but i look now at the main stories we're covering this hour the u.n. special envoy to syria kofi anna urges the security council to speak with one voice to support his peace mission as russia calls on western powers to press the syrian opposition to negotiate. an annual march in riga commemorating those who fought on hitless side goes condemnation from both inside the country on the board gets backing from the left in the ship. and the u.s.

identifies the soldier suspected of killing sixteen civilians in afghanistan when an afghan investigation claims he wasn't working and then. the next we're back in the unique urals as we guide you through the russian city of. but to our floyd east of moscow it will land you in a city called pub it's one of russia's most populous administrative capitals and the industrial and cultural center of the european urals. lying on the banks of the comma river it's home to almost one million people and as you take a walk around it's easy to see that this is a russian city trying to create an impression. is quickly make you name for itself in the contemporary art world and the generous local government grants means there's something colorful crunchy or just colossal

around almost every corner. and right here in the center of the city you can find the highlights of its contemporary art projects. that is facing under logs making up a cyrillic letter. and the city's autistic pedigree has been further in haunts by the new contemporary art museum it's been open since two thousand and nine and houses of the riot even usual and striking exhibits. among the paintings here are of the form of this little sculpture. quite impressive bunch of criminals that. i'm ahead of perms public art program not the least of the changes are adding to the city's reputation. broom today is in the vanguard of cultural and social issues

which affects not only these particular region that's also the country as a whole this is very important. and it's not just professional artists that are being showcased here. now these six hundred snow men are all part of a sixty one project designed to get the people more involved in all out and they've all been made fun decorate sits. by the local school kids. in freezing temperatures are no barrier to a good time and icy playgrounds are filled with the young and the young hot. hot. i believe doing it all moves playing.

well i had a stroll through perms windsor wonderlands but it seems to me that there's one. very important guy still missing. since going to follow j.m. was nice to me i'm glad to see you here in perm thank you very much it always hurts that you are quite an unusual thought from post is a true yes i'm a real dyed in the wool father frost complete with a real beard. and like to show you some of my winter tricks you've got to be brilliant subtle rule. and it's clear from the beginning that love is no one in a response that. plays in juggling he'll rush and speak to all the frost's certainly wouldn't want to be on his milton list.

so now i get so you find out my remote news coordinator does a sixty nine year old. probably not but we'll see yeah this is great. blimey. he is. keeping me here in a little help from. all the frosts so. great . me. u.k. i didn't break anything. thankful that i hadn't done any permanent damage i left level to his acrobatics and headed back out into the streets it was time for

a little souvenir hunting there aren't many things more strongly associated with russia on the back and although you might not see too many running around the streets of that doesn't mean you can't find them if you know where to go. but if you go down to one particular workshop you're sure of a big surprise. these are the sort of bears you really wouldn't mind letting him see and hear in them acres a bit of a superstar can see the winner of a golden george equivalent. of a teddy bear arms. control of his designs have been cleaning up in international competitions for several years now from her postcard bears to her jeans characters she's amassed an impressive collection of her own. some of natasha's bears a real antiques including one that's supposed to have belongs on the list the second she used to be a told me can you turn to tell us when a scottish friend brought us some plans to make their clothing now she can put

together a new furry friend in around ten hours she's a pretty good teacher too so i thought here is kindly offered to show me the odds of making your own pets we're going to see if i can as that old guy to look a little bit more cuddly. quick tutorial on stuffing my first there began to look far more healthy and i was ready for something a little more delicate. all of that was easier said than done. often fail. and then there was the question of how to get them in the right position with her. looks brutal and. it's called a kind promise. and i. can't

quite quickly. but eventually after some minor brain surgery we were ready for the finishing touch. oh boy. apparently according to the tacit it's only when the eyes go in that the bear actually becomes about so. they would think it might not be an oscar winner. but i think it's quite lovable. i was finally ready to explore some of the per region and i started in the southeast and the picture a city of congo back in the eighteenth century congo was considered to be the capital of the urals and it was one of the most important stops along the trade route to siberia but it was one hundred years later with the birth of that spirit son but it really reached a tape. needs alexei good came the moan

who became russia's most famous t.v. importer and. only the legal older is going to tell me a little bit about his love champions league how no change what our corner guru earned the title of the t. capital of the russian empire thanks to the merchant aleksey. his talent was responsible for the fact that t. was no longer an exotic about rich it was something accessible to all alex he was dubbed a t. pioneer and just cover of sorts. the pins achievements transformed and as old as museum is devoted to his life and work it seemed only right to sample his wares well in this case i think we do need to have a copy of his honor so polgar. to google just know that it is of course james let's go get a grip of course there's a quarter. just below the main exhibition hall is a replica of the nineteenth century russian tea house burned although the brew

itself became more affordable in collections time not everyone was able to have betty with all the trimmings. sugar was expensive so much so that ordinary people could not afford it. in this case they drank tea all gazing at the sugar and ample sugar was suspended from the ceiling. drinkers would just look at the sugar while sucking on the bottom it's food their brains seem to think in their tea was sweet. the sum of all it was also becoming more and more widespread and tea drinking part and parcel of each meal like this one more places to take your time and whether you were a merchant striking the appeal or just friends enjoying allegedly discussion when it seems they had the right idea to me back in the nineteenth century a fine cuppa and excellent company what you want is to cook and.

t.v. each level of what we know you are doing here which gives you a vision for leaving the jug it was time to return to the present but down on the congo river a far more ancient tradition was taking place. i arrived in time for the russian orthodox celebration of a picnic a festival commemorates jesus his baptism and dozens of people were gathering for a hole in the ice to observe the site to following up the works. but he. will see the crowd coming in here on mass with as many containers as they can carry because often the water has been blessed the russian orthodox people believe that it's become incorruptible and they'll take all this war to home with them to bless

themselves their families and their houses. it was a bit of a scramble but at least for now everyone was staying dry and i headed off to watch the festivals culmination and one of congress' most famous landmarks. this is got to be the poem region's natural high lights i'm in the congo cave and it's the only ice cave in russia that's a quick for tourist expeditions and these beautiful crystals hang from the walls all year round. the caves ventilation system acts like a natural freeze a mini ice near its entrance never thoughts and stomach tight and starwood might stick aerated ceilings and floors. and raising the beautiful but. it is no slip break. became was first

documented back in the nineteenth century and it's been a guided tourist attraction for well over a hundred years. it can be pretty cramped in places but as you move further back the ice receives from the landscape starts to change the whole cave extends almost six kilometers on the ground and this should give you an idea of some of the variations of the size of the cross so this one is massive compared to the polar cross that we saw right at the beginning and also it's much much warmer it's probably about plus two here and back at the start was around minus twelve. reaches a depth of almost sixty meters and it's here of the bottom that you find it's underground lakes and just for tonight a crowd of the faithful. so once the

this is for this to here everyone queues up for a quick splash of holy water and a blessing from the priest. and for the bravest believers that's the signal to take the plunge. freefall dips into the lake to all of the holy trinity and wash away all the sins from the past year. now i'm going to out most respects for guys like this but. purely for health and safety reasons you understand i should not be immersing my whole body in this freezing water so i think i'm going to troy an epiphany lights. so. i know maybe i'll take care of a parking fine something like that. i

made my way out of the cave and away from. the city maybe a beautifully preserved part of the region's industrial past but i was ready to take a trip into the countryside to a place with a mysterious script. well . science technology innovation all the developments from around russia we've got the future covered.

have in a place called. a first glance perhaps just another piece of poem region countrysides but apparently you can have close encounters here with much more than just nature. perms version of area fifty one following sources alien encounters and unusual goings on have been reported here but i wanted to see if there was anything to it. to look for extra terrestrials around. that. i believe. i've got the most experience. strange things happen in the lead come it's supposed to have its own equivalents of the you triangle some even believe that it's a gateway to

a parallel universe and malaria nicholai believe they can prove it is not what it seems. pretty tricky. but. this part is supposed to be the most active anomalous zone so something weird is going to happen it's very likely to happen right here. and nikolai has an instrument he thinks shows up discrepancies in the areas energy fields through the first. i have brought a few devices with me. this one is interesting because of the text things we can't normally see. there's a pulsing signal. with joyce going around. we've got kind of like a pop pop pop pop pop pop pop. which gets

a lot. when i move. as mentioned the tone will vary there is infrared radiation here it may affect the operation of appliances and even the human body when you take a photo sometimes fears appear. there is an anomaly here for sure we can hear it. there was certainly something strange afoot and the larry had yet more tales of the unexpected for me. several years ago i came across strange markings in the snow this is what they look like. snow was only here in this place and it seemed to have evaporated there was no snow here. so i saw two squares and something looking like this before. you have to move i think this was left by a u.f.o. . i barely noticed the i was passing but the sun had already started to set if i

was going to see something left i had to happen fast. so i've encountered parallel universes energy anomalies and even lots is in time but i still haven't found any of these pesky aliens said i must be some way to do it. take me to your leader. well i don't know what happened next i seem to have some strange unexplained memory loss aliens or no i needed to head north under three hundred twenty kilometer drive or a switch teleportation will take me to one of the area's most populous cities and a genuine industrial powerhouse this place is called sol accounts and it may be the most important city in the whole of the perm region they call it russia salt cellar and it's been supplying the vital minerals of the country for more than six hundred years. the city lies on the karma river and its name

translates to salts of the common it's particularly famous for its potassium chloride which is refined and sold as fertilizer and a trip through the city shows how the process has changed over time. these buildings are a tribute to a boy of all ages they take back to the eighteen a.c.'s and they're the oldest standing soul factory left in russia. all of this is original equipment and this poor hole goes down to a depth of almost two hundred meters i found the down there the salt water had a higher concentration and they would pump it out and take it to the furnace house for the next stage and process. the salt was obtained by about aeration and once a boiled egg from this great big basin here it would have been put up with salt ready for the next batch and then it would all been transported by hands and bags like this this one was supposed to be just for the ladies i can see it's about

fifty kilos they made tough in those days. so this will give you a better idea of what the poor who watch looks like this one was drilled in one thousand nine hundred sixty i was actually under another old factory for water still flowing and nowadays people come and use it as some sort of tonic peyronie's has to be very good for the skin. said the refreshing. but times of most definitely changed. days of course the souls production is a bit more sophisticated so i was on there knowing like it's all of the past in

some point in the world. something a little bit dark so as to turn this on now we're going down about four hundred twenty five meters behind me the right to take about three minutes. away facing today if i don't tell if. this is rudnick show off number four and i can say i was around one point three million tonnes of all from it every month. as we moved on wood it was easy to make out the different leds present on the minds when. it's believed that they have a deposits of an ancient cd that flowed through the. huge and around two hundred fifty million years ago and they have some seriously heavy equipment to collect them. and this massive drilling machine is the softs workhorse it weighs about one hundred tons and excavates almost thirty meters down each scene every

shift and i'm going to get the chance to put it into action right. click on the. air we get the sea. and once it gets going it needs to be emceeing pretty quickly. so our transport vehicle is coming up here to see the drilling the sea. and in a second. the is going to come down and we should see about a civil war. going on in the back here. just as everywhere you there's your mouth that. doesn't want to follow what. the north has forced there and see again.

you know we have. a comes a loaded up on the track now. to get into position. a little below. the good where it's transported to the factory for a flight. this one is massive output it's believed this mine contains enough salts to last another forty years and there are a story to make sure the production continues around the clock bucks for. xander and the boys the shift was nearly finished i can't get over this saw ease and scale of this store room it's about twenty meters high and almost two hundred meters long it's like something out of a hollywood horror movie i keep thinking that some is going to jump out at me from

the shadows but i'm just thinking about the scale of the work that must be required to fill this with or makes me tired so i think on that note it's probably time for a well earned cup of tea. after the journey back to the capital perm thought i deserved a bite to eat to. one of my favorite things about travelling around russia really gives me a chance to try out all the different local cuisines and all the chilly winter day like today it's the perfect excuse to eat something hops and. now this is a city off the my own heart because poem is famous for its haunches and i'm going to learn how to make one. zero zero zero zero sports can we cook today i can teach you how to. better be great thanks very much. and i

will. translate as juicy pawnees tiny supposedly to match the short hours of daylight there wins a favorite here in perth. ok. ok so you have a good time with a rolling pin. and then the contents is good and it so we've got minutes chicken breasts with some with some young ones in there as well and a bit of cream that's going to make up for the good. ones each has a generous dollop the edges the seals and crimped into a shape that reminded me of what. my west country roots hope they're. used to working with the past these recent gains in the past as we can see for you each one is handmade and has the reputation of being the best in the city the

restaurant serves them to around fifty guests tonight. guess the best bit now frying them in lots of oil. or space for suspects. and those are just a couple of minutes they're ready to be play set up and served with this special sauce a proper poem treat it with all the good things those good shoes and ashes ok so mustard and the nigger. of course the proof of the force of course if you really need to. think i'm going to be packing on the wings reinstallation movies. there's no doubts that if you're visiting russia the region has a great deal to wolf i'm afraid i've encountered all that's making an autistic statement natural highlights and an industrial center that's still going strong off

to six hundred years on slave move for the end though just in case.