Simon Reeve In Russia

The second leg of Simon Reeve's tour of modern-day Russia begins in Siberia and takes him to Russia's far south-west and the majestic Caucasus Mountains. From Lake Baikal, the oldest and deepest lake on Earth, Simon takes the Trans-Siberian Railway to the city of Krasnoyarsk, the scene of brutal violence in the 1990s, and now the location of a cafe paying homage to Vladimir Putin. There he is introduced to a Siberian community that worships a former traffic cop they believe to be the reincarnation of Christ.

Simon Reeve embarks on an epic three-part journey across the largest country in the world in search of the real Russia. One hundred years after the Russian Revolution, Simon travels through this land of extremes to investigate what the next century might bring for the powerful Russian Federation and its relationship with the rest of the world. Simon uses his trademark insight and warm manner to get to the heart of a nation that’s more often viewed through the bleak prism of cold war hostility. He meets an extraordinary range of characters while unlocking the beauty and variety of this vast country. Setting out amongst the active, snow-capped volcanoes of Kamchatka, over 6,000 kilometres from Moscow, Simon explores one of the remotest regions of the country. The population of Russia's Far East has fallen dramatically in recent years, but travelling by chopper and skidoo, Simon finds indigenous reindeer herders who are still eking out a fragile existence in this spectacular but inhospitable wilderness.