russian poet alexander pushkin once travelled along it it was used by stage coaches . has been at the head of the district for several years during this time he's been able to restore a dozen historical landmarks. we marry from the western bank of the volga are not great in number there are only fifty or sixty thousand of us in the world. that is why we seek to stick together in order to safeguard our language culture and of course the land where we live in the midst of. the burial site is the only one of its kind in the region cattle breeders of an iranian tribe were buried here in the second millennium b.c. the time when the egyptian pyramids were built when excavation work was over scientists restored the burial place to its original appearance. there is

a hole in the world with twenty eight men between the ages of eighteen and twenty five are buried here there was also a woman and a man who was forty five to fifty years old when he was buried we think he was a blacksmith those men had died in battle arrow heads have been found and some of the skeletons in the skulls of other men were fractured with an axe in. the romas convoy suddenly stops at the edge of a swamp it's too dangerous to drive any further the traveler spend a good deal of time walking around the frozen silt when they manage to measure the swamps depth everybody realizes that attempting to cross the swamp is out of the question. we can't go any further here we'll have to look for another routes the

ice of a year off to reverse to thin and there is one and a half metres of water underneath it. however another road makes up for their misfortune it leads to what for centuries has been known locally as the fortress mountains. the maori people who lived here a long time ago used it as a hideout against intruders legend has it that the maori people were terrified of being caught by the of you forest creatures covered with hair who had chosen to settle in the mountains caves. were black haired women with enormous breasts. if they felt their breasts were a hinderance when they were on the move they slung them over their shoulders. like you were they had little contact with people. everybody was afraid of them.

these happened and long time ago. there were launch forests with tall trees. legends about to go in a muddy screeching that been handed down over the centuries by welsh mouth to mount up a trophy knows a great many ancient stories relating to the maori people. one of them tells a story of an old oak tree several generations of mari people of post and it changed for the rest. of the good it will go with the local people regard this tree as sacred it is around one thousand years old the

old healers living in this village say the oak tree used to help make women fertile and to restore the miliband oh well. there's giant of a tree is seven meters thick and more than thirty meters tall some scientists believe the amount he l. oak is russia's oldest. and medieval mary city is found several kilometers away from the ancient oak in the middle ages the maori sought protection from invaders by building their settlements in out of the way places one of them is high on the bank of the river in the garden district. natural obstacles provided protection for the inhabitants of these fortifications. you know eight hundred thirteen people came to this grove from all over the region to pray for a russian victory over napoleon people in the surrounding villages still tell the story of the maori who sacrificed twenty six horses to the gods. but.

now it's time for you have ghanian vereker mentioned off to join other worshipers at the prayer in appealing to the gods they do so to the singing of an exodus touched sacrificial animals. this is followed with a meal shared by all those taking part in the ritual giving out food from enormous pots to bring the maori people together according to their beliefs all these people get closer to the gods by eating in this way. mari people from all over have come here even those living in moscow and st petersburg. everywhere in russia try to be here for these press service. before nightfall the romans finally find what they set out for at the start of the

expedition the depression. seeing an enormous pit in the very center of a field they hold their vehicles at a safe distance from it is the people living in this village used to plough these fields and grow crops on it. but. they were awakened by loud noises. when they came here they were surprised to see a large crater in the middle of a field with some water at the bottom. scientists have found a subterranean stream beneath the depression when it erodes the top layer of the soil the ground sinks. this slope is very slippery and very steep i get scared at times i might be buried by sliding rocks a prospect i don't particularly relish ok i'm almost there now where there is no water here local people prefer not to descend into the depression because this kind

of cataclysm might happen at any time. some good at that there is much to be learned from such expeditions people think that such things are only found in faraway lands but they are much closer to home. thank. you have gainey come in chicago was pleasantly surprised just as he and his wife vera went about to head home after the service. you get a good to come here for a moment. the priests whitecap was ceremonially placed upon his head as a token of great respect. for.

those of you know i'm not able to keep a low profile far more stand on the sidelines i will have to be directly involved in the prayers of just ordinary people cherish hope that they will look to me with hope and be my words is express their sentiments in front of the sacred tree of ovation for i wish you good sales and happiness. the committee comes couple has taken a plunge into the ancient faith of the people. by coming here they have truly experienced the joy of communion. but hope it will stay with them for the whole. until the next president that will once again bring the maori people together.

any match one slate is bound. to burn for ever more eternal fire his poems think about what possible the futurists. do we old wants to see this on forever.

if you are. going to take three. or. three. three. three.

three blow video for your media project c.d.o. gondar t. dot com. they are the sights and sounds americans are all too familiar with but wait a minute i thought this war was over so why does the new budget a lot for another three billion dollars for operations in iraq looks like it might not be the dawn of a new day after all. and all austerity had no real solutions made greece a dangerous country hundreds of thousands take to the streets and protest scores of buildings set on fire and dozens of arrests as this the preload to

a greek tragedy. it is absolutely vital that we have a strong relationship with try to. well we love them we love them not the u.s. has a love hate relationship with china we love taking their money but hey watching their economy do well as vice president xi gentile pays a visit to washington we'll show you this gets a frantic nature of u.s. rhetoric. it's tuesday february fourteenth happy valentine's day it's four pm in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching r t. well president obama has unveiled the department of defense's new budget among the military splurge is it nearly three billion dollars for a war we're not we're supposedly not fighting now this is supposed to go toward what's called post operation new dawn and iraq what exactly is part of that

operation is unclear so months after the president announces the end of the war in iraq is this thing these serious beginning of something else joining me now to look deeper into this someone with some firsthand experience in the country former u.s. marine an artsy blogger jake deliberate though welcome jake nice to see you so everyone's i think you happy valentine's day so you so three billion dollars for a war that was president obama says it's over the drawdown of troops there but how does this add up. well on this valentine's day the pentagon is not feeling the love neither is the cia because what we're seeing here with this need for three billion dollars extra is basically three major things number one the cia doesn't have enough funding can continue to conduct its intelligence operations inside of iraq post war iraq the second thing is that civilian contractors are feeling

a strain on their efforts and so there's a need there's a been a big push within washington for contractors to have more money for contracts that they haven't been able to finish yet and that's what this is also going to add in the third bit of this is for military establishments that we've had there to continue to maintain and this is going on for you know since two thousand and twelve now it's a bit roughly seven years of military bases some things have stopped working showers the doors except for and they need to replace that so all of this money is comp is gone to these three major areas so that's that's what this is all about. you know now many would make the argument i know you are one of them that. that believes the u.s. is leaving iraq without a clear victory there does this suggest that there is in fact a lot more work to be done there. yeah i mean this is this is this is one of the

major problems i mean we did not a we were not able to finish the task off inside of iraq as the bush administration had planned the obama administration wisely understood that that the problem was way too deep for us to be able to fix and so he said ok it's time for us to cut our losses see that we have made some progress and then pull the troops back and leave the rest of it in iraqi hands. this last bit here is for the u.s. to basically been able to keep it on and make sure that iranian influence is can't take over the government and also to make sure that iraq doesn't implode again in civil war so that's why there is this three billion no small is no chump change to two needed to help out the remainder part of it now and again this iraq was not a military or political success for the united states we are still thinking to

see the consequences of the choice to invade for some years to come and with the billions being funneled into iraq what does that suggest about u.s. involvement there does that mean that the u.s. is not ready to lean. yeah i mean i don't think the green zone i mean the us doesn't build a an embassy the size of the vatican city in the middle of baghdad to simply let it go i mean we're going to be there for a long time we do have combat troops out of there but that doesn't mean that intelligence assets and civilian contractors they're all going to be there for some time to come and what they're going to be doing exactly we don't quite know yet going to depend what the iraqis do with their own country if iraq we get become stable and if it does trade well with the u.s. and the does export of oil and it does do all those things then of course the u.s. will basically take and all of those things don't hound appen intelligence assets and civilian contractors will could be an asset for the u.s.

to influence the government to make sure that they do that how much do you if you had to make a prediction how much longer do you think the u.s. is going to maintain some kind of presence there and to continue to allocate money to iraq for the rest of our lives the u.s. will be in iraq for the rest of our lives there is no doubt about it. and take you know if the u.s. isn't ready to leave and from what you're saying we are far from from leaving the country what does that mean for president obama who is touting the end of the war and iraq as a campaign promise fulfilled. well i mean i'm not haven't been supportive of barack obama since the third day he was in office i mean i don't i do not think that president obama has been a very good president whatsoever but i do give them credence that he did whole combat troops out of iraq that much to be said he polled the troops out of iraq and he should be saluted for that i whatever i don't think that he can count iraq as

a success or afghanistan or the killing of these people and all over the world the drone strikes me these have not been successes i think the obama presidency has so thus far has been a failure but we'll see what happens if he wins his second term now this is called operation po-r. post operation new dawn but this report it doesn't really go into much detail on to what exactly this entails how do you expect or suspect these five instead be used exactly. well the way the contracting process goes it you know there are people are there going to bid for contracts that are put out there by the department of defense and and based on the last q.t.r. we know that it's going to go based on services provided not on necessity not on quality but based on who does the most amount of stuff so it's probably going to go to your albertan k.b.r. and triple canopy for the variety of different security services and the other

money not to do things don't notice but left the army to go to the cia and try it and leon panetta are basically in cahoots with want to see your going to see the secretary to france and. the director of the central intelligence agency collaborate on funds to accomplish intelligence needs and the defense intelligence agency will also be getting some of this money to increase its assets there so it's going to be a variety of different civilian contractors and intelligence assets going inside of iraq to do a variety of tasks that. you so far as the director of cia and the would he want him to be and now this is coming at a time as there is a lot of pressure on congress to cut down on spending and defense spending is one area that has come under a lot of scrutiny i mean is this a sign that maybe defense spending might not be where much of the cuts are going to

be made. well i think we would we would all be foolish to think that the pentagon budget is going to be cut dramatically it has been cut that much i don't but i would say this that. we should know that the only way to get funding passed within the within the congress is through the department of defense it's easy to get votes for increased money for the department of defense and this is why it's the only way the cia could get money was to get it passed through the d.o.d. and then money gets indirectly funds sent to the cia as a result of that so. there will be fairly little cuts for the d.o.d. in the near term future and there will be fairly little cuts then to other assets for the u.s. to be able to influence you know iraq and afghanistan everywhere else and lastly jake just want to ask you what do you say to those that that say this sudden pull out and total stop the you know ceasing to spend any money on iraq is not really

feasible that it should be more of this gradual process to make it more of a smooth the most trance transition possible well i just have to ask them look at the last hundred years of american history and ask how smooth any transition has gone as and has never been smooth and easy no matter how delicate it was we haven't tried just pulling out yet fact the one place we did was vietnam and that. turned out pretty well for us because vietnam's bennet is not a place i want to live but it's relatively stable and it's as i'm been a threat to the united states so we ought to really think about that as as an option to pull out and be smart about. pleasure to have you on the show as always that was former u.s. marine at r.t. blogger killed there. well we turn now to the crisis in the euro zone and the chaos and suing in greece as citizens protest austerity measures there

the debt ridden e.u. has suffered another blow from ratings agencies moody's has downgraded the debt ratings of six states including vulnerable portugal italy and spain and it comes as the bloc struggles to prevent greece from default by offering bailouts in return for more austerity but as artie's jacob greaves reports more and more greeks feel the measures will only make things worse. a system under siege m.p.'s drowned out the pleas of tens of thousands of demonstrators amassed within earshot passing another round of unpopular cuts. the results proved incendiary. that uganda protests turned violent as protesters including fringe and kissed clashed with police again leaving their mark on athens. the day all this is the remnants of public anger big losses and the only thing that's been

broken as governments past increasingly unpopular austerity cuts will be left asking who can they trust serve their interests to the measures are very very tough part of the poor people especially and this is the reason that they feel. today i think more measures have been taken and they're it's not going to work in the end they'll be another bill here clearly bad and. oh i hope for the best but i don't see it coming. under pressure from brussels berlin and the international monetary fund the greek government has cut more jobs to slash funding for the nation's pensions a minimum wage but current policy appears to mainly expose those most vulnerable to crisis conditions it's a mindset some feel is doomed to fail and they already have destroyed the whole generation of young people and their dreams they will destroy the structure of the

sabian the infrastructure of the whole country we know that it is impossible to repay this debt that we have now signs that these illegal or old those bad we cannot continue like that because the ball is in the big government is following actually increases the day yeah instead of finding a solution at the heart of activists claims is there are certain that they've noticed there. he for the best part of five years now and the time taxes have risen incomes have full of the country's deficit only seems to grow. by an increasing number despite that the governor warns will follow. even more. that. is that the default is going to be very tough for us but there's going to be.

the now relative has returned to the streets of athens. buildings have been. the song of the way for the simmering discontent hasn't been forced medicine appears to bring nothing but pain many are continuing their call for terms of treatment greece. also had an r t you could call it an on again off again relationship american politicians shared now how to talk tough when it comes to china but they are but are they. make up where they need money. nature of this relationship that.

mr. gerard is right right right. it's like a derivative of actual pepper it's a food product essentially. because this is much stronger than anything if you buy a lot of the lose lose thousands of times we're stronger than any one of the ever put.

it we just put a picture of me when i was like nine years old so if you told the truth. i think i am a total get of friends that i was. interested. he was kind of a yesterday. i'm very proud of the. it's place. what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through it's already been made who can you trust no one. is you view it with a global missionary see where we had a state controlled capitalism is called sasha's when nobody dares to

ask we do our t. question more. people calling like you said for free and fair elections. and they're still reporting from the soap. as you can hear behind me loud explosions. i got it gave. a. well it's a meeting of the minds here in washington.