Winston Churchill described Russia as 'a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma'. His observation is as accurate today as ever. In Russia, highly respected author and broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby sets off on an epic journey to get beneath the skin of this vast and mysterious country. Dimbleby was the only British journalist to interview President Gorbachev during the Cold War, and, returning to the country for the first time since those days, he discovers a land transformed. Russia has a dramatic and violent past, and a culture rich in world-famous artists, writers and musicians. With control over a huge portion of the world's remaining non-renewable energy resources, it is a rapidly rising energy superpower, with a swiftly modernizing economy. Yet, it is also a place of corruption, repression and secrecy, little understood by the rest of world. Travelling thousands of miles from Murmansk in the Arctic Circle to the Asian city of Vladivostok, Dimbleby crosses seven time zones and passes through some of the most extreme landscapes on Earth. His journey takes him from the Baroque splendour of St Petersburg to remote and inaccessible parts of Siberia.Along the way he encounters a fascinating range of people, from high-society Muscovites to rural peasants, as he immerses himself in Russian culture.