Oh, Michael! Good morning, my dear friend!
Welcome to my Leningrad.
(SPEAKS RUSSIAN)
I think I recognise you.
Let me take your temperature.
You are alive! This is extraordinary.
Thanks for welcoming me to your city.
Alexander Godkov is a Lenin impersonator. Not everyone appreciates this.
(THEY ARGUE IN RUSSIAN)
But the younger Leningraders don't seem to bat an eyelid.
Imitating Communism's patron saint would recently have been treason.
To add insult to injury, 52% of the city has just voted to change the name back to St Petersburg.
You're trusted to stamp your own ticket.
I'm glad to say technology hasn't taken over from brute forcel
Sit there.
Tickets are ten kopeks each. That's practically a free ride.
- Is this all over Leningrad? - Yes, always.
A tram-rover.
(BRASS BAND PLAYS "1812 OVERTURE")
There is money in Leningrad, much of it relieved from tourists ingeniously.
This is one of the most agreeable ways.
Musicians, often from top orchestras, play guests into their hotels.
I get on well with Alexander, or Sasha, as he now insists I call him.
We agree to meet again.
I'm sure he thinks I'm a Michael Palin impersonator!
They're there again next morning,
but I'm so preoccupied with finding my way round, they don't even get a kopek!
(MUSIC INDICATES THEIR DISPLEASURE)
Sasha has agreed to give me the Lenin city tour.
He returned to this station from exile to organise the revolution.
30 April 1917.
- April 1917, when you came back. - Yes.
This... Many, many people.
- They are all gathered. - Yes.
(SPEAKS RUSSIAN)
Then that was it.
I recognised the "Bolshevik" word.
You had a big coat on. It was very cold.
Among the great man's most enthusiastic supporters
were the sailors on board the cruiser Aurora.
The Aurora survives almost exactly where she was in 0ctober 1917
when a single shot was fired from this cannon.
It was just what the Bolsheviks had been waiting for. Cut to the Winter Palace.
So they heard the gun from the Aurora, the sailors and the army,
they came across the square and stormed these gates.
They couldn't have made it much easier.
The gates are a fine example of a Baroque climbing frame!
A great moment for you.
What a year for you! What a year!
They look easy gates to climb.
Quickly, quickly.
Here's a branch of John Lewis! What's that doing there?
I leave Lenin to savour his triumphs and head further back into history,
to 1703, when Peter the Great ordered a swamp to be turned into this grand European city.
Composers and writers used these canals for inspiration.
Disgruntled aristocrats used them for drowning Rasputin.
Uh-oh. These people have been tipped off that there's a Michael Palin impersonator in town.
We pass on under Nevsky Prospekt,
the street that has always been the heart of this city's life.
I'm heading for a monument to a Russian hero even greater than Lenin
and Peter the already Great.
Alexander Nevsky defeated the Swedes in an epic battle in the year 1240.
Peter ordered this monastery to be built in his name.
(CHANTING)
Religion in Russia is no longer an undercover activity.
Churches are reopening and attendances booming.
This may look like an obscure Russian party game,
but it is in fact one of the increasingly popular christening ceremonies.
They're not just for babies but people of all ages.
I wasn't aware of all this when, to be respectful,
I simply did what everyone else was doing.
"Michael Palin impersonator!"
(RECITES IN RUSSIAN)
I don't know what's going on!
Not wanting to stand out, I achieve precisely the opposite effect!
The service grinds to a halt around me.
The priest is very sympathetic,
but I only just avoid being inducted into the Russian 0rthodox Church!
No, it's all right. No, I understand. Tell him I understand. I will listen.
My reprieve comes not a moment too soon.
The priest dons another outfit
and I can only speculate what my fate might have been.
(SPEAKS RUSSIAN)
Exhausted by my near-christening experience,
I take refuge in the Tikhvin cemetery, where lie the greats of Russian culture.
If you're immortal, you'll have been buried here.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Fyodra.
How did you cope with it? All the book signings, press launches?
What did you write?
"Sincerely yours. Sorry about the sad bits.
"Sorry it's a bit gloomy. Yours, Fyodor."
"Pole To Pole" - good title? I thought as much.
"Death At The Poles"?
"Having A Miserable Time At The Pole"?
He wasn't much help!
I went to see Rimsky-Korsakov.
(MUSIC: "FLIGHT OF THE BUMBLE BEE" BY RIMSKY-KORSAKOV)
There's an outstanding concentration of great and defunct tunesmiths here.
Here's Mussorgsky, with his music written on his tombstone.
(MUSIC: "PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION" BY MUSSORGSKY)
Behind Borodin's ear, a few chiselled bars remind us what he bequeathed to the world.
# Hold my hand, I'm a stranger in paradise #
(MUSIC: "PRINCE IGOR" BY BORODIN)
Surrounded by begonias and wrought iron is the greatest of them all -
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
If he'd lived as long as his music, he'd be 151.
(MUSIC: "1812 OVERTURE" BY TCHAIKOVSKY)
(SPEAKS RUSSIAN)
It's one of the city's greatest honours to fire the noonday gun.
I waited for a revolution to start... but nothing happened!
This is the Harrods food hall of Leningrad.
Food has come direct from private farms.
It's expensive, as I find when I buy some pears.
(SPEAKS RUSSIAN)
- Kilogram? - Kilogram?
Er, I want about um... six.
(THEY SPEAK RUSSIAN)
Six bits. Good. Sem.
Sem is actually "seven".
They cost me 15 roubles.
At the time, the average weekly wage was 70 roubles,
which is why there were so many people outside trying to raise some kopeks.
Compared to "Harrods Food Hall", the state supermarket is cheaper and more hygienic,
but largely uncontaminated by food.
However, today there's a bustle.
A consignment of Buffalo Brown vodka has arrived.
Since the anti-alcohol laws, a bottle is a prized possession.
(THEY SPEAK RUSSIAN)
I have money, but it's not that simple.
"Vodka by coupon."
Maybe I could buy a coupon?
- How much? - I not sell.
No? How am I going to get some coupons?
If I have a coupon I can get some.
Well, the problem is that you have to buy a coupon first.
I've got to find a coupon. I'll find that man and offer him my pears.
I'll try.
This is becoming like a sketch I was once in.
For coupon, read parrot.
Miss?
Hello? Miss?
Miss seems to be absent, so I think that's the end of the vodka hunt.
I can do without it. I d-d-don't n-n-need it!
About to give up, I meet someone who'll risk the wrath of the law
by selling me a coupon in public.
(SHE SPEAKS RUSSIAN)
Vosem is eight.
A coupon for one bottle costs eight roubles,
about half the cost of my rapidly disintegrating bag of pears.
(SPEAKS RUSSIAN)
She sounds happy, anyway. I now can get my vodka.
Hello, miss.
(SPEAKS RUSSIAN)
What?
- Kassir. - Cash?
Kassir. Kassir.
I now have a coupon, but I still can't buy the vodka.
A kind gentlemen explains I have to pay elsewhere.
I join another queue at the cashier's.
Cash.
Right. There we are.
Ten...
(SPEAKS RUSSIAN)
Can I have a bag?
Yeah? That's right?
Ah, that's it.
- (SPEAKS RUSSIAN) - Thank you.
(SPEAKS RUSSIAN)
Can I have a bag?
40 kopeks for a bag.
There we are.
No, keep the change. It's for you.
It's a mistake to offer a shop assistant money!
My retail therapist goes to the cashier for me.
40 kopeks is about a quarter of a penny.
There's my bottle. I'll put those in there.
There we are.
What a man needs after a long day buying vodka is a bottle of vodka!
Er, have you a bottle opener? Only joking!
Unable to face more shopping, I climb to the top of St Isaac's Cathedral,
where the sound of street orchestras and a fine view can be obtained without coupons.
I like Leningrad. It's a proud survivor of a city.
Now that communism is slackening off,
you can't help feeling things must improve.
But things haven't improved for everyone.
In a Leningrad studio, a theatre has been assembled from pieces of scrap.
Elaborate machines and figures animate to tell satirical and subversive stories.
But since glasnost, the audience for this sort of thing has dwindled.
The machines now make their protest to empty rooms.
Stalin wields his axe amongst a crowd of goblins and hobgoblins
whilst Lenin rants and raves from his pulpit.
This was once very strong stuff.
It's fascinating, but it's time to be moving on.
The morning bus to Novgorod, 120 miles to the south.
I'm touched that Lenin has taken time off to come and say goodbye.
Then off he goes, probably to brush up his Yeltsin!
We head south along major highways and major tests of suspension.
This is the main road between Leningrad and Moscow, Russia's M1.
We have an important deadline to meet.
The last sailing of the season across the Black Sea.
Ahead of us we still have Kiev and 0dessa, but first, Novgorod.
Novgorod, which means "new town", is the oldest city in Russia.
It's twinned with Watford. It even has its own gap!
Watford and Novgorod have been together for eight years.
Novgorod has not been faithful. She's twinned up with at least six other cities!
I've been told there's a film industry here.
As we don't have one in England any more, I go and see the Russian recipe for success.
There's certainly no over-manning!
(THEY SPEAK RUSSIAN)
I can't quite work out what sort of film it is. A remake of "From Here To Eternity"?
"20,000 Millimetres Under The Sea"?
It turns out to be a film about crayfish.
They're still doing the auditions!
The director is Edward Ranenko.
(THEY GREET EACH OTHER IN RUSSIAN)
- I no speak English! - Then we'll get on fine!
Can I watch what you're doing?
(HE REPLIES IN RUSSIAN)
Things are happening in the water?
I'll watch what you're doing.
Ranenko saw me for a man who'll do anything provided he doesn't understand it.
After seconds of tough negotiation, I'm offered the part of Frogman's Hand.
It's a bit of overkill for a crayfish, but still...
Ah... So.
Ready? Call "Action"?
Is that "Action"?
I've blown it.
Overacting? Oh, down there.
That's a big one.
OK. As quickly as that? Yeah?
Are you filming?
OK?
Well, that was a moment of film history.
I've now got three more weeks to get out of this!
Now I know what my mother went through! Thank you!
My reward for acting with the crayfish was to eat her that evening,
along with samogon, Edward's own vodka produced illegally in his garage.
Edward's distillation process, like his filming,
is a triumph of ingenuity over availability.
An old steriliser from a hospital acts as a still to boil grain, yeast and sugar
into a mixture which he promises will not give me a headache in the morning.
Ah, this is what you get up to in your garage.
What are the little bits in it?
Slivers of garlic fortify the vodka.
Here goesl
(OFFERS A TOAST IN RUSSIAN)
The first toast is to the guest. Edward welcomes me to his country
and drinks to the day when they can all go to my country and taste my home brew.
(THEY SPEAK RUSSIAN)
Mmm! Excellent!
- Very happy to be here, Edward! - Nyet!
I'm not a vodka drinker, so I've got a lot to get used to.
I drink Coca-Cola, but not vodka. You tried to fool me with that bottle!
(SPEAKS RUSSIAN)
Wonderful things are happening to my body!
(SECOND TOAST IN RUSSIAN)
Thank you.
I suspect that was a toast to crayfish.
The second toast follows briskly
and Russian hospitality begins its slow assault on the brain cells.
You didn't give your life in vain!
Ah! That's terrific!
- OK? - Yeah, fine!
Now I know why he made the furniture look like this! Too much vodka!
Only a vodka freak could design things like this!
I'm fine!
(SPEAKS RUSSIAN)
Well, I should like to propose a toast to the Soviet government
whose attempt to stop people drinking vodka
has resulted in Edward going into his garage and producing this beverage!
(REPLIES IN RUSSIAN)
The Soviet government!
And governments who do silly things everywhere!
(CHATTER IN RUSSIAN)
Ah!
It gets better. A little bit better each time.
(SPEAKS RUSSIAN)
Isn't it time for another toast? Sorry!
I've had enough toasts to last me a lifetime. Who wants to make a speech?
(SPEAKS RUSSIAN)
Let's toast the fish. Why not? Toast the ketchup. I'm game for anything.
(MAN SPEAKS RUSSIAN)
Wonderful people, they really are!
(CONTINUES IN RUSSIAN)
Well, cheers!
Thank you!
(EDWARD SPEAKS RUSSIAN)
Ah. Right.
Now I can eat the fish.
Can I wear a rubber suit now, please?
(MEN CHATTER IN RUSSIAN)
- That's good? - At least!
There's an enormous interest in this!
(TOAST IN RUSSIAN)
This is a toast to me raising my right arm!
Oh, beautiful. Lovely. Have you ever done brain surgery?
(TALK CONTINUES IN RUSSIAN)
OK. Here we go.
By my count, that's number 23!
Funny how you get used to anything, really!
After the vodka, I had a strange dream.
I was in a big car clutching a speech.
I seemed to be on an important mission.
(THEY SING IN RUSSIAN)
Young children serenaded me with folk songs
as I strode into the main square to meet the mayor of Novgorod.
I realised that this was my moment in history.
(INTRODUCES PALIN IN RUSSIAN)
(PALIN REPLIES IN RUSSIAN)
"We, the people of your twin town of Watford,
"take this opportunity to send our warmest greetings.
"We believe the link of friendship between Watford and Novgorod,
"formed in 1984, has been of great mutual benefit.
"Many ordinary people, including sportsmen and women, students, dancers,
"children, families, environmentalists and actors
"have had the opportunity to visit a town and a country previously unknown to them.
"We are sure that the bond between our towns will continue to grow and flourish.
"We look forward to the day when every school and organisation
"in Novgorod and in Watford can contribute to the development of our links.
"We wish you success in your work to increase international understanding."
(PALIN SPEAKS RUSSIAN)
We would like to give you a present on behalf of the people of Watford.
Thank you.
- This is our souvenir. - That's beautiful.
- Novgorod, Watford. - There we go. Marvellous.
Thank you very much, Mayor.
I thought this strange dream was over, but I'd reckoned without the folk dancers.
I found myself jumping on some Russians, being kissed by a strange lady
and thrust into some sort of circle.
This would never have happened in Watford!
How many? More? More!
Just as I was beginning to enjoy myself, I woke up.
(TRAIN WHISTLES)
It's half past one in the morning at Dno station, north-west Russia.
Er, the literal Russian translation of Dno is actually "the bottom".
So you could say after four weeks of travelling we've reached the bottom!
But things should get better from now on because this is the Leningrad-Kiev Express
which will take us 1,000 kilometres further south in 19 hours tomorrow.
Dno station is known not only for its fantastic nightlife,
but also because this was the station where the last tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, abdicated in 1917.
This is where the tsar decided to call it a day,
and I can understand, having been here for an hour myself.
So I'd better get on the train. So had you. Come on!
Next morning, we're in Belorussia, White Russia.
50 years ago, these were the killing fields of Europe.
Two million Belorussians lost their lives in the Second World War.
Now they talk of independence, as do the Ukrainians.
Vadim Castelli learned English from listening to "The Voice 0f America".
I see Ukrainian history being revived.
I see Ukrainian culture, the culture which many people thought was gone.
Now we're getting back to our roots. There is so much to do here.
If one feels Ukrainian, if one feels it's one's roots,
this is a very exciting period to live through in our history.
- Are we in the Ukraine yet? - Yeah. This is Ukraine.
- Let's drink to being in the Ukraine. - Thank you. To the Ukraine.
(PALIN) It's a rich... People say the bread basket of Russia.
What's the food gonna be like in the Ukraine?
Well, even despite the 75 years of the Soviet regime, it's still quite a rich land.
When I start thinking about the land...
It would be so rich if it were not for the Bolsheviks first,
for Chernobyl...
Despite what Vadim says,
these ominous shadows seem to have left little mark on the countryside.
But you can't take anything for granted in this country.
Just as I was having lovely dreams of breaking my day's fast
at one of the best restaurants in Kiev,
in the bread basket of Russia, the Ukraine,
we've had a bit of bad luck with the train and we're going to be stopped in the forest.
I think they've invaded someone's house and are looting their water.
I'll go and do a bit of looting and pillaging.
The two-hour delay turns into a party.
A nearby lake becomes an impromptu holiday camp.
These passengers know how to have a good time.
Could you imagine this happening on the 7.53 to Victoria?
There you go, Mr Johnson!
You can feel the disappointment when it's time for the train to move on.
This plant is wormwood.
The Book of Revelations tells of a poisonous star called wormwood
which at Judgement Day will fall to earth, infecting the waters.
The Ukrainian word for wormwood is Chernobyl.
It grows abundantly here in Narodichi,
only 40 miles from the scene of the world's worst nuclear accident.
Vadim... Patti...
Fraser and Michael.
Carry this one. If it emits a loud wail,
get out of the area 'cause it means it's a hot spot.
- Is it on? - Turn it on there.
No one knows how dangerous this area is, but none of our Russian guides would come.
0nly Vadim would join me.
This maternity hospital was closed
when the village it served was declared unsafe for human habitation last year,
four years after the disaster.
Equipment, notices, even medical records remain here untouched, tainted.
The poison that infects these ghost villages is invisible.
But, as happened outside this old village shop, it can be heard.
(BEEPER)
0n our way out, we catch sight of the only people we've seen all day.
The old lady is 90.
(VADIM TRANSLATES) I feel sick. My daughter is sick. Only we are left.
(SHE SPEAKS UKRAINIAN)
(VADIM) I wish I could die in my own house, but it's fenced off.
The windows are broken and I can't stay there any longer.
I keep moving from one house to another. Just like that.
We're the only ones left. It's scary, but what can you do?
Kiev, capital of the Ukraine,
is the third-largest city of the Soviet Union.
If the wind had blown from the north on 26th April 1986, it would be dead.
As it is, 0ctober Revolution Square today is bright, busy and well kept.
But it remains a place where Ukrainians go to be Ukrainian,
to dwell on a sad past and an uncertain future.
(SINGS UKRAINIAN SONG)
Boris Antonienko sings Ukrainian songs, banned until recently.
Songs like "The Mighty Dnieper".
We've hitched a lift down the mighty Dnieper on the trading barge Katun.
It was in the river here at Kiev 1,000 years ago that Christianity came to Russia.
There was no option.
Prince Vladimir had a baptism squad of Greek priests
plunge the entire population into the water.
Christian churches, lovingly restored, are the most striking buildings
in a city that's been communist for 70 years.
People still bathe in the Dnieper, only 55 miles downstream from Chernobyl.
Below Kiev, the river has been swollen into a series of vast inland seas
created by power-hungry administrators desperate for hydro-electricity.
The pace may be leisurely, but Russian rivers are smoother than Russian roads,
and all I can do is wait until the Dnieper becomes the Black Sea.
The last 100 miles are difficult, I admit!
But I keep pedalling, and after crossing 1,400 miles of Soviet Union,
I reach the Black Sea shore at Arcadia Beach, 0dessa.
But I'm just too late.
There's not a single sunbed left!
There are plenty of spaces at a nearby beach.
Who are these people? Some sort of secret society?
The hushed-up evidence of some Soviet sun cream disaster?
Not a bit of it! They're here because they love mud!
At the end of the day you go back and wash it all off?
Yeah. Yeah... It doesn't look smart.
This lady doctor regularly indulges.
The marine deposits, she says, contain healing properties.
It turns you into an active soul!
Do you think I should try some myself?
For me?
(SPEAKS RUSSIAN)
Oh, I see. Turns you into an athlete?
I see. Yeah.
Seeking the answer to anabolic steroids,
I make my way to the Kuyalnik sanatorium,
in Tsarist times the most fashionable resort in Russia.
Now a little faded, but still dispensing the best mud in the country.
The treatment room hovers uneasily between hospital and abattoir.
There's a smell of rotten eggs from the sulphurous mud.
What on earth is going on?
Maybe it's a day-care centre for vampires!
(WOMAN CALLS IN RUSSIAN)
There's no escape now. "This", as they say in police dramas, "is my patch".
The first surprise is that it's warm.
Ahh, Bisto!
No one's ever done this to me before. I suppose I've never asked them to!
Feels like all the things you were told never to do in bed rolled into one!
It's very nice and warm. Thank you.
I may look like a sausage roll,
but I've rarely tasted such primal, illicit contentment.
Not much I can do now!
Time up? Finished?
After 20 minutes, it's time to be unwrapped.
I can't imagine I shall ever be clean again!
This is a job for "Dyno-Rod"!
Next morning, with a spring in my step and mud in all sorts of strange places,
I leave the Hotel Londonskya, a Black Sea version of the Reform Club,
and walk down the famous Potemkin Steps and out of the Soviet Union.
Well, not quite, for I have two days aboard the Junost,
a training ship turned passenger ferry on its last voyage of the year to Istanbul.
It's odd, really. I don't want to go. But I feel lucky to be able to go.
17 days. Strange days.
It's the sort of place that makes you really go spare, tear your hair out.
But at the same time there are enormous pleasures.
The people who looked after us were tremendous.
I'll miss it.
And I won't forget a day of it.
Still, I'll be able to cut down on the vodka. I don't even like vodka!
Ah, well.
Dosvidanya!
Two days later, the generals attempted a coup
and the end of the Soviet Union began.
The swimming pool of the Junost is, in the grand tradition of Russian improvisation,
a packing case filled with a bit of Black Sea.
It's so small I thought only I'd seen it,
but I'd forgotten about the Russian love of the outdoor life.
Pool attendant! I'll do a couple of lengths before lunch!
May I take a dive?
I tried to remember the Russian for "I am married with three children".
You know about this.
Um... is it... Oh, that's the idea.
Yes. Hmm... You're all right. You're dressed properly.
(WOMAN GIGGLES)
I'm going to float on my back.
Do you come here often?
(LAUGHTER)
I resort to the only line of Russian I can still remember.
(SPEAKS RUSSIAN)
That only makes things worse.
- Lyuba. Lyuba. - Lyuba?
- Lyuba. Amore. - Amore?
(SPEAKS RUSSIAN)
- Lyuba means amore? - Is amore.
- Love? - Love, yes.
- A little love. - What a very suitable name.
I'm gonna do a few lengths before lunch. Backstroke.
Here we go. No, that's obviously out.
Little baby, baby.
Your flower needs a little watering.
In the end, to both our surprises,
we discover a mutual interest in church architecture.
At dawn on the third day we enter the strait between Europe and Asia, the Bosporus.
There's a nervous energy along the banks,
a prosperity and confidence we've not seen in three weeks.
Now the Junost looks what it is, an ill-equipped country cousin of a ship.
But I've grown fond of the quiet, eccentric pleasures of the Junost
and the country it represents.
Now Istanbul beckons, not just with its domes and minarets,
but with its rewards and its insatiable demands.
The smell of opportunity is in the air.
Whatever it may look like, I am back in the West.