Joanna Lumley's Trans-Siberian Adventure (2015) s01e02 Episode Script
Episode 2 of 3
1 This is Mongolia, one of the remotest places I've ever been to on Earth.
We're 2000 miles into our epic journey.
I've leapt off the train to spend some time with a family of nomads.
There are twice as many wild horses as people in Mongolia.
I'm hoping, not too wild.
I don't know why I feel my enormous English bottom is going to struggle in there.
My father, who was quite a horseman, always said that, when you're on top of a horse, to stop it ever knowing you're feeling nervous, you've got to sing, so it might be a little bit of melody.
The hills might be alive with the sound of music.
Ohh! There we are.
It's the same the whole world over It's the poor what gets the blame My 6000-mile adventure started in Hong Kong, which I'd last seen when I was four.
I've crossed mighty China, where the new world rubs up against the old.
I visited a wild stretch of the Great Wall.
This is honestly like being in a dream.
Now we're in romantic Mongolia, the land of Genghis Khan, with its hardy nomads.
It's a vast, empty and mysterious land.
From here, I'll enter another empire.
This is Russia.
Speak Russian.
I'll be crossing icy Siberia, glimpsing Russia's undimmed spirit and troubled soul.
Two guys jumped with Kalashnikovs in their hands, like dad-da-da! I'll be meeting powerful oligarchs This is so I get the gold flakes.
- .
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stars of the future - Zazdarovje! .
.
and enjoy Russian hospitality to the full.
So that is a small vodka.
Finally, I push onto Moscow, which I last visited in the darkness of the Cold War in 1966.
- Is that a nuclear bomb? - Yes.
My Trans-Siberian journey.
The adventure of a lifetime.
This unforgiving landscape breeds tough people, whether they're warriors or herdsmen.
The nomadic lifestyle has hardly changed for thousands of years in Mongolia, where a third of the population are still herdsmen.
My hosts are the Flouk-Ochua family, who live in these tents, or gers, managing their 200 horses and 100 head of cattle, moving every few months to pastures new.
It's not only the cows that are milked.
Mares' milk is big business in Mongolia.
Milking occurs four times a day.
And it's quite an art.
Foals are used to stimulate the mare to milk, and then pulled away.
It seems fairly hazardous, this milking, cos you just go in amongst the herd of horses.
You can see that this young one, the foal was suckling anyway.
You just leap in there, balance the bucket on your knee, sort of shout at the other horses, if they come too close and look rough.
It's not the The Archers, do you know what I mean? Milking time at The Archers.
Shall I have a go? Yeah.
Yeah? No, put my bucket over there.
Oh, my love, I can't do it.
I'm not doing it properly.
I'm not doing it properly! I can't, I can't seem to Oh, that was feeble.
It's awful to have made somebody angry, but I think that was me.
So it'll be just a little less on the milk yield today.
Some of the mares' milk makes a lethal brew.
Oh, the smell! This has got the most So, when it's cool, the milk goes in here.
And you zhuzz it about, and it turns into alcohol.
This is like a kind of still.
And some of the milk is sold, bizarrely, to a local cosmetics company.
Yeah? On the bottle is a lovely little picture of a galloping mare.
It looks like a think kind of balm.
You put it on your face.
Yeah.
How lovely.
I can't wait to try the alcoholic sour mares' milk nomadic cocktail.
Delicious.
Look.
This looks like beautiful, very thick cream, I guess.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Mmmm-mmm! That's delicious.
It's rather like eating a scone, I guess.
It's wonderful.
Soon it'll be winter, when it can get to minus 30.
But with the ger's walls and roof made of sheep felt, it's remarkably cosy.
You've been married for 26 years? How did you meet your husband? Naadam is the nomads' annual fair, where riding and wrestling feature prominently, and the place to go to find romance.
You have children? Army? We have one son, who is married, and two granddaughters.
I'm 68.
Oh But when I put my mares' milk on, I shall be even younger.
Ah! They've kindly invited me to sleep here tonight.
So we prepare to turn in.
Mr and Mrs Ochua sleep in their small but charming wooden bed, normally opposite their son.
But they insist that I take his bed tonight.
Is this all right for me to sleep here? Is this your son's bed? Yeah? Is it OK for me? Thank you so much.
So I'm just going off to clean my teeth now.
I'm going to keep this door do that while I can see it.
And then keep the door shut to keep this beautiful little ger warm.
You've probably gathered the bathroom is simply the Great Outdoors.
A lovely night here.
Got jolly cold, even though I had a beautiful extra quilt over my sleeping bag.
I slept in my zipper thing.
I felt my nose cold.
But something lovely happened.
There was a great kind of bump at about two in the morning.
That kind of frrrrr! That lovely heavy breathing sound of a big beast coming along and standing and breathing beside me.
I've only ever had that before in a tent with a lion.
So it was nice to be up in Mongolia and it was a cow.
Morning rituals with a modern twist.
As Mr Ochua gets up, and Mrs Ochua makes the cheese, their son goes out early to round up the distant horses.
By the time he's back, Dad is up and ready.
In a beautifully coordinated dance, ancient and modern herding methods combine.
It's been extraordinary staying here for the night.
There's something really pared down and simple, hardworking, disciplined, a sense of order.
An extraordinarily simple life, which I suppose all our ancestors lived.
So all of us used to live like this.
How different it is to the world today.
But most impressive is something I've found around the world, which is that the poorer and the simpler people are, the more they welcome you into their homes.
The kinder they are.
The more they give you the best place to sit or to eat, the best bit of food, the best bed.
It's just so We've pulled away from this in our smart, civilised world.
I wonder if we haven't gone too far.
It's time to get back on the train, whose next stop is the exotically named capital, Ulaanbaatar.
This proudly independent land has conquered, and been conquered by, both its neighbours -- China and Russia.
The Mongolian People's Republic was dominated by the Soviet Union, who banned all mention of the great 13th century Mongolian emperor, Genghis Khan.
Long train journeys are great places to meet people.
My breakfast date is a young Mongolian called Dandy.
Tea? Coffee? - Tea, please.
- Coffee, please.
- Your first time in Mongolia? - It is.
You speak perfect English.
How does that happen? Well, after I graduated my high school, I went to get a degree in London.
- So I've been living there for four years.
- What were you studying? I was studying Business Administration.
- And where did you live? - In Bermondsey.
- In Bermondsey? - In Bermondsey, yeah.
I lived there for four years.
But London is a terribly expensive place.
How did you manage to amass the funds to live there? - My first job would be the Tesco's.
- At Tesco? - Yes, as a cashier.
- Really? - In Tesco in Clapham Junction.
- Yes? Of course, my best job will be the Odeon cinema in Leicester Square.
- Wow.
- Ticket checking.
- Ticket checking.
- Yeah.
So, after everybody is in the cinema, - I was, like, able to watch every movie.
- Fantastic.
Is it a struggle for Mongolia, being caught, first of all, such a completely independent people, with an independent history, and in its history, one of the greatest empires the world has ever known, spreading from, well, here right - Whoa! - I'm so sorry.
- He says fine.
- And now Mongolia is pinched between these two superpowers.
Full of its independent spirit, its own language, its own history.
Is this a difficult place to set up businesses? - You've got to trade with your neighbours, haven't you? - Yep.
Well, as a landlocked country, our main way out to the world markets Thank you.
- .
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is going to be the railway.
- The railway.
- This railway? - Yeah, this railway, exactly, that we are travelling on.
But right now, it is a really hot topic in Mongolia, the railway.
Because now we are on the edge of deciding whether we follow Chinese or whether we follow Russia.
With Russia and China having railway tracks of different widths, Mongolia has to decide which market matters most.
Mongolia is over six times the size of the UK, and has only three million people.
But nearly half of them now live in the capital, Ulaanbaatar, which is about as remote as you can get.
I discover in Ulaanbaatar that pride in Genghis Khan is back.
This square was recently named after him.
My train companion, Dandy, has suggested that, if I want to see just how much Mongolians revere this ancient warlord, I should meet him some 60 miles outside of Ulaanbaatar.
Dandy, I didn't recognise you in that suit.
True to his word, Dandy is here with his boss, one of the most powerful men in Mongolia, Mr Batalgur.
It's just extraordinary.
You can see it gleaming from miles around.
He's a politician and hugely wealthy businessman, who dreamt up and then had built this tribute to Genghis Khan.
Almost as high as Nelson's Column, it dominates the landscape.
It looks as though it's made from silver.
What is it -- aluminium? Stainless steel.
So it's been made of stainless steel.
- So it will always gleam like this.
- Actually, you can go up.
- You can go up onto there? - Yep.
- So you can go out onto the horse's head? - Er, yes.
He's going to tell you to turn round and open your eyes.
Then can you look at it.
OK, turn round.
That's extraordinary.
It is literally awesome.
It's just extraordinary.
Incredible expression of determination, authority, kindliness Probably not kindliness.
"Chinggis" Khan -- as he's pronounced here -- and his armies are estimated to have slaughtered 40 million people.
So his status as hero is, of course, subjective.
Why did you think it was important to have a statue of Genghis Khan? Do you believe there is a Mongolian characteristic of warrior strength? Do you wrestle? Were you good at wrestling? You're a modest man.
What did you achieve? Fantastic.
Before we came here, I was a bit worried about the idea of this statue of Genghis Khan.
Because a huge kind of glittering object in the middle of open land I thought, "I wonder if it works?" Since we came here, and I've seen what Mongolia is like I mean, it is just literally endless.
.
.
this phenomenal statue seems to be to scale.
You can understand why this man, Genghis Khan, 800 years ago, ruled the world.
His army stretched from the Pacific right across into Europe, from what is now Russia right down to India.
An empire that's never really been matched.
So it's rather good to be here, looking up at his huge silver face.
This is Genghis Khan.
And this is his Mongolia.
Genghis Khan didn't know that, beneath his horses' hooves, lay a fortune.
Modern Mongolia is reaping the benefit of its vast natural resources.
In the last few decades, the world's mining conglomerates have been flooding in.
They've found huge deposits of coal, copper, uranium .
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and gold.
To be honest, I look better in gold than uranium.
But gold mines are not easy to get to.
So there's nothing for it but to take a helicopter.
Joanna? I've got a mouth full of toffee.
I'm gonna try this one on.
Yeah? I've got to that stage in life where anything wrapped in cellophane is a problem.
Hmmm.
- Thank you.
- A real miner.
A real miner, absolutely.
Wow! Look at this huge hole.
And these massive lorries looking like little ants down there.
And somewhere in here, this lovely sort of russet-coloured earth, somebody must have discerned there would be gold in them thar hills.
This medium-sized gold mine produces around two tons of gold a year, which Mongolian law dictates has to be sold to the government.
The licence to mine includes an obligation to fill these pits in once the gold has been extracted.
After some negotiation, they allow me into the heart of the operation, where the gold itself is sifted and weighed under the all-seeing eyes of the supervisor.
Security might seem low-key, but it is, in fact, pretty intense.
The large gentleman to my right is watching my every move.
We're wearing hi-vis jackets.
But you're wearing black aprons.
What are you doing at this table? This one has no pockets.
So that you don't steal it? Yes, OK.
- That's natural, from the ground.
- Natural one.
Ooh, that's heavy.
That colour.
I'm attracted.
If I found this, how much would I sell it for? It's about two kilos.
- About 90,000.
- 90,000 US Dollars? - Yes, dollars.
- May I ask one favour? Can we take one dish of the gold to see it in the sunlight, to see it glinting in the sunlight? You pick.
It's possible.
I think all those are lovely.
Is it a handful you want? They count them all out, they count them all in.
686.
4.
It's funny -- I've worn and held things far more valuable than that.
Diamonds running into millions.
Obviously not my own, but I've worn them.
There's something absolutely thrilling about gold, a rough nugget of gold that's come from the ground.
There's some extraordinarily primal sense of greed.
Look at that fantastic colour.
It's driven people mad throughout the centuries.
It's only stuff from the earth.
It's only really earth.
It's only stardust.
Thank you.
Thank you.
That's such a lovely present.
You're so generous.
Unfortunately, with not even a nugget of excess baggage, it's back to Ulaanbaatar, where, tomorrow, I'll be on a train, like that one, to the Russian border and Siberia.
Just before I board the train to Siberia, I have one last mission.
I'm under strict instructions from my musician husband to track down the legendary Mongolian throat singers.
This group is called the Jonan, who play traditional instruments, and do a form of throat singing that's quite incredible to hear.
Bravissimi, tutti! That was wonderful.
That throaty sound and that pure high overtone sound are both coming from this one man.
Will you stand and teach me to do this? Eeee-oh-eeee.
Very poor.
But I'm trying to be a man as well as singing.
Uuuuuu It's a long journey from Ulaanbaatar over the border into Russia.
And some of these passengers have to say big goodbyes.
Little Grandma.
Sorry.
The young one, probably about 18, going off to do National Service, a year.
Apparently, they always hope to go north near Russia, because it's much cooler.
If you go south, in the summer, on the borders with China, it's boiling hot.
They look so sweet and so young.
Especially his neatly shaven hair.
Brand new uniforms.
Hi, Spidey boy.
Mmm.
Granny's brought, I think, a blessing.
She's got a wooden spoon and a bottle of something.
I think she's going to bless it with milk when we leave.
She's doing it now.
It's the agonising moment before the train leaves.
You've said everything.
You go, "Yeah, well, so, great.
Right, I'll write, yeah.
" And then we go off and everyone's going, "Bayartai! Bayartai!" Bayartai! Bayartai! I'm sad to be leaving Mongolia, with its haunting music and heart-warming hospitality.
And the land, it's hard to describe.
Even this film isn't even showing it.
It's hard to describe the absolute immensity and emptiness of it, and the great, great beauty.
We're travelling towards the border and the first big city in Siberia, Ulan Ude.
The train seems packed with traders.
Their goods are destined for the Russian market.
But any passing passenger is worth a try.
Can you tell me what's going on here? Ooooh! What's this? Oh, so a woman's just gone past with with a whole bag of more of this trading going on.
With a whole bag of beautiful Look at these.
Camel wool waistcoat.
Isn't that stunning? She's gonna do the same thing of splitting it, so that each passenger appears to be carrying the right amount when, in fact .
.
it's traders carrying It's beautiful.
It's lovely.
How much, for instance, does this cost? Look how warm and nice.
800 roubles.
Do I need a camel wool waistcoat? I mean, what a question.
Obviously I do.
Whoo! Little slippies! They're so sweet.
Night-night, Spidey.
Rocked into a slumber by the endless motion of the train, it's a bit of a jolt 11 hours later to find we're at the border with Putin's Russia.
Where have I got my little bit of paper? Have I got it in here? Hiya.
Hello.
I wonder how the traders are doing.
The customs officers are searching every nook and cranny for illicit goods.
Our foolhardy attempt to film the process backfires on us.
They see something they don't like in my compartment.
Camera, no.
The boys next door, I'm with the boys If you can ask the boys - This one? - Da, da.
Yes? Ask the boys That is for me.
I I do my performance My friendly trader tries to help.
And then the crew decide not to risk another camera being confiscated.
I don't speak Russian.
I don't speak English.
- This is Russia.
Yes? Speak Russian.
- I can't.
There's one.
- Bye-bye! - Bye-bye! Bye-bye! We were lucky.
Two traders were, in fact, thrown off the train.
Well, this is about ten to six in the morning, old Mongolian time.
But ten to seven in the morning.
Because though we've gone slightly west, and ought to have lost an hour, we've actually gained an hour in Russian time.
Last night was quite a time on the train.
The Mongolian passport and immigration thing went fine.
But when the Russians came on, it had a different feeling about it.
Much more menacing.
And because we'd rigged some cameras around -- because we're recording a train journey -- they spotted them and they were fabulously angry.
Really like a pretty .
.
badly scripted film.
It was strange.
It went on and on and on.
It was half past one.
I thought we'd never get to bed.
Anyway, we've all had a luscious four hours' sleep.
So we feel much better.
The strangest thing happened this morning.
I wasn't awake enough to come and say, "I wish we could record it.
" The rails began singing.
They were singing.
And you can hear them a little bit now.
Laa-roo-eeee Isn't that strange? Perhaps it's the melancholy feel of overtone singing coming from Mongolia, stretching out.
This is Ulan Ude.
Ulan Ude is the capital of the Buryat region in the heartland of Asian Russia.
If I arrived here in a blindfold and someone said, "Which country are you in?" and took the blindfold away, I'd have no doubt that I was in Russia, under this colossal head of Lenin.
This is Soviet Square in Ulan Ude.
These were the former Communist Party buildings, there and there.
That was the KGB building.
Well, it's still the KGB, but under a slightly different name.
That's the state theatre, or opera, over there.
And this enormous head remains.
Even though most of the statues in Russia of Lenin have been taken down, this one's still here.
I wonder if it's because it's not only a monumental work of art, but because it's got slightly Asian modelling of the eyes.
Very favourable.
Very handsome.
I'm in Siberia at last.
Soon I'll be travelling into its icy heart.
Siberia.
A word that's always made me think of exile, gulags and foreboding.
Now I'm in the heart of it, I'm really rather thrilled.
Siberia.
You've got to do it in the winter.
Seven.
This is me.
Do you need that? Yeah? This one -- Lumley.
There I am, that one.
OK? Thank you.
Spaciba.
This leg of the journey will take me from Ulan Ude to the great city of Irkutsk.
So, here we are in Russia.
Is this Moscow time? Is this local time? I think, you know, the thing is Oh, it says, "I'm lost".
Call a doctor.
There's been an accident.
But, you see, it's too late.
Because by the time I've got it out got to the bit with the Russian pronunciation .
.
oh, it's gone.
It's dead.
It's dead.
It's too late.
Even in third class, the seats turn into beds.
Some of these journeys take seven days.
And you need to be able to get your head down.
It's a bit like that scene from Some Like It Hot.
Do you remember, when the girl band, the girl orchestra, are travelling? Marilyn Monroe up on the top bunk.
- May I sit down? - Da.
Please, please.
Thank you.
Where are you travelling to? - Moscow.
- Moscow.
Moskva.
In six days.
You see, in Britain, maybe one night.
But six? Never.
It's a ten-hour journey through stunning mountains, arriving in Irkutsk at night.
If you ever find yourself being sent to Siberia, can I suggest Irkutsk? The famous Russian playwright, Chekhov, called it the Paris of the East.
It has handsome mansions.
And the best shopping, ironically, is on Karl Marx Street.
The Russian Orthodox Church suffered especially during the early years of the Soviet Union.
But now, it's having something of a revival.
The reason, though, I'm here is that it is also the home of Siberia's rock'n'roll bell ringer, Artur Sariov, who offers to show me his belfry.
This is the scary bit.
Right up to some extraordinary kind of attic-y height.
Very big steps.
Look at this.
Whoops! What a view of the city! I can't wait to hear this.
Fantastic! Fantastic! Tearing myself away from the Jimi Hendrix of bell ringing, I discover something more surprising and unexpected happening in Irkutsk.
I've been invited to tea in this rather unprepossessing Soviet block of flats by an English teacher called Natalia.
Hello? Natalia? Hello.
Natalia, hello.
I'm Joanna.
Rather a cold hand.
Cold hands, warm heart.
Warm heart.
Very good English.
How lovely.
- Some cake? - Why not? Let's do it, darling.
- That actually looks completely perfect.
- Nuts and raisins.
The last thing I expected to find in Siberia was Victorian ballroom dancing.
But that is why Natalia has invited me to tea.
It's her passion.
It's very, very typical, I think, of Russian character to look back.
To look back and to cherish.
So the nostalgia you have is not for the Soviet era.
- Although I think there probably is a nostalgia for that time.
- Absolutely.
What do you think it is that they miss? People were absolutely confident of their tomorrow.
Because they knew for sure that tomorrow they will have a job anyway.
They will have free flat anyway.
And if they are ill, they will be taken care of.
- And that's gone now? - That's gone now.
- Is Putin popular in this part of Russia? - Yes.
- All through Russia? - I think, yes.
I think he is popular everywhere.
Because he's such a figure of curiosity in the West.
Because we see photographs of him bare-chested and looking strong.
Well, I think that's a really, really pleasant thing for everyone, to have a strong leader.
Good-looking leader, in good physical shape.
'Well, each to their own.
Tonight's dress rehearsal for the ball starts in an hour.
Natalia is an impressive seamstress.
' The corset.
- Oh, that's quite beautiful.
- Yeah, rather heavy.
I've worn these corsets, because, as an actress, when you're playing period things.
You hook them up first of all, and then you pull them in tight at the back.
- Who tightens your corset for you? - My husband.
Good for you! The dress.
Look at that! You're going to be the belle of the ball.
Who knew that dances such as this go on in mansions in Irkutsk? It's completely taken me aback, that, here in Siberia, a group of people of all ages have gone to such lengths to recreate a faraway country, in a long ago time, with such love and care.
And this is only the beginning of my real journey across Russia.
I've got so much more to see.
At the end of it, Moscow, where I was as a young model.
Next time, the deepest lake in the world Bloody hell.
.
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extreme weather, sleigh rides - Come in, please.
- .
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and Stalin's secret bunker.
This is honestly like being in Alice In Wonderland.
We're 2000 miles into our epic journey.
I've leapt off the train to spend some time with a family of nomads.
There are twice as many wild horses as people in Mongolia.
I'm hoping, not too wild.
I don't know why I feel my enormous English bottom is going to struggle in there.
My father, who was quite a horseman, always said that, when you're on top of a horse, to stop it ever knowing you're feeling nervous, you've got to sing, so it might be a little bit of melody.
The hills might be alive with the sound of music.
Ohh! There we are.
It's the same the whole world over It's the poor what gets the blame My 6000-mile adventure started in Hong Kong, which I'd last seen when I was four.
I've crossed mighty China, where the new world rubs up against the old.
I visited a wild stretch of the Great Wall.
This is honestly like being in a dream.
Now we're in romantic Mongolia, the land of Genghis Khan, with its hardy nomads.
It's a vast, empty and mysterious land.
From here, I'll enter another empire.
This is Russia.
Speak Russian.
I'll be crossing icy Siberia, glimpsing Russia's undimmed spirit and troubled soul.
Two guys jumped with Kalashnikovs in their hands, like dad-da-da! I'll be meeting powerful oligarchs This is so I get the gold flakes.
- .
.
stars of the future - Zazdarovje! .
.
and enjoy Russian hospitality to the full.
So that is a small vodka.
Finally, I push onto Moscow, which I last visited in the darkness of the Cold War in 1966.
- Is that a nuclear bomb? - Yes.
My Trans-Siberian journey.
The adventure of a lifetime.
This unforgiving landscape breeds tough people, whether they're warriors or herdsmen.
The nomadic lifestyle has hardly changed for thousands of years in Mongolia, where a third of the population are still herdsmen.
My hosts are the Flouk-Ochua family, who live in these tents, or gers, managing their 200 horses and 100 head of cattle, moving every few months to pastures new.
It's not only the cows that are milked.
Mares' milk is big business in Mongolia.
Milking occurs four times a day.
And it's quite an art.
Foals are used to stimulate the mare to milk, and then pulled away.
It seems fairly hazardous, this milking, cos you just go in amongst the herd of horses.
You can see that this young one, the foal was suckling anyway.
You just leap in there, balance the bucket on your knee, sort of shout at the other horses, if they come too close and look rough.
It's not the The Archers, do you know what I mean? Milking time at The Archers.
Shall I have a go? Yeah.
Yeah? No, put my bucket over there.
Oh, my love, I can't do it.
I'm not doing it properly.
I'm not doing it properly! I can't, I can't seem to Oh, that was feeble.
It's awful to have made somebody angry, but I think that was me.
So it'll be just a little less on the milk yield today.
Some of the mares' milk makes a lethal brew.
Oh, the smell! This has got the most So, when it's cool, the milk goes in here.
And you zhuzz it about, and it turns into alcohol.
This is like a kind of still.
And some of the milk is sold, bizarrely, to a local cosmetics company.
Yeah? On the bottle is a lovely little picture of a galloping mare.
It looks like a think kind of balm.
You put it on your face.
Yeah.
How lovely.
I can't wait to try the alcoholic sour mares' milk nomadic cocktail.
Delicious.
Look.
This looks like beautiful, very thick cream, I guess.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Mmmm-mmm! That's delicious.
It's rather like eating a scone, I guess.
It's wonderful.
Soon it'll be winter, when it can get to minus 30.
But with the ger's walls and roof made of sheep felt, it's remarkably cosy.
You've been married for 26 years? How did you meet your husband? Naadam is the nomads' annual fair, where riding and wrestling feature prominently, and the place to go to find romance.
You have children? Army? We have one son, who is married, and two granddaughters.
I'm 68.
Oh But when I put my mares' milk on, I shall be even younger.
Ah! They've kindly invited me to sleep here tonight.
So we prepare to turn in.
Mr and Mrs Ochua sleep in their small but charming wooden bed, normally opposite their son.
But they insist that I take his bed tonight.
Is this all right for me to sleep here? Is this your son's bed? Yeah? Is it OK for me? Thank you so much.
So I'm just going off to clean my teeth now.
I'm going to keep this door do that while I can see it.
And then keep the door shut to keep this beautiful little ger warm.
You've probably gathered the bathroom is simply the Great Outdoors.
A lovely night here.
Got jolly cold, even though I had a beautiful extra quilt over my sleeping bag.
I slept in my zipper thing.
I felt my nose cold.
But something lovely happened.
There was a great kind of bump at about two in the morning.
That kind of frrrrr! That lovely heavy breathing sound of a big beast coming along and standing and breathing beside me.
I've only ever had that before in a tent with a lion.
So it was nice to be up in Mongolia and it was a cow.
Morning rituals with a modern twist.
As Mr Ochua gets up, and Mrs Ochua makes the cheese, their son goes out early to round up the distant horses.
By the time he's back, Dad is up and ready.
In a beautifully coordinated dance, ancient and modern herding methods combine.
It's been extraordinary staying here for the night.
There's something really pared down and simple, hardworking, disciplined, a sense of order.
An extraordinarily simple life, which I suppose all our ancestors lived.
So all of us used to live like this.
How different it is to the world today.
But most impressive is something I've found around the world, which is that the poorer and the simpler people are, the more they welcome you into their homes.
The kinder they are.
The more they give you the best place to sit or to eat, the best bit of food, the best bed.
It's just so We've pulled away from this in our smart, civilised world.
I wonder if we haven't gone too far.
It's time to get back on the train, whose next stop is the exotically named capital, Ulaanbaatar.
This proudly independent land has conquered, and been conquered by, both its neighbours -- China and Russia.
The Mongolian People's Republic was dominated by the Soviet Union, who banned all mention of the great 13th century Mongolian emperor, Genghis Khan.
Long train journeys are great places to meet people.
My breakfast date is a young Mongolian called Dandy.
Tea? Coffee? - Tea, please.
- Coffee, please.
- Your first time in Mongolia? - It is.
You speak perfect English.
How does that happen? Well, after I graduated my high school, I went to get a degree in London.
- So I've been living there for four years.
- What were you studying? I was studying Business Administration.
- And where did you live? - In Bermondsey.
- In Bermondsey? - In Bermondsey, yeah.
I lived there for four years.
But London is a terribly expensive place.
How did you manage to amass the funds to live there? - My first job would be the Tesco's.
- At Tesco? - Yes, as a cashier.
- Really? - In Tesco in Clapham Junction.
- Yes? Of course, my best job will be the Odeon cinema in Leicester Square.
- Wow.
- Ticket checking.
- Ticket checking.
- Yeah.
So, after everybody is in the cinema, - I was, like, able to watch every movie.
- Fantastic.
Is it a struggle for Mongolia, being caught, first of all, such a completely independent people, with an independent history, and in its history, one of the greatest empires the world has ever known, spreading from, well, here right - Whoa! - I'm so sorry.
- He says fine.
- And now Mongolia is pinched between these two superpowers.
Full of its independent spirit, its own language, its own history.
Is this a difficult place to set up businesses? - You've got to trade with your neighbours, haven't you? - Yep.
Well, as a landlocked country, our main way out to the world markets Thank you.
- .
.
is going to be the railway.
- The railway.
- This railway? - Yeah, this railway, exactly, that we are travelling on.
But right now, it is a really hot topic in Mongolia, the railway.
Because now we are on the edge of deciding whether we follow Chinese or whether we follow Russia.
With Russia and China having railway tracks of different widths, Mongolia has to decide which market matters most.
Mongolia is over six times the size of the UK, and has only three million people.
But nearly half of them now live in the capital, Ulaanbaatar, which is about as remote as you can get.
I discover in Ulaanbaatar that pride in Genghis Khan is back.
This square was recently named after him.
My train companion, Dandy, has suggested that, if I want to see just how much Mongolians revere this ancient warlord, I should meet him some 60 miles outside of Ulaanbaatar.
Dandy, I didn't recognise you in that suit.
True to his word, Dandy is here with his boss, one of the most powerful men in Mongolia, Mr Batalgur.
It's just extraordinary.
You can see it gleaming from miles around.
He's a politician and hugely wealthy businessman, who dreamt up and then had built this tribute to Genghis Khan.
Almost as high as Nelson's Column, it dominates the landscape.
It looks as though it's made from silver.
What is it -- aluminium? Stainless steel.
So it's been made of stainless steel.
- So it will always gleam like this.
- Actually, you can go up.
- You can go up onto there? - Yep.
- So you can go out onto the horse's head? - Er, yes.
He's going to tell you to turn round and open your eyes.
Then can you look at it.
OK, turn round.
That's extraordinary.
It is literally awesome.
It's just extraordinary.
Incredible expression of determination, authority, kindliness Probably not kindliness.
"Chinggis" Khan -- as he's pronounced here -- and his armies are estimated to have slaughtered 40 million people.
So his status as hero is, of course, subjective.
Why did you think it was important to have a statue of Genghis Khan? Do you believe there is a Mongolian characteristic of warrior strength? Do you wrestle? Were you good at wrestling? You're a modest man.
What did you achieve? Fantastic.
Before we came here, I was a bit worried about the idea of this statue of Genghis Khan.
Because a huge kind of glittering object in the middle of open land I thought, "I wonder if it works?" Since we came here, and I've seen what Mongolia is like I mean, it is just literally endless.
.
.
this phenomenal statue seems to be to scale.
You can understand why this man, Genghis Khan, 800 years ago, ruled the world.
His army stretched from the Pacific right across into Europe, from what is now Russia right down to India.
An empire that's never really been matched.
So it's rather good to be here, looking up at his huge silver face.
This is Genghis Khan.
And this is his Mongolia.
Genghis Khan didn't know that, beneath his horses' hooves, lay a fortune.
Modern Mongolia is reaping the benefit of its vast natural resources.
In the last few decades, the world's mining conglomerates have been flooding in.
They've found huge deposits of coal, copper, uranium .
.
and gold.
To be honest, I look better in gold than uranium.
But gold mines are not easy to get to.
So there's nothing for it but to take a helicopter.
Joanna? I've got a mouth full of toffee.
I'm gonna try this one on.
Yeah? I've got to that stage in life where anything wrapped in cellophane is a problem.
Hmmm.
- Thank you.
- A real miner.
A real miner, absolutely.
Wow! Look at this huge hole.
And these massive lorries looking like little ants down there.
And somewhere in here, this lovely sort of russet-coloured earth, somebody must have discerned there would be gold in them thar hills.
This medium-sized gold mine produces around two tons of gold a year, which Mongolian law dictates has to be sold to the government.
The licence to mine includes an obligation to fill these pits in once the gold has been extracted.
After some negotiation, they allow me into the heart of the operation, where the gold itself is sifted and weighed under the all-seeing eyes of the supervisor.
Security might seem low-key, but it is, in fact, pretty intense.
The large gentleman to my right is watching my every move.
We're wearing hi-vis jackets.
But you're wearing black aprons.
What are you doing at this table? This one has no pockets.
So that you don't steal it? Yes, OK.
- That's natural, from the ground.
- Natural one.
Ooh, that's heavy.
That colour.
I'm attracted.
If I found this, how much would I sell it for? It's about two kilos.
- About 90,000.
- 90,000 US Dollars? - Yes, dollars.
- May I ask one favour? Can we take one dish of the gold to see it in the sunlight, to see it glinting in the sunlight? You pick.
It's possible.
I think all those are lovely.
Is it a handful you want? They count them all out, they count them all in.
686.
4.
It's funny -- I've worn and held things far more valuable than that.
Diamonds running into millions.
Obviously not my own, but I've worn them.
There's something absolutely thrilling about gold, a rough nugget of gold that's come from the ground.
There's some extraordinarily primal sense of greed.
Look at that fantastic colour.
It's driven people mad throughout the centuries.
It's only stuff from the earth.
It's only really earth.
It's only stardust.
Thank you.
Thank you.
That's such a lovely present.
You're so generous.
Unfortunately, with not even a nugget of excess baggage, it's back to Ulaanbaatar, where, tomorrow, I'll be on a train, like that one, to the Russian border and Siberia.
Just before I board the train to Siberia, I have one last mission.
I'm under strict instructions from my musician husband to track down the legendary Mongolian throat singers.
This group is called the Jonan, who play traditional instruments, and do a form of throat singing that's quite incredible to hear.
Bravissimi, tutti! That was wonderful.
That throaty sound and that pure high overtone sound are both coming from this one man.
Will you stand and teach me to do this? Eeee-oh-eeee.
Very poor.
But I'm trying to be a man as well as singing.
Uuuuuu It's a long journey from Ulaanbaatar over the border into Russia.
And some of these passengers have to say big goodbyes.
Little Grandma.
Sorry.
The young one, probably about 18, going off to do National Service, a year.
Apparently, they always hope to go north near Russia, because it's much cooler.
If you go south, in the summer, on the borders with China, it's boiling hot.
They look so sweet and so young.
Especially his neatly shaven hair.
Brand new uniforms.
Hi, Spidey boy.
Mmm.
Granny's brought, I think, a blessing.
She's got a wooden spoon and a bottle of something.
I think she's going to bless it with milk when we leave.
She's doing it now.
It's the agonising moment before the train leaves.
You've said everything.
You go, "Yeah, well, so, great.
Right, I'll write, yeah.
" And then we go off and everyone's going, "Bayartai! Bayartai!" Bayartai! Bayartai! I'm sad to be leaving Mongolia, with its haunting music and heart-warming hospitality.
And the land, it's hard to describe.
Even this film isn't even showing it.
It's hard to describe the absolute immensity and emptiness of it, and the great, great beauty.
We're travelling towards the border and the first big city in Siberia, Ulan Ude.
The train seems packed with traders.
Their goods are destined for the Russian market.
But any passing passenger is worth a try.
Can you tell me what's going on here? Ooooh! What's this? Oh, so a woman's just gone past with with a whole bag of more of this trading going on.
With a whole bag of beautiful Look at these.
Camel wool waistcoat.
Isn't that stunning? She's gonna do the same thing of splitting it, so that each passenger appears to be carrying the right amount when, in fact .
.
it's traders carrying It's beautiful.
It's lovely.
How much, for instance, does this cost? Look how warm and nice.
800 roubles.
Do I need a camel wool waistcoat? I mean, what a question.
Obviously I do.
Whoo! Little slippies! They're so sweet.
Night-night, Spidey.
Rocked into a slumber by the endless motion of the train, it's a bit of a jolt 11 hours later to find we're at the border with Putin's Russia.
Where have I got my little bit of paper? Have I got it in here? Hiya.
Hello.
I wonder how the traders are doing.
The customs officers are searching every nook and cranny for illicit goods.
Our foolhardy attempt to film the process backfires on us.
They see something they don't like in my compartment.
Camera, no.
The boys next door, I'm with the boys If you can ask the boys - This one? - Da, da.
Yes? Ask the boys That is for me.
I I do my performance My friendly trader tries to help.
And then the crew decide not to risk another camera being confiscated.
I don't speak Russian.
I don't speak English.
- This is Russia.
Yes? Speak Russian.
- I can't.
There's one.
- Bye-bye! - Bye-bye! Bye-bye! We were lucky.
Two traders were, in fact, thrown off the train.
Well, this is about ten to six in the morning, old Mongolian time.
But ten to seven in the morning.
Because though we've gone slightly west, and ought to have lost an hour, we've actually gained an hour in Russian time.
Last night was quite a time on the train.
The Mongolian passport and immigration thing went fine.
But when the Russians came on, it had a different feeling about it.
Much more menacing.
And because we'd rigged some cameras around -- because we're recording a train journey -- they spotted them and they were fabulously angry.
Really like a pretty .
.
badly scripted film.
It was strange.
It went on and on and on.
It was half past one.
I thought we'd never get to bed.
Anyway, we've all had a luscious four hours' sleep.
So we feel much better.
The strangest thing happened this morning.
I wasn't awake enough to come and say, "I wish we could record it.
" The rails began singing.
They were singing.
And you can hear them a little bit now.
Laa-roo-eeee Isn't that strange? Perhaps it's the melancholy feel of overtone singing coming from Mongolia, stretching out.
This is Ulan Ude.
Ulan Ude is the capital of the Buryat region in the heartland of Asian Russia.
If I arrived here in a blindfold and someone said, "Which country are you in?" and took the blindfold away, I'd have no doubt that I was in Russia, under this colossal head of Lenin.
This is Soviet Square in Ulan Ude.
These were the former Communist Party buildings, there and there.
That was the KGB building.
Well, it's still the KGB, but under a slightly different name.
That's the state theatre, or opera, over there.
And this enormous head remains.
Even though most of the statues in Russia of Lenin have been taken down, this one's still here.
I wonder if it's because it's not only a monumental work of art, but because it's got slightly Asian modelling of the eyes.
Very favourable.
Very handsome.
I'm in Siberia at last.
Soon I'll be travelling into its icy heart.
Siberia.
A word that's always made me think of exile, gulags and foreboding.
Now I'm in the heart of it, I'm really rather thrilled.
Siberia.
You've got to do it in the winter.
Seven.
This is me.
Do you need that? Yeah? This one -- Lumley.
There I am, that one.
OK? Thank you.
Spaciba.
This leg of the journey will take me from Ulan Ude to the great city of Irkutsk.
So, here we are in Russia.
Is this Moscow time? Is this local time? I think, you know, the thing is Oh, it says, "I'm lost".
Call a doctor.
There's been an accident.
But, you see, it's too late.
Because by the time I've got it out got to the bit with the Russian pronunciation .
.
oh, it's gone.
It's dead.
It's dead.
It's too late.
Even in third class, the seats turn into beds.
Some of these journeys take seven days.
And you need to be able to get your head down.
It's a bit like that scene from Some Like It Hot.
Do you remember, when the girl band, the girl orchestra, are travelling? Marilyn Monroe up on the top bunk.
- May I sit down? - Da.
Please, please.
Thank you.
Where are you travelling to? - Moscow.
- Moscow.
Moskva.
In six days.
You see, in Britain, maybe one night.
But six? Never.
It's a ten-hour journey through stunning mountains, arriving in Irkutsk at night.
If you ever find yourself being sent to Siberia, can I suggest Irkutsk? The famous Russian playwright, Chekhov, called it the Paris of the East.
It has handsome mansions.
And the best shopping, ironically, is on Karl Marx Street.
The Russian Orthodox Church suffered especially during the early years of the Soviet Union.
But now, it's having something of a revival.
The reason, though, I'm here is that it is also the home of Siberia's rock'n'roll bell ringer, Artur Sariov, who offers to show me his belfry.
This is the scary bit.
Right up to some extraordinary kind of attic-y height.
Very big steps.
Look at this.
Whoops! What a view of the city! I can't wait to hear this.
Fantastic! Fantastic! Tearing myself away from the Jimi Hendrix of bell ringing, I discover something more surprising and unexpected happening in Irkutsk.
I've been invited to tea in this rather unprepossessing Soviet block of flats by an English teacher called Natalia.
Hello? Natalia? Hello.
Natalia, hello.
I'm Joanna.
Rather a cold hand.
Cold hands, warm heart.
Warm heart.
Very good English.
How lovely.
- Some cake? - Why not? Let's do it, darling.
- That actually looks completely perfect.
- Nuts and raisins.
The last thing I expected to find in Siberia was Victorian ballroom dancing.
But that is why Natalia has invited me to tea.
It's her passion.
It's very, very typical, I think, of Russian character to look back.
To look back and to cherish.
So the nostalgia you have is not for the Soviet era.
- Although I think there probably is a nostalgia for that time.
- Absolutely.
What do you think it is that they miss? People were absolutely confident of their tomorrow.
Because they knew for sure that tomorrow they will have a job anyway.
They will have free flat anyway.
And if they are ill, they will be taken care of.
- And that's gone now? - That's gone now.
- Is Putin popular in this part of Russia? - Yes.
- All through Russia? - I think, yes.
I think he is popular everywhere.
Because he's such a figure of curiosity in the West.
Because we see photographs of him bare-chested and looking strong.
Well, I think that's a really, really pleasant thing for everyone, to have a strong leader.
Good-looking leader, in good physical shape.
'Well, each to their own.
Tonight's dress rehearsal for the ball starts in an hour.
Natalia is an impressive seamstress.
' The corset.
- Oh, that's quite beautiful.
- Yeah, rather heavy.
I've worn these corsets, because, as an actress, when you're playing period things.
You hook them up first of all, and then you pull them in tight at the back.
- Who tightens your corset for you? - My husband.
Good for you! The dress.
Look at that! You're going to be the belle of the ball.
Who knew that dances such as this go on in mansions in Irkutsk? It's completely taken me aback, that, here in Siberia, a group of people of all ages have gone to such lengths to recreate a faraway country, in a long ago time, with such love and care.
And this is only the beginning of my real journey across Russia.
I've got so much more to see.
At the end of it, Moscow, where I was as a young model.
Next time, the deepest lake in the world Bloody hell.
.
.
extreme weather, sleigh rides - Come in, please.
- .
.
and Stalin's secret bunker.
This is honestly like being in Alice In Wonderland.