Original subtitles

It's heavenly to arrive, but travelling is the real magic.

The idea of gypsies, caravanserai and travel books have always thrilled me.

That's extraordinary.

It's incredibly exciting and can be uplifting and enlightening.

Because all the time you're learning and challenging yourself

and your expectations, even in the smallest ways, with the new.

It's not like The Archers.

In this series, I'm collating some of my personal highlights

from the journeys I've taken.

Wow.

And giving you a new twist on the tales

in postcard form.

Disraeli once said, "Like all great travellers,

I remember more than I have seen, but I've seen more than I remember."

Or something like that. And that's absolutely true.

Erm, because in the telling of a story

and recounting of your toils and travels,

sometimes the story gets the better of you

and the facts kind of get eased out of the way

for the better telling of the story.

For that reason, I always keep a journal,

and in it I've kept all kinds of things

that I know I would have forgotten.

This great journey was actually prompted by a sentimental notion.

Which was this. In 1966, I was a model in swinging London,

and I was modelling for Vanity Fair,

and we went across to Moscow to photograph fake fur coats.

And, gosh...

What I remember about that

was how hard it was in Moscow in those days.

We were in the grip of the Cold War,

nobody ever went there. It was so exciting.

Almost had to be smuggled into this great station.

And so this prompted the idea of a long and sentimental journey

all the way across Russia.

Last time I travelled to Moscow, I flew in

and landed through the looking glass in a completely unfamiliar world.

This time, I caught the train,

travelling on the Trans-Siberian Railway all the way from China.

This is the train that goes to Moscow from Beijing.

All I've got to do now is to find 00, which is a carriage,

and my seat, which is 29.

This journey took two whole days.

1,213 miles before we even reached the Russian border.

But when we got there, the welcome wasn't quite what we were expecting.

I've got to say, we were chancing our arms.

We'd fixed up little, tiny cameras in my cabin.

It's crazy because you're not allowed to film on Russian trains.

Why were we doing it? Anyway, we thought we would.

And of course, as soon as they spotted them,

Will, our cameraman, came in and grabbed one, pocketed it.

And I immediately tried to distance... I said,

"It's not me, er, this is what I do, I don't know anything.

Charge the crew, lock the crew up, not me."

It was actually the director's fault, and you can hear him saying:

- I don't speak Russian. - ~

_ I don't speak English. No

- This is Russia. - Yes. - Yes? Speak Russian. - I can't.

Oh, crikey, I thought, "This is gonna be it,"

but actually, in the end, I was very charming.

They were quite charming to me, too.

We got away with it. Thank you, Russia.

- Bye-bye. - Bye-bye. - Bye-bye.

On to Irkutsk, the icy heart of Siberia.

Another ten hours through stunning mountains.

So, having been quite rightly told off

for not even having basic Russian,

it was a good opportunity to brush up my conversational skills.

So, here we are, in Russia.

'Is this Moscow time? Is this local time?'

'Eto mestnoye vremya?'

I think, you know, the thing is...

Oh, it says, 'I'm lost.'

'Ya zabludilsya.'

'Zabludilas.'

'Call a doctor.'

'Vyzovite vracha.'

'There's been an accident.'

'O-sol gar-chee'

O-sol gar-chee.

Which, you see, it's too late, cos by the time I've got it out,

got to the bit, the Russian pronunciation, gone...

'O-sol gar-chee,' it's gone. Oh.

He's dead. He's dead. It's too late.

We arrived in central Siberia.

What would it be like?

Frozen, bitter, a grim, desolate plain of despair

full of exiles and political prisoners?

It turns out Siberia's rather good for shopping.

The Russian playwright Chekhov called Irkutsk the Paris of the East.

It has elegant architecture,

and, ironically, tourist shops and luxury labels

are found on Karl Marx Street.

The reason, though, I'm here is that it is also the home

of Siberia's rock 'n' roll bellringer, Artur Sariov,

who offers to show me his belfry.

Whoops.

What a view of the city!

I can't wait to hear this.

~

Fantastic!

Fantastic.

So, from the rock 'n' roll bellringer of Siberia...

It was so loud up there, and so cold and so frightening, the last steps.

Anyway, from there I wanted to go and see Lake Baikal.

This is one of the world's great, great beauties.

It's... enormous, it's one of the world's oldest lakes.

It's over a mile deep, it's 400 miles long,

it contains a fifth of the world's freshwater,

and also, if folklore is to be believed,

a kind of Loch Ness monster all of its own.

I've come to the little port of Listvyanka

to meet fisherman Sergei Veschev.

- Sergei. - Da, da, da.

- Joanna. - Nice to meet you!

He's gonna take me by boat to his remote village of Bolshie Koty,

or Big Cat, so I can experience life on these remote mountainous shores.

There are no roads into Sergei's village.

It takes several challenging hours by boat to reach there.

- ~ - Slippery.

Thank you.

Oh, Sergei, thank you. Spasibo.

Oh, thank you.

Ooh.

Taking Sergei's arm... because it's slippery.

And also because I like him.

Bolshie Koty, a village of fishermen and their families,

has a population of only 100 people.

Like rural communities around the world,

they're losing out to the bright lights of the city.

Na zdorovie.

Na zdorovie. Tost. Tost.

Russian hospitality is the order of the day.

Delicious local produce is washed down with quantities of vodka.

Not a sentence is uttered without a toast.

~

Sergei, I've just seen a great big jar over there.

What has it got in it?

Can I try it?

Just going to test it.

I can't describe the smell.

It doesn't really smell of mushrooms, does it?

~

I'm feeling wonderful.

- Za grib. - Za grib. - Za grib.

Drinking for the fungus.

Honestly, the way they edit these programmes together,

you'd think I just drank my way across a continent.

It's completely not true. Anybody who knows me, I'm very, very sort of...

A tiny sip now and then.

- Coffee? - No. - No.

Erm... Erm...

Vodka?

- No. - Small? - Small?

Small vodka.

I mean, I think that's reasonable.

Just to have a little... Oh, it's come already like that.

- That's small? - Small.

That's... This is for all the bartenders in London.

I just want to say, that is a small vodka on the train here.

This is... obviously water because we're in England.

Phew.

♪ Moscow

♪ That's all I know, Moscow

I was still 3,000 miles away from Moscow,

and my next stop was Krasnoyarsk.

♪ So today I'll take the train to Moscow

When I get there, I'm meeting a real-life oligarch.

We're all familiar with the term Russian oligarch,

but what does it mean and where do they come from?

Well, when the Soviet Union collapsed in the early '90s,

rampant capitalism filled the void.

Clever businessmen, whether by fair means or foul,

cashed in on this time of economic upheaval and chaos.

With sudden privatisation, a few men made a lot of money.

In Krasnoyarsk, in the heart of mineral-rich Siberia,

where business is booming,

one such oligarch is construction magnate Vladimir Yegorov.

Any self-respecting millionaire in Krasnoyarsk has a house by the river

in the city's most desirable residential area.

Mr Yegorov has invited me to tea.

Do you like football?

Would you like to own your own football club?

Indeed, he is no Abramovich.

And Mr Yegorov is still only a minor oligarch.

It's said that he has a personal income

of merely $30 million per year.

Look at this!

Oh, beautiful.

This was a little different from Sergei's family home at Lake Baikal.

- Joanna. - Joanna. - ~ - Thank you, Natalia.

Natalia is Mr Yegorov's wife

and mother of his youngest son, Anton.

Oh, look at this. This is fantastic.

- And this is the river? - Yes, Yenisei.

Yenisei. It's beautiful.

- This is Natalia? - ~

- She's got you on a tight chain. - Da. Da.

- Watches. - She think this is the best one.

Sorry, I just have to put that on, just for a second.

Just for a second as my arm stretches down.

Look at that. Oh, I'm so sorry, this doesn't come off.

I'll have to just go with it. I can't -- I can't get it off.

As with everything in an oligarch's world, only the best will do.

Yep, you've guessed it -- more vodka, but oligarch-style,

in a personalised bottle.

And with added bling.

Oh, my gosh, this is so I get the gold flakes.

(Look at that.)

Eta vodka.

~

How the other half, or 1%, lives.

Like a Chekhovian heroine, I'm always longing for Moscow.

And when I get there, I've got postcards to send

from a rejuvenated Red Square

and an underground nuclear bunker.

I'm on the Trans-Siberian Railway

travelling across a third of the globe, from Beijing to Moscow,

making one of THE journeys of a lifetime.

It's the stuff of dreams,

but it can get a bit cabin-fever-ish.

The hotel had this this morning -- celebrity news.

And I see, to my shock and dismay,

that 'new Bond film announced'.

And guess what? I'm not in it again.

Still, there's time for them to call me in for a little fantastic scene.

I don't want to be Moneypenny,

but maybe there'll be a scene

of some cruel and rather beautifully-dressed dowager.

I'm giving her a little twist of Russian here,

and she's quite amusing, she has great house on hillside.

She treats people badly. Why should she be nice to people?

People have not been nice to her.

Ha, here comes train.

Maybe I blow it up for fun. Just boof.

Sergei, bring the bomb.

After days of travelling, all too soon, we suddenly arrived in Moscow.

What would it be like?

Well, all I could remember from the old days is how grey it was.

Huge avenues, hand-swept into dustpan and brush,

little old babushka grannies sweeping.

Cars whipping past, regardless of who's on the road or not.

Black cars filled with Russian officials and Politburo people.

Queuing... queuing for everything.

Queuing in your restaurant, waiting for a menu,

an hour later, you make your order, an hour later, the food comes,

so we never ate in restaurants, we couldn't afford to eat,

because we hadn't the time.

And so you were in shops trying to buy something -- you had to queue,

point at what you wanted, 'That's what I want,' down it goes,

they give you a chit, you then queue again, put it there,

you get your receipt, you come back, queue again...

It took forever, and the shelves were empty. There was nothing to sell.

Oh, it was so depressing.

But this time...

It's fantastic to be back in Red Square.

With the great big red wall of the Kremlin, which I remember.

Police cars, I remember those.

They've got a winter fair here at the moment, which is rather sweet.

Fabulous Saint Basil's Cathedral. He's so beautiful.

And that, of course, is Putin's office, his home.

That's kind of Parliament in there.

Moscow has the largest number of resident billionaires in the world.

And every luxury brand is on sale here.

In 1966, there was nothing to buy.

The food was truly awful.

But there was one thing that kept me going.

This is the food area of this great store, GUM.

And here, 48 years ago,

I bought my black bread, which I absolutely adored.

I loved it so much I learned the name for it --

czernyy khleb. Czernyy -- black, khleb -- bread.

I bought it here, but I can't tell you how different it is.

Then it was just amazingly humble, you know,

simple and plain and rather scowly.

And now it's just like... Look at it, it just looks so glamorous and huge.

- Zdrastvooyte. - Erm... czernyy khleb, pozhaluysta.

~

This is it. Da.

I'm just completely happy now. Just completely happy.

In 1966, I was practically smuggled in

for my Vanity Fair shoot for fake fur.

Modelling didn't exist in Soviet Russia,

but now it's a thriving business.

Good.

Straight to me.

It's extraordinary to be sitting in on a model shoot again.

I've done millions of photographs, even when I haven't been a model,

but there's something about remembering this

that your only contact is with the photographer.

It doesn't matter who's in the room, your focus is down the barrel.

He'll give you the tiniest things --

'Head down, head slightly to the side, head there.'

Mouth open a little bit more.

At the end of it, one picture is stolen from that mass of pictures.

That's the one that goes in the magazine.

About 30 years ago, nobody had heard of Russian models,

because of course they didn't come out of the country.

Now the world is flooded with them.

Why are they so beautiful? What is it about Russian girls?

.. the families were moved from east to west, from west to east.

Yeah. Let's say, like, lots of families

- from Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania move back to Siberia... - Yeah.

.. and all this blood mixed together.

- Just beautiful. - Yeah.

That's lovely. Thank you, Olga.

Thank you.

Moscow has changed, but just dig down a little

and you'll find evidence of the Iron Curtain.

When the world hung on a nuclear knife edge,

Joseph Stalin wanted to make sure

the Soviet Union's defences were well protected.

So, in the 1950s, Stalin ordered the construction

of this extraordinary secret facility,

20 storeys below the streets of Moscow.

Hello, Joanna. I'm Harry,

general manager of Bunker 42. Come in, please.

Bunker 42, the Soviet aviation command centre

from where nuclear war could have been ignited

at the mere press of a button.

65 metres underground.

- And all this is made of metal? - Yes. It's the steel.

- Steel. - Yes. 10mm of steel.

Be careful, Joanna.

Now I'll switch on the light.

Whoa. What is...?

Here we can find our first nuclear bombs.

In USSR, made in 1949.

RDS-1.

- Is that a nuclear bomb? - Yes.

It's the first Soviet nuclear bomb.

Right up until the late '80s,

World War III could have been started with the push of a button

from this very bunker.

- What, from here? - Yes.

Oh, my God, there's like... You open a little door here.

And push.

You fired the missile.

(Pew.)

More than 2,500 military personnel used to work in these secret tunnels

with supplies to last several months, if the worst happened.

Big step.

Now I will open the door.

Come in, please.

Whoa.

This way was used every day for personnel.

It's the special secret way to Moscow Metro.

- Is this the door? - Yes, it's there.

Hermetic door.

And if we'll open it, we can see Taganskaya railway station.

- Station? - Yes.

This is Taganskaya station.

And just through doors just like this, maybe even this one,

it leads down to Bunker 42.

Can only imagine 25 years ago, people were still arriving through this.

I wonder how they just blended in.

Just probably slipped through the door, door closed behind them,

and then they just subtly moved in with the crowd.

And this station is only three stops from my black and white memory.

This is beginning to feel familiar.

Moscow is beautiful.

This time everyone was smiling,

the girls were so stylishly dressed and so pretty,

the men so confident. Everybody looked you in the eye,

nobody was glancing over their shoulder.

The food was delicious and plentiful,

the whole place was buzzing and alive,

full of energy and friendliness.

So it just goes to show that you've nothing to lose

by revisiting a place, only new experiences to gain.

Join me next time for more of my postcards from my travels.