Russia: A Journey with Jonathan Dimbleby - Season 1

The presenter sets out on a trip involving 10,000 miles of hard travelling through a country that is not only the largest in the world but also, perhaps, the most awe-inspiring. His first stop is 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, away from the Russia we normally see or read about and into the strange and remote world of Karelia. 

He was arguably the greatest of all Russian writers, and a visit to the family estate of Leo Tolstoy reveals a manor house that has been preserved much as he left it. The other formative influence on Tolstoy was his time as an army officer in the Caucasus. Pyatigorsk, on the northern edge of the mountains, was then a place where soldiers relaxed. It's still a spa town today and Jonathan decides to sample the warm sulphur springs. Later he stands in the ruined School Number One in Beslan, where scores of children died in the 2004 siege.

Jonathan Dimbleby explores ten thousand miles of Russia and arrives in a tiny village not far from the port of Astrakhan that was once the capital of the Golden Horde.

Tonight's journey starts in an emerald mine, after which Jonathan heads for the city of Ekaterinburg, built to protect and exploit reserves of iron. The commodity on which modern-day Russia prospers is oil so it's time for a train ride far north to Nizhnevartovsk where BP are co-owners of a huge oil field. 
Following a trip to the old city of Tomsk, Jonathan visits Akademgorodok, a purpose-built metropolis to accommodate some of Russia's brainiest people. 

Jonathan follows one of the Red Cross teams struggling to manage the AIDS epidemic in Irkutsk and visits Birobidzhan, arguably one of the strangest places in Russia - a Jewish homeland created by Stalin at the furthest end of his empire. Not many Jews have survived there, but the people - Jewish or not - are proud of their unusual heritage. Jonathan finds Hanukah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, being jointly celebrated by the rabbi and the mayor.

Finally he comes to his last stop: Vladivostok. Jonathan meets some students in a café. This far from Moscow, will they feel any different from the chic young people he met in St Petersburg some ten thousand miles ago? Not really. They want a strong Russia before they want a democratic one. As he looks out over the Pacific, Jonathan reflects on how charming and how different the Russians are from us.