Joanna Lumley's Trans-Siberian Adventure

The trip of 6,000 odd miles must have been back-breaking for J. Lumley but it doesn't show. She's real trooper for the viewer's sake.

The highlight of her adventure is her passage through Siberia which is 2/3 of Russia's land mass. I had the pre-conceived notion that this is a bleak, foreboding place but was I wrong.

Aside from the unusual scenery, what warms the heart (in such a frozen place) are her brief but heartfelt encounters with the people there. People such as Arthur Sariov, rock star but also a creative bell ringer, in Irkutsk which is dubbed as the Paris of the East, or the family of Sergei Vichess of Bolshie Koty along the northern shore of Lake Baikal which is the deepest lake in the world, or the young, aspiring ballet dancers of Perm which, ironically, is also a hub for weapons manufacturing.

Her trip to Moscow was rather nostalgic for her as she visited this place as a fashion model in 1966 at the height of the Cold War. And as if to serve as a reminder of that time, her tour of Bunker 42 underground, which was the nerve center for ICBM operations, was instructive.