the stories that shaped the week. this is the weekly. syria shows no sign of. methods being used and. exposed but this time getting people's minds. says would never given a fair trial. of the occupy wall street movement six month anniversary. of the leaves many western nations practice the democracy they preach.

the news continues less and. join our crew as i promised as we explore this story in russia's urals. a two hour flight east of moscow will land you in a city called pup it's one of russia's most populous is minister of 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. permis quickly make a name for itself in the contemporary art world and the generous local government grants means there's something colorful country or just colossal around almost

every corner. and right here in the center of the city you can find the highlights but it's consent real projects. that is facing on the logs making up a cyrillic letter. and this is his artistic pedigree has been furthering haunts by the new contemporary art museum it's been open since two thousand and nine and houses of the rise here of unusual and striking exhibits. among the paintings here rather from of this little sculpture. quite impressive bunch of commands that. i'm ahead of perms public art program believes that the changes are adding to the city's reputation. broom today is in the vanguard of cultural and social issues we should tax not only these particular region but 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 snowmen are all part of the city want projects designs get the people more involved in art and they've all been made. on deck or exits. by the local school kids. and freezing temperatures and no barrier to a good time and playgrounds are filled with the young and the young at heart. i believe the middle name is playing.

well i had a stroll through perms windsor wonderlands but it seems to me that there's one. very important guy still missing. well the throw says hello to below j.m. was nice to me i'm glad to see you here in perm thank you very much i've heard that you are quite an unusual thought of frost is a true yes i'm a real dyed in the wool father frost complete with a real beard. yes and like to show you some of my winter tricks that i knew brilliant. and it's clear from the beginning that live is no more than a response or. plays and juggling he loves to speak to all the frost certainly wouldn't want to be on his milton list.

so now i get to find out how my remotely is coordinated as a sixty nine year old. probably not but we'll see. his grades. blimey. will. be. keeping me here in a little help from. the frosts. plenty. in the. u.k. i didn't break it. thankful that i hadn't done any permanent damage i left left his acrobatics and headed back out into the streets it was time for a little souvenir hunting there are many things more strongly associated with

russia from the back and although you might not see too many running around the streets of pearl that doesn't mean you can't find them if you know it and look. 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 bunny and sue and here in perth make has a bit of a superstar across seas the winner of a golden george the equivalent. of a teddy bear. his designs have been cleaning up in international competitions for several years now from her postcard pairs 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 cholas the second she used to be a told me can you turn to teddy 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 and she's a pretty good teacher too so let us see his kindly offered to show me the arts of making your own. if i can get this little guy to look a little bit more cuddly. ultra quick tutorial on stuffing my first pair began to look far more healthy when i was ready for something a little more delicate. all of that was easier said than done. after no fail. and then there was the question of how to get them in the right position and here with me. and it's brutal and it's going calls because i'm promising. nine has. come quite tricky. but eventually after some minor brain surgery

we were ready for the finishing touch. and then oh boy. do you only according to the test it's only when the eyes go in that the bear actually becomes a bat so. i don't know what you think i'm going to be an oscar winner but i think it's quite lovable. i was finally ready to explore some of the perm region and i started in the southeast in the picture a city of congo back in the eighteenth century congo was considered to be the capital of the urals and it was all of the most important stops along the trade route to siberia but it was one hundred years later with the birth of bits of favorite son but it really roots to take a day. to meet alexei good can the man who became russia's most famous tea importer and. place of legal order he's going

to tell me a little bit about his life champion and though genes our colleagues are in the title of the t. capital of the russian empire thanks to the merchant can't his talent was responsible for the fact that he was no longer an exotic about bridge it was something extra civil to wall aleksey was dumped at the pioneer and discover all sorts of good games achievements transformed congo and as old as museum is devoted to his life and work it seems only right to sample his wares well in this case i think we do need to have a copy of his honor so they all go through to kill just one can and that is of course james let's go for it a bit of course. just below the main exhibition hall is a replica of a nineteenth century russian tea house burned although the brew itself became more

affordable and good can start and 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 their case they drank tea all gazing at the sugar and on top sugar was suspended from the ceiling. tea 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 some of all was also becoming more and more widespread and tea drinking part and parcel of each meal covers like this one were places to take your time in whether you were immersion striking your deal or just friends enjoying allegedly discussion or listening as they have the royal idea to me back in the nineteenth century the following couple an excellent company what more could you want.

t.v. age michael of all we know you are doing a video which is the history of leading the charge it was time to return to the present a down on the congo river far more ancient tradition was taking place. i arrived in time for the russian orthodox celebration of of. a festival commemorates jesus his baptism and dozens of people were gathering by a hole in the ice to observe the sanctifying of the waters when he. asked. to see the crowd coming in here on the mass with as many containers as they can carry because off 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 converse most famous landmarks. this is got to be the region's natural highlights i'm in the congo cave and it's the only ice cave in russia that's quit the tourist expeditions and these beautiful crystals hang from the walls all around the caves ventilation system acts like a natural freeze up meaning the ice near its entrance never forced and stomach tight and stolid mites decorated ceilings and foremost. it's amazingly beautiful but. it isn't our slip break. the cave 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 on the landscape starts to change the whole tave extends almost six kilometers underground and this should give you an idea of some of the variations of the size of the cross just this one is massive compared to the polar graphs 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. not one hundred. reaches a depth of almost sixty meters and it's here at the bottom that you find it's underground lakes and just for tonight a crowd of the faithful. so once the

basis for this here everyone can use 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 their sins from the past year. now and go the utmost respect for guys like this but. purely for health and safety reasons you understand me i'm missing my whole body in this freezing water so i think i'm going to try on a piece any lights. and i may be able to take care of hawking find something like that.

i made my way out of the cave away from. the city maybe abusive be preserved homes of the region's industrial postes but i was ready to take a trip into the countryside to a place with a mysterious. science technology innovation all the developments from around russia we've got the future coverage. we have in a place called. perhaps just another piece of poem region country saw its but

apparently you can have close encounters here with much more than just nature. bushin of area fifty one following sources eighteen encounters and unusual goings on have been reported here i wanted to see if there was anything to it. go to look for extra terrestrials around. i believe. i've got the most experience. in the business. strange things happen in the lab 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 valarie a nickel i believe they can prove what is not what it seems it's pretty tricky.

but. this part is supposed to be the most. 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. check this out this one is interesting because of the text things we can't normally see. there's a pulsing signal. joyce going around. and you got kind of like a pop pop pop pop pop pop. which gets a lot. when i move. most of the total very 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 it seemed to have evaporated there was no snow here. so i saw two squares and something looking like this. you have in which i think this was left by a u.f.o. i barely noticed the i was passing of the sun had already started to set if i was going to see something in the lead it had to happen fast. so i've encountered parallel universes energy anomalies and even lapses in time but i

still haven't found any of these pesky aliens that there 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. 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 seoul 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 mineral to 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 urge tribute to a bygone age they date back to the eighteen a.c.'s and they're the oldest standing salt factory left in russia. all of this is original equipment and this borehole 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 the next stage in the process. so was obtained by of operation and once a boiled egg from this great big basin here it would have been put up the top ready for the next batch and then it would all been transported by hand and bags like this this one was supposed to be just for the ladies and i can tell you about fifty kilos they made in those days. so

this will give you a better idea of what he looks like this one was drilled in one thousand nine hundred six i was actually under another old factory the water still flowing and nowadays people basically come and use it as some sort of tonic paris was to be very good for the skin. certainly refreshing. but times have most definitely changed. nowadays of course the salt production is a bit more sophisticated so alexander annoying like it's war of the past and so on and the world's. something a little bit dark so best to turn this on now we're going down about four hundred

twenty five meters behind me the rights to about three minutes. away from that. don't tell if. this is run the 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 would it was easy to make a different lens present on the mines where. it's believed the devil deposits of an ancient cd that flowed through this. in around two hundred fifty million years ago and they have some seriously heavy equipment to collect them. 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 a chance to put it into action right here is not a. client.

there we get you see. and once it gets going it needs to be empty pretty quickly. so our transport vehicle is coming up here to see the drilling to see. i mean the seconds. that funnel is going to come down and we should see about this tug of war. going into the back here. i just it's everywhere. here now that. does not. belong to. the north has forced their into the again. we have. big guns are loaded up on the track now.

get into position. a little deal. that if it. hurts transported to the factory or inside it. this point is mostly now put it's believed this mine contains enough salts to last another forty years and they're restoring to make sure the production continues around the clock bucks for. alexander and the boys the shift was nearly finished i can't get over this year and scale of this story and it's about twenty metres 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 just thinking about the scale of the work that must be required to fill this with all makes me tired so i think on that note it's probably time for

a well earned cuppa tea. and after the journey back to the capital perm i thought i deserved a bite to eat two. of my favorite things about travelling around us is that it gives me a chance to try out all the different local cuisines and on a chilly winter day like today it's the perfect excuse to eat something hops. you know this is a city of the moire and hops because palm is famous for its pointless i'm going to learn how to make one. how low i will still watch can we cook today i can teach you how to cook our at the cyclone to keep it better be great it was very much you know. translates as juicy points tiny supposedly to match the shore towns of daylight's their winter

favorite here in perth. ok. it's ok because you have a good time with a rolling pin. and then the contents unscrewed and in so we've got minutes chicken breasts with some with some young uns in there as well and a bit of cream that's going to make up awfully good that. once each has a generous donor up the edges the seals and crimped into a shape that reminded me of what. my west country roots hope here. used to working with the past these pieces that you see the past as you see three each one is handmade and has the reputation of being the best in the city the restaurant serves them to around fifty guests tonight. gets the best of it now frying them in lots of oil. which makes for taste better. and

those are just a couple of minutes they're ready to be plated up and served with this special sauce appropriate poem treat it with all the good things just his analysis ok so mustard a minute or. so of course the proof of the course of course if you really need to. i think i'm going to be packing on the winter insulation movies. there's no doubt that if you're visiting russia the region has a great deal to offer a thriving capital that's making an artistic statements natural highlights and an industrial center that's still going strong off to six hundred years on slave move for the end just in case.

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