Travel Documentary with no narration published by BBC in 2008 - English language
Information
------------------------------
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
1) Breaking The Ice
Summer 2006, Jonathan visits Murmansk, Karelia and St Petersburg. Jonathan Dimbleby explores ten thousand miles of one of the world's most awe-inspiring countries.
Having lived through the Cold War, Jonathan makes his first stop in the city of Murmansk, which stands as a reminder to the years when England and Russia were close allies in a war of survival against the Nazis. But soon he is on the move, entering the strange and remote world of Karelia and savouring the sophisticated elegance of St Petersburg.
BBC journalist Jonathan Dimbleby embarks on an epic journey through Russia - a country with much to discover. From Murmansk he first travels to Saint Petersburg, then he visits the place where Lenin proclaimed the socialist revolution and in Veliky Novgorod he feels transported back to the Middle Ages. He then makes his way to the political and cultural heart of the nation - Moscow.
