Dear Pushkina and Olga
All that you write is true, but in fairness, you are not comparing like with like. Atrocities are being perpetrated all over the world every hour of every day of every week. .. It is ghastly and indefensible, but sadly such is man's inhumanity to man - and we never seen to learn. However, this Forum is devoted to Imperial Russia, and, in particular, to the last Imperial Family, their relatives, friends, associates and etc.
During the making of Gleb Panfilov's film - 'The Romanovs - the last days', I interviewed the British actress, Lynda Bellingham, who portrayed Alexandra Feodorovna in that film. They were in Pushkin shooting some of the exterior scenes. Most of the interiors were shot on 'stages' in Prague. As you know, films are not, in general, shot sequentially. In the case of 'Last Days', the death scene was filmed first.
Lynda Bellingham told me how, on the Sunday evening she took the girls who were playing the grand duchesses out for a meal. They were all young, happy, aspiring actresses and this older actress was determined they should have a memorable evening. Towards the end of the meal she said to them - 'We are going to do something really horrible tomorrow. Something none of us will ever forget'.
The following day, the scene was set and the cast took up their positions. Lynda Bellingham told me that even although she knew it 'was only a film', and they had rehearsed and 'walked through the scene', nothing could have prepared her for that door bursting open and the barrage of armed 'guards' rushing in to confront them, when they were actually expressing it as reality. Retelling this weeks later, she could still feel the chill.
I think only those involved in this re-enactment can have some idea of the family's absolute terror. They, of course, did not have the - possibly numbing - effects of surprise/shock.
tsaria
