Joanna Lumley's Trans-Siberian Adventure (2015) s01e03 Episode Script
Episode 3 of 3
I'm over 3,000 miles into my journey and I'm skirting the shores of Lake Baikal in southern Siberia.
It's minus 25 degrees Centigrade and the rivers have already started to freeze over.
In 1899, two amazing icebreakers were built in Newcastle and they sailed out here, sailed through the Baltic, and they came, astonishingly, across land to come here to this, the Angara River, which leads into Lake Baikal.
But, this is absolutely incredible to see it here.
You can see the front of it, very sharp.
It can cut through ice to a certain degree, not in February when the ice here freezes SO deep that you can drive trucks across it.
But, just when it's forming like now, this could cut through, cutting out an enormous journey that could take days and days.
You could go straight across.
Isn't that lovely to think a little piece of Newcastle, a little piece of England is here in Siberia? My 6,000 mile adventure started in Hong Kong which I had last seen when I was four.
I've crossed mighty China, where the new world rubs up against the old .
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and visited a wild stretch of the Great Wall.
This is honestly like being in a dream.
From there, it was on to romantic Mongolia, the land of Genghis Khan with its hardy nomads .
.
mysterious shamans, a vast, empty land.
Then, I entered another empire.
This is Russia.
Speak Russian! This time, icy Siberia, glimpsing Russia's undimmed spirit and troubled soul.
Two guys jumped with Kalashnikovs in their hands.
I'll be meeting powerful oligarchs This is so I get the gold flakes.
.
.
stars of the future.
.
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and enjoy Russian hospitality to the full.
So, that is a small vodka! Finally, I push on to 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.
Lake Baikal in southern Siberia, near Irkutsk where I got off the train, is one of the world's oldest lakes.
It is over a mile deep and contains one fifth of the world's fresh water.
Like our own Loch Ness, there is a legend of a giant monster living in its depths.
The lake is teeming with life from the Baikal teal, to the Baikal seal, which, like 894 other species, is found nowhere else on earth.
In midwinter you can drive trucks onto the lake as the ice can get up to six feet thick, but that's still some weeks away.
I've come to the lake's edge to the little port of Listvyanka to meet fisherman Sergei.
Sergei? He's going to take me by boat to his remote village of Bolshie Koty, or Big Cat, so I can experience life on these remote, mountainous shores.
The reason we can't see out of here is because it's lake water slapping up and freezing at once as soon as it hits the windows.
Sergei can see out of his heated window because he has to see where we're going but it's erm It's quite a little lumpy lake we're flying up and down, although Sergei is quite dismissive about the size of the waves! There are no roads into Sergei's village and when the lake is not frozen, it takes several challenging hours by boat to reach there.
Sergei's second in command is his son, Sergei Junior.
It's slippery! Thank you, Sergei.
Oh, Sergei.
Thank you.
Spasiba.
Thank you! Whoo! Well, that was a heck of a journey.
Look how the ice has formed over the whole of the front of it with icicles there and it's just been chopping on.
I've taken Sergei's arm because it's slippery and also because I like him! Bolshie Koty, a village of fishermen and their families, has a population of only 100 people.
Like rural communities around the world, they're losing out to the bright lights of the city.
Sergei Junior and his wife, local girl Katya, have decided to stay for now.
They've just had a baby.
Hello, baby mouse.
Hello, little thrush with your hair on end! The remoteness of Bolshie Koty, meant that her birth was rather dramatic.
And so ooh So, you're on the boat? Nasdarovje.
Nasdarovje.
Toast.
Russian hospitality is the order of the day.
Delicious, local produce is washed down with quantities of vodka.
Not a sentence is uttered without a toast! Sergei, I've just seen a great, big jar over there.
What has it got in it? Can I try it? I wonder what this is going to taste like.
I can't describe the smell.
It doesn't really smell of mushrooms.
I'm feeling wonderful! Drinking for the fungus! I'm not sure what's in Sergei's fungus drink, but it seems to be doing everyone the world of good! Sergei, Sergei.
How old are you? You look wonderful.
Pleasure trips.
I'll drink to that.
After an evening of free-flowing vodka, I need to get my head down.
Sergei built his guest house with his own hands, and after the rattle of the train, it will be a relief.
Three times? The Siberian stars seem very bright, very bright indeed.
It's sad to think that young people nowadays are probably not following on people like Sergei who build houses and sail boats in bad seas.
The same thing is happening all across the world where children are leaving boring farming and doing stuff their parents did to go to the bright lights and the big city and the real men will become history.
But anyway, I made one tonight and that was Sergei.
A real man! Lake Baikal is stunningly beautiful, but its extreme weather makes it very treacherous and it claims many lives every year.
The emergency forces have to be prepared to work in all weathers.
Bloody hell! It's quite hard to stand up in this gale.
I'm sure it's just a coincidence but this large, well-equipped base is just along the shore from a mansion used by the Russian presidents.
Is this normal weather for training? This year, the winter is late a little bit from my point of view.
We just I expected to see snow earlier than today.
- Well, today's the day.
- Today's the day.
Pfft! Tough people.
From Irkutsk, I get the overnight train.
As so often at these stations, some emotional goodbyes here from young Russian soldiers being posted far away from their loved ones.
I'm looking for carriage seven.
It's unbelievably cold here! Gosh! I'm getting on and off trains all the time.
This one, coming from Vladivostok, has a bar with a rather tasteful 1970s vibe.
- Erm, coffee? - No.
No.
Erm Erm, vodka? No.
- Small? - Small.
A small vodka.
I mean, I think that's reasonable .
.
just to have a little It's come already like that! - That's small?! - Small.
That's This is for all the bartenders in London.
I just want to say that is a SMALL vodka on the train here.
Spasiba.
A little more than I planned! My next stop is Krasnoyarsk and still 3,000 miles away from Moscow, my final destination, that I last saw in 1966.
That's me in the Moscow Underground.
At least, that's where I remember at the time they said, this is where the Trans-Siberian railway sets off from.
I'm wearing a fake fur coat with a little fur hood.
A phenomenal arched ceiling with chandeliers.
I wonder if it looks like that now.
I don't look like that now.
So, lashings of full eyelashes, pale lipstick.
Pretty distressed hair which obviously I've kept that going! Little Jo.
I can't remember her.
But, you never lose who you were, you know.
You just grow around you like a tree so she's in there, somewhere in here.
I don't recognise her because that's modelling face.
I never looked like that.
I looked like a chimpanzee in real life.
That was my special trying to look modelling face.
The journey from Irkutsk to Krasnoyarsk is 677 miles, or 17 hours by train.
But, waiting for me there is an oligarch! We are all familiar with the term Russian oligarch, but what does it mean and where do they come from? Well, when the Soviet Union collapsed in the early nineties, rampant capitalism filled the void.
Clever businessmen, whether by fair means or foul, cashed in on this time of economic upheaval and chaos.
With sudden privatisation, a few men made a LOT of money.
In Krasnoyarsk, in the heart of mineral-rich Siberia, where business is booming, one such oligarch is construction magnate Vladimir Egoroff.
Next to the headquarters of the construction company he owns, he's built a little park with statues to celebrate his success.
- Mr Egoroff is waiting for you.
- Spasiba.
Thank you.
OK.
Hello, good morning.
- Joanna.
- Vladimir.
Oh, it's good to meet you.
- Did you see me? - Mm-hm.
Did you? He's checked me out.
Look at these things! This beautiful egg, Vladimir, it looks like a Faberge egg.
- Vodka?! - Vodka.
Ohh! Being an oligarch is not without its dangers.
Mr Egoroff had decided to run for governor of the region, but at the last minute the Kremlin made it clear they wanted their own man in.
Being an astute businessman, Egoroff stood aside.
You are city councillor.
Would you think of becoming governor of this region? Is there a tension between business and politics? Is it, is it difficult to get on sometimes? Any self-respecting millionaire in Krasnoyarsk has a house by the river in the city's most desirable residential area.
Mr Egoroff has invited me to tea.
Do you like football? Would you like to own your own football club? Indeed, he is no Abramovich and Mr Egoroff is still only a minor oligarch.
It's said he has a personal income of merely $30 million per year(!) Look at this! How beautiful! - Joanna? - Joanna.
Thank you, Natalia.
Natalia is Mr Egoroff's wife and mother of his youngest son, Anton.
Oy, yoi yoi! Oh, look at this! This is fantastic! - This is the river? - Yes, Yenisei.
The Yenisei.
It's beautiful.
Over here, in the circle, it's a big place for chess.
- For chess? Brilliant.
- Yes.
This is Natalia.
She's got you on a tight chain! This is a bear! Gosh, from around here? - Your watches! - He think this is the best one.
Sorry, I just have to put that on just for a second as my arm stretches down.
Look at that! I'm so sorry, this doesn't come off.
I'll have to take it.
I'll have to just go with it.
I can't get it off.
As with everything in an oligarch's world, only the best will do.
Pomegranates, as if from a Baroque still-life painting.
Mushrooms, tenderly picked from the forest.
The finest caviar and a personalised bottle of a rather special vodka.
Russian vodka.
Look at that.
Egoroff.
Oh, my gosh! This is so I get the gold flakes.
Look at that! Vodka.
You've opened this beautiful bottle for me with gold flakes.
Not all of Russia benefited from the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The gap between rich and poor is greater than ever.
Just 111 people own an astonishing fifth of Russia's private wealth.
Krasnoyarsk to Yekaterinburg is one and a half thousand miles.
Siberia is three quarters of all Russia, and if it were an independent country, it would be the largest in the world.
Yekaterinburg is Russia's fourth largest city.
Its placid appearance is overshadowed by its dark and violent history.
Early in the morning of July 17, 1918 the Tsar, his wife and five children, three servants, their doctor and their dog, were shot dead.
Their bodies were taken away deep into the forest.
What exactly happened to them remains a mystery.
Father Flavian takes up the story.
The Russian Orthodox Church has now made all seven members of the imperial family, saints.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in the 1990s, violence once again returned to Yekaterinburg.
The city became effectively lawless due to gang warfare, and hundreds were killed.
My guide, Konstantin, was only a boy when he witnessed some of the killings.
On the corner of the street I saw a dark BMW and two guys jumped on the street with Kalashnikovs in their hands.
They just began to like He shows me the gangsters' ostentatious memorials.
This is the leader of Uralmash.
Oh, my gosh! What's on the tree? - It's a camera.
- A camera? Yeah.
Somebody looking on us at this time.
I think it's from families and friends because they think something can happen with the graves.
Somebody would desecrate them from the old other gang? - Yeah, maybe.
- Yeah.
I think somebody's watching us now.
Will they think that would be suspicious that we're here? It can be suspicious.
It's Russia! Next morning as dawn breaks, the train from Yekaterinburg takes six hours to the city of Perm.
Even on a relatively short journey, endless forest and the enclosed space of the compartment, can give one a sort of cabin fever.
The hotel had this this morning, celebrity news.
And, I see to my shock and dismay, that new Bond film announced.
And guess what? I'm not in it again.
There's time for them to call me in for a little fantastic scene.
I don't want to be Moneypenny but maybe there will be a scene of some cruel and rather beautifully dressed dowager.
I'm giving her a bit of twist of Russian here.
She's quite amusing, she has great house on hillside.
She treats people badly but why should she be nice to people? People have not been nice to her! Ha, here comes train! Maybe I'll blow it up for fun.
Just, 'Boof!' Sergei, bring the bomb.
Spasibo bolshoe.
If I'd been permitted to get on the Trans-Siberian railway in the sixties I certainly would not have been allowed to stop in Perm.
In Soviet days, this city was completely closed to Western visitors.
A major centre for the manufacture of arms, it's now quite open about its past.
This poster from the local Communist Party celebrating Stalin with a quote from Churchill, is near a military museum.
So, it's all the more intriguing that alongside missiles and bombs, it has long been producing some of Russia's most famous ballet stars.
In this nondescript building, thrives one of the greatest ballet schools in the world.
As a child, I thought about becoming a ballet dancer so this almost feels like home.
I'm not sure whether nowadays in the UK ballet teachers are allowed to be quite so hands-on! How old are these boys? - Twelve.
- Twelve? Do you think that you are a tough teacher? Erm, yes.
When they are 16 or 17, they are still not fully formed but I'm pretty sure I can spot a star of the future when I see one! How old were you when you started to dance? I understand you have three gold medals, two silver medals? Bravo.
Thank you very much.
- Spasiba and good luck.
- Spasiba.
The students are worked all day and most evenings.
Today there is a dress rehearsal in the school's small theatre.
They all come under the unforgiving scrutiny of dance principal Vladimir Tolstukhin.
For those 40 places, they receive hundreds of applicants and they now come from all over the world.
- Tell me, what is your name? - Valentina.
- Where do you come from? - From Miami.
- From Miami.
And your name? - Joy.
- From? - London.
- No, I'm from London.
Whereabouts? - Clapham.
I'm in Stockwell so we're near neighbours.
How fantastic.
How long have you been here? - Three months.
- Three months.
As soon as this? So really early.
- How old are you? - Sixteen.
- And you? Sixteen, yay! - Sixteen.
What's it like studying here? It's really difficult.
It's challenging.
It's very difficult.
It's very hard to get used to a different climate, being away from home.
The teachers are very demanding here.
Joy, what made you think of Perm? I've got to say it was a Russian city I'd never even heard of.
Well, in my old school I had a teacher who graduated from Perm, so I had the influence from her and she said that obviously this school is really good.
Russia is the best for ballet.
- And, does dancing run in your family? - No, not at all! You're the only one! My mum is a mental health nurse in the NHS.
- My dad's a computer technician.
- Oh, lovely.
Look at you both standing like this, both standing in gorgeous positions neatly.
Beautiful carriage and posture.
You sometimes think about your life if you'd taken a different course.
When I was ten, I was offered a place at the Sadler's Wells School of Ballet and I didn't take it.
Coming here today to see the dedication and the hard work and the beauty of these young dancers, it's just made me think, "What if I had done that?" "What if I had become a ballerina?" I would have been tall at 5'8" but nowadays they are getting taller.
But would I have had the staying power? Would I have had the discipline? It's not enough to say, "I want it more than all of my life.
" You have to work like these little ones.
You could see even the tiny ones sweating.
Absolutely disciplined.
Straight, hard centre core.
Building up the muscles, the flexibility and pliability.
You can't just wish it, you've got to do it or you won't make the grade.
Today we've seen some people who are going to be the stars of the future.
It's been fantastic.
I'm actually standing in the third position as I talk to you now, and now I shall go down the stairs in as graceful manner as I know.
The best of those aspiring ballet dancers could join the company and dance on the main stage of the Perm Opera House.
Tonight, it's not ballet, but the great Russian opera Boris Godunov by Mussorgsky.
One of the positive legacies of the Soviet era is that opera and ballet are assumed to be for everybody.
With the ticket prices starting from only a pound, it's completely sold out.
I rush away from the opera to catch my very last overnight train.
This penultimate leg of my journey takes 18 hours.
You might wonder why I look so amazingly fresh and gorgeous.
The truth is, when you are sleeping overnight in a train I think you are allowed to keep your old face on and in the morning put a bit more on the top of it.
Clean your teeth etc, but not the face.
Just put a bit more, thicker, thicker.
If I had to do this whole journey I suppose I would take my make-up off once, but maybe by the end of it after seven days, seven nights on this train, I'd just have a face literally an inch thicker.
A new face, a mask.
It's very comforting.
Dusty Springfield used to do it.
If it's good enough for Dusty, it's good enough for me.
The small city of Vladimir was one of the ancient capitals of Russia and it's stuffed full of the most stunning architecture.
I've been invited to a remote location outside the city to visit a church that's said to be the most perfect example of mediaeval Russian architecture in existence.
Bumpy old cart we've got here.
Think of it, travelling for miles like this in the old days.
Evgeny Lebedev is the son of a Russian oligarch and owns a couple of British newspapers, The Independent and the London Evening Standard.
He has a deep personal reason for wanting to visit this amazing church.
I was brought here by my grandfather Vladimir, who was very close to me.
He took upon himself my upbringing to a certain extent.
And, he brought me here when I was nine.
That solitary figure over there.
In shorts and a vest.
- Is that you? - That's me.
That's so sweet.
It's an exceptional little church.
It looks simpler than quite a lot of the Russian churches I've seen.
- It's 12th century.
- Ooh! It's built very strategically at the intersection of two rivers, and looks especially imposing in the spring when all the ice and snow melt and the rivers are particularly full.
- So, it floats like an island? - It floats like an island.
In the spring it looks like it's floating.
Here we are 25 years later.
- For me.
- Twenty-five years! Look how beautifully it's preserved! Look at those carvings.
The features look very, very Romanesque.
- Don't they? - Those rounded arches.
It's very possible the architects were sent over by the Holy Roman Emperor.
Here we are.
It's beautiful, the simplicity of it.
Evgeny, what were churches like during the Soviet era? Initially after the Revolution and the civil war, the state was very anti-church.
During the war and during the invasion of Germany, the Great Patriotic War as we call it, Stalin supposedly turned to religion himself because all else was last.
In 1941, when Nazi troops got very close to Moscow, his last resort, having studied in a religious seminary, was to turn to God.
So, he turned to this very famous icon, the Virgin of Vladimir.
This was a miracle-performing icon.
The legend goes, it saved Russia from invading hordes many times.
So, Stalin decided that this icon was going to be put in an aircraft and flown around Moscow in a circle a number of times, which it did.
- The Nazi troops - This is true? - This is true.
- Yeah? And the Nazi troops never entered Moscow and after that, religion slowly made a comeback.
It wasn't fully given the ability to exist in the same way it did before the Revolution but it was certainly allowed to exist side-by-side without being persecuted as it was previously.
My epic train journey is almost over.
My next destination is Moscow.
I was last here nearly 50 years ago in the most icy years of the Cold War.
Dasvidanya.
Spasibo bolshoe.
Thank you.
Wow! Moscow, the epicentre of Russian power.
It's fantastic to be back in Red Square.
The great big red walls, the Kremlin which I remember.
Police cars, I remember those.
They've got a winter fair at the moment which is rather sweet.
Fabulous Saint Basil's Cathedral.
It's so beautiful.
That, of course, is Putin's office, his home.
That's parliament in there.
Here you see written above this great mausoleum, in dark, gloomy ox blood red, "Lenin.
" Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Moscow has embraced capitalism with an almost religious zeal.
It has the largest number of resident billionaires in the world and every luxury brand is on sale here.
In 1966 there was nothing to buy.
The food was truly awful.
But, there was one thing that kept me going.
This is the food area of this great store, GUM, and here, 48 years ago, I bought my black bread which I absolutely adored.
I loved it so much I learned the name for it.
Chornee klebph.
Chornee, black.
Klebph, bread.
I bought it here but I can't tell you how different it is.
Then it was just amazingly humble.
You know, simple and plain and rather scowly.
And now it's just like Well, look at it! It's just so glamorous and huge.
This is it! Da! That's wonderful.
I'll keep that in there for next time I come.
I'm just completely happy now, just completely happy.
In 1966 I was practically smuggled in for my Vanity Fair shoot for fake fur.
Modelling didn't exist in Soviet Russia, but now it's a thriving business.
- So, Olga? - Yes.
- Inessa.
- It's lovely to see you.
Had you finished your studies and decided to be a model? All the time I wanted to be a model and I think it's really nice.
You can see all the world and I like it.
- Do you get work? - Yes, of course.
You do get a lot of work.
And you, Olga? - You get good work? - Yes, of course.
Oh, look.
This is darling Inessa, smiling, and this is moody Inessa with her scowly face, it looks good! Here, at one of Moscow's top model agencies, photographer Konstantin has arrived to take some new headshots of our gorgeous girls.
- How long have you been taking photographs? - Five years.
- Five years.
What did you do before? - Scouting for model agencies.
- Oh, did you? - For Select in London.
Oh, how interesting.
About 30 years ago, nobody had heard of Russian models because they didn't come out of the country.
Now the world is flooded with them.
Why are they so beautiful? What is it about Russian girls? The families were moved from east to west, west to east.
Let's say like lots of families from Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania moved back to Siberia.
- Yeah.
- And all this blood mixed together.
- Just beautiful? - Yeah.
- It seems to take the best of each - They started mixing.
- We'll do something like that.
- OK.
Straight flash in the face so we won't see any wrinkles.
She's not got any wrinkles! Or spots.
- She's perfect but some girls - Some girls are spotty.
- So, that's why.
- Good, good.
Good.
Open a little the mouth so I can see the tooth.
Fantastic.
Straight to me, baby.
It's extraordinary to be sitting in on a model shoot again.
I've done millions of photographs even when I haven't been a model but there's something about remembering this.
Your only contact is with the photographer.
It doesn't matter who's in the room, your focus is down the barrel.
He'll give you the tiniest things.
"Head down, slightly to the side, head there.
" Mouth open a little bit more.
At the end of it, one picture is stolen from that mass of pictures.
That's the one that goes in the magazine.
That's lovely.
Thank you, Olga.
Thank you.
Beautiful.
Moscow has changed.
It seems ironic that just down the road from this global business is a remarkable remnant of the Cold War.
When the world hung on a nuclear knife edge, Joseph Stalin wanted to make sure the Soviet Union's defences were well protected.
So, in the 1950s, Stalin ordered the construction of this extraordinary secret facility, 20 storeys below the streets of Moscow.
Hello, Joanna.
I'm General Manager of Bunker 42.
Come in, please.
Bunker 42, the Soviet Aviation Command Centre from where nuclear war could have been ignited at the mere press of a button.
Minus 65 metres underground.
And all this is made of metal? Yes, it's steel.
- Steel? - Yes, 10mm of steel.
It's extraordinary, this great corridor winding away.
Be careful, Joanna.
Now I'll switch on the light.
Whoa! What is? Here we can find our first nuclear bombs.
In the USSR made in 1949 the first.
- Is that a nuclear bomb? - Yes.
It's the first Soviet nuclear bomb.
1946 that's when I was - It was created in 1946.
- But, so was I.
I was born in 1946.
How awful! I'm twinned with this bomb.
Right up until the late eighties, World War III could have been started with the push of a button from this very bunker.
- What, from here? - Yes.
Oh, my God! You open a little door here.
And push.
You've fired the missile.
Phew! More than two and a half thousand military personnel used to work in these secret tunnels with supplies to last several months if the worst happened.
Big step.
Now, I will open the door.
Come in, please.
Whoa! This way was used every day for personnel.
It's the special secret way to Moscow Metro.
- Is this the door? - Yes, it's there.
Dramatic door.
If we open it, we can see Taganskaya railway station.
- The station? - Yes.
It's so spooky, this character sitting here with its gas mask and this frightening sign.
"Danger.
Danger! Keep out.
" So, the officers would have arrived dressed like ordinary people? Yes.
- Come through the door? - Yes.
- Dressed in uniform? - Yes, dressed in uniform.
Then into the bunker.
And they worked there about 24 hours.
How extraordinary! This is Taganskaya station and just through doors just like this, maybe even this one, it leads down to Bunker 42.
You can imagine 25 years ago, people were arriving through this.
I wonder how they just blended in? They probably slipped through, the door closed behind them and then they just subtly moved in with the crowd.
And, this station is only three stops from my black-and-white memory.
So, this is it, the end of a journey of over 6,000 miles that began in Hong Kong, which I left as a child in 1950, travelling through China, Mongolia, Siberia, and European Russia and finally to Moscow.
Now it all ends on a Metro train.
This is beginning to feel familiar.
How appropriate to be back in this station with trains on each side of me.
It's just that, this is where I was in 1966 and it was in this hallway and I just can't quite remember where I was standing.
The world and I have changed dramatically over the last 50 years.
The young eyes that looked out at the Cold War in 1966 would barely recognise some aspects of the world today.
But, as I stand here wrapped in memories, with Muscovites hurrying past, it strikes me that no matter where we travel, the world is full of surprises.
And although we all seem to be so different, people everywhere are pretty much the same.
It's minus 25 degrees Centigrade and the rivers have already started to freeze over.
In 1899, two amazing icebreakers were built in Newcastle and they sailed out here, sailed through the Baltic, and they came, astonishingly, across land to come here to this, the Angara River, which leads into Lake Baikal.
But, this is absolutely incredible to see it here.
You can see the front of it, very sharp.
It can cut through ice to a certain degree, not in February when the ice here freezes SO deep that you can drive trucks across it.
But, just when it's forming like now, this could cut through, cutting out an enormous journey that could take days and days.
You could go straight across.
Isn't that lovely to think a little piece of Newcastle, a little piece of England is here in Siberia? My 6,000 mile adventure started in Hong Kong which I had last seen when I was four.
I've crossed mighty China, where the new world rubs up against the old .
.
and visited a wild stretch of the Great Wall.
This is honestly like being in a dream.
From there, it was on to romantic Mongolia, the land of Genghis Khan with its hardy nomads .
.
mysterious shamans, a vast, empty land.
Then, I entered another empire.
This is Russia.
Speak Russian! This time, icy Siberia, glimpsing Russia's undimmed spirit and troubled soul.
Two guys jumped with Kalashnikovs in their hands.
I'll be meeting powerful oligarchs This is so I get the gold flakes.
.
.
stars of the future.
.
.
and enjoy Russian hospitality to the full.
So, that is a small vodka! Finally, I push on to 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.
Lake Baikal in southern Siberia, near Irkutsk where I got off the train, is one of the world's oldest lakes.
It is over a mile deep and contains one fifth of the world's fresh water.
Like our own Loch Ness, there is a legend of a giant monster living in its depths.
The lake is teeming with life from the Baikal teal, to the Baikal seal, which, like 894 other species, is found nowhere else on earth.
In midwinter you can drive trucks onto the lake as the ice can get up to six feet thick, but that's still some weeks away.
I've come to the lake's edge to the little port of Listvyanka to meet fisherman Sergei.
Sergei? He's going to take me by boat to his remote village of Bolshie Koty, or Big Cat, so I can experience life on these remote, mountainous shores.
The reason we can't see out of here is because it's lake water slapping up and freezing at once as soon as it hits the windows.
Sergei can see out of his heated window because he has to see where we're going but it's erm It's quite a little lumpy lake we're flying up and down, although Sergei is quite dismissive about the size of the waves! There are no roads into Sergei's village and when the lake is not frozen, it takes several challenging hours by boat to reach there.
Sergei's second in command is his son, Sergei Junior.
It's slippery! Thank you, Sergei.
Oh, Sergei.
Thank you.
Spasiba.
Thank you! Whoo! Well, that was a heck of a journey.
Look how the ice has formed over the whole of the front of it with icicles there and it's just been chopping on.
I've taken Sergei's arm because it's slippery and also because I like him! Bolshie Koty, a village of fishermen and their families, has a population of only 100 people.
Like rural communities around the world, they're losing out to the bright lights of the city.
Sergei Junior and his wife, local girl Katya, have decided to stay for now.
They've just had a baby.
Hello, baby mouse.
Hello, little thrush with your hair on end! The remoteness of Bolshie Koty, meant that her birth was rather dramatic.
And so ooh So, you're on the boat? Nasdarovje.
Nasdarovje.
Toast.
Russian hospitality is the order of the day.
Delicious, local produce is washed down with quantities of vodka.
Not a sentence is uttered without a toast! Sergei, I've just seen a great, big jar over there.
What has it got in it? Can I try it? I wonder what this is going to taste like.
I can't describe the smell.
It doesn't really smell of mushrooms.
I'm feeling wonderful! Drinking for the fungus! I'm not sure what's in Sergei's fungus drink, but it seems to be doing everyone the world of good! Sergei, Sergei.
How old are you? You look wonderful.
Pleasure trips.
I'll drink to that.
After an evening of free-flowing vodka, I need to get my head down.
Sergei built his guest house with his own hands, and after the rattle of the train, it will be a relief.
Three times? The Siberian stars seem very bright, very bright indeed.
It's sad to think that young people nowadays are probably not following on people like Sergei who build houses and sail boats in bad seas.
The same thing is happening all across the world where children are leaving boring farming and doing stuff their parents did to go to the bright lights and the big city and the real men will become history.
But anyway, I made one tonight and that was Sergei.
A real man! Lake Baikal is stunningly beautiful, but its extreme weather makes it very treacherous and it claims many lives every year.
The emergency forces have to be prepared to work in all weathers.
Bloody hell! It's quite hard to stand up in this gale.
I'm sure it's just a coincidence but this large, well-equipped base is just along the shore from a mansion used by the Russian presidents.
Is this normal weather for training? This year, the winter is late a little bit from my point of view.
We just I expected to see snow earlier than today.
- Well, today's the day.
- Today's the day.
Pfft! Tough people.
From Irkutsk, I get the overnight train.
As so often at these stations, some emotional goodbyes here from young Russian soldiers being posted far away from their loved ones.
I'm looking for carriage seven.
It's unbelievably cold here! Gosh! I'm getting on and off trains all the time.
This one, coming from Vladivostok, has a bar with a rather tasteful 1970s vibe.
- Erm, coffee? - No.
No.
Erm Erm, vodka? No.
- Small? - Small.
A small vodka.
I mean, I think that's reasonable .
.
just to have a little It's come already like that! - That's small?! - Small.
That's This is for all the bartenders in London.
I just want to say that is a SMALL vodka on the train here.
Spasiba.
A little more than I planned! My next stop is Krasnoyarsk and still 3,000 miles away from Moscow, my final destination, that I last saw in 1966.
That's me in the Moscow Underground.
At least, that's where I remember at the time they said, this is where the Trans-Siberian railway sets off from.
I'm wearing a fake fur coat with a little fur hood.
A phenomenal arched ceiling with chandeliers.
I wonder if it looks like that now.
I don't look like that now.
So, lashings of full eyelashes, pale lipstick.
Pretty distressed hair which obviously I've kept that going! Little Jo.
I can't remember her.
But, you never lose who you were, you know.
You just grow around you like a tree so she's in there, somewhere in here.
I don't recognise her because that's modelling face.
I never looked like that.
I looked like a chimpanzee in real life.
That was my special trying to look modelling face.
The journey from Irkutsk to Krasnoyarsk is 677 miles, or 17 hours by train.
But, waiting for me there is an oligarch! We are all familiar with the term Russian oligarch, but what does it mean and where do they come from? Well, when the Soviet Union collapsed in the early nineties, rampant capitalism filled the void.
Clever businessmen, whether by fair means or foul, cashed in on this time of economic upheaval and chaos.
With sudden privatisation, a few men made a LOT of money.
In Krasnoyarsk, in the heart of mineral-rich Siberia, where business is booming, one such oligarch is construction magnate Vladimir Egoroff.
Next to the headquarters of the construction company he owns, he's built a little park with statues to celebrate his success.
- Mr Egoroff is waiting for you.
- Spasiba.
Thank you.
OK.
Hello, good morning.
- Joanna.
- Vladimir.
Oh, it's good to meet you.
- Did you see me? - Mm-hm.
Did you? He's checked me out.
Look at these things! This beautiful egg, Vladimir, it looks like a Faberge egg.
- Vodka?! - Vodka.
Ohh! Being an oligarch is not without its dangers.
Mr Egoroff had decided to run for governor of the region, but at the last minute the Kremlin made it clear they wanted their own man in.
Being an astute businessman, Egoroff stood aside.
You are city councillor.
Would you think of becoming governor of this region? Is there a tension between business and politics? Is it, is it difficult to get on sometimes? Any self-respecting millionaire in Krasnoyarsk has a house by the river in the city's most desirable residential area.
Mr Egoroff has invited me to tea.
Do you like football? Would you like to own your own football club? Indeed, he is no Abramovich and Mr Egoroff is still only a minor oligarch.
It's said he has a personal income of merely $30 million per year(!) Look at this! How beautiful! - Joanna? - Joanna.
Thank you, Natalia.
Natalia is Mr Egoroff's wife and mother of his youngest son, Anton.
Oy, yoi yoi! Oh, look at this! This is fantastic! - This is the river? - Yes, Yenisei.
The Yenisei.
It's beautiful.
Over here, in the circle, it's a big place for chess.
- For chess? Brilliant.
- Yes.
This is Natalia.
She's got you on a tight chain! This is a bear! Gosh, from around here? - Your watches! - He think this is the best one.
Sorry, I just have to put that on just for a second as my arm stretches down.
Look at that! I'm so sorry, this doesn't come off.
I'll have to take it.
I'll have to just go with it.
I can't get it off.
As with everything in an oligarch's world, only the best will do.
Pomegranates, as if from a Baroque still-life painting.
Mushrooms, tenderly picked from the forest.
The finest caviar and a personalised bottle of a rather special vodka.
Russian vodka.
Look at that.
Egoroff.
Oh, my gosh! This is so I get the gold flakes.
Look at that! Vodka.
You've opened this beautiful bottle for me with gold flakes.
Not all of Russia benefited from the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The gap between rich and poor is greater than ever.
Just 111 people own an astonishing fifth of Russia's private wealth.
Krasnoyarsk to Yekaterinburg is one and a half thousand miles.
Siberia is three quarters of all Russia, and if it were an independent country, it would be the largest in the world.
Yekaterinburg is Russia's fourth largest city.
Its placid appearance is overshadowed by its dark and violent history.
Early in the morning of July 17, 1918 the Tsar, his wife and five children, three servants, their doctor and their dog, were shot dead.
Their bodies were taken away deep into the forest.
What exactly happened to them remains a mystery.
Father Flavian takes up the story.
The Russian Orthodox Church has now made all seven members of the imperial family, saints.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in the 1990s, violence once again returned to Yekaterinburg.
The city became effectively lawless due to gang warfare, and hundreds were killed.
My guide, Konstantin, was only a boy when he witnessed some of the killings.
On the corner of the street I saw a dark BMW and two guys jumped on the street with Kalashnikovs in their hands.
They just began to like He shows me the gangsters' ostentatious memorials.
This is the leader of Uralmash.
Oh, my gosh! What's on the tree? - It's a camera.
- A camera? Yeah.
Somebody looking on us at this time.
I think it's from families and friends because they think something can happen with the graves.
Somebody would desecrate them from the old other gang? - Yeah, maybe.
- Yeah.
I think somebody's watching us now.
Will they think that would be suspicious that we're here? It can be suspicious.
It's Russia! Next morning as dawn breaks, the train from Yekaterinburg takes six hours to the city of Perm.
Even on a relatively short journey, endless forest and the enclosed space of the compartment, can give one a sort of cabin fever.
The hotel had this this morning, celebrity news.
And, I see to my shock and dismay, that new Bond film announced.
And guess what? I'm not in it again.
There's time for them to call me in for a little fantastic scene.
I don't want to be Moneypenny but maybe there will be a scene of some cruel and rather beautifully dressed dowager.
I'm giving her a bit of twist of Russian here.
She's quite amusing, she has great house on hillside.
She treats people badly but why should she be nice to people? People have not been nice to her! Ha, here comes train! Maybe I'll blow it up for fun.
Just, 'Boof!' Sergei, bring the bomb.
Spasibo bolshoe.
If I'd been permitted to get on the Trans-Siberian railway in the sixties I certainly would not have been allowed to stop in Perm.
In Soviet days, this city was completely closed to Western visitors.
A major centre for the manufacture of arms, it's now quite open about its past.
This poster from the local Communist Party celebrating Stalin with a quote from Churchill, is near a military museum.
So, it's all the more intriguing that alongside missiles and bombs, it has long been producing some of Russia's most famous ballet stars.
In this nondescript building, thrives one of the greatest ballet schools in the world.
As a child, I thought about becoming a ballet dancer so this almost feels like home.
I'm not sure whether nowadays in the UK ballet teachers are allowed to be quite so hands-on! How old are these boys? - Twelve.
- Twelve? Do you think that you are a tough teacher? Erm, yes.
When they are 16 or 17, they are still not fully formed but I'm pretty sure I can spot a star of the future when I see one! How old were you when you started to dance? I understand you have three gold medals, two silver medals? Bravo.
Thank you very much.
- Spasiba and good luck.
- Spasiba.
The students are worked all day and most evenings.
Today there is a dress rehearsal in the school's small theatre.
They all come under the unforgiving scrutiny of dance principal Vladimir Tolstukhin.
For those 40 places, they receive hundreds of applicants and they now come from all over the world.
- Tell me, what is your name? - Valentina.
- Where do you come from? - From Miami.
- From Miami.
And your name? - Joy.
- From? - London.
- No, I'm from London.
Whereabouts? - Clapham.
I'm in Stockwell so we're near neighbours.
How fantastic.
How long have you been here? - Three months.
- Three months.
As soon as this? So really early.
- How old are you? - Sixteen.
- And you? Sixteen, yay! - Sixteen.
What's it like studying here? It's really difficult.
It's challenging.
It's very difficult.
It's very hard to get used to a different climate, being away from home.
The teachers are very demanding here.
Joy, what made you think of Perm? I've got to say it was a Russian city I'd never even heard of.
Well, in my old school I had a teacher who graduated from Perm, so I had the influence from her and she said that obviously this school is really good.
Russia is the best for ballet.
- And, does dancing run in your family? - No, not at all! You're the only one! My mum is a mental health nurse in the NHS.
- My dad's a computer technician.
- Oh, lovely.
Look at you both standing like this, both standing in gorgeous positions neatly.
Beautiful carriage and posture.
You sometimes think about your life if you'd taken a different course.
When I was ten, I was offered a place at the Sadler's Wells School of Ballet and I didn't take it.
Coming here today to see the dedication and the hard work and the beauty of these young dancers, it's just made me think, "What if I had done that?" "What if I had become a ballerina?" I would have been tall at 5'8" but nowadays they are getting taller.
But would I have had the staying power? Would I have had the discipline? It's not enough to say, "I want it more than all of my life.
" You have to work like these little ones.
You could see even the tiny ones sweating.
Absolutely disciplined.
Straight, hard centre core.
Building up the muscles, the flexibility and pliability.
You can't just wish it, you've got to do it or you won't make the grade.
Today we've seen some people who are going to be the stars of the future.
It's been fantastic.
I'm actually standing in the third position as I talk to you now, and now I shall go down the stairs in as graceful manner as I know.
The best of those aspiring ballet dancers could join the company and dance on the main stage of the Perm Opera House.
Tonight, it's not ballet, but the great Russian opera Boris Godunov by Mussorgsky.
One of the positive legacies of the Soviet era is that opera and ballet are assumed to be for everybody.
With the ticket prices starting from only a pound, it's completely sold out.
I rush away from the opera to catch my very last overnight train.
This penultimate leg of my journey takes 18 hours.
You might wonder why I look so amazingly fresh and gorgeous.
The truth is, when you are sleeping overnight in a train I think you are allowed to keep your old face on and in the morning put a bit more on the top of it.
Clean your teeth etc, but not the face.
Just put a bit more, thicker, thicker.
If I had to do this whole journey I suppose I would take my make-up off once, but maybe by the end of it after seven days, seven nights on this train, I'd just have a face literally an inch thicker.
A new face, a mask.
It's very comforting.
Dusty Springfield used to do it.
If it's good enough for Dusty, it's good enough for me.
The small city of Vladimir was one of the ancient capitals of Russia and it's stuffed full of the most stunning architecture.
I've been invited to a remote location outside the city to visit a church that's said to be the most perfect example of mediaeval Russian architecture in existence.
Bumpy old cart we've got here.
Think of it, travelling for miles like this in the old days.
Evgeny Lebedev is the son of a Russian oligarch and owns a couple of British newspapers, The Independent and the London Evening Standard.
He has a deep personal reason for wanting to visit this amazing church.
I was brought here by my grandfather Vladimir, who was very close to me.
He took upon himself my upbringing to a certain extent.
And, he brought me here when I was nine.
That solitary figure over there.
In shorts and a vest.
- Is that you? - That's me.
That's so sweet.
It's an exceptional little church.
It looks simpler than quite a lot of the Russian churches I've seen.
- It's 12th century.
- Ooh! It's built very strategically at the intersection of two rivers, and looks especially imposing in the spring when all the ice and snow melt and the rivers are particularly full.
- So, it floats like an island? - It floats like an island.
In the spring it looks like it's floating.
Here we are 25 years later.
- For me.
- Twenty-five years! Look how beautifully it's preserved! Look at those carvings.
The features look very, very Romanesque.
- Don't they? - Those rounded arches.
It's very possible the architects were sent over by the Holy Roman Emperor.
Here we are.
It's beautiful, the simplicity of it.
Evgeny, what were churches like during the Soviet era? Initially after the Revolution and the civil war, the state was very anti-church.
During the war and during the invasion of Germany, the Great Patriotic War as we call it, Stalin supposedly turned to religion himself because all else was last.
In 1941, when Nazi troops got very close to Moscow, his last resort, having studied in a religious seminary, was to turn to God.
So, he turned to this very famous icon, the Virgin of Vladimir.
This was a miracle-performing icon.
The legend goes, it saved Russia from invading hordes many times.
So, Stalin decided that this icon was going to be put in an aircraft and flown around Moscow in a circle a number of times, which it did.
- The Nazi troops - This is true? - This is true.
- Yeah? And the Nazi troops never entered Moscow and after that, religion slowly made a comeback.
It wasn't fully given the ability to exist in the same way it did before the Revolution but it was certainly allowed to exist side-by-side without being persecuted as it was previously.
My epic train journey is almost over.
My next destination is Moscow.
I was last here nearly 50 years ago in the most icy years of the Cold War.
Dasvidanya.
Spasibo bolshoe.
Thank you.
Wow! Moscow, the epicentre of Russian power.
It's fantastic to be back in Red Square.
The great big red walls, the Kremlin which I remember.
Police cars, I remember those.
They've got a winter fair at the moment which is rather sweet.
Fabulous Saint Basil's Cathedral.
It's so beautiful.
That, of course, is Putin's office, his home.
That's parliament in there.
Here you see written above this great mausoleum, in dark, gloomy ox blood red, "Lenin.
" Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Moscow has embraced capitalism with an almost religious zeal.
It has the largest number of resident billionaires in the world and every luxury brand is on sale here.
In 1966 there was nothing to buy.
The food was truly awful.
But, there was one thing that kept me going.
This is the food area of this great store, GUM, and here, 48 years ago, I bought my black bread which I absolutely adored.
I loved it so much I learned the name for it.
Chornee klebph.
Chornee, black.
Klebph, bread.
I bought it here but I can't tell you how different it is.
Then it was just amazingly humble.
You know, simple and plain and rather scowly.
And now it's just like Well, look at it! It's just so glamorous and huge.
This is it! Da! That's wonderful.
I'll keep that in there for next time I come.
I'm just completely happy now, just completely happy.
In 1966 I was practically smuggled in for my Vanity Fair shoot for fake fur.
Modelling didn't exist in Soviet Russia, but now it's a thriving business.
- So, Olga? - Yes.
- Inessa.
- It's lovely to see you.
Had you finished your studies and decided to be a model? All the time I wanted to be a model and I think it's really nice.
You can see all the world and I like it.
- Do you get work? - Yes, of course.
You do get a lot of work.
And you, Olga? - You get good work? - Yes, of course.
Oh, look.
This is darling Inessa, smiling, and this is moody Inessa with her scowly face, it looks good! Here, at one of Moscow's top model agencies, photographer Konstantin has arrived to take some new headshots of our gorgeous girls.
- How long have you been taking photographs? - Five years.
- Five years.
What did you do before? - Scouting for model agencies.
- Oh, did you? - For Select in London.
Oh, how interesting.
About 30 years ago, nobody had heard of Russian models because they didn't come out of the country.
Now the world is flooded with them.
Why are they so beautiful? What is it about Russian girls? The families were moved from east to west, west to east.
Let's say like lots of families from Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania moved back to Siberia.
- Yeah.
- And all this blood mixed together.
- Just beautiful? - Yeah.
- It seems to take the best of each - They started mixing.
- We'll do something like that.
- OK.
Straight flash in the face so we won't see any wrinkles.
She's not got any wrinkles! Or spots.
- She's perfect but some girls - Some girls are spotty.
- So, that's why.
- Good, good.
Good.
Open a little the mouth so I can see the tooth.
Fantastic.
Straight to me, baby.
It's extraordinary to be sitting in on a model shoot again.
I've done millions of photographs even when I haven't been a model but there's something about remembering this.
Your only contact is with the photographer.
It doesn't matter who's in the room, your focus is down the barrel.
He'll give you the tiniest things.
"Head down, slightly to the side, head there.
" Mouth open a little bit more.
At the end of it, one picture is stolen from that mass of pictures.
That's the one that goes in the magazine.
That's lovely.
Thank you, Olga.
Thank you.
Beautiful.
Moscow has changed.
It seems ironic that just down the road from this global business is a remarkable remnant of the Cold War.
When the world hung on a nuclear knife edge, Joseph Stalin wanted to make sure the Soviet Union's defences were well protected.
So, in the 1950s, Stalin ordered the construction of this extraordinary secret facility, 20 storeys below the streets of Moscow.
Hello, Joanna.
I'm General Manager of Bunker 42.
Come in, please.
Bunker 42, the Soviet Aviation Command Centre from where nuclear war could have been ignited at the mere press of a button.
Minus 65 metres underground.
And all this is made of metal? Yes, it's steel.
- Steel? - Yes, 10mm of steel.
It's extraordinary, this great corridor winding away.
Be careful, Joanna.
Now I'll switch on the light.
Whoa! What is? Here we can find our first nuclear bombs.
In the USSR made in 1949 the first.
- Is that a nuclear bomb? - Yes.
It's the first Soviet nuclear bomb.
1946 that's when I was - It was created in 1946.
- But, so was I.
I was born in 1946.
How awful! I'm twinned with this bomb.
Right up until the late eighties, World War III could have been started with the push of a button from this very bunker.
- What, from here? - Yes.
Oh, my God! You open a little door here.
And push.
You've fired the missile.
Phew! More than two and a half thousand military personnel used to work in these secret tunnels with supplies to last several months if the worst happened.
Big step.
Now, I will open the door.
Come in, please.
Whoa! This way was used every day for personnel.
It's the special secret way to Moscow Metro.
- Is this the door? - Yes, it's there.
Dramatic door.
If we open it, we can see Taganskaya railway station.
- The station? - Yes.
It's so spooky, this character sitting here with its gas mask and this frightening sign.
"Danger.
Danger! Keep out.
" So, the officers would have arrived dressed like ordinary people? Yes.
- Come through the door? - Yes.
- Dressed in uniform? - Yes, dressed in uniform.
Then into the bunker.
And they worked there about 24 hours.
How extraordinary! This is Taganskaya station and just through doors just like this, maybe even this one, it leads down to Bunker 42.
You can imagine 25 years ago, people were arriving through this.
I wonder how they just blended in? They probably slipped through, the door closed behind them and then they just subtly moved in with the crowd.
And, this station is only three stops from my black-and-white memory.
So, this is it, the end of a journey of over 6,000 miles that began in Hong Kong, which I left as a child in 1950, travelling through China, Mongolia, Siberia, and European Russia and finally to Moscow.
Now it all ends on a Metro train.
This is beginning to feel familiar.
How appropriate to be back in this station with trains on each side of me.
It's just that, this is where I was in 1966 and it was in this hallway and I just can't quite remember where I was standing.
The world and I have changed dramatically over the last 50 years.
The young eyes that looked out at the Cold War in 1966 would barely recognise some aspects of the world today.
But, as I stand here wrapped in memories, with Muscovites hurrying past, it strikes me that no matter where we travel, the world is full of surprises.
And although we all seem to be so different, people everywhere are pretty much the same.