RUSSIAN REVELATIONS

SIMON REEVE MARKS THE CENTENARY OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION WITH A NEW EXPLORATION…

RUSSIA WITH SIMON REEVE |BBC2 THU

Trying to summarise what Russia stands for is a mammoth task: it’s the world’s largest country, with 11 time zones and a diverse range of people. Capturing all that in three hours of TV is tough, as Simon Reeve was quick to explain to us…

“I felt trepidation,” he shares. “It’s quite a thing to travel across a country like Russia that really matters at the moment. We wanted to give a sense of its history and what it looks like. We had some late nights where we were arguing about what we should do, and how we should do it. Russia is bloody big, you know!”

Due to the Russian government’s controls on the media, Simon and his team were monitored on their travels – and they were detained by the police more than once…

“It was disappointing in some ways,” he muses. “What I love doing is going to a country that I think I know, and then seeing a completely different side to it. I was really hoping to show viewers a positive side of Russia – but then their secret police started harassing us! But of course what we went through is just a fraction of what a political activist or campaigner would get in Russia. A lot of people in Britain haven’t got a clue how lucky we are.”

That’s not to say that Simon didn’t find plenty to enjoy on his travels, though – in the first episode, he visits a mega casino on the Chinese border.

“I pitched up at this casino, and it was run by a guy from Dundee!” explains Simon. “I had a bit too much to drink so I can’t remember if I won or lost, but it was fun!”