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witness. hello and welcome to witness with me, razia iqbal. i'm here at the british library to guide you through another five extraordinary moments from the recent past. we will meet two people who lived in the same unique peace community in israel. the de—mining expert who accompanied princess diana on her walk across an angolan minefield, and the choir founded to help heal the divisions caused by the bosnian war in the 1990s. but first, after the collapse of the soviet union rapid market reforms in russia in early 1992 led to widespread hardship. andrei nechaev was russia's economy

minister, responsible for implementing this shock therapy. he told witness why he's proud of what he achieved. after the collapse of the ussr, russia had no state apparatus, none at all. there was no army, no customs, no central bank, no national currency, etc, etc. for thousands of bureaucrats in moscow's centralised ministries the future looks uncertain. already they're not sure who they work for, russia or a soviet union that has been declared dead. all foreign loans were frozen and we had no hard currency reserves. the country is entering a twilight zone between old and the new.

what comes next could easily be the chaos and anarchy of which mr gorbachev has repeatedly warned. on some days the total foreign reserves of our once mighty power were $25 million. million, while our foreign debt was $118 billion. we had a real threat of hunger in large cities where most food supplies were imported from abroad. across the road from my moscow home we had a large shop. on the day of my ministerial appointment, i went in after work to buy something to eat. the shop was completely bare, no bread, no meat, no sausages, no nothing.

what were our options? to wait until the economy grinds to a halt or to remove the old communist price controls. yeltsin was ready to do it, so we did it. the long haul towards a free—market economy began in january with the lifting of state controls on most prices which immediately rocketed sky—high, this in turn fuelled more inflation. over the year it amounted to more than 2,000%. of course the transition was tough, but that's normal. these boys do a brisk trade as big mac fetchers. for a small commission they will take your order and jump the line for you at mcdonald's,

earning themselves in one day as much as their parents earned in a month. yes, indeed. people went out and started to trade. it gave many a job, it allowed them, let's be frank, to keep body and soul together, and it also allowed the market to develop. it was a messy start to private enterprise, but soon streets were full of stalls and small shops, mostly dealing in imported goods at exorbitant prices. as soon as we gave people economic freedom they began to trade in consumer goods, they sold food, drink and clothes, all of that on their own initiative without central planning or command. people talk about the horrible ‘90s, about our mistakes and abuses, but i did away with consumer shortages in this country. andrei nechaev in moscow.

and next, during her lifetime, mother teresa became famous as the catholic nun who dedicated her life to caring for the destitute and dying in the slums of kolkata. she founded the missionaries of charity to look after a babies and to help the poorest of the poor. this woman was a volunteer as a young girl. it was known as one of the poorest cities in the world. you would see people who were lying in a pool of their vomit, their excretions, in filthy clothes, covered in lice. so to go and take them home and clean them, it's took a lot of kindness to do the kind of work that they did. mother teresa and her sisters

of charity live in one of the poorest slums. in addition to the traditional vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, the sisters take one of dedication to the service of the poorest of the poor. mother teresa's home was a five—minute walk from where i lived, and we saw her every morning on the way to school. we had a mother teresa's nun who came and said if you like you can come and help at the baby's home. it was quite overwhelming. they had rows and rows of little babies. we went and spent a morning helping to give the babies a bath. it was nice to hold a bottle and feed a baby and those children needed affection a lot, so the babies liked being cuddled. my sister went around with mother teresa's nuns we went and spent a morning helping

to give the babies a bath. it was nice to hold a bottle and feed a baby and those children needed affection a lot, so the babies liked being cuddled. my sister went around with mother teresa's nuns and they used to regularly visit abortion clinics and pick up live babies from abortion buckets and pails. we once saw a baby thrown into a garbage dump. i found the very authoritarian way in which the order was run not something that i would ever be able to agree with. i remember thinking that the nuns lived such an austere life. she said you should suffer

for christ and offer your suffering to god and i could not bear that because i thought we should try to fight poverty and that people don't have to suffer so much on earth. i saw mother teresa again many, many years later. she was that much older, a bit more wrinkled. my mother asked mother teresa to bless her grandchildren and my mother said to her my daughter used to come and volunteer and then she said very arrogantly, i felt at the time, that oh, yes, yes, you used to do these things when you were little, now what do you do? what do you do now?

this 40 years i've never doubted even for a second that i have done the right thing because the will of god, it was his choice. rebuilding sarajevo after the bosnian war in the 1990s was a huge task. for centuries, people of different ethnicities and religions had lived side by side, but after such a bitter civil war what could bring them back together again? one catholic franciscan monk had an idea, a multi—faith choir to unite people through music. sarajevo was destroyed. people were exhausted. sarajevo for me is a crossroad city. and bosnia generally, a meeting point of different religions. the past 24 hours have been

the worst ever it would seem, though considering what people have been through here it is very difficult to make comparisons. all people experiencing terrible suffering. that is something that touches me deeply. i lived it. so on easter i needed to sing in the church but there were no singers, so we started this idea of an interreligious choir. we started to sing first alljewish songs, it was very easy. the islamic songs were very difficult because there was a war between these two groups. people couldn't sing the songs of their enemies

because they physically felt disgust against such music. after two or three months the same people said this is beautiful. they said this is the power of music, it cleanses people. we promised in the beginning that we would in our church the first time, there were people who could not accept it. muslim spiritual songs, islam is a very strong religion, but they are so tender in voice and in music. jews are chosen people, and they feel so, and therefore

their music is full of play, they dance in front of god. for orthodox others, god, jesus christ is only resurrected, jesus is living high in heaven and when we sang the orthodox songs we are angels. and then comes catholicism. catholics feel that heaven is here on earth, in nature, in the flowers, especially in human beings. we created a name with a powerful symbolism, and it is not a latin word it is a combined word. bridge and soul — bridge among souls.

we must help people to get rid of this fixation on the past to look in front of them, to hope. the friar speaking to witness from the choir‘s uk tour with the wolf institute promoting interfaith dialogue. remember, you can watch witness every month on the bbc news channel or catch up with all our films along with more than a thousand radio programmes in our online archive. go to the website. in 1997 the world's most famous woman, diana, princess of wales called for an international ban on landmines. she was visiting angola where she caught global attention by walking through a live minefield. our witness, who then worked

for a landmine charity, accompanied her on that iconic walk. when she arrived, she was very nervous. she landed in one of the most shot up parts of the world. it was dangerous and there's this man basically saying you need to listen to me. i'm going to give you a safety briefing. these are the things that have been killing a lot of the children. and if you don't listen to all i say, you could get killed or seriously injured. which is probably not the best opening line to a princess. the princess got straight down to business, publicly endorsing the red cross campaign for a worldwide ban on landmines. it is my sincere hope that by working together in the next few days we shall focus world attention on this vital, but until now largely neglected issue. myjob was to be the programme manager for a british charity that specialised in clearing landmines

and the other detritus of war. this was probably the most famous woman in the world, so for me it was going to be an opportunity to highlight and show off the amazing work we did. i had absolutely no idea what was coming in terms of the amount of media that came off planes. i was expecting a fewjournalists. i think there was something like 90 following her around. she treaded her way along a safe corridor cleared by british de—mining teams in the former rebel stronghold. as you can see they have been working away here and they've excavated out and they've uncovered a mine. the actualfive, ten minutes we were in the minefield my mind was just in overdrive trying to make sure that, you know, i wasn't going to be the most famous

man in the world the next day for blowing up the princess of wales. the princess says the row over her support for the red cross campaign to ban anti—personnel mines is a distraction that wasn't needed. the government minister at home has said you are a loose cannon by supporting this campaign. do you have any reaction to that? i'm only trying to highlight a problem that's going on all around the world. that's all. she was caught out quite badly by that question. she was very upset, and i think she was really caught off guard by how political it became. my impression was she was genuinely there because she was wanting to make a difference,

using her celebrity to highlight a problem. the red cross is working to help the casualties still claimed each day. by the an estimated 15 million unexploded landmines that litter the country. princess diana really did engage and you could see from her facial expressions and some of the questions that she was very moved by what she was seeing. she was very engaged on the issue. within the treatment do you cope with the psychological side as well?