1 00:00:25,060 --> 00:00:27,380 I'm in the Arctic Circle 2 00:00:27,380 --> 00:00:32,260 at the start of a spectacular journey, an amazing adventure. 3 00:00:32,260 --> 00:00:35,020 I'm both exhilarated and daunted, 4 00:00:35,020 --> 00:00:38,460 because this is not only the largest country in the world, 5 00:00:38,460 --> 00:00:41,980 but it's name is Russia. 6 00:01:16,700 --> 00:01:22,460 This is the Arctic midsummer, which means literally the sun never sets. 7 00:01:22,460 --> 00:01:24,700 It's daylight for 24 hours. 8 00:01:24,700 --> 00:01:27,140 Conversely, in winter it's bitterly cold 9 00:01:27,140 --> 00:01:29,700 and you never see daylight at all. 10 00:01:29,700 --> 00:01:33,980 And in a way, I suppose, it's a metaphor for my journey, 11 00:01:33,980 --> 00:01:36,460 because the story of this country 12 00:01:36,460 --> 00:01:39,180 and of its people is one of extremes. 13 00:01:39,180 --> 00:01:41,220 Nothing is ordinary here. 14 00:02:03,180 --> 00:02:07,180 I started my journey across Russia in the far northwest of the country. 15 00:02:12,900 --> 00:02:17,260 I've been to Russia before, but in a very different era. 16 00:02:17,260 --> 00:02:22,500 Then, in the Cold War, the Russians were on the other side of the Iron Curtain. 17 00:02:22,500 --> 00:02:27,580 And daft as it may seem today, I was always a little fearful of them. 18 00:02:27,580 --> 00:02:32,580 'But my first port of call has quite the opposite associations.' 19 00:02:42,180 --> 00:02:49,020 I took the ferry across to Murmansk, a city which became famous in the Second World War 20 00:02:49,020 --> 00:02:53,180 when the Soviet Union was not an adversary but our ally. 21 00:02:54,180 --> 00:02:58,700 Murmansk was once a tiny fishing village, but during the last century 22 00:02:58,700 --> 00:03:02,180 it grew into a mighty commercial port and naval base. 23 00:03:02,180 --> 00:03:05,740 The reason - the flow of the Gulf Stream 24 00:03:05,740 --> 00:03:11,340 means that the sea here never ices over, even in the harshest winter. 25 00:03:11,340 --> 00:03:16,060 In the darkest days of the war, Murmansk 26 00:03:16,060 --> 00:03:20,900 became a crucial link in the supply chain from the western allies to the Soviet front line against the Nazis. 27 00:03:27,740 --> 00:03:30,780 I found my way through the city, which is rather down at heel 28 00:03:30,780 --> 00:03:35,580 in a Soviet way, until I came to a little allied war cemetery. 29 00:03:43,620 --> 00:03:48,900 'On one headstone, I read the words, "JB Anderson. 30 00:03:48,900 --> 00:03:51,940 '"Steward's boy on the SS Induna. Aged 16. 31 00:03:51,940 --> 00:03:57,540 "His leaf perished in the green, blasted by Arctic gales." 32 00:04:01,820 --> 00:04:07,740 'The conditions on the Arctic convoys were unspeakable.' 33 00:04:07,740 --> 00:04:14,700 Frozen decks, violent storms, but worst of all the Luftwaffe and the U-boats. 34 00:04:14,700 --> 00:04:19,900 In all, more than 50 allied ships were lost on what was called the Murmansk run. 35 00:04:24,460 --> 00:04:28,140 But the people of the Soviet Union suffered far, far more. 36 00:04:45,740 --> 00:04:51,700 Overlooking the harbour today, there is a gigantic statue of a soldier in Soviet uniform. 37 00:04:56,140 --> 00:04:59,300 Massive he may be, but he looks surprisingly gentle. 38 00:05:05,380 --> 00:05:09,700 He's a memorial to those many, many thousands who died 39 00:05:09,700 --> 00:05:12,540 when the German bombers raised Murmansk almost to the ground. 40 00:05:12,540 --> 00:05:16,540 Those who survived were starving. 41 00:05:16,540 --> 00:05:22,980 When the bread ran out, they lived on sap from trees and boiled shoe leather. 42 00:05:49,180 --> 00:05:54,860 Russia's history is one of terrible suffering in both war and peace. 43 00:05:54,860 --> 00:05:59,980 But on this journey, I want to explore not only the past 44 00:05:59,980 --> 00:06:04,900 but the present and the future of this richly turbulent nation. 45 00:06:04,900 --> 00:06:08,260 It was Winston Churchill who talked about the Russians 46 00:06:08,260 --> 00:06:10,980 in terms of riddles, enigmas and mysteries. 47 00:06:10,980 --> 00:06:15,020 And one of the reasons for that is, of course, that there's been 48 00:06:15,020 --> 00:06:17,980 a long period of great secrecy in Russia 49 00:06:17,980 --> 00:06:21,500 which has only just really, in historical terms, come to an end. 50 00:06:21,500 --> 00:06:26,740 Then, travelling on a train like this for a reporter would have been a complete nightmare - 51 00:06:26,740 --> 00:06:31,700 passes, permits, minders, people viewing you with a lot of suspicion. 52 00:06:31,700 --> 00:06:36,580 And the difference between then and now is...is quite extraordinary. 53 00:06:41,940 --> 00:06:44,540 ''Now, I could talk freely to anyone. 54 00:06:44,540 --> 00:06:48,300 'And, this being Russia, offer a little inducement as well.' 55 00:06:48,300 --> 00:06:51,100 Da. Da. 56 00:06:51,100 --> 00:06:53,020 Thank you. 57 00:06:55,740 --> 00:07:00,940 'My producer, Teresa, saves me from getting lost in translation.' 58 00:07:00,940 --> 00:07:04,420 Karin was saying that in the White Nights you can talk to friends 59 00:07:04,420 --> 00:07:10,020 all night, because from midnight till eight in the morning all telephone calls are free. 60 00:07:10,020 --> 00:07:11,740 Is that true! Yes. 61 00:07:11,740 --> 00:07:16,460 So you talk on the phone all through the White Nights? Yes, with friends. 62 00:07:16,460 --> 00:07:19,340 'I wanted to explore the changes since the collapse of communism.' 63 00:07:19,340 --> 00:07:22,220 We've walked in here and I say, "Can we talk?" 64 00:07:22,220 --> 00:07:25,580 And the train's conveniently waiting for us to talk. 65 00:07:25,580 --> 00:07:28,300 It's a very slow train, this train, isn't it? 66 00:07:28,300 --> 00:07:31,460 But you would not have said, "Oh, yes, I'll talk to you," 67 00:07:31,460 --> 00:07:35,300 20, 25 years ago, would you? 68 00:07:35,300 --> 00:07:38,820 SHE SPEAKS RUSSIAN 69 00:07:38,820 --> 00:07:42,780 At that time we would've been followed or asked what we're doing 70 00:07:42,780 --> 00:07:49,420 because if you were talking to foreigners or anything like that, you would have been the subject of 71 00:07:49,420 --> 00:07:54,940 some kind of investigation or something. So we would have been scared to do that. 72 00:07:54,940 --> 00:08:00,660 Do you feel that life is better today than before? 73 00:08:03,020 --> 00:08:07,940 Her answer, "Yes, of course. We are much freer." 74 00:08:07,940 --> 00:08:11,620 Before everything was laid out in advance, 75 00:08:11,620 --> 00:08:14,100 you know, from cradle to grave. 76 00:08:14,100 --> 00:08:20,140 Every step of the way you knew what you would do or what would happen to you. 77 00:08:20,140 --> 00:08:22,020 You didn't have any sort of leeway at all. 78 00:08:23,380 --> 00:08:25,140 It is very different today. 79 00:08:25,140 --> 00:08:29,380 But, and here's my real challenge, I want to find out what's replaced 80 00:08:29,380 --> 00:08:34,500 'communism and what Russia is really like beyond the politics and the headlines.' 81 00:08:59,580 --> 00:09:06,540 Since the start of my journey, we've been travelling south from Murmansk along the shores of the White Sea. 82 00:09:06,540 --> 00:09:08,340 My destination is Karelia. 83 00:09:08,340 --> 00:09:11,220 East from the city of Petrozavodsk, across Lake Onega, 84 00:09:11,220 --> 00:09:13,460 to a faraway place 85 00:09:13,460 --> 00:09:16,900 that very few outsiders ever visit, and which I had barely heard of. 86 00:09:22,580 --> 00:09:27,060 I'm beginning to get a sense of the real vastness of this country 87 00:09:27,060 --> 00:09:29,180 cos we're only in a tiny corner 88 00:09:29,180 --> 00:09:32,340 and yet we could sail like this through these lakes for days 89 00:09:32,340 --> 00:09:34,540 and still not reach a destination. 90 00:09:36,780 --> 00:09:41,700 I'm just thinking, I'm looking at the sun there and I keep thinking 91 00:09:41,700 --> 00:09:45,220 "The sun will go down soon, cos it's about eight o'clock in the evening.' 92 00:09:45,220 --> 00:09:47,220 Of course it's not going to go down. 93 00:09:47,220 --> 00:09:50,260 It'll go down just above the horizon, and will stay there 94 00:09:50,260 --> 00:09:55,500 at about one o'clock in the morning and then it'll begin to rise again at three o'clock. 95 00:09:55,500 --> 00:09:57,420 It's what they call the "White Nights". 96 00:10:04,980 --> 00:10:06,980 It's always more difficult than it looks. 97 00:10:06,980 --> 00:10:10,180 If you push the tiller that way the boat goes that way. 98 00:10:10,180 --> 00:10:12,980 Then the compass here works in the opposite direction. 99 00:10:12,980 --> 00:10:17,900 So it's very, very easy, unless you've done it for quite a long time, to forget. 100 00:10:17,900 --> 00:10:19,740 And I'm skilfully forgetting. 101 00:10:19,740 --> 00:10:24,780 So we're doing a rather zigzag course on what is going to be a 10-hour journey. 102 00:10:24,780 --> 00:10:29,860 If I continue to be in command of this vessel, we will undoubtedly 103 00:10:29,860 --> 00:10:32,740 take twice as long as we should take. 104 00:10:32,740 --> 00:10:35,140 I'm just getting it now, I'm getting it back on track. 105 00:10:35,140 --> 00:10:39,700 I'm trying to get, get the back from 90 to 80. 106 00:10:39,700 --> 00:10:42,460 Just about on it... there! 107 00:10:45,540 --> 00:10:47,980 I'm doing all right now. Not too bad. 108 00:10:47,980 --> 00:10:50,380 Yes. You, you, you, you on course. 109 00:10:50,380 --> 00:10:53,460 We're now on a steady course. 110 00:10:53,460 --> 00:10:55,540 Captain, she's all yours! 111 00:11:10,940 --> 00:11:18,700 This is Karelia, a land of myths and mysteries; of rivers and forests; an explorer's dream. 112 00:11:22,860 --> 00:11:28,460 'We made our landfall on a rocky headland, which is thought 113 00:11:28,460 --> 00:11:30,660 'to contain the oldest evidence 114 00:11:30,660 --> 00:11:33,540 'of Russia's almost unknown pre-history.' 115 00:11:34,500 --> 00:11:37,140 This is Demon's Nose and... 116 00:11:37,140 --> 00:11:41,980 these are said to be between three and 5,000 years old. 117 00:11:41,980 --> 00:11:45,620 You can see this shape of an animal here. 118 00:11:45,620 --> 00:11:49,020 And there's a fish, I think, on... 119 00:11:49,020 --> 00:11:52,140 speared in some way. And then you... 120 00:11:52,140 --> 00:11:56,780 it's quite difficult to see, but if you move around here, from here 121 00:11:56,780 --> 00:12:02,020 there's this figure of a giant man and this is the demon. 122 00:12:02,020 --> 00:12:05,740 He's got an arm, a hand and he's got a fish in one hand. 123 00:12:05,740 --> 00:12:08,460 And as we're right by the sea that's obvious. 124 00:12:08,460 --> 00:12:12,780 And it's said that they used to have sacrifices here, 125 00:12:12,780 --> 00:12:16,940 that the gap in this rock was here before these were actually made. 126 00:12:16,940 --> 00:12:18,740 They were blood sacrifices 127 00:12:18,740 --> 00:12:22,300 and the blood used to run down here and out into the sea. 128 00:12:22,300 --> 00:12:26,500 And they say that this is the depiction of good and evil. 129 00:12:26,500 --> 00:12:28,660 Good where I started, evil to here. 130 00:12:28,660 --> 00:12:31,820 But whatever the case, for me there's something 131 00:12:31,820 --> 00:12:34,940 I've just seen over here which is absolutely wonderful. 132 00:12:34,940 --> 00:12:37,540 They're swans. They're so elegant. 133 00:12:37,540 --> 00:12:40,620 You can trace the neck and the body and there are one, two, 134 00:12:40,620 --> 00:12:43,340 that's been slightly broken away through there, 135 00:12:43,340 --> 00:12:46,540 and some young ones, cygnet, little cygnets here, I suppose. 136 00:12:46,540 --> 00:12:51,980 They are absolutely... I'm not usually turned on I have to say, by cave paintings, wall paintings. 137 00:12:51,980 --> 00:12:57,260 But it is wonderful to see these here. Just to come here and walk through them. 138 00:13:05,180 --> 00:13:09,500 This is quite another Russia from any that I'd ever imagined. 139 00:13:11,380 --> 00:13:17,180 Not hard to be entranced, and yes, ensnared by the magic of this place. 140 00:13:55,260 --> 00:13:59,500 Karelia is laced by a network of rivers that wind deeper and deeper 141 00:13:59,500 --> 00:14:04,220 into the forest - still, quiet and remote. 142 00:14:19,500 --> 00:14:21,820 Out of time and out of place, 143 00:14:21,820 --> 00:14:27,260 it seems not at all odd to be on a pilgrimage to meet a white witch. 144 00:14:27,260 --> 00:14:30,020 Is this an island where we're coming now? 145 00:14:30,020 --> 00:14:33,460 Yeah. This, this is an island and this bridge 146 00:14:33,460 --> 00:14:36,580 is the only way to this settlement. 147 00:14:38,580 --> 00:14:42,300 I'm a sceptic. I don't believe in witchcraft. 148 00:14:42,340 --> 00:14:46,980 At least, that's what I tell myself, but here I'm not so sure. 149 00:14:46,980 --> 00:14:51,740 With a helpful guide called Andrei, we are following in the footsteps 150 00:14:51,740 --> 00:14:57,060 of many other pilgrims who believe absolutely in the power of magic. 151 00:14:57,060 --> 00:15:01,180 A budgerigar takes a fancy to me while we wait for the white witch. 152 00:15:03,540 --> 00:15:06,140 She is called Baba Valya. Come. 153 00:15:06,140 --> 00:15:07,580 OK. 154 00:15:07,580 --> 00:15:10,740 SHE SPEAKS RUSSIAN 155 00:15:13,980 --> 00:15:17,220 Baba Valya is a healer who casts spells 156 00:15:17,220 --> 00:15:19,860 which have been handed down through her family for generations. 157 00:15:19,860 --> 00:15:22,820 But she claims that her powers are God-given 158 00:15:22,820 --> 00:15:25,620 and she works her magic in his name. 159 00:15:29,820 --> 00:15:33,100 'My back's been playing up. Not serious, but a pain.' 160 00:15:42,460 --> 00:15:46,580 Mmm-hmm. Trousers half down. 161 00:15:46,580 --> 00:15:51,020 'Baba Valya offered to help. When I saw the knife, I wasn't so sure.' 162 00:15:52,220 --> 00:15:55,100 Kak? Dzhon... 163 00:15:55,100 --> 00:15:56,420 Jonathan. 164 00:15:56,420 --> 00:15:57,820 Jonathan. 165 00:16:01,380 --> 00:16:04,940 In fact, it was quite painless and her whispered incantations 166 00:16:04,940 --> 00:16:08,180 filled me with an unexpected sense of peace. 167 00:16:11,900 --> 00:16:16,860 'It's remarkable that in Russia, of all countries, a belief in 168 00:16:16,860 --> 00:16:21,900 'magic should have survived the last century and be flourishing in this. 169 00:16:21,900 --> 00:16:27,020 'But when she later instructed me to have a bath in salt water 170 00:16:27,020 --> 00:16:30,260 'and then drink from it, I have to say 171 00:16:30,260 --> 00:16:33,860 'my scepticism about magic returned with a vengeance. 172 00:16:38,660 --> 00:16:42,860 'But her sincerity was palpable. I wanted to know more.' 173 00:16:42,860 --> 00:16:44,300 SHE SPEAKS RUSSIAN 174 00:16:44,300 --> 00:16:50,260 'Andrei is an anthropologist who has made a study of magic in Karelia 175 00:16:50,260 --> 00:16:53,100 'and has won Baba Valya's trust. 176 00:17:05,540 --> 00:17:08,060 'Baba Valya explained that the forest 177 00:17:08,060 --> 00:17:09,900 'contains both sprites and demons. 178 00:17:09,900 --> 00:17:11,860 'But when, through Andrei, 179 00:17:11,860 --> 00:17:17,220 'I asked how she makes contact with them, she was clearly put out.' 180 00:17:17,220 --> 00:17:19,260 HE SPEAKS RUSSIAN 181 00:17:34,860 --> 00:17:39,500 'I'd upset her by implying she made contact with demons, 182 00:17:39,500 --> 00:17:44,740 'a force for evil, when she only ever communicates with sprites, a force for good. 183 00:17:46,300 --> 00:17:49,180 'In theory, witchcraft was abolished under communism. 184 00:17:49,180 --> 00:17:52,220 'In reality, no commissar could stop it. 185 00:17:52,220 --> 00:17:55,300 'And Baba Valya says that even the boss of a nearby collective farm 186 00:17:55,300 --> 00:18:00,940 'used to ask her to cast spells to protect his communist cattle from marauding bears.' 187 00:18:05,220 --> 00:18:06,980 Thank you very much. 188 00:18:06,980 --> 00:18:09,780 'I began to see why she had a real following.' 189 00:18:09,780 --> 00:18:12,260 I'm very grateful for you saying... 190 00:18:12,260 --> 00:18:16,140 I'm also grateful for your friend. How lovely! 191 00:18:16,140 --> 00:18:19,900 'Though she hadn't quite made a convert of me.' 192 00:18:19,900 --> 00:18:26,700 However, a reminder of the very non-magical world beyond was timely. 193 00:18:30,100 --> 00:18:36,460 In this tranquil region, it's only too easy to slip into self-indulgent folksiness. 194 00:18:36,460 --> 00:18:39,540 That's both unreal and patronising, 195 00:18:39,540 --> 00:18:44,140 not least because life in post-Soviet Karelia is hard. 196 00:18:44,140 --> 00:18:48,020 At least communism offered security. Now, there's none. 197 00:18:48,020 --> 00:18:53,860 The jobs have gone, the young have fled to the cities and the old die before their time. 198 00:18:53,860 --> 00:18:58,740 BABUSHKI SINGING 199 00:19:02,020 --> 00:19:09,620 So, it was all the more poignant to find a troop of babushki - grandmothers - singing about love. 200 00:19:09,620 --> 00:19:14,940 They had heard we were in the district and put on national costume to welcome us. 201 00:19:14,940 --> 00:19:20,340 This song is of a young girl who doesn't want to marry the man chosen for her by the village matchmaker. 202 00:19:20,340 --> 00:19:23,380 He chases other women and he drinks too much. 203 00:19:26,260 --> 00:19:29,620 In the end, the young couple live happily ever after. 204 00:19:29,620 --> 00:19:33,660 Though the divorce statistics in Russia suggest a somewhat different ending. 205 00:19:38,380 --> 00:19:39,860 CLAPPING 206 00:19:39,860 --> 00:19:42,460 Ti ochen molodets! 207 00:19:42,460 --> 00:19:44,820 Krasivy paren. 208 00:19:44,820 --> 00:19:46,740 You're a handsome man! 209 00:19:46,740 --> 00:19:48,180 Ah! 210 00:19:55,980 --> 00:19:59,540 She says, "Nobody's hugged me like that for 30 years!" 211 00:20:01,540 --> 00:20:02,780 It was a great delight for me. 212 00:20:05,340 --> 00:20:11,780 She says, "I am going to remember all my life that such a handsome man clasped himself to my breast." 213 00:20:11,780 --> 00:20:15,100 If I die it's OK now." 214 00:20:16,380 --> 00:20:19,700 What is life today like in this village? 215 00:20:19,700 --> 00:20:22,740 SHE SPEAKS RUSSIAN 216 00:20:26,740 --> 00:20:29,660 She says, "We've got everything except love. 217 00:20:29,660 --> 00:20:37,100 "We're all old women without any old men." That's how...we need love. 218 00:20:37,100 --> 00:20:39,060 "We need love so much." 219 00:20:39,060 --> 00:20:40,980 'So where were the men, I asked.' 220 00:20:44,660 --> 00:20:46,980 'She pointed to the cemetery.' 221 00:20:46,980 --> 00:20:51,500 They all died. Yeah. 222 00:20:51,500 --> 00:20:53,780 She buried two. 223 00:20:57,420 --> 00:21:02,820 'Behind the smiles and the laughter and the singing is a painful truth that Russian men 224 00:21:02,820 --> 00:21:10,500 'smoke and drink themselves to an early grave, and that their life expectancy is just 58 years. 225 00:21:24,740 --> 00:21:28,900 'Like Ulysses from the sirens, I had to tear myself from Karelia, 226 00:21:28,900 --> 00:21:31,860 'heading west to a very different destination. 227 00:21:38,260 --> 00:21:45,420 I love this sound, just the sea, creak of the sail, knowing you're not using any fuel. 228 00:21:45,420 --> 00:21:48,940 And it doesn't take a great deal of imagination to think 229 00:21:48,940 --> 00:21:57,820 what it must have been like 300 or more years ago coming across these seas like this, trading. 230 00:22:09,980 --> 00:22:15,940 My journey had taken us south from the Arctic Circle, through what was for me an unknown Russia. 231 00:22:15,940 --> 00:22:19,260 But I was now on my way towards a great international city built 232 00:22:19,260 --> 00:22:22,220 deliberately as a showpiece to the world. 233 00:22:44,180 --> 00:22:48,180 'This was my first visit to St Petersburg. 234 00:22:48,180 --> 00:22:52,580 'I knew Venice and Amsterdam, but this was quite different.' 235 00:22:52,580 --> 00:22:55,300 And it's disconcerting. 236 00:22:56,660 --> 00:22:59,420 Yes, it's an astonishing achievement. 237 00:22:59,420 --> 00:23:01,820 Impressive. Even overwhelming. 238 00:23:01,820 --> 00:23:04,020 But it's a confection. 239 00:23:04,020 --> 00:23:05,620 An artifice. 240 00:23:07,780 --> 00:23:10,860 'We were still so far to the north that while I was there 241 00:23:10,860 --> 00:23:15,060 'the sun seemed reluctant to set, and the parties never stopped.' 242 00:23:18,820 --> 00:23:20,860 This is St Petersburg chic. 243 00:23:20,860 --> 00:23:22,580 Very 21st century. 244 00:23:24,500 --> 00:23:29,420 Urbane, charming, and, to a man and woman, only too happy to speak English. 245 00:23:29,420 --> 00:23:33,620 When I was in a different place the people asked, "Where are you from? 246 00:23:33,620 --> 00:23:35,500 "From Moscow?" "No. I'm from Leningrad." 247 00:23:35,500 --> 00:23:39,220 They'd say, "Oh, you are from Leningrad!" The Russian people like this city. 248 00:23:39,220 --> 00:23:43,620 It could easily be mistaken for London or Paris. 249 00:23:43,620 --> 00:23:45,820 But that's on the surface. 250 00:23:45,820 --> 00:23:48,300 Unfortunately, big country, little people. 251 00:23:48,300 --> 00:23:50,420 Like, well, this is big country... 252 00:23:50,420 --> 00:23:55,060 Yeah. a lot of people. This is big country, less people. You know, so... 253 00:23:55,060 --> 00:24:01,820 Practically, here Petersburg, this is Murmansk, this is Vladivostok and we have to, you know, "Hello!" 254 00:24:01,820 --> 00:24:04,700 And when the information reaches the thing 255 00:24:04,700 --> 00:24:06,940 and internet nothing changes this. 256 00:24:06,940 --> 00:24:12,260 So, it's a natural delay system under the title 'Russia', you know? 257 00:24:12,260 --> 00:24:16,420 Perhaps that distance helps explain attitudes which are very, very different. 258 00:24:16,420 --> 00:24:20,140 Where does democracy, much vaunted democracy, fit into all this? 259 00:24:20,140 --> 00:24:25,020 No, my friend, I'm not the right person to speak of this word, because I don't think this word has meaning 260 00:24:25,020 --> 00:24:28,180 any more right now in the modern world, in the modern civilisation. 261 00:24:28,180 --> 00:24:32,860 When we see top leaders using this word we can say, "OK, they have to do it. 262 00:24:32,860 --> 00:24:36,940 "As individual to individual, as citizen to citizen, I don't think we have to use this word any more." 263 00:24:36,940 --> 00:24:40,900 It's not that the glitterati don't go to the West. 264 00:24:40,900 --> 00:24:45,020 They do, but they see it from a very different, very Russian perspective. 265 00:24:45,020 --> 00:24:49,380 If you compare Germany and Russia, we have much more freedom here 266 00:24:49,380 --> 00:24:53,020 in comparison to Germany, because they are so strict with laws. 267 00:24:53,020 --> 00:24:58,660 They invent the laws to help people to feel they're themselves comfortable, and in the end 268 00:24:58,660 --> 00:25:05,540 everyone is just following laws and it brings you to so many complicated situations. And here... 269 00:25:05,540 --> 00:25:07,700 Nobody care about laws. 270 00:25:07,700 --> 00:25:10,020 That's a kind of danger. 271 00:25:10,020 --> 00:25:13,420 It's also part of life and part of freedom. 272 00:25:13,420 --> 00:25:17,140 So, how does the word democracy fit into that then? 273 00:25:17,140 --> 00:25:19,620 I don't like it, myself. 274 00:25:19,620 --> 00:25:22,540 I don't like this kind of democracy. 275 00:25:22,540 --> 00:25:26,940 And democracy for Russia it can, could be death. Really? 276 00:25:26,940 --> 00:25:29,260 Because people don't like democracy at all. 277 00:25:29,260 --> 00:25:33,860 You can go to the State organisations and work for bureaucratic system 278 00:25:33,860 --> 00:25:38,260 and be part of all this vertical of power, which our President is building at the moment. 279 00:25:38,260 --> 00:25:40,540 If you want this way you can go this way. 280 00:25:40,540 --> 00:25:42,620 But if you don't want it you just do your life... 281 00:25:42,620 --> 00:25:47,220 You live outside. You live outside or you live your own life. Very good. 282 00:25:47,220 --> 00:25:52,580 'Such disdain for democracy has its roots in Russia's past, both distant and recent. 283 00:25:52,580 --> 00:25:54,620 'But for me, it was still shocking to discover 284 00:25:54,620 --> 00:25:57,460 'that these sophisticates should feel like that.' 285 00:26:00,780 --> 00:26:07,900 The man who founded this city was a visionary and an autocrat whose memory is still revered. 286 00:26:07,900 --> 00:26:13,300 Today, Peter the Great looks across the River Neva towards the spot 287 00:26:13,300 --> 00:26:17,580 where the story of St Petersburg began a little over 300 years ago. 288 00:26:17,580 --> 00:26:20,620 A modest beach, a little summer playground, 289 00:26:20,620 --> 00:26:24,460 which was then no more than a marsh. 290 00:26:28,940 --> 00:26:32,500 The story has it that one spring day in 1703, 291 00:26:32,500 --> 00:26:37,300 Tsar Peter came through this pestilential swamp, as it then was 292 00:26:37,300 --> 00:26:43,500 with his noblemen. They were looking for a place to build a fort to avoid invasion from the north. 293 00:26:43,500 --> 00:26:49,420 He surprised them suddenly by leaping off his horse, seizing one of their swords 294 00:26:49,420 --> 00:26:52,340 and cutting a swath of turf in the soil 295 00:26:52,340 --> 00:26:57,060 and what is now actually imported sand for the bathing beach. 296 00:26:57,060 --> 00:27:00,220 He could hardly have chosen a worse place for a fort, 297 00:27:00,220 --> 00:27:02,620 let alone for what he soon said 298 00:27:02,620 --> 00:27:05,220 was going to be the most magnificent city in Europe. 299 00:27:09,420 --> 00:27:15,740 Grandeur on this scale took more than one tsar to create and more than one century to complete. 300 00:27:15,740 --> 00:27:20,020 But Peter's was the blueprint and Peter's the obsession. 301 00:27:20,020 --> 00:27:26,740 But to realise this vision, scores of thousands of labourers perished from hunger and disease, sacrificed 302 00:27:26,740 --> 00:27:29,260 on the alter of his ruthless urge 303 00:27:29,260 --> 00:27:34,580 to transform Russia into a truly European nation almost overnight. 304 00:27:34,580 --> 00:27:41,100 Everyone but everyone, including the nobility, were literally slaves to Peter's dream. 305 00:27:48,940 --> 00:27:57,340 Three centuries on, as a very conventional wedding party gathers beneath his statue, it's ironic 306 00:27:57,340 --> 00:28:03,780 that, despite Peter's intent, Russia has not so much failed as declined 307 00:28:03,780 --> 00:28:09,300 to turn itself into yet another great European nation, whatever it may look like on the surface. 308 00:28:19,980 --> 00:28:22,540 It is an absolutely glorious city. 309 00:28:22,540 --> 00:28:26,580 But I still don't know what I really feel about it. 310 00:28:26,580 --> 00:28:33,300 In fact, that's so far the same of Russia as well. It's complicated. 311 00:28:33,300 --> 00:28:35,060 It's dense. 312 00:28:35,060 --> 00:28:38,380 It's both in your face and elusive. 313 00:28:38,380 --> 00:28:43,220 I read, I listen, I try to learn, and I've still got very few answers. 314 00:28:43,220 --> 00:28:49,820 I've seen quite a few of the palaces now - the fantastic confection, the facade. 315 00:28:49,820 --> 00:28:55,940 But there is, as I now very well know, not least from this wonderful writer, Dostoevsky, 316 00:28:55,940 --> 00:29:03,820 that there is another St Petersburg as well, the real St Petersburg behind that glittering surface. 317 00:29:12,900 --> 00:29:17,820 Writing more than a century and a half ago, Dostoevsky described 318 00:29:17,820 --> 00:29:22,620 those corners of the city where, as he put it, "another sun shines. 319 00:29:22,620 --> 00:29:26,420 "Where all is gloomy and dingy. 320 00:29:26,420 --> 00:29:29,340 "Where the floors and walls are discoloured 321 00:29:29,340 --> 00:29:31,620 "and the cobwebs thicker than ever." 322 00:29:31,620 --> 00:29:35,980 So this was your home, for quite a long time? 323 00:29:35,980 --> 00:29:38,620 It used to be. For quite a long time? 324 00:29:38,620 --> 00:29:40,460 Oh, for more than 30 years. 325 00:29:40,460 --> 00:29:43,420 'Ilya Utekhin is a social scientist 326 00:29:43,420 --> 00:29:47,260 'who grew up in this building in the Soviet era. 327 00:29:47,260 --> 00:29:49,660 'He lived at the top of this once-grand staircase.' 328 00:29:49,660 --> 00:29:53,300 It's pretty depressing that it's like this, isn't it? 329 00:29:53,300 --> 00:29:58,580 But my grandmother told me there were carpets here on the stairs. 330 00:29:58,580 --> 00:30:00,620 There were carpets down here? Yes. 331 00:30:00,620 --> 00:30:06,300 In her childhood. Well, it was right after the Revolution. 332 00:30:06,340 --> 00:30:08,500 The Bolsheviks forced the rich 333 00:30:08,500 --> 00:30:11,660 to surrender their grand dwellings to the proletariat. 334 00:30:11,660 --> 00:30:15,020 What had once been home to a few wealthy households, 335 00:30:15,020 --> 00:30:16,620 became communal apartments 336 00:30:16,620 --> 00:30:19,500 crammed with more than 100 people to every floor. 337 00:30:19,500 --> 00:30:24,220 How many families living in this block altogether would you guess? 338 00:30:24,220 --> 00:30:29,660 In this apartment, 53 or 55 persons in 1960s. 339 00:30:31,300 --> 00:30:32,580 Yes. 340 00:30:32,580 --> 00:30:33,900 So, please. 341 00:30:33,900 --> 00:30:35,540 Thank you. 342 00:30:35,540 --> 00:30:37,300 OK. 343 00:30:37,300 --> 00:30:41,420 Inside the apartment, we found ourselves in Dostoevsky's world, 344 00:30:41,420 --> 00:30:44,140 but in the 21st century. 345 00:30:47,100 --> 00:30:50,340 It smelt of boiled cabbage and old sweat. 346 00:30:50,340 --> 00:30:53,740 It's hard to believe that three quarters of a million people 347 00:30:53,740 --> 00:30:56,980 in St Petersburg still live in communal apartments. 348 00:30:59,180 --> 00:31:00,220 You lived... 349 00:31:00,220 --> 00:31:03,660 This was your family kitchen, shared kitchen, for what, 30 years? 350 00:31:03,660 --> 00:31:05,340 Oh, yes. That's true. 351 00:31:05,340 --> 00:31:07,620 And this was my table. 352 00:31:07,620 --> 00:31:10,340 It is not mine now. 353 00:31:10,340 --> 00:31:13,820 And here was my cooker. 354 00:31:13,820 --> 00:31:16,620 You pointed at just those two. You had half a cooker? 355 00:31:16,620 --> 00:31:18,820 Initially it was half a cooker. 356 00:31:18,820 --> 00:31:24,900 Then it became whole cooker when the density of the population fell. 357 00:31:24,900 --> 00:31:28,540 What was it like? Oh, it was quite natural. 358 00:31:28,540 --> 00:31:32,340 If you are not accustomed to anything different it's not strange to you. 359 00:31:32,340 --> 00:31:34,100 It's quite possible. 360 00:31:34,100 --> 00:31:40,020 You see, more than half of human kind are living in conditions even worse than this. 361 00:31:40,020 --> 00:31:44,620 If I'm standing over here and I like singing when I'm cooking, 362 00:31:44,620 --> 00:31:47,740 and someone's cooking there and actually hates me singing, 363 00:31:47,740 --> 00:31:51,220 those things create great social communal tensions, don't they? 364 00:31:51,220 --> 00:31:52,460 Yes. Really. 365 00:31:52,460 --> 00:31:58,220 And this place, communal kitchen is the place of communal scandals. 366 00:31:58,220 --> 00:32:04,020 When people are shouting at the same time, it's like Italian opera. 367 00:32:07,700 --> 00:32:10,260 What impact did it have on people 368 00:32:10,260 --> 00:32:12,420 to live like this for a long, long time? 369 00:32:12,420 --> 00:32:17,260 It led to some special features of character. 370 00:32:17,260 --> 00:32:21,260 This lack of privacy, this sort of being on stage, 371 00:32:21,260 --> 00:32:24,540 and at the same time the idea of sharing. 372 00:32:24,540 --> 00:32:28,460 The social justice in this small community 373 00:32:28,460 --> 00:32:32,260 is very heavily loaded with envy. 374 00:32:32,260 --> 00:32:36,700 Could you imagine ever wanting to live back in this kind of place? 375 00:32:36,700 --> 00:32:38,180 Oh... 376 00:32:38,180 --> 00:32:40,140 Yes, I think so. It's not... 377 00:32:40,140 --> 00:32:42,540 Like this?! It would not be... 378 00:32:42,540 --> 00:32:45,340 Well, you know... You'd want to? 379 00:32:45,340 --> 00:32:50,540 Soviet people are accustomed to all things. Do you know why? 380 00:32:50,540 --> 00:32:56,220 Because they separate their life and their everyday life. 381 00:32:56,220 --> 00:32:59,900 Their life is something special, 382 00:32:59,900 --> 00:33:04,700 is self-realisation, is spiritual life, is... 383 00:33:05,860 --> 00:33:08,780 ..Achieving something in your work, 384 00:33:08,780 --> 00:33:14,220 writing books, I don't know, having good relationships to people. 385 00:33:14,220 --> 00:33:21,460 And the everyday life, this sleeping, 386 00:33:21,460 --> 00:33:25,540 eating, washing dishes, things like that, 387 00:33:25,540 --> 00:33:28,420 they are not important for your life. 388 00:33:28,420 --> 00:33:33,740 This is everyday life and you can just... 389 00:33:33,740 --> 00:33:37,180 It's the material conditions. Doesn't matter. 390 00:33:37,180 --> 00:33:41,580 I have to say, I'm jolly glad I don't have to make the choice. 391 00:33:42,900 --> 00:33:44,740 Yes. Me too, you know. 392 00:33:52,940 --> 00:33:58,620 I went to visit the spot where the man who caused the grand apartments to be turned into people's palaces 393 00:33:58,620 --> 00:34:01,620 arrived back from exile by train to the Finland station. 394 00:34:01,620 --> 00:34:04,340 It was the spring of 1917, 395 00:34:04,340 --> 00:34:08,620 and it was in this St Petersburg square that Vladimir Ilyich Lenin 396 00:34:08,620 --> 00:34:11,780 proclaimed a worldwide socialist revolution. 397 00:34:13,500 --> 00:34:15,300 You can picture the scene. 398 00:34:15,300 --> 00:34:19,900 Crowds here massed, their hero's returned home. 399 00:34:19,900 --> 00:34:21,700 They're waving banners, chanting. 400 00:34:21,700 --> 00:34:23,500 There's a band playing La Marseillaise. 401 00:34:23,500 --> 00:34:27,180 And then he arrives, a stocky figure, bald-headed. 402 00:34:27,180 --> 00:34:29,580 But he immediately commands their attention 403 00:34:29,580 --> 00:34:31,860 and above the hubbub you can hear his words, 404 00:34:31,860 --> 00:34:35,620 phrases like "Imperialist slaughter", "lies and frauds", 405 00:34:35,620 --> 00:34:37,980 "capitalist pirates" and the rest. 406 00:34:37,980 --> 00:34:40,740 When he's finished they put him up on their shoulders 407 00:34:40,740 --> 00:34:43,140 and bear him off in triumph to an armoured car, 408 00:34:43,140 --> 00:34:45,060 and there he disappears from them 409 00:34:45,060 --> 00:34:50,820 to impose on the Russian people the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. 410 00:34:50,820 --> 00:34:53,700 I wonder what he'd think of this city now. 411 00:35:04,540 --> 00:35:07,900 Leninsky Prospect. 412 00:35:08,900 --> 00:35:11,180 Today, perhaps the most tangible evidence 413 00:35:11,180 --> 00:35:13,460 of Lenin's vision for the city is the metro. 414 00:35:13,460 --> 00:35:15,300 Leninsky. 415 00:35:15,300 --> 00:35:18,060 With only a couple of Russian words in my command, 416 00:35:18,060 --> 00:35:19,620 I try to buy a ticket. 417 00:35:19,620 --> 00:35:22,500 Mmm. 418 00:35:23,940 --> 00:35:28,620 WOMAN SPEAKS RUSSIAN Now I'm really stuck. Erm... 419 00:35:28,620 --> 00:35:31,340 Leninsky. 420 00:35:31,340 --> 00:35:32,820 One. 421 00:35:35,220 --> 00:35:37,700 This is a people's palace, 422 00:35:37,700 --> 00:35:41,660 where even today the workers of the world really do unite, 423 00:35:41,660 --> 00:35:43,020 to go to work. 424 00:35:46,300 --> 00:35:49,540 Although it's not so very long in the march of history 425 00:35:49,540 --> 00:35:52,100 since the final collapse of Lenin's dream, 426 00:35:52,100 --> 00:35:57,660 Russian communism seems already to have been consigned to the ashcan of history. 427 00:35:57,660 --> 00:36:00,580 For many young people it's simply a folk memory. 428 00:36:00,580 --> 00:36:04,860 For their parents, not so much forgotten as half-buried. 429 00:36:04,860 --> 00:36:07,820 But one memory is still very much alive. 430 00:36:07,820 --> 00:36:12,820 So powerful that it will never be erased from the story of this city. 431 00:36:17,500 --> 00:36:19,260 The siege of Leningrad. 432 00:36:25,100 --> 00:36:28,260 It lasted almost 900 days. 433 00:36:29,740 --> 00:36:33,980 From September 1941 to January 1944. 434 00:36:43,500 --> 00:36:48,220 One million people, half the city's population, perished. 435 00:36:53,980 --> 00:36:57,500 The survivors wrote of their torment by hunger, 436 00:36:57,500 --> 00:37:03,780 of cannibalism, of corpses piled in the street, of the city as a morgue. 437 00:37:05,860 --> 00:37:10,020 SYMPHONY CONTINUES 438 00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:16,740 Leningrad survived because of this lake, Lake Ladoga, 439 00:37:16,740 --> 00:37:18,540 an expanse of water so massive 440 00:37:18,540 --> 00:37:22,380 that the Germans were unable to encircle the entire city. 441 00:37:26,020 --> 00:37:27,660 In the bitter months of winter, 442 00:37:27,660 --> 00:37:30,780 the Russians built a road across its frozen waters, 443 00:37:30,780 --> 00:37:34,140 which brought some relief at least to the starving city. 444 00:37:36,220 --> 00:37:39,300 It was this fact that made me realise 445 00:37:39,300 --> 00:37:41,100 that for all its oil and gas, 446 00:37:41,100 --> 00:37:43,900 Russia is really defined by its waterways, 447 00:37:43,900 --> 00:37:48,180 the seas, lakes and rivers which form the arteries of the nation. 448 00:37:55,380 --> 00:38:01,820 150 miles further along the Volkhov, you reach the first great city of the Rus. 449 00:38:01,820 --> 00:38:04,020 Novgorod. 450 00:38:04,020 --> 00:38:06,060 RUSSIAN CHOIR SINGS 451 00:38:15,940 --> 00:38:19,700 'Novgorod was founded over 1,000 years ago. 452 00:38:19,700 --> 00:38:24,380 'It became a great merchant city, a centre of culture and learning. 453 00:38:24,380 --> 00:38:29,940 'As one of several independent statelets, it was remarkably open and progressive. 454 00:38:29,940 --> 00:38:33,180 'But in the bloody turmoil of the 16th century, 455 00:38:33,180 --> 00:38:38,580 'it was crushed by another city state called Muscovy, or Moscow.' 456 00:38:38,580 --> 00:38:39,920 BIRD SQUAWKS 457 00:38:40,660 --> 00:38:42,620 He disapproves. 458 00:38:43,620 --> 00:38:50,080 But one powerful institution was spared the onslaught. 459 00:38:50,080 --> 00:38:52,420 CHOIR CHANTS 460 00:38:53,900 --> 00:38:58,900 Secure within the walls of the ancient Kremlin, the thriving Russian orthodox church. 461 00:38:58,900 --> 00:39:02,700 The most potent living relic of the Rus. 462 00:39:07,460 --> 00:39:10,180 Rurik presided over a pagan people. 463 00:39:10,180 --> 00:39:14,460 But his descendant, Prince Vladimir, judged that the Rus would 464 00:39:14,460 --> 00:39:19,380 only command international respect if it acquired a credible religion. 465 00:39:22,820 --> 00:39:29,260 To this end, he dispatched emissaries to enquire into the world's great faiths. 466 00:39:29,260 --> 00:39:34,540 Eventually, he opted for the eastern orthodox version of the Christian religion. 467 00:39:39,420 --> 00:39:45,380 According to Russia's ancient chronicles, Vladimir was much taken by the magic of the orthodox ritual. 468 00:39:45,380 --> 00:39:47,420 PRIEST SINGS 469 00:39:50,180 --> 00:39:53,180 But, doubtless, he was also told that the patriarch 470 00:39:53,180 --> 00:39:56,460 never sought to challenge the authority of the emperor. 471 00:40:03,100 --> 00:40:05,780 It was an epoch-making decision - 472 00:40:05,780 --> 00:40:08,940 arguably the most fateful in all Russian history. 473 00:40:11,660 --> 00:40:16,540 It created a profound divide between orthodox Russia and catholic Europe. 474 00:40:18,020 --> 00:40:23,820 The Russian orthodox church was to impose a rigid set of rules by which all had to abide. 475 00:40:24,520 --> 00:40:28,080 Only religious works of art were permitted. 476 00:40:28,080 --> 00:40:33,120 The use of musical instruments was forbidden. Likewise plays and poems. 477 00:40:33,120 --> 00:40:39,640 Only the icon was allowed, and the icon was everywhere. 478 00:40:42,920 --> 00:40:46,000 But that was not the end of it. 479 00:40:46,840 --> 00:40:52,320 While Russia's spiritual leaders wanted absolute control over the souls of the people, 480 00:40:52,320 --> 00:40:57,200 their earthly rulers wanted absolute power over their lives. 481 00:40:57,200 --> 00:40:59,440 A deal was inevitable. 482 00:40:59,440 --> 00:41:01,880 The priests would serve the tsars, 483 00:41:01,880 --> 00:41:04,880 and in return the tsars would protect the priests. 484 00:41:04,880 --> 00:41:08,560 It was an unholy alliance. 485 00:41:14,020 --> 00:41:17,660 As Russia's great writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn put it, 486 00:41:17,660 --> 00:41:20,900 "Russian history would have been incomparably more humane 487 00:41:20,900 --> 00:41:25,140 "and harmonious if the Church had not surrendered its independence 488 00:41:25,140 --> 00:41:28,980 "and had continued to make its voice heard among the people." 489 00:41:42,780 --> 00:41:48,560 By now I felt my journey had already taken me in and out of several very different worlds. 490 00:41:48,560 --> 00:41:53,440 But from an ancient Novgorod I wanted to press on to the new Moscow. 491 00:42:01,160 --> 00:42:05,320 'I'd been to the Russian capital before, but it was a couple of decades ago. 492 00:42:05,320 --> 00:42:08,000 'In the meantime, the city's been transformed.' 493 00:42:08,000 --> 00:42:11,080 RUSSIAN ROCK BALLAD PLAYS 494 00:42:11,080 --> 00:42:15,120 Communism is dead, capitalism is rampant. 495 00:42:38,880 --> 00:42:43,240 'Growth, growth, growth, and the traffic jams to prove it. 496 00:42:43,240 --> 00:42:47,600 'A gridlock can last eight hours. 497 00:43:06,800 --> 00:43:08,160 'I needed a break. 498 00:43:08,160 --> 00:43:13,000 'What better than a Russian bath house - a banya.' 499 00:43:14,280 --> 00:43:17,080 I'm coming to the oldest baths in Moscow. 500 00:43:17,080 --> 00:43:23,280 They tell me on the brochure, "You will gain the health and joy of full life, harmony and self-confidence." 501 00:43:23,280 --> 00:43:25,680 I need all of that. 502 00:43:33,520 --> 00:43:36,480 'A visit to a banya is meant to be a social event. 503 00:43:36,480 --> 00:43:38,560 'You don't usually go alone.' 504 00:43:42,480 --> 00:43:44,920 Extraordinary place! 505 00:43:44,920 --> 00:43:48,560 It's like coming into a little Viennese palace, isn't it? 506 00:43:48,560 --> 00:43:51,280 I suppose I go this way. 507 00:43:55,440 --> 00:43:57,200 Morning. 508 00:43:58,960 --> 00:44:01,840 'I began to feel I'd intruded on a sybaritic rite, 509 00:44:01,840 --> 00:44:05,880 'to which I hadn't been invited. A touch disconcerting.' 510 00:44:05,880 --> 00:44:07,640 I come around here? 511 00:44:12,000 --> 00:44:15,040 It's a bit fanciful, 512 00:44:15,040 --> 00:44:18,680 but there is a kind of metaphor here. 513 00:44:18,680 --> 00:44:21,280 If you think all down the centuries, 514 00:44:21,280 --> 00:44:26,000 the Russians have been oppressed in one way or another... 515 00:44:26,000 --> 00:44:30,400 by tsars, autocrats, bloody tyrants, 516 00:44:30,400 --> 00:44:34,360 dictators, the Soviet system, 517 00:44:34,360 --> 00:44:37,480 and now, well, whatever it is now, 518 00:44:37,480 --> 00:44:42,080 I kind of feel that I'm the Russian people here. 519 00:44:42,080 --> 00:44:47,560 Frivolous thought, but it's the kind of thing that comes to your mind when you're going through this. 520 00:44:47,720 --> 00:44:49,160 Argh!! 521 00:44:49,160 --> 00:44:51,200 HE LAUGHS 522 00:44:56,240 --> 00:44:58,000 Argh! 523 00:44:58,000 --> 00:45:00,040 HE GROANS 524 00:45:05,960 --> 00:45:08,000 GROANS CONTINUE 525 00:45:12,900 --> 00:45:15,500 It's good, though. I know it's good for you.