Russia on Four Wheels

Episode 1

Episode 1

Anita and Justin begin their journeys in Sochi, the Black Sea resort home to the 2014 Winter Olympics. Full of futuristic architecture, this is new Russia's glittering showcase to the world, but just round the corner from the glitzy stadiums is Joseph Stalin's old dacha, a reminder that in Russia the old and the new are often very close. Anita is out to discover 'new' Russia. She travels north and west from Sochi in a Kombat, a Russian built luxury armoured plated bling machine. She enters a thriving world of westernised entrepreneurs, the mega-rich and rebellious youth, people who are at the forefront of shaping a new and vibrant Russia. Meanwhile Justin heads east into 'old' Russia where he encounters a very different world in his chosen vehicle: a slightly battered Soviet-built UAZ 'jeep' first designed in the 1940s for the Red Army. He meets traditional Russians and encounters a land that seems hardly to have changed since before the Cold War years.