Russia

Jonathan Dimbleby travels roughly 10,000 miles across Russia, from Murmansk in the Arctic west to Vladivostok on the Pacific, meeting people whose lives reveal the scale and contradictions of the post-Soviet state. His route passes through major cities, industrial settlements, forests, religious communities and remote regions, combining travel writing with interviews and observations of everyday life.

The journey explores a country still shaped by imperial and Soviet history while adapting to new wealth, inequality, nationalism and increasingly authoritarian government. War veterans, entrepreneurs, migrant workers, journalists and local officials provide contrasting views of Russia under Vladimir Putin. The result is a contemporary portrait rather than a conventional history, concerned with how the past remains visible in modern Russian identity and politics.