Helena Merriman

Where does it all begin?

So it all begins in September 1999.

And maybe it's helpful to give a bit of political context at the time.

So this is eight years after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

You have this new country, Russia, with a new president, Boris Yeltsin.

And at first, everyone loved him.

He was flamboyant.

He was charismatic.

But by 1999, he's old, he's an alcoholic, inflation has gone through the roof, people's savings are wiped, there's vast amounts of corruption.

And Yeltsin and the oligarchs around him know that he needs a successor.

But the problem is there is no one obvious.

So that sets the scene for what then happens on September the 4th.

in a city called Buynaksk.

This is a remote town which is thousands of miles from Moscow.

People are bedding down for the night when a truck which is parked outside the apartment explodes.

Crumbles to the ground, 64 people killed.

And it makes the news, but it's not seen as a big deal because this city is near the border with Chechnya, where there's been fighting in the past.

So at that point, the country moves on.

But then, just a few days later, on September the 9th, you have a second bomb.

And it goes off in Moscow in the early hours of the morning.