independence day. the arab league is giving damascus until wednesday now to stop the bloodshed. russia meantime pushing its resolution of the security council calling for both sides in syria. and russia world trade organization after almost twenty years membership expects to bring both incentives for business and investment some tough competition. programs continue next a journey through the ages as we take you to the northwest of russia what was once a powerful mediæval city state and is now a treasure trove for archaeologists enjoy. in russia's european northwest was one of the country's oldest inhabited areas. with records dating back to the midnight century this is a place with a rich history a powerful maybe evil republic it was famous for the quality of its first of its

scholarship before it was a mix to the greater russian state of the fifteenth century. the region is around six hundred kilometers from moscow and an overnight train journey i'll drop you right in the center of its capital i've arrived in the famous old city of great. but i'm not going to stay here because i've heard that this region supposed to be one of the most beautiful in russia so that's why. so this is telling me exactly the right way to go my problem is how do i get from a to b. and with lakes and dense forests making up sixty percent of the region that's not always an easy task. one thing about traveling through the novgorod wilderness is that you are likely to come across some fairly sizable obstacles including the

largest area of swamp land in northwestern russia and if i'm going to get across that i'm going to need some serious help i think these gentlemen might have just the ticket here. d.v.d.'s nice to meet you and me say they meet you guys right so we have a swamp tank so and when you're dealing with a somewhat unusual means of transport you have to take a seat where you can to body and comfort. it might get a little cold and muddy up here but there were some great views and good company and the breeze certainly keeps the mosquitoes off. we plowed forward and it wasn't long before we would deep in the swamp we were heading for some toll spires in the

distance and our tank was taking the direct approach. this current so without saying. in fact the only thing that did slow us down was a quick break to pick up some local delicacies. the journey passed quickly and before long demon was showing me around some imposing ruins dating back one hundred years. see you've picked a pretty interesting place for a weekend break here they are indeed just imagine a huge unlimited swamp the just white spot in the middle ages the lake i mean this is in the middle of this spot there's

a. considerable fee just huge building off forty meters right it's amazing to think the the monks and the nuns who lived too must have been very very into the solitudes yeah yeah they really believed that let's go up to the heavens. the monastery may have been abandoned for the best part of a century but finally some restoration work is underway and if you don't mind some rickety scaffolding the newly covered roof let you see for miles around all try taking a bird's eye view of the surroundings it was time to hop back on our chariot and head to my next destination. i. think you've come back. the only way to travel.

i've been dropped to the edge of the picturesque city of star rusa it's around a hundred kilometers from north and it's supposed to be one of the region's historical highlights i'm standing on the banks of the policed in the peru sierra rivers here and if you have to get a postcard from starry roofs it's quite likely to have this on it which is the city's main cathedral states back to the nineteenth century there have actually been churches on this site for almost nine hundred years. records to star in a recession that is one of the oldest cities in the entire country and in its medieval heyday this was a bustling regional trade center. nowadays it's much sleepier but alongside its beautiful architecture there are a few natural surprises for visitors to. now this is another famous starry roussillon barkeeps mineral water stream this pipe goes down around one

hundred eighty meters and the water is funneled up under its own natural pressure so let's see what it tastes like. well i can see why they don't bottle it because to me that pretty much resembles seawater but it's this water that's the center of the city's tourist industry. right well i find all the very drink of all for that doesn't mean that it's not useful over here at the sari rouge sanatorium it's the main ingredients in all their treatments. people have been coming here to ease their aches and pains for more than one hundred fifty years and their cure all treatment is kept right out back.

the good is this mud consists of sulfite and silt and originates from a lake that has numerous medicinal properties and we have been using it here since eight hundred thirty nine years around one point five cubic metres a day departure. but collecting all this miraculous mud is no easy task. right there to learn the technique here. to stick. down and then there's definitely an actor doing this quickly but eventually i had enough to make a delivery or here. load. of the precious mud. now each crate to their apparently holds almost four hundred kilos and they do ten of them every day. which is enough to make almost one hundred and fifty separate treatments. i think i might need one after all that.

right and once we got off. lucky people to get dirty simula don't manage to tip this over in the process. but i thought i deserved a free wallow but sadly it seems the mob treatments are reserved for paying customers so either i could shell out and then there's this story russa's most extreme remedy a very wintry mineral water through him. and twenty odd seconds of pure health giving agony oh. oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh. oh oh. oh well if that doesn't kill me it would have made me stronger. it wasn't the gentlest introduction to the areas waterways but i wasn't going to let that put me off. my next destination was supposed to be the most beautiful lake

district in the whole of the north region. one thing about getting back to nature it means that you sometimes aren't taking the best roads so going from a to b. can be a pretty long walk. unless you can find someone to maybe give you a lift so today has been working with horses all his life and he and hero regularly take visitors along the scenic route to the city of valdai one of the region's most popular tourist destinations. yes nice to know the horse is indispensable in the north got it region watching but the fact is that a motor vehicle would find it hard to clear some places in this rugged terrain but a horse can do so easily left to go left right for right back to make a stop anyway let's go. to me you know how to control him of course see if i can get here it's

a straight line and walks to the cross. in the right he wanted to the. line is bordered by huge areas of forest and if you're looking to avoid the motorways this is a great way to appreciate them and keep out of the rain. and once you arrive in valdai itself you'll find it's most famous exports are all housed under one roof nowadays if you hear a siren coming up behind you on the road in lets you know you should get out of the way things really work that different two hundred years ago in russia but back then of course they were using bells ring ring horse coming up on the roads let you know there was a v.i.p. there and most of those bells were funny faction here. and this is the largest bell museum in the country. those were made in the city until

nineteen thirty according to the curator as are all the cool stories surrounding their origins. to you since when these are some of the famous valdai fails that made their appearance here in the early nineteenth century legend has it that's our ivan the third ordered the nov go rebel to be brought to moscow but the bell never made it there it refused to leave its native no gourd region as it were it broke up as it rolled on the hills with the result that fragments of it were scattered over a large area those fragments village and says give birth to the famous valdai bells go off which you. alongside the homemade versions of souvenirs force home across the centuries from russia's european wars and rescued from churches during the soviet union and they

still sound just as clear today. this is the lawyers on the banks of lake valdai the north growed region second largest body of water and a mecca for one particular type of tourist with surroundings like these it isn't hard to see why hunting is such a popular sport in these parts and i have a little wander into the woods myself i just need to pick up a couple of extra pieces of equipment. and a little companion should never see the. fine body. and won't have to use this today unless we get in the unexpected. i think this is going to be more of a journey of discovery. and i think that. here. is going to lead us to something interesting. and as he's only

a year old that's turns out to be rather a lot of things to do to jump a load of projects. but eventually one particular sent one out and it looks like i might be doing some shooting off a role just not with mike i'm. a historian and craftsman and in this area he's never short of supplies. mixture of the modern and the ancient hunting so these are all made from the local wood here as well on the air as. such those are quite common among hunters in europe in the middle ages as a rule. or about this told or just slightly lower. it was more comfortable for hunter while he was in the woods. so i thought i'd join him in a little target practice too i can remember how to do this.

well i think that i'm probably going to be more dangerous with a gun than the bow and i. was as close as i got to a forest animal. and it wasn't long before i was ready to exchange the call of the wild some home comforts. so i didn't back any bunnies but i do have a whole cuppa and this view and i think. i think a little already and what better place to recharge my batteries than here on the edge of a lake felt i. i

shall be soon which brightened. someone from phones to question. whose friends don't on t.v. dot com. it's amazing what plenty of fresh air and a good night's sleep can do for you and after an evening on the banks of lake valdai i was ready to get moving again and my aunt your friend asked to put me in

touch with some of his fellow craftsman the no good region is full of forests and there's a thriving woodworking industry here and plenty of talented guys working in it and i'm off to see some of the best examples for a man and his father in law henrich run a successful house fronting business and almost every piece is locally sourced from the region's trees. and they do some stunning bespoke work to. put a premium on me doing this is the kind of furniture we make you know it's all handmade. we construct them out of branches that we pick up in the forest you said you would see their house front things are all handmade and put together by a team of expert competence and the occasional novice. right so my little lesson here this is what we're aiming at this is what we've got. i know i'm going to get it before.

i well at least my heart was and it. will grow decorations made with love but the environment here doesn't just play a vital part in the region's economy it's also an important scientific research site for the famous valdai hydrological institute it's safe to say that this is a very wet area of russia and over the last fifty years they've been studying the rainfall here in fact the valdai control system has become a world renowned meterological technique but a lot of that. is down to these. the cutbush is negate the effect of wind on rainfall allowing scientists like few order to collect highly accurate measurements. takes the instruments from snow being picked

up by the wind i'll show you the individual shrubs have been trimmed in such a way that all of them are two metres high they take up an area of seventy square metres. aside from the special grows the institute also takes a range of samples to measure the differences in rainfall levels and it was time for the daily rounds. so these are going to be our measuring instruments containers that we're going to change you. normally the scientists would take up to twenty different measurements but it's with the temperature plummeting close to zero i was working a bit of a rush job. to see what we've got collected from this is in here. approximately two point two millimeters in here so great scientific breakthroughs in the last twenty four hours pretty typical seasonal day by. but

it's not just rain water that's of interest to the buffets here as well as offering some pretty spectacular views lake valdai here also has a scientific claim to fame supposedly it's the second poorest lake in russia just off the lake by car and using this rather interesting device apparently i'm going to be able to see that for myself but even so it was you just. so bloody marys scientists from the hydrological institute and he's going to take me out. ok. for millions of years ago by migrating glaciers the lakes clarity various during the year and bloody mir and his colleagues are always on hand to make a note of it it's just a matter of finding the right spot. this week quite a few meters deep here. hopefully it should be a good place to take some measurements. let's do it and see how far we get so.

really keep it coming here so that is six meters. six. so we can still see our describe the boss all the way down there considering apparently the average for a normal lake is two and a half. so valdai has its well deserved reputation as the second cleanest lake in the country. but the mayor dropped me off on the shore and it was time to hit the road again i was gradually heading back towards north korea but i wasn't done with the waterways just yet. this little village that i'm passing through is called a pitch inskeep assads there's actually one of the earliest recorded inhabited places in russia they think back to the tenth century now i'm only way to the largest lake in the region lake elman but i'm looking for a bit of a shortcuts the town lies on the banks of the mistah river and it's perfect for

a more direct route assuming you can find the right transportation tolbert to where larry and the boys are experienced rafters and in the style river has some of the best whitewater in europe in russia. everything seems pretty gentle but i was warned not to get too comfortable. don't be lulled by the quiet waters this is just the cam before the storm. it's much tougher in spring when the water rises as high as the top slabs of that in the bank meant. that point the water is to be metres higher than what it is right now with the. the mistah used to be a vital supply route and a few hundred years ago the river would have been jammed with ships making their way to st petersburg apparently back in seventeen eighty five the british ambassador wants to fight the express command of the czarina catherine the great and rode the rapids here and i could hear them in the distance.

things are just starting to speed up a little bit. now the last time i did this it was winter and about twenty five degrees celsius out a little bit different today. five degrees in the water. but there are two things we're getting into the wrong people. i'm doing a little extreme sightseeing on this trip as well because just over here at. this place me one of the largest caves. you know of european russia and it's also got one of the longest underground streams as well going fourteen hundred

meters back. and along the river banks you can find fossils buried in the rock face. go rafting here and you're combining a white knuckle ronnie's with a trip back in time. so we made it illumines does around the corner. not a great little sightseeing five along the way. and i didn't even get wet. and the great lake is edged by a wild and beautiful landscape. but i'm here on the banks of the mighty lake ilm an approximately fifteen hundred square kilometers of water. and over there in the distance you can see great novgorod and i'm actually on a pathway that was originally designed to be a roadway to the capital it was bought up by catherine the great in the eighteenth

century but as you can see the builders didn't quite get it finished my trip was nearly over but i have one more highlight left on my route. of all the foot work i really feel like i've also had a journey through the history of the novgorod region and i know that around here this should be somewhere which could be the icing on the cake. and lo and behold zunes what manner of cloth is this me thinks i have found the right place. this is look beaten up and it's a picture perfect reconstruction of a tenth century slavic village. well our. people there makes law here the other has made it very good

little bits but today's bread. everything is based on archeological data from the design insulation of the building this to the lifestyles of the inhabitants right down to the games they used to play. and apparently carette key was a real favorite. say look i've got a cross between baseball and skittles here. and a good girl radke score equals respect in this village so it was important but i got the swing in a miss way early. i don't like tenth century skills. finally success and miller rewarded me with a gift fresh from the village often this bits of bread will be just enough to feed

you on the way. so i picked up some fashionably retro new clothes some supplies i'm ready to hit the road and off the road i must have had the old funny look along the way but as i entered the capital again and walked past its magnificent old kremlin my how fit felt rather appropriate but i couldn't be brown the boy off forever well i've hiked driven rafted and ridden my way around the region and i'm finally back in great novgorod it's been quite an adventure but i think it's time for me to get back to the twenty first century before i make my way home.

you're pretty smart to you tonight rescuers are working through the night in russia's far east are annoying rate with sixty seven people on board this capsized so far it's killed the. top stories of the week from us more deadly violence in the wake of the kazakhstan next fourteen striking all workers killed at an independent state capital. and also this week the arab league gives damascus until wednesday to stop the bloodshed while russia pushes its resolution of the security council to both sides in syria into. russia's welcome to the global trade club after almost twenty years of talks in a blue.