played only minor parts in the chaos as human rights groups say judges and politicians have gone too far. and new leaders promise of a single economic government fails to reassure entrails investors as fresh trouble over greece once again threatens stability. well this week also march twenty years since a violent coup aimed at overthrowing the file got the child changed the course of history for the soviet union up next a closer look at those dramatic events in our special report. central moscow moscow's regional k.g.b. headquarters. early morning of august the nineteenth one nine hundred ninety one. this is the officer and. the events of the day the could have reversed the country's history. it was an attempt to depose president mikhail

gorbachev put his reforms on hold. tanks and other hardware has been moved into moscow. the city's key points have been taken over. the. borders the nineteenth nine hundred ninety one monday early in the morning teacher tatiana yakovlev her switched her t.v. on and sort of following picture instead of the usual programming every channel was broadcasting tchaikovsky's famous ballet. the thought of which i turned the t.v. on to check the latest news and i was so surprised to see swan lake everywhere i was switching the t.v. channels for a long time thinking maybe there was something wrong with my t.v. set. at the same time as the ballet people cast more than seven

hundred tanks on the personnel carriers being stationed in the streets the plotters were in the criminal. meanwhile so-called white house was at the center of civil resistance at the time it housed the russian parliament where the people's deputies met in session. it was past seven in the morning when the security chief came to my place. to work when i opened the door it's old me i had better go to the white house right away. as far as i could tell there was a coup going on in the country that's how i learned about it or you would decided to take a roundabout route instead of going straight to this building where. the coup was led by top brass and high ranking communist officials they had expected to get support from the population who were dissatisfied with the long drawn process

of perestroika. they decided to make short work of gorbachev reforms. the situation was quite odd that idea by the country was in turmoil. there was a revolt of the hungry but abel standing in line for sausages stoop to fist fights but there were pervis of sort of jizz on the consumer market. but the country's president waved good bye to everybody and headed down south to the korea to relax. the crimean peninsula southern shore serbia president mikhail gorbachev's private residence near the village of photos. both it and scores of surrounding hecht became a prison for the head of state. here he spent several days in what amounted to confinement. but there blew up a site can be seen from all sides you get an almost bird's eye view of it from that

mountain the rood leading to the residence can easily be blocked with stones after those events the joke here was that gorbachev's residence must have been deliberately built in this place so that he could be easily cut off from the outside world is going to work their way with the. k.g.b. colonel tolstoy was directly involved in the events of those days he's a direct descendant and namesake of the celebrated russian novelist leo tolstoy. before he rose to the rank of colonel he served as a bodyguard on august the eighteenth one nine hundred ninety one top k.g.b. officials ordered him to block all exits from the gorbachev residence of that i have no idea what would have happened if gorbachev and others had tried to escape from the residence or the office or what i do think he would have faced very unpleasant consequences but. this is exclusive footage of the residence of the

first savior president the splendid park was laid out almost on their wrong this had special significance because gorbachev was known to be very fond of strolling by the seaside. what of these arizona cedars these pines and these shrubs were all planted just before the territory was to be commissioned in one thousand eight hundred eight without a nickel that was a short while before mikhail gorbachev's first visit here. the crimean residence was code named terra trees in k.g.b. documentation the interior design of the main building reflected the wishes of race to go but the president's wife she was with mikhail gorbachev throughout the force or deal. with us or you we built what i would describe as

internal defenses there the men carrying guns with live ammunition were posted all over the place they were under strict orders not to allow provocations or. soviet president study was on the second floor close to the hole it was here that mikhail gorbachev learned about his complete isolation from the outside world. gorbachev study looks just like it was back then for this is his desk. and that telephone was meant for communicating with government officials or go forward for the lying was shut down at four pm on aug eighteenth. gorbachev remained in his residence moreover measures to isolate him were reinforced still further valarie shah was the one who caught at the gate to the residence during two k.g.b.

officers from moscow kept a close eye on him along with other local agents. special measures were taken when a truck was stationed on the hello pad to prevent helicopters from touching down a tractor with a trailer outside the gates was meant to prevent motor vehicles breaking through into the compound. reinforce security precautions were introduced throughout. to be yet army general valentyn that a nick of was one of the key figures in the coup attempt on august the eighteenth one thousand nine hundred one he was it'd gorbachev at his residence in the crimea which. asked the soviet president to recognize the legality of the coup. to be we knew what we were going to do to you nice told him all that good a somehow befitting to state of emergency gorbachev retorted by exclaiming that

a state of emergency was bonsa bring machine guns and blood in its wake at the core you can i realize that other people as well as my family would suffer no doubt blood would be spilled suddenly in such a vast country as aus this country takes time to get worked up when it does you can hardly stop it my belief is the country's modernization without blood. august nineteenth one thousand nine hundred ninety one must go his eleven am a crowd halts armored personnel carriers heading for the city center demonstrators climb one of them chanting to fascism. hundreds of people gather womanish square in central moscow they are ready to oppose the so-called state committee on the state of the nation see people who met each other back then drink to still keep in touch and remember those events.

hello hello hello brothers i don't see in a hundred years but my parents woke me up in the morning they told me that a coup was underway i was actively involved in the us democratic movement so i said if no one i know was arrested right away this is no could all yes there were tanks but people were blocking them off what kind of coup is it if tanks can be stopped short in their tracks. or. a small radio set is one of the most treasured mementos from those days people used it to listen to the few independent stations that was still on. one report said the air force refused to side with the coup are courting. it's another a military garrison in st petersburg also refused to back it it was great to hear that people in many towns were supporting us. to get

a minor radio station called echo of moscow was the main source of news in those days the k.g.b. shut it down in the first few hours of the two whether by fair means or foul it stuff managed to really gain access to the airwaves. at one point we even used telephone lines to reach out to our audience there was no link between the studio and the transmitter so our engineers used an analog telephone line by all accounts those words thirty billion times to. see this meanwhile the coup organizers called a press conference in moscow many took note of can now do you know trembling hands he named himself the country's head of state claiming that gorbachev would fall in ill. the press conference reached a turning point after a question from touchy an american or the then twenty four year old journalist we may do you realize that what you have done today is

a clue do you see parallels with your actions in soviet history nineteen seventeen or nineteen sixty four. as for your clear him that a coup took place during the night. i would disagree with you because all legal and constitutional norms work complied with so he would bring it off and just say that they looked hesitant would be an understatement they looked as if life was dying out of them and there was no way to tell if the left in their faces and shifty eyes they looked like people who had lost a battle before they had a chance to start it. this nineteenth one thousand nine hundred one zero eight a spontaneous rally began in moscow. those mine isn't as square the crowd swelled as more and more people arrived the events in moscow are described as ansi constitutional there are calls for an open ended general strike.

on this day on we are protesting on till our demands are met. no to fascism no to fascism. but. last time the close up team was in our movie where the gold rush still gets people hiked up. this time margi goes to cure old region. where the local government is giving power back to the people. where every orphans will be adopted. where locals turn their land into a tourist paradise well come to fruition should close up on our t.v. . admission free cash credit

taishan free cans for judges and free. range free cash free cash to tide free. old free broadcast video projects a free video card. he. has the nineteenth nine hundred ninety one top k.g.b. officials in moscow order to reinforce security precautions gorbachev's residents in the crimea on the same day mikhail gorbachev. since become a famous address. a coup has taken place. this constitutional action. is based on a tremendous. that there was little chance of

the tape being taken out of the compound on the same day coastguards protecting the residents attempted to establish contact with the president. there's another line of defense into was serving in one of the k.g.b.'s naval units i was not allowed to communicate with the president therefore i asked my wife to write a note in her own handwriting the note said that the sailors were ready to take the president to a place of his choice one of my subordinates took the note to the security guards asking them to hand it over to gorbachev. when he came back they told him that nobody will be allowed to approach the residence and intruders will be shot. residence was secured from the sea even better than from the land. was one of the security guards there during those days nobody could approach the shore within less

than four nautical miles without being spotted by the guards if they saw the intruder as a possible threat they were under orders to open fire. on the three groups on permanent duty scoured the woodlands. snipers were in position on the mountain. there was a soldier with a machine gun on top of the cliff near the base remains of it can feel the theme of their. day for all of us have a celebration. health resort for communist functionaries and their families was near the residence of the soviet president august is high season that the resort was crammed with holiday makers to capacity. of the result was in charge of discos and other entertainment programs. on aug nineteenth i said to students and physician look the country's president

mikhail gorbachev is under arrest near here shall we cancel the dances you know she said biggest should not suffer let them dance this situation. with gorbachev doesn't concern us. august nineteenth one thousand nine hundred ninety one hundred twenty water cannons at sam to break through to the downtown area demonstrators damage some of them and force them to turn back. meanwhile the cool denies this ordered the arrest of the president of russia boris yeltsin at the time he was at his residence near moscow the chief of his security guards alexandre korsakoff was with him they drove a service car to moscow and reached the city unhindered. yeltsin was seated between two guards are you flatly turned down the idea of

wearing a bulletproof vest so we simply put it over him just in case. that heavy vest weighing nine kilos was of the kind worn in the army but the driver was told to go as fast as he could without stopping no matter what. yeltsin managed to get to the white house where he reunited with his team later he climbed a tank to read out a message to a large crowd that had gathered outside the white house we were playing all the decisions and orders by that committee illegal. by then white house defenders had set up a makeshift barricade near the building in a bid to block the access of military vehicles. everybody was dragging whatever they could lay their hands on a trolley bus stop there the driver got out and lowered the trolleys the trolley bus was left standing across the road the barricade was here that's how we began blocking all approaches to the building. the crimea the city of sevastopol

a soviet black sea fleet based fifty kilometers from the summer residence throughout the coup first drank captain simeon off waited for an order to rescue called the church of the with the defense ministry part of the coup the rescue plan was ignored you know with that but they didn't first the pockets of resistance were to be suppressed the second the president was to be found and taken under our protection third the remaining pockets of resistance were to be eliminated and we were to help evacuate the. president i see the boredom. the upshot of it was that naval commanders only sent a telegram to go but off urging him to hold on that telegram was received by. an employee of the four us post office hundreds of telegrams addressed to go bunch of were arriving from all over the soviet union k.g.b.

men immediately seized all such mail. the minute those three days oldest eighteenth nineteenth and twentieth were the most disturbing days in my life we had no idea whether we would be allowed to go home and be arrested things were simply left around the corps. was bracing for the worst case scenario people inside the white house expected an assault on the building with that possibility in mind they inspected all of the basement secret passages leading out into nearby courtyards. some of the regular reports coming in here claimed that an assault on the building of the supreme soviet would begin in an hour's time but why would they need an assault or the building is like an aquarium all you need to do is just answer it and that's all there is still it you've got to really go. the assault order was in fact given to the k.g.b. so called alpha unit the men were already on high alert but for the first time in

the unit's history they demanded an open debate and a vote on the order before launching operation. it's over. the commander asked everybody to voice their opinion on the operation and whether an assault was necessary at all. yes yes. most of the men with a service record of more than five years said no to the operation. the operation was told of but casualties were still unavoidable in the early hours of august the twenty first nine hundred ninety one the crews of several armored vehicles ordered to move to another location city white house defenders attempted to stop them because they thought the vehicles were heading towards the parliament building to attack it three young men died as a result. you both calmer spent the night waiting for the sun shortly before the oldest events he had served as

a soldier in afghanistan he went to the white house after hearing an appeal from vice president alexander who called on people to go and defend democracy the whole slit felt when my son had to would squeeze it be you he went to the barricades because that was a call from someone who served in afghanistan too. but a day before. i asked him if he was going to the barricades were going and she said no that he had fighting in afghanistan. he had no business monkeying around barricades but in tuesday it was a different story. on wednesday lunch that he was no more. after that tragedy it became obvious the coup had failed tanks began leaving moscow i want to list the twenty first a car carrying russia's vice president would spoil over took one of the convoys he was rushing to the airport to bring mikhail gorbachev back to moscow it was a total mess both on land and yet. wilfork were not pulled up and none of the

ground controllers guided our flights not even during the landing regardless it was a trouble free flight when we touched down the airdrome superintendent drove up to the plane i introduced myself and said i needed a car and the bus to take us to gorbachev problem. he said go right ahead. squeeze plane was called the chalk board touchdown in moscow on august twenty second one thousand nine hundred one the coup had failed but the says it president had in effect returned to a different country should change during those three days in august you know i defended the serviette union to the laws of all it that's what i did but failed. to fin only at the standoff central moscow ammonium. to felix rohatyn ski the founder of soviet secret police standing in front of k.g.b.

headquarters in lubyanka square is pulled down it was a symbol of the beginning of the new people. the beautiful bright future which the communists have been talking about for seventy years finally became a possibility we could build it with our own hands we were used to the fact that the state was on their parent that it could break and destroy anyone but this time nothing happened people had risen like a wall we said no enough white. at approximately the same time the prosecutor general's office launches an investigation into the role of the coup organizes the plotters tried to pass the blame on to crimean frontier guards. initially the team of investigators of the prosecutor general's office displayed tolerance then they began dropping hints regarding us to repent and take the whole blame for gorbachev's isolation otherwise we would face charges of high treason and. as military men we became very better when we heard the word treason. or because

however the frontier guards were later acquitted only those who gave the orders were arrested the driving forces of the two led by going out to unite have a year later they were released from prison under an amnesty you know i have died in two thousand and ten this is an excerpt from one of his last interviews. will nor. of any misguided decisions were made during those three days in august one nine hundred ninety one. tanks should not have been brought in and demonstrate of force should not have been used for a few months where we might all that could have been done and a different way would warm. when people today are asked whether they want a revival of the soviet union only nine percent say yes there is no chance of the state being revived in the form of the soviet union. mikhail gorbachev has never returned to his summer residence since august one thousand nine

hundred one now it's the property of the ukrainian state however top officials rarely vacation in. the former k.g.b. colonel tolstoy makes no secret of the fact that even now he has no right to talk about some aspects of what happened then. crimean residents still harbors many secrets relating to those three days in one thousand nine hundred one only when new information has been declassified live be able to shed light on for over the sort of figure to be frank this place is not considered to be a very lucky at all that's what that's really why you. this is the officer on duty august twenty second one thousand nine hundred ninety one five am boris yeltsin declares that there reactionary coup has failed and thanks to defenders of the white house. pm for the first saw him the three colored

flag is raised over the supreme council of russia. yeltsin held for. only five months or left before the collapse of the soviet union. hungry for the full story we've got it first hand the biggest issues get a human voice face to face with the news makers on r t.

reports from tripoli say rebel forces have seized control of most of the libyan capital the libyan leader's security force has reportedly surrendered and confirmation has. son saif al islam has been arrested according to the libyan government one thousand three hundred people have been killed since the nato backed onslaught on tripoli started on sunday. and. suggestions of ceasefire egypt has reportedly managed to convince both gaza and israel to lay down arms after days of heavy shelling. and other stories that shaped the past week the crackdown against english writers gains momentum with harsh sentences handed to those who played only minor parts in the chaos as human rights groups say judges and politicians have gone too far. and e.u. leaders a promise of a single economic government fails to reassure anxious investors as a fresh trouble trouble over greece once again threatens the stability.