I'm just starting the third and the final leg
of my journey across Russia.
But I'm actually in the neighbouring country of Ukraine and that's
because I'm heading to one of the most bitterly contested regions
on the planet.
I'm on my way to Crimea.
No country in the world, really, apart from Russia,
recognises this as a border.
The international community see this annexation as an illegal occupation
of Ukrainian land.
Seizing Crimea has led to conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
It's led to Russia being internationally isolated.
I had to come.
This final leg of my journey across Russia takes me from Ukraine's
Crimean peninsula on the Black Sea,
across western Russia's vast plains to my final destination,
glorious St Petersburg.
ALL: Aaaaah.
100 years on from the Russian Revolution...
What on earth goes on in here?
..I'll meet the Russians living a simpler life in the wilds.
This is like stepping back a century.
I'll discover what happens when you speak out in Russia.
A Russia once again taking on the West.
And I'll meet the tough blokes fighting for what they say are
traditional Russian values.
I think I'm going to puke.
Wow! It's this sort of spectacular view that makes Crimea such
a special place, such an attractive destination for many Russians.
In 2014, after revolution in Ukraine moved the country closer to
Europe, Russian special forces seized government buildings
in Crimea.
Russia simply took over,
then organised a questionable referendum on who should govern.
Alexander.
Crimea's home to nearly two million people.
Like my boat skipper Alexander Bykov, most are ethnic Russians,
and they voted overwhelmingly for rule by Russia.
Many here like to point out, correctly, that Crimea was ruled by
Russia for centuries. It only became Ukrainian during the time
of the Soviet Union.
Look at the size of this!
I've got a chesty cough
and some other minor ailment, so it's quite helpful
I'm staying in a sanatorium.
There are dozens of sanatoriums, or health resorts,
along Crimea's Black Sea coast.
They date back to Soviet times, and they've long been a major draw for
Russian holiday-makers.
Thank you kindly.
Looks very nice.
I don't know about you, when I hear
"sanatorium"... HE SUCKS IN BREATH THROUGH TEETH
..it doesn't sound like a great word, sounds very Soviet,
sounds like punishment is involved.
Makes me think of medical conditions,
purging and enemas.
It's like Chinese whispers here, cos I can't actually see
the girl doing it, so I'm basing it
on what other people around me are doing.
ALL: Aaaaaaaah.
It's time for me to see the doctor.
Doctor. HE LAUGHS
Good morning. I had an appointment with Dr Vadim Danilov.
Uh, doctor? Let's go. Go, go.
What's going on in this room? Can we see in there, doctor?
After annexation,
tourist numbers dropped, so the Russian government has started
encouraging civil servants and pensioners to come here on
subsidised health breaks.
Goodness me! LAUGHTER
Zdravstvuyte. Zdravstvuyte. I'd shake your hand, but...
What is going on here? What are you inside?
You have existing conditions and you really feel that they're treated
by this, by the plastic bath?
Da, da, da, da, da, da, da.
That's a yes? Da. LAUGHTER
Were you more or less keen on coming to Crimea since the annexation?
What on earth goes on in here?
Some lady who's just come out shaking her head.
OK.
I was intrigued and slightly nervous to discover how 80-year-old
Dr Lydia Yegorova was planning on treating my cough.
Whoa! Oh, my goodness.
Bloody hell!
What do you mean, "relax"?
You're about to put blood-sucking creatures on me,
how am I supposed to relax?!
Oh, my God!
Yeah, it's biting, yeah.
Is this really necessary?
Have you not got some small plasters?
Listen, I'm happy with a plaster!
President Putin grandly says
he annexed Crimea to protect ethnic Russians.
It might actually have more to do with oil and gas reserves
in the Black Sea. Either way, the UN has condemned Russia's actions.
Look at this. Can we just, can we stop for a moment?
Not that President Putin, the all-powerful Russian tsar,
cares what the world thinks.
This is a very bold statement of ownership and involvement from
President Putin.
So it says that Crimea has always been famous as a resort, basically,
and, "Of course we will develop it further."
It's basically promising there's going to be a tourism boom here.
Tourism is already important here, but it's now central to Putin's
vision for a successful, new Crimea under his rule.
I headed to one of Crimea's more surprising attractions -
the Taigan Safari Park.
It's all the dream of one man...
..with a somewhat relaxed approach to health and safety.
HE GROWLS SOFTLY
So this is Oleg, he owns and runs the park,
obviously in a very hands-on sort of way.
LIONS SNARL
This bloke is completely mad.
Hello, Oleg. Hello, hello.
All right, we're off.
This is a tourist attraction, but also a sanctuary.
Many of Oleg's animals have been rescued from people's homes.
Are you seriously telling me there are tiger cubs
for sale on the internet?
That's absolutely incredible!
$6,000, so that's about £5,000, you can buy yourself a tiger cub.
That's unbelievable.
OLEG CHUCKLES Yeah.
Please, come, please.
TIGER CUB SNARLS
Against the odds,
Oleg's park has become a successful breeding centre for Russia's
Amur tiger, whose habitat I found under threat earlier on my journey.
How are you, how are you producing so many cubs?
It's very rare, isn't it?
Oleg is a patriot.
He was born in Russia and enthusiastically supported and voted
for Crimea to be governed by Moscow,
but now he's having doubts.
So, Oleg, we're following your water truck, I think.
What's going on? Where are we, where are we following it to?
With the critical water supply from Ukraine cut off,
Oleg now has to transport water to his park from a local reservoir.
Isn't this something that should've been thought about
before Russian annexation?
Much of Crimea is arid, and most of its water comes from Ukraine.
Without it, reservoirs here are drying up.
Wells are being dug hundreds of feet deep, but they're running out of
water. Some experts think Crimeans will need to be resettled.
They warn of a humanitarian crisis.
Just stopped by the side of the road because I wanted to show you this.
It's a quite extraordinary sight, really. This is a canal that should
be flowing with water from Ukraine down into Crimea, but because of
the conflict, because of the annexation by Russia,
Ukraine has turned off the taps.
It's dammed the waters that flow down it and dried up the canal.
This is an artery, this is a lifeline bringing water into Crimea.
And without it,
Crimea is in enormous trouble!
Russia wanted Crimea, and Crimea in many cases wanted Russia.
But the people of Crimea may find they have a very heavy price to pay.
Ruling Crimea isn't going as smoothly as Putin might have us
believe. Corruption is rife, and minority groups here have accused
Russia of human rights abuses,
and Putin has had to pledge vast sums to develop Crimea.
Crimea is now almost completely cut off from Ukraine and it doesn't
have a direct connection with Russia,
but President Putin has a plan to change that.
Come on, then.
Let's go and have a look.
Oh, bloody hell, look at that!
Oh, my!
So that is Russia over in the distance, over there, and then
the bridge, look, it's like a giant steel cable,
anchoring Crimea and Russia together!
This is one of the most politically symbolic constructions that is
underway anywhere in the world at the moment.
It's a really solid concrete and steel statement that Crimea is
connected to Russia, and Russia is here to stay.
The German army and the Soviet army both tried to build a bridge between
Crimea and Russia.
President Putin says he's determined to succeed,
that it's a historic mission.
It's certainly costly.
This build has swallowed a huge
chunk of Russia's national transport budget.
The fact this bridge is being built is just extraordinary, but who is
building it is really interesting.
It's a firm run by President Putin's childhood judo sparring partner,
his old mate.
That's Putin's Russia for you.
Power and wealth are the gift of the tsar.
It was time for me to leave Crimea
and get back on the road in Russia.
The next stage of my journey took me to Russia's European heartlands,
north of the Ukrainian border.
When Ukraine turned decisively towards Europe in 2014,
Russia didn't just annex Crimea,
President Putin encouraged, perhaps orchestrated,
an armed uprising in the east of Ukraine which became a war that has
cost more than 10,000 lives.
Geography can help us to understand what happened.
This is the vast, flat European plain across which mighty armies
have invaded Russia, including the French under Napoleon,
the Germans under Hitler, and even the Swedes.
Let's have a look at this map.
I think this gives a sense of why
geography is so critical.
So the European plain
is almost all of western Russia,
almost 2,000 miles from north to south.
There are no mountain ranges here that act as a natural barrier
against invasion.
It is very hard for Russia to defend its western border.
But as the plain spreads across northern Europe over to here,
it narrows.
Here it's bounded in the north by the Baltic Sea and in the south by
the Carpathian Mountains.
This is a gap that can be plugged.
Armies can be stopped here...
..if there are pro-Russian governments in power
in the countries to the west of Moscow,
particularly in Ukraine.
If there's a pro-Russian government in power in Ukraine,
massive Ukraine, Russia can feel safe.
That's not to excuse what's happened.
Russian efforts to destabilise neighbouring countries
are causing deep alarm.
America and the EU imposed heavy sanctions on Russia and Russia
responded by banning many imports from the West, including of food.
Most observers think this is all a bit of a disaster for Russia's
relationship with the West but some farmers here sense an opportunity.
So this, I presume the bloke on the right there is Vladimir.
Vladimir. Bonjour.
Bonjour! Parlez Francais? No, no, no. SIMON LAUGHS
We'll drive in. OK, thank you.
Merci.
Vladimir Borev is a farmer, a former journalist, and a bit of
a character, with a passion for all things French.
Who-o-o-oa! What a view.
Here. Oh, look!
This is my... Your goats!
What a glorious scene this is, Vladimir.
HE GRUNTS
You go bareback.
You want me to get on with you?
All right.
Jonathan, you know how you...
Can I use your knee?
Thank you, mate. All right.
I think I might have to get off.
My back... O-o-oh!
Russia's oil wealth means other industries have been out of favour
in recent decades. Farming has been in decline and Russians have bought
foreign food. Ironically Western sanctions seem to have given farms
like this a huge boost.
Come on goaties, come on.
Come on, you don't want to get left out.
Come on. Come on, you're all right.
President Putin has said he wants Russia to be self-sufficient in food
by 2020, I think. Do you think it's possible?
Vladimir might be happy with sanctions, but they've caused hefty
price rises for most Russians.
This is a cheese house. Wow!
Are you busting sanctions here?
It's a very clever way of getting round the European Union stopping
you buying French cheese.
Simon, come on. This is a...this is a cheese.
This is a liquid cheese.
Liquid cheese?
What? Liquid cheese?!
Oh, you old temptress, you.
Thank you.
Mmmm!
O-o-oh!
Have you made alcohol from cheese?
Yes. That's just...either genius or mad, perhaps both.
I can see from all your pictures you're obviously very interested in
Russia's Imperial Tsarist past.
Do you think Russia needs a strong leader?
So, does the growing gulf or divide between Europe and Russia,
does it... It must upset you.
Has Russia done nothing wrong?
Cheers, sir.
Bloody hell. A bit rammed.
I think it's conscripts who are heading off on the train.
OK, let's go to Moscow.
17 and 19, and that is here, here we are.
HE YAWNS
That's very kind. Spasibo.
Is this what you're going to survive on overnight?
THEY LAUGH
The journey to Moscow was short by Russian standards,
just ten hours by rail.
Remember, this country is a whopping 5,500 miles wide.
I think I might be slightly too long for this bed,
my feet are halfway into the passageway.
Goodnight.
I was heading north on the final part of my journey, through
the night, to the heart of power in Russia.
It's 6:10 and we're just pulling into the station.
Now we've just stopped...
..in Moscow.
I'd never been to Moscow before.
It was more beautiful than I'd imagined.
The sense of power, absolute power, was tangible.
We hear a lot about the wealth of Russia and some Russians.
In reality it's in the hands of a few,
as is the power and the privilege.
HE LAUGHS
Today, Moscow is a megacity, home to 12 million people.
Its infamous traffic is a symptom of rapid growth.
Not that everyone needs to be stuck in a jam.
What's this lane in the middle of the road here?
You need to be close to the pinnacle of power.
Who's that, then? Is that somebody very important?
I was leaving the congested centre of Moscow.
I wanted to see where most people here actually live.
It's interesting, actually. This is the sort of housing where so many
Muscovites live, these massive apartment blocks.
There's also still a lot of people living in this type as well.
These are known as Khrushchevkas,
and they're named after the former leader of the Soviet Union,
Nikita Khrushchev,
who first announced in the 1950s that the Soviet Union was going to
begin a programme of housing construction, the like of which has
never been seen before.
For many Soviet families, many Russian families,
these Khrushchevkas were their first family home.
And, as a result, many Soviet families, many Russian families,
have very warm memories of these apartment blocks.
DOORBELL RINGS
Natalia, hello! Simon, hello.
Hello. Hello, zdravstvuyte, lovely to meet you.
Can we come in? Yes, yes.
Natalia Budkevich works at a state-run theatre.
So sweet. Look at that. Come.
What a lovely place you've got.
You've got a grand piano in here! Yeah, yeah, I've got it.
Every little bit of it has memories and meaning to you.
The government has passed legislation to demolish more than
half of Moscow's Khrushchevkas.
A population equivalent to San Francisco will be relocated to
brand-new high-rise apartments.
The world's biggest demolition order was signed by the president,
with little public discussion, at a stroke of a pen.
Natalia has no grounds to appeal.
I wanted to see what happened to Natalia when she tried to protest
against her eviction.
That's you. Yeah, it's me.
So you were standing,
protesting, on your own or with a couple of other people?
No, just on my own. Just on your own?
Oh, my God!
It sounds like you feel quite powerless.
The authorities here say they are trying to replace
substandard housing.
Opponents think it's all a money-making exercise
for the government and property developers who are given
the lucrative contracts.
The demolition plan helped inspire a new wave of protests, with huge
numbers of Russians taking to the streets in anti-corruption
demonstrations.
Many have been arrested.
Russian law requires protests by more than one person to have state
approval. Natalia insists she was demonstrating alone, and she invited
me to her first appearance in a Russian court.
THEY SPEAK IN RUSSIAN
Yeah, that's it, that's it.
Good luck.
Well, that was very odd.
We were allowed to film in the courtroom, but only for about
a minute, and then we had to get the camera out. The judge came in,
the case lasted about ten minutes, and now I'm just waiting for Natalia
to come out and tell me what's happened.
Fingers crossed for her.
The odds on anyone getting an acquittal in a Russian court
are slim. Russian courts have a 99% conviction rate.
Are you OK? Yeah, I'm OK.
Is this your first experience of that side of life here?
It's Russia, it's hard-core, you know? SHE LAUGHS
Really hope it goes OK. Good luck.
Thank you. See you. See you.
Bye-bye. Good luck. Bye. Bye-bye.
There's long been some sort of unspoken agreement
here between President Putin and the Russian people.
It goes something like, "I will give you jobs, a bit of money,
"you'll have a chance to buy stuff and occasionally take
"a foreign holiday, but don't question my power."
THUNDER
That agreement is now starting to break down.
Russians are saying, "We've had enough of being treated like sheep.
"We want to know where Russia's wealth is going."
THUNDER
You can probably hear the thunder. Appropriately enough,
there's a storm coming.
I headed west, out of Moscow...
..and towards Russia's other great city.
We get to do something most travellers don't do
when they come to Russia.
Most people go to Moscow and/or St Petersburg.
I'm going to explore the countryside in between those two great cities.
I was taking the long route, off the main roads and through the rural
heartland of the far west.
The Volga! That's known as the Mother Of Rivers.
In Russian folklore, the Volga is the lifeblood of the country.
This used to be an important agricultural region.
Can we just stop here for a second?
Now, everywhere, there were signs of neglect and slow decay.
I presume this is some sort of grain silo.
We're just a few hours from Moscow but this is, um...
..this feels like forgotten, emptied Russia.
This was probably part of a huge collective farm in Soviet times,
so this whole area was farmed industrially,
under state control.
On collective farms, workers were poor but they had a steady income.
Less productive regions of Russia were supported by the state.
Now there are no such guarantees.
Jobs have disappeared.
Logging timber is one of the few flourishing industries around here,
and much of that is done illegally.
With few jobs, many Russians in isolated regions like this have
a very basic existence.
Wow.
This is like stepping back a century.
There's smoke coming from a couple of the chimneys, though, so there
must be some people living here.
DOGS BARK IN DISTANCE
Let's see if we can find anyone.
This place doesn't get too many visitors...
..but I met a villager called Tatiana Zavreskaya,
who was a bit surprised at my interest.
Only three families left? MOSQUITOES BUZZ
And, and quite a lot of mosquitoes. SHE CHUCKLES
SHE LAUGHS Wow!
They are hungry, aren't they?
Take us in, Tatiana, away from the mozzies! THEY LAUGH
CAT MEOWS
Mama Dasha. This is Mama, Mama Dasha.
All right, so in here...
Thanks, Tatiana.
So...I'm going to stay in here.
I think we'll involve... on the sofa there.
What a place, eh?
Oh, it must be tough to survive here.
They're not completely cut off.
There's an outside phone offering free emergency calls.
They have some power.
If they want to boil a kettle, they need to warn their neighbours,
but it's enough to watch the TV.
SHE LAUGHS
What do you make of what's going on in the world at the moment?
I feel really confused by things,
because I grew up on the other side of the Iron Curtain from you.
I grew up in Britain during the Cold War,
and there, then I was quite scared of the Soviet Union.
Then the Iron Curtain came down and we became friends.
And now it sounds like we're becoming enemies again.
I think it sounds very sad.
SHE LAUGHS
No, you look like somebody we should be holding hands with, Tatiana.
Of course YOU do.
Almost all Russians get their news from TV.
Of course, Russia's not alone in having broadcasters who pump
propaganda, but Putin's almost total control of Russia's TV networks has
been absolutely key to his popularity and his grip on power.
I should be OK in here.
Those little critters won't get through this.
Even Russian mosquitoes can't get through this net.
Night-night.
This feels ancient.
The cheeky frog! LAUGHTER
It feels like a...an old way of life.
SHE SPEAKS IN RUSSIAN
Is that about right?
So, as you look out on the village here,
with so many of the houses decaying away,
what do you think the future holds for this village?
SHE CHUCKLES I do think
there's some tragedy in the loss of all the culture and traditions that
are wrapped up inside Russian village life.
SHE LAUGHS
HE LAUGHS
Isn't it extraordinary that life now, and where people want to live,
is often at least partly dictated by broadband speeds?
Isn't that an extraordinary thing?
The whole world is urbanising,
but the Russian countryside is being emptied at an astonishing rate.
Since the end of communism,
roughly three villages have been abandoned every day.
It's had a devastating impact on rural life.
At a small cottage hospital, I found Dr Sergey Vishnyakov,
who arrived here in Soviet times.
We now know much more about the brutality of that era,
but Sergey has a rosy view of the health system back then.
It's claimed more than 15,000 Russian towns and villages have
no medical infrastructure at all.
Budgets are being slashed.
So far, Sergey's managed to fight off plans to close this hospital.
He's the sort of doctor you want, isn't he?
A doctor who's got almost boundless reserves of knowledge and care.
Spasibo, spasibo.
For you, living out here in an area that used to be busy,
where there used to be the collective farms,
do you think life was better in Soviet times?
So this is the bus stop that people here would need to wait at for quite
a long time, if they can't get treatment at that hospital,
if it was to close as per the government plan.
The next place for medical treatment is a city called Rzhev,
which is about an hour away.
And the buses here only run on the weekend.
Russia now likes to project an image of strength.
Because of its size, space programme, nuclear weapons,
its foreign conflicts, it is a global power.
But as I'd seen so often on my journey,
much of it is poor and underdeveloped,
and its wealth is in the hands of the few.
It's even more unequal than the United States or Britain.
Russia is the most unequal country of the world's major economies.
Sad, given the history of communism here and the attempt, at least at
some point, to achieve equality amongst the masses.
Not sure where the local budget for maintenance has gone here.
After 12 hours travelling towards St Petersburg,
the road was getting worse and worse.
Our driver said he was worried about his shock absorbers,
and he was going slower and slower.
Can we stop here?
I think I've been slightly defeated by its size,
like just about every other foreigner, outsider,
invader who has travelled through this part of the country.
You just can't appreciate the scale of it until you're here.
The roads here are pretty rubbish, frankly.
At some points, we're doing about 15mph.
Honestly, if you had to travel the length of time I have through this
glorious yet monotonous landscape, you'd get the train as well.
My journey across Russia had begun in the Far East.
Travelling more than 4,000 miles and across nine time zones,
I was arriving at my final destination on
the edge of the Baltic, St Petersburg.
Oh, my goodness, look at this place!
St Petersburg was built 300 years ago by Peter the Great
as the Venice of the North.
He wanted to change the image of Russia from a land of backward
peasants to a modern civilised nation.
St Petersburg was designed to impress.
It was built to make Russia appear European.
Russia's current leader was born and raised here.
This grand building is rather key to the story of Vladimir Putin.
Young Vladimir came here to start practising judo.
What's also astonishing to me is just how incredibly talented so many
of his judo buddies must have been, because so many of them now
seem to be running this country or owning it.
Peter the Great wanted to transform the image of Russia.
So does Vladimir Putin.
One of his priorities has been changing the caricature of
Russian men as unhealthy, smoking drinkers.
The judo-loving President promotes and encourages a more muscular
vision, supporting mixed martial arts and even cage fighters.
I went to visit a local club.
THEY SPEAK IN RUSSIAN
I've got a bad feeling about what's going on here.
I...
I had a feeling trainer Eduard Cherbokov was lining me up
for ritual sacrifice.
Lamb, slaughter.
These two guys? They look very tough!
I'm nervous, actually.
I think I'm going to puke.
And they were gentle with me.
PUFFING AND PANTING
I think I might be sick.
Why are you doing this?
How key is faith to you and to what you're doing here?
PUFFING AND GRUNTING
Under Putin, the Russian Orthodox Church has been
completely rejuvenated.
The president would love this place.
These fighters are all tough, healthy and religious.
For many here, being Orthodox is about faith,
but it's also about a patriotic identity.
Grigori Guyvoronsky helps lead this club.
it's growing,
and we have more and more churches in Russia.
Actually, more and more people come to church.
They come back to our tradition,
to our faith, the faith of our grandfathers and our fathers,
you know? Historically, Russia is supposed to be a Christian country.
It was created as a Christian state.
You're conservative Orthodox.
So you think traditional values are important?
Yes. What's your view on, I don't know, gay marriage for example?
It's negative. Right.
Cos we believe in God, and God says it's a sin.
How strongly do you believe that?
I don't agree that it's normal.
Right. In Europe, people try to say that it's normal and
everybody has a right to do this.
We just say it's not normal.
It's wrong, that's how we say it.
Orthodox views are on the rise here.
Encouraged by the president and the newly powerful Orthodox Church,
many Russians appear to be turning their backs
on modern Western values.
Many here support Putin's core ideology,
which is nationalism accompanied by anti-Westernism.
It harks back to the past.
This is a very fitting place for me to end my journey.
This is the Hermitage Museum, but it was the Winter Palace,
an official residence of the tsars for nearly 200 years.
It was stormed during the Russian Revolution,
and that was a defining moment in the Communist takeover
of this vast country.
In Russia's most famous museum,
I was expecting a major exhibition marking the centenary of
the Revolution. To my surprise, it was hardly registered.
Oh, that's interesting! Look. So there should be...
Normally, there's a portrait of Nicholas II hanging here,
but it's currently displayed at a temporary exhibition,
Romanovs And Revolution: The End Of Monarchy,
that's happening in Amsterdam.
The government here can't quite seem to decide how to mark the centenary
of the Revolution, this huge event.
They don't really want to commemorate it, perhaps because
Tsar Nicholas II was a weak leader,
and President Putin does not like weak leaders.
But they don't really want to celebrate it either,
because President Putin certainly
doesn't want to encourage any more revolution.
The Russians might not be sure how to mark it,
but the Revolution remains one of the landmarks of modern history -
a shattering event that transformed and then shaped our entire world,
even if sometimes, in at least one way,
it can seem little has changed here.
I think the saddest realisation for me on this journey was that,
100 years on from the Revolution that was supposed to
change everything, there's an all-powerful tsar back in charge
at the top.
I'd loved almost every moment of my epic journey across Russia.
From the frozen wilderness of Kamchatka on the shores of
the Pacific to here at the edge of the Baltic,
I'd travelled this vast country in wonder and been awed.
This journey has really shown me the stunning diversity of a country and
a people I really didn't know.
Russians have a cold, tough reputation, but time and again,
I've seen that, once you break their hard outer shell,
there is warmth and there is welcome.
I have to hope for an end to the current animosity between Russia and
the West, for better relations between us and them.