they

describe as cliches is actually. particularly i think what book 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 charges ok everybody hates a tourist and especially one who thinks it's all such a laugh bush are those who work in the tourist industry and i suspect it would have been a bit in in a more found sense i mean indeed i mean the whole idea of a sort of you know 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 but i was sort of enjoying all this sort of. underworld of moscow

while the people were suffering but actually i think that i also would balance that because i actually sort of saw a lot of the very nasty underbelly in ago and it affected me very deeply of the sort of 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 last time and i don't i certainly make it clear i hope the russian has changed since then russia is no longer about sort of a narc it wild dark last place that it was in the ninety's happening. a human. grandfather and this and this is where your book started as far as i understand you found you found the archives of the end of again and the k.g.b. now your first and then now the f.s.b. and their archives away you actually let the story of your grandfather boris because what was once 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 looking for archives well actually the for the historical purposes i was very fortunate in insofar as that he was but all how all this happened in ukraine. in russia even today he 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 shot in russia the largely because the f.s.b. still likes to keep its secrets in the closet and the the people in power in the kremlin prefer to close the whole installed private part of the k.g.b. our cards they were kept by the by the ukrainian bureau you

link you still there and unlike in russia in crane there's actually constitutional rights for relatives to get the documents so fortunately it didn't require really any any concrete some technical difficulties i just wrote to them and sure enough a little you know a letter back saying you know your your your copiously is here and you can you can you can view it and it's indeed an inquiry 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 first thing the files and then you go find over there's a greater photocopy you know what you know you could get a copy there's some technical issue. something far different from africa but the most interesting detail is that. even ukrainian s.b.u. the success of the k.g.b. also wanted to protect its own because there was a part of the file that was closed to me taped together and i was sitting with a young officer for two days in defense of this filed and. as you know old russian

script is really hard to read seriously help me to read it and this part of the file was taped. taped together and he eventually succumbed also to curiosity on tape that we looked through together and it was a part of the file that was. part of the rehabilitation of castigation nine hundred fifty six when all of that when he was a reasonable attempt to prove 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 so the pudge consumed the time and there's nobody left because they didn't want people to know. but why did they give you the tape just kept this low because it's all it's all this together. says that he is a journalist true journalist as we hear and author of a book called sterile and children spotlight will be back shortly right after a break so stay with us we'll continue to let them.

only when the new. life. while the streets of. the turning point in russia. was justified former. since the battle for democracy. monarchy. would be soon which brightened. the sun from funds to.

start our teeth dot com. walking back to spotlight i am al gore not just a reminder that my guest in the studio today is owen matthews a british journalist and author of a book called stamina children recently recently it was published in russian here in this country. and you just told us about your grand grand for the boris big cup . was a pretty a pariah certainly times very well to do member of the soviet nomenklatura and later he was persecuted why what was the reason why you should world

the several answers to that question the immediate reason was that. the stalin was about point confirming himself as establishing himself in power and there was still. a large number of. people who didn't necessarily support starving since the year of the great repression the great the great and so basically almost all of the leadership of the ukrainian party had supported simply killed of him as a challenger and i think it was most of the nineteenth of april that in gratz so you're exactly right so it was briefly. an internal power. struggle within the party and stalin was eliminated enemies but for me i think the more important question is how did this happen. and puts this question alexander solzhenitsyn puts this question much better than i ever could he says he asks where does this wolf tribe come from where did it come from the he came 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 horror could be unleashed by russian men doing what they thought was right actually me 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 to be exact same philosophy they'd built a postal revolution in the enemies of it in the bodies of the people they considered to be or have been told were enemies of the people the only thing that was different was their probably of their personal attitude to stalin some of them love their. services i want them less they were going to get me as i don't get the world i think has been stupid not only because that person was a jew to murder because it's very it's very early or good but you know. when you

quoted this this phrase from soldier notes and i think it's true not only about the about this country that any country about the great inquisition you can say the same thing about it delhi and 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 cambodia right. well now. some countries you have practiced had said it's not subject. to the water going to side not of their own people even that even if there were nazis killed people who are big. to be. germany germany is pretty popular. ok ok a little there's going to be able to hear your grandmother your grandmother. disappeared too and you were able also to find her trace but that wasn't in the in the archives in the in the same secret no which is 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 did they were. because as a wife. as well as the wife of an enemy of the people around. in the ocean she she survived and she she came back to moscow and lived with her with her daughters but unfortunately she went insane. in the in the gulag and i met her. i remember it slightly but very clearly in when i was five she came to england and wants to meet her daughter who would by the time married a young britain and emigrated and she says and i i met i was a child but my my portrait of her was really composed of the memories of her daughters from my aunt and my mother you know where your great grandparents were

very. in terms of my grandparents. my grandfather was buried in his unmarked grave of which there are hundreds around russia is one which i'm not going to buy stuff recently. but 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 a closed society as the u.s. is traveling abroad or even communicate as your mother with foreigners was virtually unheard of any country somebody from abroad could mean big problems spotlight you know the media reports. and nine hundred twenty s. so young idealists from around the world coming to russia to keep part in creating would be believed to be a better society presentation with the ideas of socialism brought an estimated twenty thousand americans and canadians to the u.s.s.r.

between one nine hundred twenty and one thousand two injured five many of them found below are here the luckiest were disillusioned by the regime quickly enough to go home before the stalin's repressions of the 1930's many of those who stayed or eventually sent to the gulags russian families of the foreigners couldn't escape the same fate in one thousand forty seven cross border marriages were completely prohibited by soviet law it was difficult to break through law since here a 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 who fell in love with foreigners and foreigners were in the cause supervision by the key to be in the right in russia their loved ones who were regarded as potential spies the suspicion was enough for a person to lose their job and exulted to remote regions it was not until one thousand nine hundred seventy s. the immigration was allowed russians had to realize that once they marry the

foreigner and went abroad it was in most of the cases the one we get out of the country relatives in france were stigmatized in the soviet union as not been fool to the regime the real freedom in their in somebody from abroad came on they were the qu-ax of the u.s.s.r. . so we just saw how difficult it was in the u.k. to foreigners how did your father who came to russia in the sixty's manage to meet his fish or if you live well to fall in love with her well to become a real close what he was actually one of the very first generation of postgraduate students there were that there were they were allowed to study. part of the time. as part of an academic exchange and that was about thanks to call short because already and after the birth of stalin and the thaw first it was the festival of youth and i said fifty seventy seven was one of the first time my father came to russia along with several well you know he was part of that first visit he was the

first he did not meet him and he didn't leave so much i'm not a child. but the i was born fifty seven and. that actually means that. also doesn't make me because i was bored during the festival. so. and i think there was enormous the importance of turning point for so good society in fact and by the time my. but my my father my father came to moscow several times firstly as a researcher in the british embassy briefly in ninety fifty eight and then again as a as us necronomicon one hundred sixty three and then it was actually it was dangerous for people with something to lose to meet with foreigners because you could get in trouble with your job but my mother was a point of working as a young librarian so actually she and the university actually of the institute of marxism and leninism. how do you how how did he

a young british guy go to the marx is a. they how they met somewhere somehow they were through a mutual friend my father knew from the first how i see and the connection was the bolshoi theater. there was sort of below too much so so much of my mother loved the ballet and this mutual friend of about it and then you see each other but in fact even when they were introduced. their mutual friend called political abuse and didn't didn't introduce him was as an englishman and he said he said he and the stone you know why because it was sort of so as not to frighten her son but if you do speak russian you know my father did speak with her and so he's be broken russian we could which could sound like this like it but if you're going to discredit better than broken he is he said he writes russian what's good about me is it was an accident tell you his sources so this is why your mother could have taken him from someone from the bottom before so me and they had an immense and.

and they fell in love and in fact naive you know it seems to us that they believe that they could get married and. they register. to get married but point. the k.g.b. and. they had been trying to recruit my father for some some years i'm not quite sure what they wanted why they thought it would be important or interesting but when he finally had a got a sober. fiance b. 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 to either the 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 the moral courage to do that but he. he told him to get lost and he. he was kicked out of the country may persona non-grata years before he was deported and what was the reason the official reason for dating a russian yellow what little know they actually set him up there they persuaded

a. fellow graduate student to accuse him of economic speculation about selling joomla jeans or going home or something and it was a really really nasty story and we were in the open to throw this guy out of university and it was it was a typical sort of nasty k.g.b. story so they basically they set him up i mean very obviously it was good and even conceal that it was it was a monument should have been very brave after that because she continued keeping in touch with him and entered in trade to meet him and trying to get to go to england they are there i mean this was pretty brave indeed and that's what makes the whole story so extraordinary because to us it seems almost incredible it's ninety sixty three at the height of the cold war it's to justice after a cuban missile crisis and these two young people who've been separated very forceful forcibly by the soviet state decide 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 the. party's naive but it's also it insanely brave 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 surprised many western readers was that they were allowed to correspond they wrote to each other every day and the correspondence just magnificent it's incredibly moving it's beautiful. but a lot has got the got through some of the red. responded freely ok well thank you very much for this interview i hope of a very readable will there more from reading a book thank you and just reminding that made yesterday it was met here is journalist and author of a style and children and that's it for now from was here to talk like. well more until then stay on artsy and take a hike if. the

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