0 00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:04,000 Downloaded From www.AllSubs.org 1 00:00:03,703 --> 00:00:08,470 I'm continuing my quest to discover 80 of the world's greatest man-made treasures. 2 00:00:10,510 --> 00:00:11,977 I'm on Europe's doorstep, 3 00:00:12,145 --> 00:00:16,946 where East meets West in a glorious explosion of cultures and religions. 4 00:00:19,185 --> 00:00:23,121 My treasures lie underground, or concealed in busy cities. 5 00:00:23,490 --> 00:00:25,082 They come from man's efforts to create, 6 00:00:25,258 --> 00:00:28,489 for better or worse, an ideal world. 7 00:00:51,551 --> 00:00:54,520 Over the last four months I've explored the Americas, 8 00:00:54,687 --> 00:00:58,646 Australia, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. 9 00:00:58,892 --> 00:01:02,350 Now from Egypt I'm about to arrive in Turkey. 10 00:01:22,615 --> 00:01:24,105 I'm floating above Turkey - 11 00:01:24,284 --> 00:01:27,117 - above a fantastical landscape, 12 00:01:27,287 --> 00:01:34,853 a fairy landscape - in which these strange fairy-like chimneys are erupting from the land. 13 00:01:35,462 --> 00:01:39,990 People have burrowed into them, inhabited them as they have the landscape, 14 00:01:40,166 --> 00:01:45,934 the rock itself below these strange great rocky outcrops. 15 00:01:46,306 --> 00:01:51,471 This is a fantastic example of man working creatively with nature. 16 00:01:56,082 --> 00:02:01,679 For thousands of years, this region, called Cappadocia, was no-man's land, 17 00:02:01,921 --> 00:02:04,219 where rival empires clashed. 18 00:02:04,390 --> 00:02:09,327 It's a land of trouble, a battleground for warring factions. 19 00:02:23,743 --> 00:02:24,710 Over the centuries, 20 00:02:24,878 --> 00:02:27,176 people fleeing war and persecution 21 00:02:27,347 --> 00:02:31,078 found sanctuary in this labyrinthine landscape 22 00:02:32,051 --> 00:02:34,918 formed by volcanoes millions of years ago. 23 00:02:39,559 --> 00:02:43,154 My treasure lies beneath my feet, deep underground. 24 00:02:44,430 --> 00:02:47,422 It was the last refuge of the frightened and terrified. 25 00:02:47,600 --> 00:02:54,233 At moments in history, a subterranean safe haven for up to 30,000 people. 26 00:03:17,063 --> 00:03:18,758 This place is - enormous. 27 00:03:18,932 --> 00:03:20,763 It goes on and on. 28 00:03:21,768 --> 00:03:23,827 Different levels, twists and turns, 29 00:03:24,003 --> 00:03:24,560 different staircases. 30 00:03:24,737 --> 00:03:26,034 It's a labyrinth. 31 00:03:26,339 --> 00:03:28,000 But I suppose that's the point. 32 00:03:28,308 --> 00:03:30,276 It's a defence. 33 00:03:31,010 --> 00:03:34,104 Any attacker would be frightfully confused. 34 00:03:39,319 --> 00:03:43,153 Imagine it teeming with men, women, children 35 00:03:43,323 --> 00:03:44,255 and animals, 36 00:03:44,424 --> 00:03:47,018 and nothing but oil lamps for light. 37 00:03:48,861 --> 00:03:54,561 It's like being a termite in a termite mound. 38 00:03:55,435 --> 00:04:00,668 These - are clearly houses, people's homes, 39 00:04:00,940 --> 00:04:06,071 because there are - bed alcoves. 40 00:04:07,513 --> 00:04:12,177 Some say all this was started by the Hittites 41 00:04:12,352 --> 00:04:15,185 three and a half, four thousand years ago. 42 00:04:17,690 --> 00:04:20,557 The Hittites were an ancient and powerful civilisation 43 00:04:20,727 --> 00:04:22,661 at war with the Egyptians. 44 00:04:23,029 --> 00:04:25,657 But they would only have been the first inhabitants. 45 00:04:26,199 --> 00:04:27,598 Fifteen hundred years later 46 00:04:27,767 --> 00:04:30,668 it's thought Christians sought refuge here. 47 00:04:37,477 --> 00:04:41,106 You can imagine the congregation sheltering here, 48 00:04:41,281 --> 00:04:45,615 perhaps from Roman persecutions in the second century AD. 49 00:04:45,785 --> 00:04:49,551 And this is the sort of rock-cut secret space 50 00:04:49,922 --> 00:04:52,516 that forms the early Christian church. 51 00:04:52,925 --> 00:04:56,622 The great church has come - from grottoes like this. 52 00:04:57,597 --> 00:05:01,795 And here - amazing evidence, look. There's a cross. 53 00:05:02,068 --> 00:05:04,764 Here's a cross cut into this recess. 54 00:05:05,772 --> 00:05:09,333 So it clearly has been a church at some time. 55 00:05:16,282 --> 00:05:17,977 Although it feels unplanned, 56 00:05:18,151 --> 00:05:22,178 slowly you realise how well organised it is. 57 00:05:23,556 --> 00:05:28,584 Ah. This was the wine store, or one of them. 58 00:05:29,195 --> 00:05:32,722 I suppose great flagons of the precious liquid 59 00:05:34,200 --> 00:05:36,725 were placed in these recesses. 60 00:05:36,903 --> 00:05:43,103 And this surely was a bar. 61 00:05:45,778 --> 00:05:50,772 Feels like it. Excellent. Amazing. Now - 62 00:05:52,018 --> 00:05:53,849 - ah, now this is what I've been looking for. 63 00:05:54,687 --> 00:05:55,847 Fascinating. 64 00:05:56,089 --> 00:05:59,650 Defence in depth. A great - stone wheel. 65 00:05:59,826 --> 00:06:04,126 That could with not too much difficulty, a couple of people perhaps, 66 00:06:04,297 --> 00:06:09,098 be pushed or rolled down to block the door. 67 00:06:09,669 --> 00:06:13,400 And here is a ramp going to the outside world. 68 00:06:20,913 --> 00:06:25,350 Good Lord, what a huge shaft. 69 00:06:25,618 --> 00:06:28,052 So far down I can't see the bottom. 70 00:06:28,221 --> 00:06:31,486 And so far up - I can't see the top. 71 00:06:32,358 --> 00:06:34,826 It's a ventilation shaft of course. 72 00:06:35,061 --> 00:06:37,859 Getting air into this - place, fresh air, 73 00:06:38,030 --> 00:06:42,023 and the stale air out was a immense problem, 74 00:06:42,201 --> 00:06:44,931 and of course good ventilation 75 00:06:45,104 --> 00:06:48,938 is the secret for the success of this as a refuge. 76 00:06:59,952 --> 00:07:02,386 This must have been a very grim place 77 00:07:02,555 --> 00:07:05,115 in which to live for any length of time. 78 00:07:05,291 --> 00:07:09,591 The smell, the darkness, the noise. 79 00:07:09,796 --> 00:07:17,726 But it's also a monument to man's ability to creatively manipulate nature, 80 00:07:17,904 --> 00:07:19,667 manipulate the landscape. 81 00:07:20,306 --> 00:07:28,077 But it is very strange. And erm, I suppose one would get used to it, would feel safe. 82 00:07:28,247 --> 00:07:32,377 But no, it would have been very difficult to be here. 83 00:07:57,643 --> 00:07:58,701 I need a haircut, 84 00:07:58,878 --> 00:08:01,574 and in town I hear of a man who cuts hair. 85 00:08:01,747 --> 00:08:04,341 He sounds like a barber, but he's not. 86 00:08:04,517 --> 00:08:06,109 He collects the stuff. 87 00:08:06,285 --> 00:08:07,843 I must investigate. 88 00:08:09,188 --> 00:08:12,021 Big scissors up there, a promising sign. 89 00:08:13,192 --> 00:08:15,285 - How do you do? Hair. - Hair. 90 00:08:15,461 --> 00:08:16,655 Hair. My hair? 91 00:08:17,029 --> 00:08:19,827 - Only ladies' hair. - Just ladies' hair. 92 00:08:19,999 --> 00:08:20,658 Just ladies. 93 00:08:20,833 --> 00:08:23,768 Why - why do you erm, silly question perhaps, 94 00:08:23,936 --> 00:08:25,528 why do you collect ladies' hair. 95 00:08:25,705 --> 00:08:27,366 - Why not? - No, why not? 96 00:08:27,540 --> 00:08:28,939 That's a perfectly good answer. 97 00:08:29,242 --> 00:08:32,769 You just have a thing about ladies' hair. So do I actually. 98 00:08:35,915 --> 00:08:37,712 You've got - you've got to volunteer to be - 99 00:08:37,984 --> 00:08:39,975 this is absolutely appalling - I mean, absolutely wonderful. 100 00:08:40,152 --> 00:08:42,313 Every piece of hair has a label on it. 101 00:08:49,762 --> 00:08:51,992 I haven't met so many women in the world actually. 102 00:08:52,732 --> 00:08:53,721 No, look. 103 00:08:54,267 --> 00:08:55,427 They're everywhere. 104 00:08:59,705 --> 00:09:01,866 They all seem to be blonde, and you're both blonde. 105 00:09:02,642 --> 00:09:04,234 This is even more peculiar. 106 00:09:05,378 --> 00:09:07,243 So no, no chaps, no men's hair at all. 107 00:09:07,413 --> 00:09:09,313 No, that - that would break the spell. 108 00:09:18,157 --> 00:09:19,624 I head north to Istanbul, 109 00:09:19,792 --> 00:09:21,453 the capital of modern Turkey, 110 00:09:21,627 --> 00:09:24,892 but once heart of the great empire of Byzantium. 111 00:09:33,539 --> 00:09:36,099 I'm crossing the Bosphorus at Istanbul, 112 00:09:36,275 --> 00:09:41,736 crossing from - Asia, over there on my left - to Europe. 113 00:09:42,248 --> 00:09:45,217 Always an historic and a emotional moment, 114 00:09:45,384 --> 00:09:47,909 this leaping from one world to the other, 115 00:09:48,087 --> 00:09:50,385 but particularly so now for me, 116 00:09:50,556 --> 00:09:55,323 because it means I'm coming - to the end of my epic around-the-world journey. 117 00:09:55,828 --> 00:09:58,695 I'm entering - familiar territory. 118 00:09:59,031 --> 00:10:00,430 I'm nearing home. 119 00:10:09,208 --> 00:10:12,541 When I land I'm going to see one of the greatest buildings in the world, 120 00:10:12,712 --> 00:10:17,240 a building that had a huge influence on Western architecture. 121 00:10:21,454 --> 00:10:22,478 Thank you. 122 00:10:31,163 --> 00:10:34,826 Istanbul still feels like a city where two worlds meet, 123 00:10:35,267 --> 00:10:38,600 the Christian world and the Islamic world. 124 00:10:40,272 --> 00:10:41,933 At its heart is my treasure - 125 00:10:42,108 --> 00:10:44,599 once a church, then a mosque. 126 00:10:52,818 --> 00:10:55,116 Hagia Sophia was built my the emperor Justinian 127 00:10:55,287 --> 00:10:57,255 in the 6th century AD. 128 00:10:58,024 --> 00:11:01,653 When completed, it was the greatest church in the world. 129 00:11:25,284 --> 00:11:28,117 What an astonishing space. 130 00:11:28,421 --> 00:11:34,155 When - Justinian walked in here in 537, 131 00:11:34,460 --> 00:11:35,859 after nearly six years of construction, 132 00:11:36,028 --> 00:11:39,555 he stood - probably - about here, 133 00:11:40,199 --> 00:11:45,569 and said, 'oh, Solomon, I have surpassed thee.' 134 00:11:45,738 --> 00:11:46,466 An incredible statement, 135 00:11:46,639 --> 00:11:50,507 referring of course - to Solomon's temple, 136 00:11:50,743 --> 00:11:59,310 the great temple that had inspired so many churches around the word. 137 00:12:00,786 --> 00:12:06,315 And I must say - Justinian had a point. 138 00:12:06,726 --> 00:12:15,361 This is - remains - one of the greatest sacred places ever. 139 00:12:41,160 --> 00:12:44,459 The name Hagia Sophia means divine wisdom. 140 00:12:44,630 --> 00:12:51,365 And here divine wisdom is made manifest - through elegant scientific construction, 141 00:12:51,537 --> 00:12:58,943 a construction that reveals the forces of nature, the power of god's creation. 142 00:13:00,012 --> 00:13:06,349 And in particular, the manifestation here is revealed through this mighty dome that sits, 143 00:13:06,519 --> 00:13:11,013 appears to float above the space in which I'm standing. 144 00:13:11,390 --> 00:13:13,324 This is how it works. 145 00:13:13,492 --> 00:13:20,455 It's supported by a series of half domes and rises off great masonry piers, 146 00:13:20,633 --> 00:13:22,726 almost concealed in the structure. 147 00:13:22,935 --> 00:13:27,395 So the outward thrust of the dome, the horizontal lateral thrust, is - 148 00:13:27,573 --> 00:13:30,906 - countered by an almost equal thrust - 149 00:13:31,076 --> 00:13:35,672 - from this series of half domes and quarter domes below. 150 00:13:51,630 --> 00:13:55,361 I'm on a gallery immediately below the dome, 151 00:13:55,534 --> 00:14:01,530 and right down there is the er - the area where emperors were crowned. 152 00:14:01,774 --> 00:14:03,332 A long way down indeed. 153 00:14:03,542 --> 00:14:05,737 It's very, very exhilarating being up here. 154 00:14:06,178 --> 00:14:10,581 You see the gallery doesn't feel that it'll take my weight if I toppled against it. 155 00:14:18,757 --> 00:14:24,024 This became a great prototype, a pioneering construction - 156 00:14:24,196 --> 00:14:27,256 - the first time a church had a great dome, 157 00:14:27,433 --> 00:14:28,832 a symbol - of the heavens. 158 00:14:29,001 --> 00:14:30,992 But after this, every great church, 159 00:14:31,170 --> 00:14:33,764 every great cathedral, had to have a dome. 160 00:14:33,939 --> 00:14:35,338 The Duomo in Florence, 161 00:14:35,507 --> 00:14:36,769 St Peter's in Rome, 162 00:14:36,942 --> 00:14:40,537 and of course St Paul's in London. 163 00:14:46,418 --> 00:14:49,319 With the rise of the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century, 164 00:14:49,488 --> 00:14:51,456 Aya Sophia became a mosque. 165 00:14:52,324 --> 00:14:53,791 Today it's a secular space, 166 00:14:53,959 --> 00:14:57,656 with sacred meaning to both Christians and Muslims. 167 00:15:02,134 --> 00:15:02,793 Good evening. 168 00:15:02,968 --> 00:15:05,732 - How do you do? Hello. - Hello. Welcome. 169 00:15:05,905 --> 00:15:07,304 How do you do? 170 00:15:08,007 --> 00:15:11,135 I want to - I've been travelling round the world for four months. 171 00:15:11,310 --> 00:15:12,800 I want a little bit of a haircut. 172 00:15:13,145 --> 00:15:14,077 Please, please. 173 00:15:14,246 --> 00:15:14,803 Wash. 174 00:15:14,980 --> 00:15:16,345 Wash. Okay, wash. 175 00:15:16,882 --> 00:15:18,645 Gentle massage, oh dear. 176 00:15:23,656 --> 00:15:24,520 Oh my god. 177 00:15:41,140 --> 00:15:42,573 Oh my god, what's happening? 178 00:15:43,309 --> 00:15:44,401 Don't worry, sir. 179 00:15:45,577 --> 00:15:47,238 Ow. Ow! 180 00:15:47,913 --> 00:15:53,647 My ear's burnt. The smell of the burning flesh. 181 00:15:57,656 --> 00:15:59,214 Sorry, who asked for this? 182 00:16:08,167 --> 00:16:09,031 Good night. 183 00:16:09,301 --> 00:16:10,563 - A pleasure. - Thank you. 184 00:16:13,839 --> 00:16:15,067 Good evening. 185 00:16:17,242 --> 00:16:20,405 Brain, lamb's brain. Absolutely. Maybe a couple. 186 00:16:26,285 --> 00:16:32,622 Mm, reminds me of the testicles I had outside Petra. 187 00:16:33,792 --> 00:16:34,952 Bit better actually. 188 00:16:36,528 --> 00:16:38,860 Definitely a bit better than testicles. 189 00:16:39,031 --> 00:16:43,968 Ah. Though testicles are very good. 190 00:16:47,806 --> 00:16:51,071 From Istanbul I fly to Russia. 191 00:16:59,818 --> 00:17:03,049 I haven't been here since this was the Soviet Union. 192 00:17:03,555 --> 00:17:08,788 Advertising neon-adorned walls once boasting Communist slogans. 193 00:17:16,902 --> 00:17:19,530 But Red Square remains what it always has been, 194 00:17:19,705 --> 00:17:25,007 a glorious testament to Russia's might and totalitarian history. 195 00:17:38,290 --> 00:17:40,417 And this is where I'm heading. 196 00:17:42,327 --> 00:17:44,795 My treasure is - experienced, 197 00:17:44,963 --> 00:17:49,491 enjoyed by over seven million people a day. 198 00:17:53,472 --> 00:17:59,502 It's a world within a world, and I'm already in it. 199 00:18:04,917 --> 00:18:05,975 Hello. 200 00:18:06,285 --> 00:18:07,650 Er, one ticket... 201 00:18:08,654 --> 00:18:10,747 This is the Moscow metro, 202 00:18:10,923 --> 00:18:14,324 the greatest underground railway in the world. 203 00:18:14,760 --> 00:18:16,955 Construction began in 1931, 204 00:18:17,129 --> 00:18:19,222 and the intention was simple: 205 00:18:19,398 --> 00:18:22,799 to show the world that Soviet technical and artistic excellence 206 00:18:22,968 --> 00:18:25,300 was better than anywhere else. 207 00:18:25,704 --> 00:18:29,299 We're only being allowed down here to film with a guide - 208 00:18:29,475 --> 00:18:32,842 - a charming woman with a lovely red hat. 209 00:18:36,315 --> 00:18:39,648 And now I arrive at this great classical hall, 210 00:18:39,818 --> 00:18:41,718 like a palace ballroom. 211 00:18:42,187 --> 00:18:47,625 Barrel vault, chandeliers, mosaics on the wall - 212 00:18:47,860 --> 00:18:50,658 - and rich and inventive classical detail. 213 00:18:58,971 --> 00:19:01,906 This is the great Komsomolskaya Station. 214 00:19:02,107 --> 00:19:04,473 It sits at the very heart of the network. 215 00:19:08,714 --> 00:19:10,875 You may think that this opulence is associated - 216 00:19:11,049 --> 00:19:15,145 - with the Tsarist times and with at least palace life. 217 00:19:15,320 --> 00:19:16,844 But that is the one thing the Soviet authorities 218 00:19:17,022 --> 00:19:19,149 would have rejected in 1931 219 00:19:19,324 --> 00:19:21,315 when the decision was made to build the metro. 220 00:19:21,493 --> 00:19:23,222 But things were more sophisticated than that. 221 00:19:23,395 --> 00:19:28,628 It was recognised this great palatial decoration had great meaning for ordinary people. 222 00:19:28,800 --> 00:19:30,392 It would enrich their lives, 223 00:19:30,569 --> 00:19:33,197 would make travel through the city a pleasure. 224 00:19:33,372 --> 00:19:35,602 And - within this architecture 225 00:19:35,774 --> 00:19:41,110 is embedded various significant images and symbols about the Soviet triumph. 226 00:19:41,280 --> 00:19:44,477 It really is a very, very - clever piece of work, 227 00:19:44,650 --> 00:19:49,644 presided over and given meaning and pedigree by the great man himself - 228 00:19:49,821 --> 00:19:50,685 Lenin. 229 00:19:54,193 --> 00:19:56,457 This station is only one of the many lavish 230 00:19:56,628 --> 00:19:59,392 and themed stations on the Moscow metro. 231 00:20:00,632 --> 00:20:02,293 One need only pop onto a train 232 00:20:02,467 --> 00:20:04,697 to discover new wonders. 233 00:20:15,981 --> 00:20:17,312 At Mayakovsky Station 234 00:20:17,583 --> 00:20:23,317 you really get the idea of the metro system as an idealised underground city, 235 00:20:23,555 --> 00:20:25,147 clean and beautiful, 236 00:20:25,324 --> 00:20:29,590 because in the vaults above my head are these - mosaics. 237 00:20:29,761 --> 00:20:32,753 Here, your window into the world above. 238 00:20:33,031 --> 00:20:40,062 A worm's eye view of the city. It shows sky, planes and bits of buildings. 239 00:20:40,239 --> 00:20:45,142 I really do feel - I'm walking below the real, 240 00:20:45,310 --> 00:20:48,507 dangerous and rather ugly world above. 241 00:20:51,016 --> 00:20:53,610 Within only 25 years of being commissioned, 242 00:20:53,785 --> 00:20:57,312 the Moscow metro had 41 miles of track, 243 00:20:58,624 --> 00:20:59,886 and 45 stations, 244 00:21:00,058 --> 00:21:02,151 employing only Russian materials, 245 00:21:02,327 --> 00:21:04,454 designers and engineers. 246 00:21:07,165 --> 00:21:10,191 This is Revolution Square, and er, 247 00:21:11,570 --> 00:21:16,598 here is an amazing figure commemorating the October Revolution, 248 00:21:16,775 --> 00:21:18,470 October 1917. 249 00:21:18,644 --> 00:21:25,049 A sailor armed with a gun with the hammer cocked. Incredible stuff. 250 00:21:28,654 --> 00:21:31,350 One can't help but compare these heroic bronze figures 251 00:21:31,523 --> 00:21:33,457 fighting for a better world 252 00:21:33,625 --> 00:21:35,923 with the inheritors of that world. 253 00:21:36,295 --> 00:21:38,593 Only now the struggle is for Capitalism 254 00:21:38,764 --> 00:21:40,595 to deliver a better future. 255 00:21:48,940 --> 00:21:51,807 The Soviet era may have come to grief above ground, 256 00:21:51,977 --> 00:21:54,605 but it certainly lives on down here. 257 00:22:05,123 --> 00:22:06,988 Well, I've come to Mayakovsky Park on the edge - 258 00:22:07,159 --> 00:22:08,990 - of the centre of Moscow. 259 00:22:09,161 --> 00:22:11,186 This is the great Sunday market. 260 00:22:11,697 --> 00:22:12,891 Everything can be purchased here. 261 00:22:13,065 --> 00:22:13,997 I'm looking for a hat, 262 00:22:14,166 --> 00:22:18,569 because this one, I have to admit, after four months is, 263 00:22:18,737 --> 00:22:20,898 well, worn-out and maybe slightly inappropriate 264 00:22:21,073 --> 00:22:23,507 because I'm entering northern Europe and coldness, 265 00:22:23,675 --> 00:22:24,972 even snow. 266 00:22:26,712 --> 00:22:27,940 I know what I want erm, 267 00:22:28,714 --> 00:22:31,148 black hairy hat with ear - earflaps. 268 00:22:33,185 --> 00:22:34,413 - Hello. - Hello. 269 00:22:40,359 --> 00:22:41,690 Okay, thank you. 270 00:22:43,228 --> 00:22:44,786 Too small. My head's too big. 271 00:22:47,032 --> 00:22:49,227 Too - too small. 272 00:22:52,838 --> 00:22:54,465 Ah, hat. 273 00:22:55,707 --> 00:22:57,038 This is more like it. 274 00:22:58,410 --> 00:23:00,037 No, I don't want - I don't want - I don't want mink. 275 00:23:00,212 --> 00:23:01,338 No, I don't want mink. 276 00:23:01,813 --> 00:23:03,212 And this one is - 277 00:23:10,722 --> 00:23:13,816 How much does a proper skin hat cost? 278 00:23:16,294 --> 00:23:17,454 In such good condition. 279 00:23:18,730 --> 00:23:19,754 Oh, you've found a hat. 280 00:23:20,565 --> 00:23:22,465 He really wants to make a sale. 281 00:23:23,635 --> 00:23:25,262 Oh yes, that's very good. 282 00:23:27,339 --> 00:23:28,306 Okay. 283 00:23:30,976 --> 00:23:33,774 Four thousand. Get it - get it down. Let's get it down. 284 00:23:33,945 --> 00:23:36,004 - How much? - Four thousand. 285 00:23:36,181 --> 00:23:38,308 At last I find a hat that fits. 286 00:23:39,117 --> 00:23:39,947 But Russian free trade 287 00:23:40,118 --> 00:23:45,579 seems to depend on confusing the buyer into paying an exorbitant price. 288 00:23:45,757 --> 00:23:46,917 You said a thousand. 289 00:23:47,092 --> 00:23:47,888 Okay, one five. 290 00:23:48,059 --> 00:23:50,220 I'm not - you can't mess me about like this. 291 00:23:50,395 --> 00:23:52,386 You - you gave me a price. 292 00:23:52,631 --> 00:23:55,065 You said one - thousand, you said one thousand. 293 00:23:59,070 --> 00:24:00,697 Why fall out over 50 pence? 294 00:24:02,607 --> 00:24:04,234 Okay, there you go. 295 00:24:06,211 --> 00:24:09,203 We should have shaken - we should have shaken before. 296 00:24:09,648 --> 00:24:10,307 Thank you. Bye. 297 00:24:10,482 --> 00:24:12,143 Been good doing business with you. 298 00:24:15,387 --> 00:24:16,354 What a rogue. 299 00:24:18,123 --> 00:24:19,988 Soothed by Aeroflot chintz, 300 00:24:20,158 --> 00:24:22,956 I head north to St Petersburg. 301 00:24:32,871 --> 00:24:36,602 St Petersburg was the vision of one man: 302 00:24:36,775 --> 00:24:42,771 Tsar Peter the Great, who forced thousands of peasants and prisoners of war to build it. 303 00:24:43,915 --> 00:24:47,783 In 1703 this was bleak marshland. 304 00:24:48,653 --> 00:24:50,086 Just a few decades later 305 00:24:50,255 --> 00:24:52,553 the magnificent city we see today 306 00:24:52,724 --> 00:24:54,988 was rising out of the swamp. 307 00:24:56,261 --> 00:24:58,695 It remains one of the most impressive and ruthless feats 308 00:24:58,864 --> 00:25:01,799 of city building of the modern age. 309 00:25:03,001 --> 00:25:07,438 I'm arriving at St Petersburg much as a Russian nobleman would have done 310 00:25:07,606 --> 00:25:13,067 200 years - or so ago er, give or take the traffic jams. 311 00:25:13,678 --> 00:25:19,844 Erm, this is Nevsky Prospect, which is the backbone of the city, its great street. 312 00:25:20,018 --> 00:25:26,787 And it was erm, commissioned by Peter er, from a French architect - 313 00:25:26,958 --> 00:25:34,057 - and built by Swedish prisoners of war in the very early 1720s, mostly. 314 00:25:34,232 --> 00:25:37,793 It was to be the great showcase of St Petersburg, 315 00:25:37,969 --> 00:25:41,530 lined with palaces and great public buildings. 316 00:25:41,706 --> 00:25:44,004 The point was to reveal to the world 317 00:25:44,175 --> 00:25:47,770 that Russia was no longer a cultural - backwater, 318 00:25:47,946 --> 00:25:51,973 but one of the great powers of Europe - military power 319 00:25:52,150 --> 00:25:54,584 and a great place of culture. 320 00:26:05,497 --> 00:26:06,987 The street's narrowing. 321 00:26:07,732 --> 00:26:11,190 One's whole sense is that one's being directed towards something special, 322 00:26:11,369 --> 00:26:12,836 this funnelling effect. 323 00:26:13,038 --> 00:26:15,029 It's very dramatic, very theatrical. 324 00:26:16,575 --> 00:26:19,738 We're going below this arch, 325 00:26:20,378 --> 00:26:22,573 full of military trophies, 326 00:26:22,814 --> 00:26:24,839 incredible neo-classical details, 327 00:26:25,016 --> 00:26:28,110 lovely masks of ancient - warriors. 328 00:26:32,490 --> 00:26:34,014 One arch, another arch. 329 00:26:34,192 --> 00:26:36,319 And then, this is amazing, 330 00:26:36,494 --> 00:26:40,430 suddenly the space that's been funnelling in like that exposed, 331 00:26:40,599 --> 00:26:41,623 opens up and 332 00:26:41,800 --> 00:26:44,360 one's in this spectacular square. 333 00:26:44,569 --> 00:26:45,763 The palace square. 334 00:26:46,004 --> 00:26:50,441 In front of me - is the Winter Palace of the Tsars. 335 00:26:59,284 --> 00:27:02,344 All these buildings were completed - after Peter's death. 336 00:27:02,520 --> 00:27:03,646 But that's not the point. 337 00:27:03,822 --> 00:27:06,450 They're realising, confirming his vision. 338 00:27:06,625 --> 00:27:07,614 An amazing thought, 339 00:27:07,792 --> 00:27:10,488 less than a hundred years after the plan 340 00:27:10,662 --> 00:27:14,496 was made to create a city here, a city was completed - 341 00:27:14,666 --> 00:27:19,035 a city that is one of the greatest cities in the world. 342 00:27:21,673 --> 00:27:26,633 But, perhaps strangely, none of this is my treasure. 343 00:27:36,721 --> 00:27:39,690 This little building may look rather drab, 344 00:27:39,858 --> 00:27:44,056 but it contains the secret of St Petersburg 345 00:27:44,229 --> 00:27:47,357 hidden like a jewel in a casket. 346 00:27:58,510 --> 00:28:00,944 This - is where it all started. 347 00:28:01,346 --> 00:28:02,836 This simple cabin 348 00:28:03,014 --> 00:28:07,678 is the first building created in St Petersburg. 349 00:28:08,086 --> 00:28:12,580 It was built in the summer of 1703, in three days, 350 00:28:12,757 --> 00:28:14,884 by a party of soldiers. 351 00:28:15,460 --> 00:28:17,291 It was built for Peter the Great; 352 00:28:17,462 --> 00:28:21,023 it was here that he sat imagining, 353 00:28:21,199 --> 00:28:24,657 conceiving the great city of St Petersburg. 354 00:28:28,273 --> 00:28:30,969 This cabin is the smallest palace in Russia, 355 00:28:31,142 --> 00:28:33,667 but to my mind the most moving. 356 00:28:34,946 --> 00:28:38,905 Through these windows Peter would have seen just marshland and forest. 357 00:28:39,784 --> 00:28:40,614 At that desk 358 00:28:40,785 --> 00:28:43,754 he realised his vision for a magnificent city. 359 00:28:46,357 --> 00:28:50,088 This cabin is a - remarkable and moving survival, 360 00:28:50,261 --> 00:28:52,422 but what does it mean? 361 00:28:52,597 --> 00:28:56,055 Well, the key is that Peter himself 362 00:28:56,234 --> 00:28:59,635 ordered its preservation in 1723. 363 00:29:00,672 --> 00:29:02,196 It's very much a political statement. 364 00:29:02,540 --> 00:29:06,670 Its simplicity was meant to create a myth about Peter: 365 00:29:06,911 --> 00:29:09,880 a simple, modest, self-effacing man. 366 00:29:12,717 --> 00:29:14,776 So revered is the structure that no one, 367 00:29:14,953 --> 00:29:17,717 including me, is allowed inside. 368 00:29:23,762 --> 00:29:29,428 This little - sort of closet really - was his bedroom. 369 00:29:29,601 --> 00:29:30,568 Incredible. 370 00:29:30,735 --> 00:29:33,397 The fellow stood six foot eight inches tall. 371 00:29:33,571 --> 00:29:36,267 There's his coat and trousers over there. 372 00:29:36,875 --> 00:29:39,742 And he - well, he'd hardly fit in here. 373 00:29:40,712 --> 00:29:44,808 This shrine shows the almost monkish existence 374 00:29:44,983 --> 00:29:49,044 he lived here while he conceived in his imagination 375 00:29:49,220 --> 00:29:51,518 the great city of St Petersburg. 376 00:29:56,094 --> 00:30:01,828 Surely this must be one of the most beautiful visions of a city any man ever had. 377 00:30:12,043 --> 00:30:14,136 I fly north towards the White Sea, 378 00:30:14,312 --> 00:30:18,009 to a part of Russia that seems like another world. 379 00:30:18,483 --> 00:30:19,245 And the coldest leg 380 00:30:19,417 --> 00:30:21,385 of my journey so far. 381 00:30:54,986 --> 00:30:57,784 I'm a hundred miles south of the Arctic Circle, 382 00:30:57,956 --> 00:31:01,551 and entering a region of myth and folklore. 383 00:31:01,793 --> 00:31:04,421 Ahead of me - lies a group of islands, 384 00:31:04,596 --> 00:31:06,621 and they are my destination, 385 00:31:06,798 --> 00:31:09,096 because there - on one of these islands, 386 00:31:09,267 --> 00:31:13,431 is a place that in itself tells the history of Russia. 387 00:31:26,651 --> 00:31:31,111 In 1429 two monks, 388 00:31:31,756 --> 00:31:36,352 one called Savati, the other called German, 389 00:31:36,661 --> 00:31:39,960 landed here on Solovski Island. 390 00:31:40,131 --> 00:31:42,861 They'd made a two-day trip from the mainland, 391 00:31:43,034 --> 00:31:44,592 a dangerous journey. 392 00:31:45,203 --> 00:31:49,606 They came here because it was deserted, that was the point. 393 00:31:49,841 --> 00:31:53,106 They were hermits really. They wanted to live in solitude, 394 00:31:53,278 --> 00:31:55,974 to contemplate their god alone. 395 00:31:56,347 --> 00:31:57,575 They landed about here, 396 00:31:57,749 --> 00:32:04,678 and somewhere over there they started to build a chapel and two cells in which to live. 397 00:32:08,860 --> 00:32:11,351 Word spread about the two hermits at Solovki, 398 00:32:11,529 --> 00:32:14,327 and a religious community grew up around them. 399 00:32:14,799 --> 00:32:16,426 A little over a hundred years later, 400 00:32:16,601 --> 00:32:20,833 they built a fantastic stronghold to ensure their survival. 401 00:32:32,784 --> 00:32:34,684 In a beautiful and dramatic way 402 00:32:34,852 --> 00:32:38,117 the monastery is a microcosm of Russia. 403 00:32:38,389 --> 00:32:39,947 Many of the great characters 404 00:32:40,124 --> 00:32:42,718 and social events in the nation's history 405 00:32:42,894 --> 00:32:45,454 have left their mark here. 406 00:32:46,097 --> 00:32:46,825 To enter the monastery 407 00:32:46,998 --> 00:32:50,297 is to enter the soul of Russia, 408 00:32:50,735 --> 00:32:54,728 to see its dark side, but also its glory. 409 00:33:01,212 --> 00:33:04,477 It seems more a fortress than a monastery, 410 00:33:04,649 --> 00:33:09,086 but then it is a monastery with a difference. 411 00:33:09,420 --> 00:33:10,944 A place of worldly power, 412 00:33:11,122 --> 00:33:13,852 of trade as well, and of God. 413 00:33:14,025 --> 00:33:18,428 It was the capital of this part of Russia, 414 00:33:18,596 --> 00:33:22,430 and also a great bastion against invasion, 415 00:33:22,600 --> 00:33:27,333 a great defence against the Swedes, the Danes, and indeed against the English, 416 00:33:27,505 --> 00:33:28,665 who in the early 17th century 417 00:33:28,840 --> 00:33:30,273 wanted to seize this area 418 00:33:30,441 --> 00:33:36,744 because this was, they said, the richest place of its date in the world. 419 00:33:38,349 --> 00:33:41,841 The monks became so confident that they rebelled against the Tsar 420 00:33:42,020 --> 00:33:44,454 when he introduced church reforms. 421 00:33:45,323 --> 00:33:47,621 In retaliation, in 1668, 422 00:33:47,792 --> 00:33:49,384 an army was sent from Moscow 423 00:33:49,560 --> 00:33:52,222 and an eight-year siege ensued. 424 00:33:54,098 --> 00:33:58,364 Eventually it was a monk that betrayed the monastery. 425 00:33:58,536 --> 00:34:02,700 He told the Tsarist soldiers about a small door in the wall, 426 00:34:02,874 --> 00:34:06,332 a postern, that was very poorly bricked up. 427 00:34:06,844 --> 00:34:08,641 They went to that door by night - 428 00:34:09,280 --> 00:34:13,876 - and broke it open, just over there, then they entered secretly - 429 00:34:14,052 --> 00:34:17,544 and took the monks entirely by surprise. 430 00:34:17,722 --> 00:34:20,316 The soldiers' blood was up. They were angry. 431 00:34:20,491 --> 00:34:21,651 They attacked the monks 432 00:34:21,826 --> 00:34:23,555 and almost 40 were killed. 433 00:34:23,728 --> 00:34:25,593 Some were hung up by their heels 434 00:34:25,763 --> 00:34:27,253 and beaten till they died, 435 00:34:27,432 --> 00:34:29,491 others were tied behind horses 436 00:34:29,667 --> 00:34:32,135 and dragged to their deaths. 437 00:34:36,007 --> 00:34:37,702 Back under Tsarist control, 438 00:34:37,875 --> 00:34:40,969 Peter the Great used Solovki as a prison. 439 00:34:41,712 --> 00:34:43,373 And though monastic life returned, 440 00:34:43,548 --> 00:34:46,949 Solovki would once again sink into despair. 441 00:34:49,420 --> 00:34:52,321 After the Communist revolution of 1917, 442 00:34:52,490 --> 00:34:55,789 it was here, in and around the monastery, 443 00:34:55,960 --> 00:34:59,623 that the Soviet regime set up the first Gulag - 444 00:34:59,797 --> 00:35:03,699 a concentration camp for political prisoners. 445 00:35:04,268 --> 00:35:05,235 At its peak, 446 00:35:05,403 --> 00:35:07,769 50,000 were held at Solovki, 447 00:35:07,939 --> 00:35:10,601 and very many died here. 448 00:35:12,844 --> 00:35:18,305 This is one of the most infamous rooms in Russian history. 449 00:35:19,083 --> 00:35:21,643 This was built in the mid-19th century 450 00:35:21,819 --> 00:35:24,583 as the cathedral - of the Holy Trinity, 451 00:35:24,755 --> 00:35:31,524 but in 1924 became Company 13. 452 00:35:32,530 --> 00:35:35,897 This was where all male prisoners 453 00:35:36,067 --> 00:35:40,367 who were brought to this Gulag were placed for three months. 454 00:35:41,372 --> 00:35:45,866 In this space, from 1924 to 1937, 455 00:35:46,410 --> 00:35:50,676 lived at any one time 800-850 men, 456 00:35:52,650 --> 00:35:56,416 in bunks tiered up - towards the ceiling. 457 00:35:56,654 --> 00:35:59,145 And below this world of bunks, 458 00:35:59,323 --> 00:36:01,154 living in filth, were children. 459 00:36:01,759 --> 00:36:02,987 They weren't know about, they weren't documented, 460 00:36:03,161 --> 00:36:05,026 weren't fed by the camp authorities. 461 00:36:05,196 --> 00:36:09,098 They skulked in this room below the bunks of the - of the men. 462 00:36:09,267 --> 00:36:10,734 It's a heartbreaking and terrible story. 463 00:36:10,902 --> 00:36:15,100 And here I'm looking at the main altar at the east end, 464 00:36:15,273 --> 00:36:17,867 this was given over to the latrines. 465 00:36:19,777 --> 00:36:21,176 A frightful insult. 466 00:36:21,412 --> 00:36:25,143 And up there, where there had been a picture of Christ, 467 00:36:25,316 --> 00:36:28,080 was a picture of Lenin, 468 00:36:28,252 --> 00:36:30,720 a mockery really, the whole thing. 469 00:36:30,888 --> 00:36:32,355 A form of psychological warfare 470 00:36:32,523 --> 00:36:38,587 to destroy the will and souls of these poor human beings 471 00:36:39,664 --> 00:36:43,327 who for all those years suffered in this space. 472 00:36:43,868 --> 00:36:48,237 And the only way out, of course, was death. 473 00:37:00,952 --> 00:37:04,820 Around the monastery life still seems very bleak. 474 00:37:06,224 --> 00:37:09,716 As if the people are stuck in the dying years of Communism. 475 00:37:10,394 --> 00:37:13,921 This is the - town square, I suppose. 476 00:37:14,265 --> 00:37:18,497 Golly, erm, this - building is one of the Gulag buildings 477 00:37:18,669 --> 00:37:21,035 dating from the late 1920s - 478 00:37:21,539 --> 00:37:23,370 - where prisoners were confined. 479 00:37:23,908 --> 00:37:26,809 There's still the air of a Gulag about this place, 480 00:37:26,978 --> 00:37:29,776 still a sense of people being confined here. 481 00:37:32,650 --> 00:37:34,743 People are emerging. Ah. 482 00:37:35,620 --> 00:37:37,952 Good morning. Hello. 483 00:37:41,225 --> 00:37:41,748 Good morning. 484 00:37:41,926 --> 00:37:43,757 Can I get a drink in there? 485 00:37:44,228 --> 00:37:45,525 No, it's closed. 486 00:37:45,763 --> 00:37:49,597 Ah. No, no good. Closed at the moment. 487 00:37:52,169 --> 00:37:54,330 My goodness, what a bleak place this is. 488 00:37:54,505 --> 00:37:56,769 I say, these people look - look like they're prisoners themselves - 489 00:37:56,941 --> 00:38:00,399 - that they've left - been left over from the Gulag. 490 00:38:01,512 --> 00:38:02,774 Very odd. 491 00:38:21,265 --> 00:38:23,529 Since the fall of the Soviet regime, 492 00:38:23,934 --> 00:38:26,402 monks have returned to the monastery. 493 00:38:26,771 --> 00:38:28,898 History has come full circle. 494 00:38:29,640 --> 00:38:33,804 Life is lived here much as it would have been 400 years ago. 495 00:38:59,403 --> 00:39:00,893 I fly south to Poland. 496 00:39:01,072 --> 00:39:05,771 I'm on a journey into my own past, into my memory. 497 00:39:19,357 --> 00:39:24,294 As a child - a very young child, I lived for some years in Poland. 498 00:39:24,462 --> 00:39:28,228 My father was a - a journalist based in Warsaw. 499 00:39:28,399 --> 00:39:30,390 This is almost 50 years ago. 500 00:39:30,568 --> 00:39:33,036 A very, very different place now. 501 00:39:33,771 --> 00:39:38,640 We came here, Krakow, for a holiday. 502 00:39:40,211 --> 00:39:41,405 Beautiful city. 503 00:39:41,579 --> 00:39:42,841 a dangerous journey. 504 00:39:43,013 --> 00:39:45,709 - as I stand in this delightful square - 505 00:39:45,883 --> 00:39:50,547 it was here that I fell in love with architecture. 506 00:39:54,725 --> 00:39:57,285 Miraculously, Krakow escaped the destruction 507 00:39:57,461 --> 00:39:59,122 of the Second World War. 508 00:39:59,997 --> 00:40:04,127 Legend has it, the German Commandant refused to obey orders from Hitler 509 00:40:04,301 --> 00:40:07,270 in the dying days of the war to flatten the city. 510 00:40:35,566 --> 00:40:38,865 There's a sound that cuts through me like a knife, 511 00:40:39,036 --> 00:40:40,469 brings back such memories. 512 00:40:40,638 --> 00:40:43,607 Every hour, that chap up there playing his bugle, 513 00:40:43,774 --> 00:40:47,335 the sound of that very haunting little tune. 514 00:40:47,511 --> 00:40:49,172 The story is in the 13th century 515 00:40:49,346 --> 00:40:53,680 there was a watchman up there looking around at the fields, the plains around the town, 516 00:40:53,851 --> 00:40:54,613 watching for attackers, 517 00:40:54,785 --> 00:40:55,911 and when the attackers came, 518 00:40:56,086 --> 00:40:59,146 these fearsome nomadic warriors, the Tartars, 519 00:40:59,323 --> 00:41:00,585 he sounded a warning note, 520 00:41:00,758 --> 00:41:03,090 but a Tatar arrow got him in the throat 521 00:41:03,260 --> 00:41:05,125 just as he was finishing the warning, 522 00:41:05,296 --> 00:41:10,563 and that's why that note ends on a haunting broken note 523 00:41:10,734 --> 00:41:13,225 as the arrow severs his neck. 524 00:41:20,945 --> 00:41:22,606 I must head to the edge of town, 525 00:41:22,780 --> 00:41:26,181 to find a treasure that transports me back in time 526 00:41:26,350 --> 00:41:28,716 to Communist Poland of 1957, 527 00:41:28,886 --> 00:41:30,854 when I was eight years old. 528 00:41:31,755 --> 00:41:34,223 This is the Wieliczka salt mines 529 00:41:34,391 --> 00:41:36,325 a few miles from the centre of Krakow. 530 00:41:36,494 --> 00:41:38,962 This is a very exciting moment for me. 531 00:41:39,129 --> 00:41:41,393 When I came here as a child, 532 00:41:41,565 --> 00:41:44,796 this place absolutely gripped my imagination, 533 00:41:44,969 --> 00:41:48,268 and indeed has haunted my imagination - ever since. 534 00:41:48,439 --> 00:41:53,809 Will this - experience I'm about to have now live up to my memories, 535 00:41:53,978 --> 00:41:56,242 or will it be a bitter disappointment? 536 00:42:03,354 --> 00:42:07,051 The Wieliczka salt mine began operating in the 13th century. 537 00:42:07,658 --> 00:42:11,560 At one point it created 30 per cent of Poland's income. 538 00:42:12,363 --> 00:42:14,797 The mine is 327 metres deep, 539 00:42:14,965 --> 00:42:19,163 and the chambers and passages stretch for over 300 kilometres. 540 00:42:20,571 --> 00:42:22,971 It's not the size of the mine that is so haunting, 541 00:42:23,140 --> 00:42:26,735 but the extraordinary art that the miners have created inside it. 542 00:42:34,251 --> 00:42:36,549 This is the Chapel of the Blessed Kinga, 543 00:42:36,720 --> 00:42:39,712 the patron saint of Polish miners. 544 00:42:39,957 --> 00:42:42,221 Started in 1896, 545 00:42:42,526 --> 00:42:46,360 everything here is carved out of salt by miners. 546 00:42:46,797 --> 00:42:50,893 Including the walls, floor, statues and chandeliers. 547 00:42:53,337 --> 00:42:55,032 Memories coming back. 548 00:42:55,406 --> 00:42:56,839 This is incredible. 549 00:42:57,074 --> 00:42:59,599 This is erm, yes, St Anthony's Chapel. 550 00:43:00,444 --> 00:43:03,470 From the late 17th - century. 551 00:43:04,648 --> 00:43:09,244 This is where I discovered that er, fairyland is real. 552 00:43:09,687 --> 00:43:15,250 Look at this fantastic stuff. From the salt, architecture, classical architecture, 553 00:43:15,426 --> 00:43:18,725 really from primitive salt, lovely, been carved. 554 00:43:22,299 --> 00:43:24,164 And figures of saints. 555 00:43:29,440 --> 00:43:34,241 Look at this - a chandelier of salt. Salt crystals. 556 00:43:34,411 --> 00:43:36,470 Isn't that absolutely brilliant? 557 00:43:39,049 --> 00:43:41,847 All made by the miners, that's the thing. 558 00:43:42,019 --> 00:43:46,353 This is working man's art - not the art of artists, 559 00:43:46,523 --> 00:43:51,483 but ordinary people celebrating their god in their place of work. 560 00:43:51,662 --> 00:43:52,526 It's fantastic. 561 00:43:52,696 --> 00:43:54,960 Yes - yes, this is - this is it. 562 00:43:57,167 --> 00:44:00,534 But as I penetrate deeper, there are more new additions. 563 00:44:17,921 --> 00:44:20,446 Well, I said this place was like fairyland, 564 00:44:20,624 --> 00:44:24,651 when I first came here, but I didn't mean like - this, sort of gnomeland. 565 00:44:24,862 --> 00:44:26,454 This is quite astonishing. 566 00:44:26,630 --> 00:44:28,621 What on earth is going on? 567 00:44:36,440 --> 00:44:38,465 What was so moving is now in danger of 568 00:44:38,642 --> 00:44:41,577 being tarnished to attract more tourists. 569 00:44:41,745 --> 00:44:43,975 Only Snow White is missing. 570 00:44:44,181 --> 00:44:47,446 - Ah - excuse me. - Yeah. 571 00:44:47,818 --> 00:44:50,514 I can see by your tie that you are a guide. 572 00:44:50,688 --> 00:44:51,211 Yes, I am. 573 00:44:51,388 --> 00:44:52,047 We are from the BBC 574 00:44:52,222 --> 00:44:53,985 making a little programme about the salt mines, 575 00:44:54,158 --> 00:44:58,322 and I have memories of this place many years ago and erm, 576 00:44:58,529 --> 00:45:01,225 I remember it slightly less presented as a museum. 577 00:45:01,398 --> 00:45:04,390 Are there still parts of the mine which are more authentic, 578 00:45:04,568 --> 00:45:07,469 which are more as it would have been when it was a living, working mine? 579 00:45:07,638 --> 00:45:08,900 Of course, if you would like to, 580 00:45:09,073 --> 00:45:11,098 I can take you to another point of the mine 581 00:45:11,275 --> 00:45:12,640 which is not so beautiful. 582 00:45:12,810 --> 00:45:16,371 It's part of the tour, and you will be really satisfied. 583 00:45:16,547 --> 00:45:17,980 Oh well, lovely. Satisfaction. 584 00:45:18,148 --> 00:45:20,582 Excellent, thank you very much. Er, lead on. 585 00:45:26,924 --> 00:45:31,020 Commercial salt production at Wieliczka stopped ten years ago. 586 00:45:31,662 --> 00:45:32,890 But one part of the mine 587 00:45:33,063 --> 00:45:35,531 is still being used by mineralogists. 588 00:45:36,033 --> 00:45:37,466 We walk for an hour. 589 00:45:38,068 --> 00:45:40,400 I'm hoping to see more carving. 590 00:45:41,238 --> 00:45:44,401 Obviously the miners felt in some state of peril, 591 00:45:44,575 --> 00:45:48,477 asking for protection as they worked the salt. 592 00:45:52,116 --> 00:45:53,413 This is the power of nature. 593 00:45:53,584 --> 00:45:54,448 The power of nature. 594 00:45:54,618 --> 00:45:58,213 Yes. The mine - such huge props, 595 00:45:58,388 --> 00:46:01,186 they were cracked, they are cracked like matches here. 596 00:46:01,358 --> 00:46:02,450 I think I'll move on. 597 00:46:03,060 --> 00:46:04,493 - Not sure what's happening up here. - Yeah, of course. 598 00:46:04,661 --> 00:46:05,685 - That's cracked too. - Yeah. 599 00:46:05,863 --> 00:46:08,764 Well, the whole thing's in movement. And look at this, the - the er - 600 00:46:08,932 --> 00:46:11,992 Yeah, salt crystallised. Yeah. 601 00:46:12,302 --> 00:46:15,396 That's fantastic. That's coming out of the rock. 602 00:46:16,340 --> 00:46:17,864 There is a seepage of the salt. 603 00:46:18,041 --> 00:46:19,440 It's salty, I think. 604 00:46:19,877 --> 00:46:24,041 - Beautiful stalagtite, if you look in here. - Yeah. 605 00:46:30,554 --> 00:46:37,460 This is erm, this crystal is - salt - white gold. 606 00:46:37,628 --> 00:46:42,463 In the past, salt was as valuable as gold or silver 607 00:46:42,633 --> 00:46:48,071 because of the huge demand but limited supply. 608 00:46:49,239 --> 00:46:51,537 Poles take great pride in them, 609 00:46:51,708 --> 00:46:56,042 what they represent, the industry, the activity and the natural beauty. 610 00:46:56,213 --> 00:47:02,777 They are, in their strange way, the heart of the nation. 611 00:47:06,456 --> 00:47:07,787 I fly to Germany, 612 00:47:07,958 --> 00:47:11,724 the country which more than any other has shaped the modern world 613 00:47:11,895 --> 00:47:15,592 through its catastrophic embrace of fascism and genocide. 614 00:47:17,434 --> 00:47:18,833 No European city has endured 615 00:47:19,002 --> 00:47:21,368 such upheavals as Berlin. 616 00:47:22,005 --> 00:47:24,599 Its pre-war innocence shattered by Hitler, 617 00:47:25,008 --> 00:47:27,568 its fabric smashed by allied bombing, 618 00:47:27,744 --> 00:47:31,544 it's post-war years caught up in a Cold War nightmare. 619 00:47:33,984 --> 00:47:36,350 After the wall came down in 1989, 620 00:47:36,520 --> 00:47:39,956 the city began a frantic reinvention of itself. 621 00:47:41,258 --> 00:47:44,056 I want a treasure here that's contemporary yet 622 00:47:44,228 --> 00:47:49,222 also transports me unflinchingly back into this country's dark past. 623 00:47:52,302 --> 00:47:54,930 I've come to Berlin to see a car, 624 00:47:55,105 --> 00:47:59,064 that most problematic, emblematic of modern objects. 625 00:47:59,243 --> 00:48:02,007 But this is not just any car. 626 00:48:02,179 --> 00:48:04,079 It was commissioned by Adolf Hitler, 627 00:48:04,248 --> 00:48:08,344 who in 1934 ordered the production of a car 628 00:48:08,518 --> 00:48:11,385 that all could afford to use and to run. 629 00:48:11,555 --> 00:48:15,514 It was to contain two adults and three children, 630 00:48:15,692 --> 00:48:16,920 the ideal family, I suppose, 631 00:48:17,094 --> 00:48:19,562 and toot along at 60 miles an hour. 632 00:48:19,730 --> 00:48:23,564 And its form was to be inspired by natural history. 633 00:48:23,734 --> 00:48:26,999 And this is it. 634 00:48:36,480 --> 00:48:40,746 The Volkswagen beetle is a familiar sight for all road users, 635 00:48:41,485 --> 00:48:43,578 and it's easy to forget that the love bug, 636 00:48:43,754 --> 00:48:47,815 as it later became known, was a Nazi prestige project. 637 00:48:48,692 --> 00:48:51,422 Hitler said to Ferdinand Porsche, the designer, 638 00:48:51,695 --> 00:48:53,686 the car should look like a beetle - 639 00:48:53,864 --> 00:48:57,766 - look to nature to find out what streamlining's all about. 640 00:48:58,035 --> 00:49:01,232 Nature being the inspiration for functional design. 641 00:49:01,638 --> 00:49:04,607 And erm, on that note of functional design and - 642 00:49:04,775 --> 00:49:07,573 - economic design, of course, the engine is at the back. 643 00:49:07,744 --> 00:49:10,042 Here it is, a beautiful little thing, at the back, 644 00:49:10,213 --> 00:49:13,444 immediately above the rear wheels, the driving wheels, 645 00:49:13,617 --> 00:49:15,517 to make construction cheaper. 646 00:49:15,686 --> 00:49:17,517 And erm, what a lovely little engine it is. 647 00:49:17,688 --> 00:49:19,815 Look at it. Beautiful thing. Very elegant. 648 00:49:20,457 --> 00:49:25,759 Now I shall give this wonderful machine a road test. 649 00:49:26,430 --> 00:49:27,954 Oh, bit of a tight fit, 650 00:49:28,131 --> 00:49:32,693 but when I get my leg under the steering wheel, 651 00:49:32,869 --> 00:49:34,166 it's actually rather spacious. 652 00:49:34,705 --> 00:49:39,301 And indeed, here's me, my wife here, three children in the back - 653 00:49:39,476 --> 00:49:41,967 and there's room for storage. 654 00:49:42,546 --> 00:49:43,706 Very spacious. 655 00:49:48,752 --> 00:49:50,913 Indicators. Yes. 656 00:49:51,088 --> 00:49:53,249 Windscreen wipers, yes. 657 00:49:53,957 --> 00:49:57,586 Okay, well, let's take it - for a spin. 658 00:49:59,963 --> 00:50:01,294 It works. 659 00:50:03,667 --> 00:50:07,626 The beetle first rolled off the production line in 1941. 660 00:50:07,804 --> 00:50:09,829 This particular car I'm driving 661 00:50:10,007 --> 00:50:14,205 was made during the war and belonged to Reichsminister Alfred Rosenberg, 662 00:50:14,745 --> 00:50:16,235 a member of Hitler's inner circle 663 00:50:16,413 --> 00:50:19,473 in control of the conquered Eastern territory. 664 00:50:20,517 --> 00:50:23,315 After the war, Rosenberg was found guilty of crimes 665 00:50:23,487 --> 00:50:27,685 against humanity at the Nuremberg trials and was executed. 666 00:50:31,361 --> 00:50:34,592 By the way, this particular model is erm, a delight to drive, 667 00:50:34,765 --> 00:50:38,166 except there appears to be virtually no footbrake. 668 00:50:38,335 --> 00:50:39,666 I guess all old cars are like this, 669 00:50:39,836 --> 00:50:45,274 but erm, when one puts one's foot down to stop very little happens, at first anyway. 670 00:50:47,411 --> 00:50:48,275 There we are. 671 00:50:48,445 --> 00:50:54,941 I've now halted this machine, using partly the handbrake. 672 00:51:13,370 --> 00:51:16,396 The Volkswagen beetle is a wonderful, 673 00:51:16,573 --> 00:51:22,671 wonderful machine that's risen above its troubled origins, its troubled history. 674 00:51:23,280 --> 00:51:26,613 It is a great monument to utilitarian, 675 00:51:26,783 --> 00:51:29,308 practical, functional design. 676 00:51:30,187 --> 00:51:32,849 And I, along with millions of people in the world, 677 00:51:33,090 --> 00:51:33,954 love it. 678 00:51:34,791 --> 00:51:43,028 But I am aware that er, cars are entirely problematic creations, 679 00:51:43,200 --> 00:51:48,365 leading to pollution of the cities and their roads, 680 00:51:48,538 --> 00:51:54,807 the roads on which they run wrecking the countryside and damaging historic places. 681 00:51:54,978 --> 00:51:58,812 So it's a bit worrying to love something like this, I guess, 682 00:51:58,982 --> 00:52:02,748 something which is ultimately rather devilish. 683 00:52:05,322 --> 00:52:07,552 Last of all, but no less importantly, 684 00:52:07,724 --> 00:52:11,251 the beetle is also the means of transport to my next treasure. 685 00:52:23,340 --> 00:52:26,434 I've driven to the Bauhaus in Dessau. 686 00:52:26,643 --> 00:52:30,272 This epoch-making, inspirational design school - 687 00:52:30,447 --> 00:52:31,880 - that during the 1920s, 688 00:52:32,048 --> 00:52:36,041 until it was closed by the Nazis in 1933, 689 00:52:36,219 --> 00:52:39,916 really - did much to forge the modern world. 690 00:52:40,090 --> 00:52:42,422 Many objects we now take for granted 691 00:52:42,726 --> 00:52:43,658 originated - here. 692 00:52:43,827 --> 00:52:46,887 Also the spirit of this place inspired designers, 693 00:52:47,063 --> 00:52:51,796 architects - interior designers, designers of furniture - throughout the world. 694 00:52:51,968 --> 00:52:54,402 I've come here to find one object 695 00:52:54,571 --> 00:52:58,735 that captures the spirit of this truly extraordinary 696 00:52:58,909 --> 00:53:01,707 and amazing institution, the Bauhaus. 697 00:53:04,381 --> 00:53:07,077 The Bauhaus school opened in 1919. 698 00:53:07,851 --> 00:53:11,082 It rejected history as an inspiration for creativity. 699 00:53:11,555 --> 00:53:14,956 Instead, students here embraced the technological age. 700 00:53:15,559 --> 00:53:18,756 They wanted function to define architecture and design, 701 00:53:18,929 --> 00:53:21,625 and they wanted to use new materials. 702 00:53:23,533 --> 00:53:26,093 This building, constructed in 1926, 703 00:53:26,269 --> 00:53:28,635 captures their ideas perfectly. 704 00:53:29,940 --> 00:53:32,204 But my treasure is not a building, 705 00:53:32,809 --> 00:53:35,004 it's something small and commonplace. 706 00:53:35,212 --> 00:53:36,440 It's a chair. 707 00:53:37,514 --> 00:53:40,415 Before Bauhaus no one had dreamt of starting a revolution 708 00:53:40,584 --> 00:53:41,744 with a chair. 709 00:53:41,918 --> 00:53:44,011 But that's exactly what happened. 710 00:53:44,354 --> 00:53:46,879 So which chair to choose? 711 00:53:48,992 --> 00:53:51,756 Herr Messerschmitt, the Bauhaus archivist, 712 00:53:51,928 --> 00:53:56,695 has granted me exclusive access to the Bauhaus archives, 713 00:53:56,866 --> 00:53:59,767 just here through this secure door. 714 00:54:08,245 --> 00:54:11,078 Ah now, yeah, an old favourite. 715 00:54:12,082 --> 00:54:13,014 Danke schoen. 716 00:54:13,383 --> 00:54:16,546 The Wassily chair, designed in 1925. 717 00:54:16,720 --> 00:54:18,779 Very pioneering indeed. 718 00:54:18,989 --> 00:54:23,653 It was the first time tubular steel was used in the construction of a chair. 719 00:54:24,394 --> 00:54:25,224 It's great - in many ways, 720 00:54:25,395 --> 00:54:27,659 but now looks a little clumsy. 721 00:54:28,131 --> 00:54:29,962 A bit like a bird's nest, a lot going on, 722 00:54:30,133 --> 00:54:34,035 and not quite the elegance and simplicity I'm looking for. 723 00:54:34,304 --> 00:54:36,898 So erm, come back to perhaps. 724 00:54:37,707 --> 00:54:39,698 Herr Messerschmitt, next one please. 725 00:54:40,176 --> 00:54:41,541 For me to inspect. 726 00:54:45,181 --> 00:54:46,546 Ah yes. 727 00:54:47,617 --> 00:54:48,811 Danke schoen, thank you. 728 00:54:48,985 --> 00:54:50,316 A simpler design. 729 00:54:51,554 --> 00:54:53,454 A bit later, 1929. 730 00:54:53,923 --> 00:54:55,823 I choose this really because it is so simple. 731 00:54:55,992 --> 00:54:58,290 It's a chair we've all seen and used, I think. 732 00:54:58,595 --> 00:55:02,998 Making the point that er, the Bauhaus succeeded in its aim 733 00:55:03,166 --> 00:55:06,226 of providing elegant, functional, simple objects for everyday use, 734 00:55:06,403 --> 00:55:09,099 for ordinary people like you and me to enjoy. 735 00:55:09,272 --> 00:55:13,675 Here you have a very - simple chair, designed, as I say, in 1929 - 736 00:55:13,843 --> 00:55:17,370 and still in use and still looking entirely modern. 737 00:55:17,580 --> 00:55:21,346 So a glorious example of the Bauhaus ideal being achieved. 738 00:55:21,785 --> 00:55:23,480 Herr Messerschmit - the third one. 739 00:55:24,921 --> 00:55:27,981 I am now all a-tremble, because I know what this is. 740 00:55:30,327 --> 00:55:32,488 I hope. Ah, yes. 741 00:55:36,599 --> 00:55:40,865 What can I say? One or two things, actually. 742 00:55:42,472 --> 00:55:46,238 Designed by a different Bauhaus master, Mies van der Rohe. 743 00:55:46,543 --> 00:55:49,637 Designed 1929-1930. 744 00:55:50,013 --> 00:55:55,610 Mies was - the last director of the Bauhaus in 1930, 745 00:55:55,785 --> 00:55:56,945 so this is a very appropriate - 746 00:55:57,120 --> 00:55:59,179 monument to him and to the Bauhaus. 747 00:55:59,356 --> 00:56:00,755 Just look at this thing. 748 00:56:00,924 --> 00:56:02,585 The steel had to be manufactured and tested, 749 00:56:02,759 --> 00:56:05,728 so research was, as I say, very much part of the modern tradition. 750 00:56:05,895 --> 00:56:06,623 Cantilever principle, 751 00:56:06,796 --> 00:56:08,229 very simple construction, 752 00:56:08,398 --> 00:56:10,764 but the weight of the person, in a sense, holds the chair steady, 753 00:56:10,934 --> 00:56:13,664 makes it work as a - as an object. 754 00:56:14,003 --> 00:56:16,028 Look at the simplicity of it. Just look. 755 00:56:17,941 --> 00:56:25,177 What elegance. What function. What pure joyful simplicity. 756 00:56:25,348 --> 00:56:28,545 A beautiful thing to handle, to hold. 757 00:56:28,718 --> 00:56:30,618 God, just look at the form, the shape, 758 00:56:30,787 --> 00:56:32,550 as one - turns it round. 759 00:56:32,822 --> 00:56:35,518 The thing - comes alive, doesn't it? 760 00:56:36,192 --> 00:56:38,160 Put it down. And now the great test, 761 00:56:38,328 --> 00:56:41,024 to sit in it and see really - if it is functional. 762 00:56:41,197 --> 00:56:44,462 It looks functional, it looks beautiful, minimal and simple. 763 00:56:44,734 --> 00:56:46,929 But will it take the mighty load? 764 00:56:47,103 --> 00:56:53,770 Oh, gosh. The chair's a-tremble and vibrating 765 00:56:53,943 --> 00:56:55,467 with my weight and movement. 766 00:56:56,379 --> 00:56:59,348 This without doubt, because of its functional qualities, 767 00:56:59,516 --> 00:57:04,852 because of its minimalism, because it really works - does its job, 768 00:57:05,722 --> 00:57:09,317 and of course at the end looks terrific and beautiful, 769 00:57:10,026 --> 00:57:13,985 has got to be, and is, my Bauhaus treasure. 770 00:57:36,786 --> 00:57:40,085 In 1933 the Nazis closed down the Bauhaus 771 00:57:40,256 --> 00:57:42,816 believing it had Communist sympathies. 772 00:57:43,493 --> 00:57:46,758 But within 20 years designs inspired by the Bauhaus 773 00:57:46,930 --> 00:57:49,023 would define the modern world. 774 00:57:51,201 --> 00:57:52,225 It's a strange thing, 775 00:57:52,402 --> 00:57:54,768 although Hitler closed down the Bauhaus, 776 00:57:54,938 --> 00:57:58,135 he was instrumental in the creation of an object 777 00:57:58,308 --> 00:58:01,835 that follows the true principles of the Bauhaus. 778 00:58:02,178 --> 00:58:05,477 In fact, I think it's fair to say the Volkswagen beetle, 779 00:58:05,648 --> 00:58:10,017 because of its social purpose, utilisation of mass production techniques, 780 00:58:10,186 --> 00:58:13,883 is the greatest object the Bauhaus never made. 781 00:58:14,883 --> 00:58:24,883 Downloaded From www.AllSubs.org