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military. join our crew as we explore in a story. a two hour flight east of moscow will land you in a city call. it's one of russia's most populous is minister to 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. quickly make me a name for itself in the contemporary art world and the generous local governments grant means there's something colorful crunchy or just colossal around almost every

corner. and right here in the center of the city you can fill in the highlights but it's consent real projects. that is fifteen hundred logs making up a cyrillic letter. and the city's artistic pedigree has been further and honks by the new contemporary art museum it's been open since two thousand and nine and houses of the rise even usual and striking exhibits. among the paintings here are rather full of this little sculpture. quite an impressive bunch of criminals that. i'm ahead of perms public art program believes that the changes are adding to the city's reputation. through today is in the vanguard of cultural and social issues which affect not only these particular region yes also the country as

a whole piece 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 citywide projects designed to get the people more involved in arts and they've all been made fun decorate sits. by the local school kids. in freezing temperatures and no barrier to a good time and playgrounds are filled with the young and the young and hot. really doing it all moves playing.

well i had a stroll through perms winter wonderland but it seems to me that there's one. very important guy still missing. although through says hello to a low j.m. was nice to me i'm glad to see you here encourage thank you very much it always hurts 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. yet i'd like to show you some of my winter tricks would be brilliant through. and it's clear from the beginning that love is no more than a response or. ladies and gentlemen i give you love to speak to the frost i certainly wouldn't want to be on his milton list.

so now i get to find outs and my remote news coordinates it is a sixty nine year old. probably not but we'll see yeah this is great. blimey but it will. be. keeping me up here in a little help from. all the frosts. apply to me. u.k. i didn't break. 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 and the bear and although you might not see too many running around the streets of perth that doesn't mean you can't find them if you know it'd 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 running and see and hear in their makers a bit of a superstar they can seize the winner of a golden george equivalent. of the teddy barrels. of his designs have been cleaning up an international competitions for several years now from her postcard bears to her genes characters and 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 nicholas the second she used to be a toll maker who turned to teddy when a scottish friend brought us some plans to make back loading now she can put together a new furry friend in around ten hours and she's

a pretty good teacher too so i think she has kindly offered to show me the arts of making your own any pets i'm going to see. if i can get this little 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. or that was easier said than done. well after fail. and then there was the question of how to get them in the right position and how do you with your good. looks brittle that it's been called to be kind promising. nine has. come quite tricky. but eventually after some minor brain surgery

we were ready for the finishing touch on then oh boy. apparently according to the tacit it's only when the eyes go in that the bear actually becomes a bear so. they would think i'm going to be an oscar winner i think is why 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 one of the most important stops along the trade route to siberia but it was one hundred years later with the birth of gets a favorite son but it really reached its heyday. meet alexei good can the man who became russia's most famous t.v. importer and. boy alder is going to tell me

a little bit about his love for you hello genes our quantum guru earned the title of the t. capital of the russian empire thanks to the merchant aleksey group in his talent was responsible for the fact that t. was no longer an exotic about rich it was something accessible to all aleksey was dumped empty pioneer as discover all sorts of good games achievements transformed congo 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. you know what shall we do to get just printed that it is of course james let's go for it 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 incompetence 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 that case they drank tea while gazing at the sugar and want of sugar was suspended from the ceiling t. drinkers will just look at the sugar while sucking on a bottom its food their brains and to think in their tea was sweet and some of all it 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 a merchant striking a deal or just friends enjoying allegedly discussion well it seems they had the royal idea to me back in the nineteenth century for a couple an excellent company but we're going to can.

deviation of global we well you are doing you could hear your voice in the future believe me the judge it was time to return to the present but down on the congo river far more ancient tradition was taking place. i arrived in time for the russian orthodox celebration of a performing festival commemorates jesus his baptism and dozens of people were gathering by a hole in the ice to observe the sanctifying of the watch this for you. to see the crowds coming in here on mass with as many containers as they can carry because off to the water's been blessed the russian orthodox people believe that it's become incorruptible and they'll take all this force of home with them to bless themselves their families and their houses.

it was a bit of a scramble but at least for now everyone is staying dry and i headed off to watch the festivals culmination and one of converse 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 let'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 winning the ice near its entrance never force and stomach tight some style it might strike rate at ceilings and floors. it's amazingly beautiful but. it is now slick rick 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 recedes and 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 grocer this one is massive compared to the pole across the whistle 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. on. the cave 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 queues up for a quick swash 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 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 light. and i may be able to take care of hawking find something like that.

i made my way out of the cave and away from. the city maybe if you simply preserve homes with the region's industrial past but i was ready to take a trip into the countryside to a place with a mysterious. british science. markets weiner scandal. find out what's really happening to the global economy in the kinds of reports. i've been

a place. at first glance perhaps just another piece of poem region country size but apparently you can have close encounters here with much more than just nature. perms version of area fifty one flying sources alien encounters and unusual goings on have been reported here i wanted to see if there was anything to it. to look for extra terrestrials around here. if you want people to know that. 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 equivalent to the you triangle some even believe that it's a gateway to a parallel universe and larry and i believe they can prove it is not what it seems

. 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 nicholai has an instrument he thinks shows up discrepancies in the areas energy fields through the forest. i have brought a few devices with me. but check this out this one is interesting because it detects things we can't normally see. there's a pulsing signal. try scanning around. if you go kind of like a pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop. which gets a lot. on a movie. as much as 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 tears 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 looked 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 before. we 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 in the lead it had to happen fast. so i've encountered

parallel universes energy anomalies and even lot of susan time but i still haven't found any of these pesky aliens but 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 aliens or no i needed to head north under three hundred twenty kilometer drive or a switch teleportation will take it's one of the areas most populous cities and a genuine industrial powerhouse this place is called soul accounts and it may be the most important city in the whole of the 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 salt 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 boy of all ages they date back to the eighteen eighty's and then the oldest standing soap factory left in russia. all of this is original equipment and this borehole goes down to a depth of almost two hundred metres they 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 in the process. the salt was obtained by about ration and once a boiled in this great basin here it would have been put at 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 are concerned that's about fifty

kilos they made off in those days. of. now this will give you a better idea of what the poor watch looks like this one was drilled in one thousand nine hundred six and was actually under another old factory from war to still. and nowadays. and use it as some sort of tonic townies must be very good for the skin. so any refreshing. but times of most definitely changed. now a days of course salt production is a bit more sophisticated so i think longer knowing it's all of the knowledge just passed and so on in the world. a little bit dark so best to

turn this on now we're going down about four hundred twenty five meters the raj said about three minutes. away she said. don't tell. me. this is rudnick show off number four on the counter around one point three million tonnes of all from it every month. as we moved on with it was easy to make out the different leds present on the mind. it's belief that they have a deposits of an ancient cd that flowed through this me. agent around two hundred fifty million years ago and they have some seriously heavy equipment to collect on . this massive drilling machine is the softs workhorse it weighs about one hundred tons and excavates almost thirty meters down each seam every shift and i'm going to get a chance to put it into action right here as of

a. client. there we get to see. him once it gets going it needs to be emptied pretty quickly. so our transport vehicle is coming up here to the drilling the c. . and in a second. one is going to come down and we should see about the sounds of war. going on in the back here. just gets everywhere always you know you're out there. just one minute alone to. the north has forced their into again. and we have. becomes

a loaded up on the trip now. going into visit. a little deal and yet on the ticket. it's transplanted to the factory for a friday. this one is massive now put it's believed this mine contains enough salts to last another forty years and there is storerooms to make sure the production continues around the clock box for. xander and the boys the shift was nearly finished i can't get over this saw a scale of this story and 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 something 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 cup of tea. and after the journey back to the capital. thought i deserved a bite to eat to. one of my favorite things about travelling around russia 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 hot as fuck no. now this is a city off to my own heart because palm is famous for its poisonous among learn how to make them. hello oh so what can we cook today i can teach you how to. keep it better be great thanks very much. and i will.

translate as juicy pawnees tiny supposedly to much the sure sounds of daylight's their wings a favorite. ok. all right ok let's see how good i am with a rolling pin. and then the confidence is speed and 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 off of it because. once each has a generous dollar the edges a sealed and crimped into a shape that reminded me of one. of my west country roots help here. used to working with the past these are just into the past as you can see three each one is hands made and has the reputation of being the best in the city the restaurant serves them to around fifty guests a night. gets the best bit now frying them in lots of oil. for

space for suspects. and also just a couple of minutes they're ready to be placed it up and served with this special sauce a proper poem treat it the whole thing was just his analysis ok so mustard a minute or. so of course the proof of the pose acoustic you really need to. think i'm going to be packing on the winter installation movies. there's no doubts that if you're visiting russia the region has a great deal to offer a thriving capital that's making autistic statements natural highlights and an industrial center that's still going strong off to six hundred years on slave

mimico for the end though just in case.