the only thing that is gnashing the monday next commanded by shia militia let me get a view that. the. it has been a nail biter of a game and a lot of dreams are being shattered tonight and i have to apologize to every week everywhere. my voice. sounds they are. they're still very very hot here and all of the current. military moves me but i will use. more says kids would be. it's a big it's a big game it's of wonderful want to prove. it's

a wonderful work yet another thing was that people ask me the russian fans they're so happy with the performance of their team up to rule they've given them everything that they could ever hope for playing in the quarter finals of the world cup this is something that russia hasn't done in force used every single russian found they did not lose their faith until the last strike until the last kick by the creation play and that either i can favor the russian goalkeeper did not manage to say but again not a single russian found they have anything to say against the russian goalkeeper eager i can fade because after the game with spade he is a star he's a hero of the russian nation the russian sports now of course all over for the russians croats solo they face england in the semifinal in england i feel haven't really had to get out of second or third gear that not really been challenged to the point where you. crikey they're going to lose it's going to be knocked out of

plays some beautiful football again some favorites in argentina among them this is going to be quite an interesting game in that i think so i think in the we'll go into that feeling very confident we've been saying all along since in the last to belgium in the group stage and came second that they on the so-called easiest side of the draw by you know seeing how it shapes up they played colombia it went to penalties it was difficult but really they deserved to go the route they're doing certainly for the jags they won on penalties and then they beat sweden yesterday with those goals one the one and then you have you and then after that you look at it and you say well they play a team again a croatia team who are probably better technically but maybe drug dealing with fitness and with you know being tired and fatigued as well and so england you know playing that game against sweden you know we can see those goals now actually they were in control of the game done talk us through some of these some of these highlights now with girls coming from some p.c.

or a corner from young obviously coming in mcguire jumping above the defense top right hand corner of their that's the first goal is first goal and fight for the international team finds a match that they're going to raise if they won the world cup and this other set piece for daily use got plenty of time plenty of space does a few steps towards the goal on marked goes past three defend the swedish defense really falling asleep there was a bit of a softball beat the offside trap and finds england in ecstasy heartbreak for the swedes of course they've done so well so you get us far in the final clip that we just saw the sort of picture you had a fantastic game yeah model match pulling off some fantastic saves to keep going in the game very well deserved the match and one of the real bright young talents that we've seen emerge you know there's been a lot of focus on a daily hourly kane's and cetera. pickford came in as a new goalkeeper as young as what twenty four or something so he got very bright future ahead of i think after this tournament absolutely. now fund sports is of

course a huge factor in any games and england fans who made it out to russia now urging the following this meant to do the same. with the teams are physical. and pasted the post office. that's a football fan you grow for your life want to go to the world cup that's the thing you need to go if you want to go to and so i actually go that it's it's surreal to see so walk out and there's a huge stadium full of families but the colors are the different slides and lots of other noise as well please.

watch it to be honest the main thing i was worried about was the alphabet because i can't tell understand anything. pak. absolutely miles from my past i'm going to put my head goes faster than just saying man well three tries to act but then everyone speaks english i was very friendly. to all fans who saw him not to go to russia so the missing out on one of the best things you have it or you are fairly. it's very welcoming. quite friendly and it's going to help a great food and yesterday kyra and i said i'm in town let's. let. los found that he's found his wife thinks he's going fishing. and it's got

a really long fishing trip that you know yourself me we were in france for you were twenty sixteen it was an interesting experience great to see some good games out there and going to the world cup it's a different level and i found that as well we've been here we've watched some games we've also been covering nationally as part of our work. how would you compare the two experiences in particular you know because for me personally covering the world cup and just being it's experiencing just once in a lifetime you know i mean it's been phenomenal it's all been so surreal really good being in the chance to cover this very historic event for russia and such an amazing for the whole world i think the main difference i found has really been an atmosphere i mean as much as we jawed you were twenty sixteen. that atmosphere of real camaraderie internationalism fans coming over from all over the world and even supporting you know totally different teams work a file sharing russia russia russia found supporting brazil that just wasn't there

in terms of you know just russian transporting the construction yeah absolutely. that vibe has really been here at this world cup and you need someone it's been such an amazing covering it always. has been sort of predictable as well as lots of attention across the big media social media platforms as well this is one english blogger spence wrote he's been garnering many followers with his coverage of the tournament and his adventures in russia. i. was. a stone's throw and clearly that clash between russia and spain we caught up with him shortly after the game to get his take on the tournament. i've done everything often

flying up in trains of stayed in hotels i've stayed in apartments we've had absolutely zero issues in terms of the people with man in fact it's been the the other way i'd say people have been so friendly and so welcoming to the english and not just english the whole world knows that well i must say that one of things i love about the world cup is the different kind of cultures you come into contact with and for everything i've seen a said that the russians have welcomed that open arms so i have to say it's been amazing and yeah i've gotten zero complaints i just hope more people that can come out. we had that golden generation before us were called in and you know these great players that stephen generals in the front line part of the way really is no doubt this squad on paper was one of our strongest ever but it didn't really perform and whether that was because of pressure or all of us being a team of individuals and auti what we have now seems much more like that you know i think we've got managing our southgate who me included

a lot of people were skeptical about first as to whether he was going to have the experience the know how to gas further than we've been but most importantly he's the right kind of character that we need to do right now and he's found a way of making these young players joe an easy young team is one of the youngest teams ever world cup one of the youngest things at this world cup as well so we didn't go into of expectations often that's one of the key reasons for doing well and we had a good group the group frustrate it was tough but we had two teams in panama no disrespect to them that we were able to get wins against and asking us momentum. meanwhile the russian national football team arrived in moscow on sunday off to being eliminated from the world cup but no time to rest yet they're due to meet supporters in the capital's official fans on and if you're in town that's happening at four pm local time no question stuff that was full of hard drama for the fans would see both worlds.

it. didn't it was. the time. to. do. to each. was. the. this is how the semifinal is shaping up. facing me right here in st peter's my comeuppance. face.

two thousand and eight because the crowd. should be some fantastic game is coming up all those matches. from us here at. st petersburg but of a break from the fantastic we can review all about palm sunday here with the latest . thrills spills disappointment animation myself and. the bars. we were above our that's all wrapping up the very latest from this world cup twenty eighteen all across russia with. hawkins for the main. this is the weekly let's get into some

other weekly top stories for you well britain has been rocked by a second alleged case of know of agent exposure since march and the now notorious name of the substance not the chalk certainly has led some to jump to conclusions. the two people have been exposed to that i didn't know but you know but shock it remained deadly for long periods exposed to the nerve agent no bitch. when he went to the safety you have to do anything if your family is going to be safe is that going to be a fair it's a skill ation we don't know what's going on because you. know you know you have more children trouble here and there are other parents to use it right here and you know it was a good thing to do they. let

me name out. when they started x. and often it was like just brushing against. those red and very. nerve agent. which has been identified as the safe to the contaminates approach to say the east river. it is now time that the russian state comes forward and explains exactly what has gone on you know the all for is still there to the russian state to try. an assist

is to tell us what happened russia has strongly denied any involvement off of the first poisoning case which happened in march moscow reached out to london with numerous offers of cooperation but with so many unknowns in this story one thing is for sure though the british media have been having a field day accusing russia as what i guess d.f. explains. could putin have really done it ordered secret agents to poison random drug addict and his homeless girlfriend with a lethal nerve agent all in the middle of a flawless world cup with billions watching russia yeah he could if you watch t.v. enough espionage and intrigue once again striking this sleepy corner of england that may have been left by the assailants who attacked the script files either it was left there during the preparation or after that attack russian intelligence was

behind this but the fact is vladimir putin has flat out denied it he's refused to cooperate with britain. and if we don't we simply don't know how many more people can be can come into contact with this think about it it makes perfect sense a drug addict picks up no one quite knows what next he does something no one seems to know what though suddenly he's in hospital for almost a week being treated for what no one knew what with this much evidence how could you not blame russia it could only have been putin just like it was last time you argue that their source of a snuff edge and not the chalk is russia how did you manage to find it out so quickly look at the the evidence we the people from porton down they were absolutely categorical i asked the guy so i said are you sure and he said there's

no doubt we have not verified the precise source so to be clear you're not able at porton down to say where it is from we haven't yet been able to do that i was being very clear i thought i was being very clear to. the german program which is that. told us in. absolutely no uncertain terms that this was a military grade. they knew what age law it is not the business of porton down the i didn't i don't know whether it's even possible for them to identify the origins in all seriousness it's an interesting narrative we have going here last time britain's accusations which seemingly founded on a highly likely assessment therefore it's highly likely that it's highly likely that it's all russia's fault the decision taken by the russian government to deploy these missiles on march the fourth was reckless and callous there is no

cause of alternative explanation to the events in march other than the russian state was responsible we have already seen multiple explanations from state sponsored russian media regarding this latest incident we can anticipate further disinclination from the kremlin as we saw following the source we attack we've come full circle they sat there for months ago making the same claims something happens accuse russia arguments collapse then quiet something happens again straight away they accuse russia guess what comes next i think too much of the media seems to believe that it's national duty patriotic duty to parrot the government line on this when the government line has been contradictory but not contradicted by the media itself has been so many holes in the story i think too much of the media is too willing to accept too much which is unproven and in flat contradictions

everything that looks like common sense there's a claim that russia would want to use the these events at sporting events in russia as smoke screens but for what for attacking two random people in some small town in in england as if. the russian government or mr putin has got better things to do than to go around making mischief in some of. regional towns unfortunately realize who are country it's absurd. tenets thanks for joining us here on r.t. international we are back at the top of the hour with.

a lot of welcome to pull it apart it's hard to find a more drab and yet more romantic period in the history of the soviet union then in one thousand eight hundred life is people knew it was falling apart and the yet there was also a growing hope that something new and exciting would rise in its place that sounds of cognitive and emotional dissonance was perfectly captured by the on the ground music of that time produced by young nonconformist musicians in what was down the studio flooding what was it like to leave and make music in period of hopeful despair well to discuss that i'm now joined by john a stingray an american musician and an avid chronicler of the leningrad rock scene john it's so good to talk to you thank you very much for your time thank you for inviting me now you have a very interesting a very unusual and i think is a somewhat through mantic story you came to the soviet union for just one the week you called but his big bed she called one of our biggest rock stars on his landline

and he just showed your around is that how it all began that is how it all began a friend of mine and her older sister was married to a russian emigre when he heard i was going to visit russia and he knew i was a rocker in los angeles he said you need to call off he's the most famous underground rocker in russia he's like the bob dylan of russia i didn't believe there was any rock in russia but i thought ok i'll go. and meet him because how cool he think it will be to meet me that i'm an american rocker and i met him and we sat we were at seven goggles apartment and i played them a couple of songs off an e.p. album i had released here in the states and morris thought it was very cool and it was a little bit punk and he liked it and i i felt very proud and then i said oh can i hear something of yours and we put in a cassette and i put my headphones on and i started to hear one of his songs that was called tonight and it was so hunting and and just brilliant and powerful that i started to slink in my chair because i realized i was in the

presence of somebody very important and that i was just the silly girl from los angeles very naive. and that he was the real rocker so that that moment changed my whole life and correct me if i'm wrong but i think you were twenty four years old at the time cali girl in drab. reach was a feeling in oxymoron the source but and even bigger paradox was how this doll soviet reality was able to produce something that was so free spirited and so genuine as the leningrad proxy how do you yourself explain that phenomena you know it was incredible and of course our first three and a half days was in moscow where we didn't know anybody so we were on the usual tours with the group and we looked around and even though there were some interesting things the same basis because the two own things it looked very cold people didn't look happy they were wearing dark colors they were all rushing through the streets and i thought wow this is this this is not a great place you know i would never come back again what i found out later when i

went to leningrad and met bourse is that behind closed doors russian people were exactly like people all over the world and they were full of color and they were full of expression and full of creativity i was in off by the whole art scene the arts and the music scene in leningrad because nobody in america. was aware this could possibly be happening in russia we were so afraid of the soviet union at that time and that's why it just opened up my eyes and that's what led to me deciding that i needed to bring this music and photos and videos of these bands to the u.s. to open up the eyes of all of the other people in united states because it really was something we we were not aware at all that was taking place there now rock musicians all over the world are a pretty rowdy bunch i wonder how they react to you and your interest in them you know i think there were europeans that had come in and had met boris before so he had met foreigners but i think what was different was with me is after i met boris

on that first trip and was taken by all of it and i said i'm going to come back what can i do can i bring your equipment i think that he and seven. kind of had a feeling of course she says she's going to come back but she's not going to because i think many people before me westerners came in and said the same thing that they wanted to come back i think what surprised boris and everybody else is that i did come back and i kept coming back and i kept coming back every three months and i kept bringing them equipment and and that's why i got the nickname back then is the tractor the american tractor because i think they were amazed at how i could get things done that when i became passionate about something and had an idea i would make it happen from what i remember at least in the late soviet years america was strongly romanticized in russia it was literally perceived as the as a land of freedom so much so that. if another famous leningrad musician wrote this song goodbye america about parting ways with those youthful your things i wonder

if you ever felt that you were in some way and unofficial ambassador for the mystical america you know what's interesting it wasn't so much the rockers because again i think they got from from the black market or other places. they got music articles everything from the west but i think what was interesting was that the average russian people that i would meet through them would all say oh oh we want to be like american had that romantic wish i want to be free like america and i was telling them then in the eighty's you guys don't understand the price americans pay to be free and i would explain to them that most americans had a thirty year mortgage because you would try to buy a house a thirty year mortgage that would basically make you in handcuffs because if you have a mortgage where you have to pay for thirty years it means you have to make money so i was trying to deflate that romantic vision because it wasn't so perfect i mean

america is amazing and it's a free country but we do pay a high price for that freedom what i saw in russia even though they didn't have a lot of freedoms in one sense because they didn't have all of the financial burdens of paying every month for an apartment or house and paying a lot of money for the electricity and for the water they felt like to me it felt like they had more time to do what interests them on the creative side every other person i met in leningrad whether they they weren't one of the main musicians was an artist or was a poet everybody seemed to have some time to spend on on their creative outlet and i think a lot of times in america back then even now we're so focused on our jobs to make money to pay the bills that we don't have time for i guess what you could call a hobby if people have artistic hobbies that they would like to do you know like everything in the world there's good and bad about everything and being in the

soviet union showed me a lot of things that was great about where i live in america and it showed me a lot of things that i wish would be different in fact sometimes they were in the two streams and i got boy the perfect life must be some kind of country that was sort of in the middle of the way america and russia was well you know it's easy to remend to size a country that. you have never visited and in fact in the song that i mentioned goodbye america bridge road in one thousand eighty five fifteen just want a year after your first visit at the soviet union he speaks sickly sad as the none of us have been there and we have sort of started growing out of our old genes simply because you know our youth was coming into contact with reality and as i was researching for this program you know i was struck by one productive thought and i wonder if it's actually true but it seemed to me that for you a very rare person but still for you that dahl soviet reality was also to some

extent. the place where you found that freedom because the russians do not think about the later years of the soviet union in that sense but to me it seemed that you're actually falling imaginative or imagine the replays where it where you felt alive and free was that accurate that is very accurate you know it was all about timing and when i went to the soviet union i had just had this record out in the states but we had kind of a lawsuit with the guy that put it out because there were some issues and i was at a crossroads i wasn't sure what i was going to do and i felt a little bit lost and i was inspired and so i went to the soviet union with my sister on this week trip a school trip that she was going on and i thought it would just clear my head i can come back and regroup and lo and behold everything that i saw there in leningrad with boris and then the rest of people i met changed my life so it was just the perfect time of me being young enough not really understanding it who i was not understanding life and being very naive and all of

a son i meet these people that are so inspiring i mean i think it would be similar if some young person here at that time in eighty's happened to be a friend and hang out with bob dylan or david bowie you know i was just blessed to me the artist and leningrad were just as inspiring and and exciting. as these these famous western musicians so for me it was just fate now john as you said just a moment ago every time you traveled to the soviet union you used to bring all sorts of musical supplies which were difficult to find in leningrad back then but i know that you also smuggled the records out you were absolutely key to releasing a russian rock music in the united states beach was mad with some interest but never made it big is russian rock to country specific to engage western audiences you know it was big in the sense. of the purpose we put it out for and

when it came out it was unbelievable the amount of press we got it exploded again it exploded because nobody ever thought this could possibly be behind the iron curtain the way that kenya looked the way that boris moved the way it was the way that they saying was it was equal to any of the rock n roll going on in the united states it just was in russian so it became so big it was written in every kind of newspaper or magazine television shows morning talk shows it was everywhere so what that did which is what the purpose of the record was was it showed americans look there are people in russia that you can relate to that will just like people where you live and so it really was succinct success on that level i think it sold maybe fifteen or twenty thousand records which maybe in the in the big scheme isn't that many but for a record that's recorded on two track that's in the russian language it was huge but their videos were aired on m.t.v. the videos were shown on some other t.v.

programs it was just written about all over the place that i think i felt that it was very successful i was totally happy with the results now fast forward thirty five years and some of those musicians that you used to hang out that used to be monitored by the k.g.b. have now been awarded with medals for their service to their motherland we have a former k.g.b. agent as the russian president who is also such to enjoy russian rock music i wonder if you still followed russian rock. to this day what do you think about what it has become thirty five years later and do you think it would still fascinate you if you were twenty four years old today i think not in the same way and the difference is that now the world is connected we have the internet and no matter what our politicians are doing or if they're fighting or if they're trying to make some calm.