Travel Documentary with no narration published by BBC in 2008 - English language
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In this revealing portrait, distinguished author and broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby crosses eight time zones and covers 10,000 miles, from Murmansk in the Arctic Circle to the Asian city of Vladivostok, in an attempt to get beneath the skin of modern Russia. In this landmark five-part series, he explores the extraordinary changes that are taking place in Russia today and reveals the contours left by history on this vast land. From the Arctic Circle, where the summer sun never sets, to the breathtaking cities of Vladivostok and St Petersburg, from white witches to hirsute masseurs, from oil wells to shamans, Dimbleby's journey is heart-warming, entertaining and compelling.
Travelling by road, rail and boat, his epic journey takes him from the splendour of St Petersburg to remote parts of Siberia, during which he meets both shamans and oil moguls and reveals the most interesting details about Russia and its culture. Jonathan was the only British television journalist to interview President Gorbachev during the Cold War, and, returning to Russia for the first time since those days, he discovers a land transformed. For Jonathan, crossing the immense Russian landmass became as much an interior journey as an exterior one.
In television's first comprehensive journey through the vast and varied landscapes of Russia, Jonathan Dimbleby makes an epic journey from one end to the other, killing cliches and revelling in the unpredictable. Look through one window and you see an authoritarian regime trying to modernise itself into an oil-rich economy. Look through another and you see exuberant people enjoying new opportunities, struggling with old problems. Everywhere, the marker stones of their turbulent past. Across seven time zones and through all extremes of weather, he seeks out the people of this strange and extraordinary land.
A Mentorn Media Production for BBC
4) National Treasures
Jonathan Dimbleby continues his odyssey in Siberia, Russia's treasure chest. He visits an emerald mine and then Ekaterinburg, built to protect iron ore reserves. Siberia is Russia's treasure chest. Jonathan visits an emerald mine and then makes his way down to the great city of Ekaterinburg, built to protect and exploit reserves of iron ore found in the mountains. Alcoholism is a huge problem in Russia, often because of home-made poison liquor sold on the estates in cities like Ekaterinburg. Jonathan goes on a raid with a crime-busting group founded by an ex-alcoholic. Ekaterinburg is also the place where the last tsar and his family were murdered by the Bolsheviks. In woods near the city Jonathan comes across an archaeologist who has just unearthed what he thinks are the bones of two of the imperial children, thus solving the puzzle of what had become of them. The modern treasure on which Russia prospers is oil. Jonathan takes the train north towards the Arctic Circle to Nizhnevartovsk where BP are co-owners of a huge oilfield. Most people just come for the wages - there is not much to do besides drill for oil. The team then takes a river boat to the beautiful old city of Tomsk. They set out for the logging camps in the taiga north of town in a tank-like tracked carrier. Out in the forest Jonathan meets a climate change scientist who warns that vast quantities of methane gas are starting to seep out of the melting bogs - potentially lethal to the world's atmosphere. Next stop is Akademgorodok, a purpose-built city for some of the brainiest people in Russia. Jonathan finds himself trying to master the controls of a computer game designed by scientists whose day job is to design the guidance systems for spacecraft. Finally, he heads into the Altai mountains to find the reindeer herdsmen who sell antlers to be ground up as aphrodisiacs.
