RUSSIA is scary again, or so they tell us.
During the Cold War, the Soviet Union was a closed society and seemed hostile, intimidating and unknowable. There was a brief period of relaxation after the Iron Curtain fell where it seemed as though we might all be chums, but now the old paranoia comes crowding back in. Russia is hacking elections, we say. Nato is pressing at our borders, they say. Kompromat! Crimea! Missiles in Kaliningrad! How do we cut through the noise and accusation to find the truth? I suppose we can’t. One person’s truth is simply another person’s propaganda.
So maybe we can approach Russia from a different angle, not via politics but through its people? If we see them in their homes, in their bumpy old taxis, and at family weddings, might they be more open and unguarded? Surely we can acquire some kind of insight in speaking to a local in his village rather than to a politician on a podium?
The soldier turned explorer Levison Wood tries this approach as he travels across the former Soviet Union in From Russia to Iran: Crossing the Wild Frontier (C4, Sunday).
His first few steps are bristling with classic Soviet hostility: his helicopter is initially unable to land as he is near one of Putin’s holiday homes. Forbidden to approach, they hover onwards across the jagged Caucasus mountains and are finally able to deposit him on a colourless stretch of dusty road in Russia’s far south.
This series will take us from Russia’s borderlands into the former Soviet states of Azerbaijan and Georgia, crossing through battle-scarred Chechnya and into Dagestan, an area we are told is home to Islamic terrorists, and finally onwards into Iran.
The Caucasus isn’t merely a place of dramatic scenery; it is symbolic. The mountains represent the border between Europe and Asia, and, Levison says, between democracy and dictatorship. Crossing this region should provide a massive cultural and political shock.
Once Levison is safely away from Putin’s back garden, he heads into a drab village to meet his guide, and I’m glad the series was honest enough to pair him with a knowledgeable local and didn’t try to fool us into thinking he was a gung-ho explorer setting out on his own. The region is too exotic, dangerous and unstable, and having a guide didn’t water down Levison’s bravery; it emphasised it. If you need a guide then you know you ain’t in Tenerife.
The brave pair made their way across Russia’s borderland and into Chechnya where Grozny, once the most destroyed place on Earth, has been rebuilt by Putin and is now glossy and shiny, but what resentments do the city’s new mosques, skyscrapers and glass conceal?
Throughout the journey, ordinary locals welcomed them, but officials reverted to their old Soviet stereotypes and eyed them with suspicion. Papers were demanded, cameras ordered to be shut off, and a local mayor politely but very insistently offered them a lift out of town. There is still paranoia amongst the powerful.
Levison was delighted then to learn that a traveller is able to pop into a local wedding. Custom says hospitality must be offered, and offered lavishly, so they are welcomed into a bridal party and are soon dancing – where men must imitate eagles and the women portray delicate swans – knocking back vodka, and being toasted by the family until Levison admits to feeling rather tipsy. But even through his vodka fog he is able to spot two stern looking men at the end of the crowded table. Even amidst the jolly welcome, authorities have dispatched their secret police, leftovers from the KGB, to monitor the newcomers.
So what chance is there to speak to people freely when you can’t even have a family party without the men in suits dropping by? How can we ever know the real Russia and former Soviet states? Maybe we need to step down a rung. Instead of going with Channel 4, and the inevitable fuss a foreign camera crew will cause no matter how meek, polite and law-abiding they are, maybe the answer is to look to an amateur. Maybe one local guy with a camera phone will have more success at giving us “the real Russia”, whatever that may be.
In trying to find such an elusive thing, I looked to YouTube and found a channel helpfully called “Real Russia”. It’s run by an excitable bloke called Sergey Baklykov and in hundreds of short videos he promises you an insight into “the real Russian life with no fake and no b*llshit”.
There is no politics here, no deep probing of the Soviet soul. Instead you get “real Russia”: Sergey takes you on a wander down his local high street, shows us his flat in an old Soviet tower block, shares the excitement in town when an American burger joint opens, and wanders through an icy market where old women sell honey and winter boots and tut about how things were better in the old days.
Is this “real Russia”? Sergey says it is, and he is cheerful, happy, and loves McDonalds. So shall we look to a video blogger on YouTube, a careful academic, a smooth politician, or a noisy camera crew? Where is the real Russia?
My conclusion is Russia will always be unknowable to us, so take a bit from each and accompany it with a large pinch of salt. Be entertained and fascinated but always quietly cynical.
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