(dramatic music)
Nearly twice the size of the United States,
Russia is the biggest country on Earth.
(wind howling)
From the subtropics to the Arctic.
(water lapping)
The Atlantic Ocean ... to the Pacific.
Giant lakes.
Active volcanoes.
(dramatic music)
And endless forests frame the natural treasures of Russia.
Dramatic carnivores.
Headbutting Ice Age survivors.
And endangered birds
are just a starting point
as we reveal another side of the country.
(dramatic music)
The natural beauty
hidden in the vast expanses ... of Russia.
(soft dramatic music)
(wind howling)
A land of superlatives,
Russia covers an incredible 17 million square kilometers.
It's the biggest of all countries,
covering one-tenth of the Earth's surface.
It spans 11 time zones.
Straddles two continents.
And its coasts reach three different oceans.
(birds calling)
Russia is perhaps best known for its politics,
weapons, space race and fossil fuels.
For its huge scale, cold climate and fondness for vodka.
(soft singing in foreign language)
But there is another, lesser-known side
to this vast country.
Its natural history.
(soft dramatic music)
It might have the fifth-largest population on the planet,
but more than 70% of Russian people inhabit urban areas,
leaving vast tracts of unspoiled wilderness to explore.
(soft dramatic music)
Moving from west to east,
Hidden Russia reveals its spectacular diversity.
(gentle flute music)
Traveling from Scandinavia,
the transition to Russia is imperceptible.
Its mixed forests and open plains
continuing through Karelia.
(waves crashing)
(soft flute music)
(waves crashing)
(soft music)
Faint traces in the rock reveal
the long presence humans have had here.
But also an ancient connection to nature.
(soft music)
Despite the labor involved in a time before tools,
swans have been etched into the rock.
(soft music)
(water lapping)
(soft music)
This frozen north of Russia provides a breeding ground
for elegant Hooper swans.
(birds honking)
Winters here are tough.
(soft music)
(birds honking)
To escape the worst of it,
the regal birds took a vacation to central Europe,
some traveling thousands of kilometers.
(birds honking)
It's still cold here,
but mild enough for an excited reunion.
(birds honking)
The birds pair for life,
and quickly affirm their bonds to each other.
And make it clear that Casanovas are not welcome.
(birds honking)
Their young from last year are still with them,
guided through their first migration by their parents.
(birds honking)
But now it's time for them to go it alone.
And the parents angrily carve up
the lake shores into potential nesting sites.
(birds honking)
(water lapping)
(soft music)
The Korelia region has plenty of water for swans.
(soft music)
There are thousands of lakes,
including the two biggest in Europe.
(bird calling)
Lake Ladoga, and this one, Lake Onega.
(thunder rumbling)
Spanning nearly 250 kilometers.
(thunder rumbling)
So large that it contains over 1,600 islands.
(rain falling)
The small ones provide safe nesting spots
for the swans, and their neighbors.
(water lapping)
(thunder rumbling)
(water trickling)
(bird calling)
Black-throated divers spend winter out at sea.
(birds calling)
Returning to clean freshwater lakes to breed.
(water lapping)
Divers live up to their name.
(bird calling)
Their legs are so far back on their bodies
that they can barely walk on land.
And so always nest right on the water's edge,
something that puts them at risk from predators.
(light music)
A bear.
(light music)
Enemy Number One to most of the animals of the forest.
(upbeat dramatic music)
The divers take to the water.
(dramatic music)
Their display intended to draw
the bear away from their nest.
Though the bear doesn't seem
particularly interested in either.
Many of the region's lakes were once connected.
(upbeat music)
During the Ice Age, there was a continuous
body of water from here to the Baltic.
(upbeat music)
Though water levels have receded enough to separate
the lakes, the region remains boggy,
with vast wetlands.
Which to the south gradually give way to the Volga Plateau.
(upbeat music)
Vast rolling hills that drain into the Volga,
the longest river in Europe.
(upbeat music)
The forested hills are teeming with wildlife.
Like red deer, who often browse
on patches of open grass.
(upbeat music)
But stay close enough to the edge of the forest
to dash for cover.
(upbeat music)
(birds singing)
The treeline can be a dangerous place to hang out.
(gentle music)
One of the most secretive and least-seen
of predators slinks in the shadows.
The Eurasian lynx.
But this female isn't hunting.
She's calling.
(birds singing)
She has a secret ... tucked away in the vegetation.
(birds singing)
Though the female's territory sits within the much larger
home range of the male, she's on her own
when it comes to raising the family.
(birds singing)
Her cubs are already a few months old.
But it will be half a year before she can go off duty,
leaving them to fend for themselves.
(birds singing)
They'll become top hunters in the forest,
quite capable of bringing down deer
several times their own size.
(birds singing)
But for now, the little ones are content
trying out their moves on each other.
(gentle music)
Moving south, the climate becomes hotter and drier.
Forest giving way to open, arid grass plains.
(gentle music)
In a few tiny pockets of Russia live relics of the Ice Age.
(gentle music)
Saiga antelope.
(birds singing)
Once ranging across most of Eurasia,
only a few populations cling on.
But the animals stay faithful to their habitats,
constantly on the move, making huge migrations
in search of fresh grazing.
Bulbous noses are built-in face masks.
Traveling in large herds, the moving antelope kick up dust.
The noses filter this airborne dirt
before it can choke their lungs.
In cold winters, they also warm air before it's inhaled,
helping to prevent heat loss.
(soft music)
This is Caucasus, Russia's far south,
punctuated by the spectacular Caucasus Mountains.
(soft music)
The highest peak, Mount Elbrus,
is a dormant volcano, towering 5,600 meters.
(soft music)
The highest peak in Europe
and the 10th highest in the world.
(soft music)
But for their vast size, the Caucasus Mountains are dwarfed
by an even greater range.
The Ural Mountains cut Russia in half.
Its land to the west sits on the continent of Europe.
But the Urals represent a continental divide,
with most of Russia on the east in Asia.
Its southern foothills are little more than desert.
But they quickly climb.
These are amongst the oldest mountains on Earth,
with a 300 million year old birthday coming up.
(soft music)
(birds chirping)
With a span of two and half thousand kilometers,
it goes through some dramatic changes.
(birds singing)
Arid slopes give way to forest.
Lots of forest.
(rain falling)
With such convoluted terrain,
the region scoured by water,
in all forms, from tiny trickle
to raging torrent.
(rain pelting)
(soft music)
The lush environment is paradise to wildlife.
(gentle music)
(birds calling)
An unusual fisherman is drawn to a stream.
(light music)
Usually a nighttime muncher of mice and voles,
the Ural owl turns its talents to a bit of frog catching.
(light music)
Fishing is rare for this species,
but it has hungry chicks to feed
and so takes whatever it can find.
(light music)
The chicks don't seem particularly fussy.
(light music)
Ural owls are very faithful monogamists,
working together to keep up with their demanding youngsters.
(light music)
(birds calling)
It's a three- to four-month-long slog.
(light music)
(water flowing)
There are plenty of unusual riverine predators
hidden in the wet wilderness of the Urals.
(light music)
Hunted for its velvet-like fur,
this creature is as rare as it is odd.
(light music)
And its lifestyle choices make it
an even rarer sight than the owl.
This is a Russian desman.
(light music)
Also known as the water mole,
because that is exactly what it is.
Though they maintain a den under the waterline,
all entrances are submarine.
Unlike most moles, desmans are social.
With a few mucking in together, sharing the den.
But all of their foraging is done in streams.
(water lapping)
Holding their breath for five minutes, they feverishly hunt
for any small animals they can find.
Though mole in most respects,
they do have a few adaptations.
Webbed feet.
A long, flattened tail.
And sensors on the tips of its mobile snouts
to sniff out aquatic prey.
(soft music)
There's another mammal stalking the shallows
that the desmans might choose to avoid.
The secretive European mink.
Hunted mercilessly.
(light music)
Outcompeted by introduced species,
and displaced by development,
this species is critically endangered.
(birds chirping)
(birds calling)
The fast-flowing streams are a preferred habitat.
They're less likely to freeze up in winter
and make a good site for this female's den.
(water flowing)
Her young were born blind and helpless,
but tripled their weight in just 10 days.
(birds chirping)
(water flowing)
Now they're nearly a month old, and their mother is doing
her best to shift them to a meat diet.
(birds chirping)
She works nonstop to keep the food coming.
(upbeat music)
In another month, she'll be teaching them
to hunt for themselves.
(upbeat music)
These three unique predators are hidden
from the outside world.
Tiny and in a vast forest, making them easy to miss
though well worth looking for.
(gentle music)
But they vanish against the scale of the huge Ural range,
which just goes further and further north
from its desert roots, all the way into the Arctic.
Below the mountains of the north, Russia has a wide belt
of tundra up to 400 kilometers across.
(soft music)
Winters are so tough here,
and the summers so short
that large plants struggle to grow.
Instead, rolling hills where forest is replaced
with mosses, lichens, grass
and miniaturized shrubs.
(soft music)
Ground contains permafrost here
that hasn't melted in tens of thousands of years.
(soft music)
25% of the Earth's surface is permafrost,
and more than half of it's here.
(soft music)
Rising temperatures are causing it to melt,
and as it does, it's exposing clues to its much colder past.
(soft music)
An Ice Age monster, the eroding tusk
of a 40,000-year-old mammoth.
(soft music)
It's not the only relic left behind by the Ice Age.
(wind blowing)
Musk oxen.
Looking like a shaggy buffalo, the impressive beasts
are more closely related to sheep.
(ox snorting)
The hardy creatures weathered a tough winter,
using broad hooves to dig for food in the snow.
And they have thick double-layered coats
to guard against the weather.
(soft music)
Summers are short, but wonderful.
(soft music)
The musk ox are free to enjoy a rich diet
of flowers and fungi.
(soft music)
They can bulk up, ready to face the cold again,
but they have another endurance test first.
The rut.
(ox snorting)
Male musk ox are turbocharged crash helmets on legs.
Like gunslingers at dawn,
each back up 20 paces.
(soft dramatic music)
And then charge.
(dramatic music)
At up to 50 kilometers per hour.
(dramatic music)
They have the impact of a car crash.
(dramatic music)
Their skulls are reinforced.
The bones and horn pad above the brain
are five times thicker than a cycle helmet.
(soft dramatic music)
It's hard-core, but only winners get to mate,
ensuring that only the toughest genes
are passed on to the next generation.
(ox snorting)
In the Arctic, they breed them tough.
(soft dramatic music)
Further north, there's another landscape
that's bleaker still.
Where only the hardiest can survive.
The Russian Arctic.
(soft dramatic music)
(water lapping)
(gentle music)
More than half of the world's Arctic
coastline belongs to Russia.
(gentle music)
This is the realm of the polar bear.
The largest land carnivore.
(gentle music)
The great snow bear can stand more three meters tall
and weigh half as much as a small car.
(water lapping)
Often considered marine mammals,
polar bears are most at home roaming sea ice,
hunting seals and wolves.
(water lapping)
But in summer the ice melts
and the bears are stranded on the beach.
(soft music)
They get hungry and lose weight during summer,
though occasionally get lucky.
(soft dramatic music)
Beluga whales often swim close to the coast,
not just to forage,
but to rub their skin on the rocks in shallow bays
to help rid themselves of parasites.
(soft dramatic music)
And there are other visitors.
Gray whales, from a very rare population
in the western Pacific, migrate into Arctic waters.
(soft dramatic music)
Occasionally, dead animals wash up on the beaches,
a treat for a hungry polar bear.
(soft dramatic music)
This is a landscape where plants struggle to survive.
Only the toughest eke out a living.
(dramatic music)
It's Russia's nature at its harshest.
(soft dramatic music)
But for most of this vast landmass,
conditions are more favorable.
70% is cloaked by forest.
A fifth of all found on our planet.
This is the Taiga, the Russian name for the boreal forest.
It's still temperate and exposed to fierce winters.
But that doesn't stop it supporting
some of the most spectacular wildlife.
(animal howling)
The king of the Taiga is the tiger.
The Siberian tiger, the biggest cat on Earth,
is also one of the rarest.
This is its last stronghold.
The bleakness of winters and the remoteness of nearly 6,000
kilometers of forest have stopped much human development.
Keeping the tigers out of the reach of hunters
that have driven their species' numbers
down to a few thousand.
(snow crunching)
(tiger purring)
(birds chirping)
The stripes in its luxurious fur that made it
so sought-after for fashion,
helps it blend in to the barcode of bare trees.
(snow crunching)
(birds chirping)
(water flowing)
Helping it hunt the other tough giants of the forest,
wild boar and moose.
(gentle music)
The Taiga Forest is one of the world's biggest biomes,
and it stretches across most of Russia.
(upbeat music)
The temperate forest experiences cold winters
and can have permafrost beneath its roots.
But still life proliferates.
Though it's not always easy to spot.
(birds chirping)
(water flowing)
(upbeat light music)
Secretive and primitive deer, the musk deer,
armed not with antlers but tusks,
skulks about in the shadows.
(upbeat light music)
Though probably doesn't need to worry about Asian badger.
A deer is a bit beyond its reach.
Badgers eat almost anything, including rodents,
if they can catch them.
(upbeat light music)
(birds calling)
But preparing for winter, chipmunks are fast enough
to evade most predators.
(upbeat light music)
At breakneck speed, they dash about,
trying to beat each other to the best seeds and nuts.
(light music)
(birds whistling)
Cramming their cheek pouches full
to carry the treasure back to their nests.
(upbeat light music)
A third species of bear enjoys the Russian forest.
(upbeat light music)
Sometimes called a moon bear, because of a white
crescent shape on its chest,
the Asiatic black bear is a true forest dweller.
This female's a single mum and will spend several years
teaching her young to make a living in the forest.
(light music)
(birds singing)
Some predators choose to stay hidden until the light fades.
(soft dramatic music)
(mysterious music)
The biggest owl, and with less than 1,000 individuals,
one of the rarest.
The Blakiston's owl prefers nocturnal forays
to hunt its unusual prey.
(mysterious music)
It's a fishing owl.
(mysterious music)
It has competition for aquatic life, from a raccoon dog.
(mysterious music)
But with a trout secured,
it ferries its catch to its rapidly growing chick.
(mysterious music)
Spooking another resident normally hidden in the canopy.
(mysterious music)
Flying squirrels.
Not true flyers, but gliders, thanks to a membrane
of skin running from wrists to ankles.
They rarely need to descend to the ground, which is lucky.
At night, the forest floor can be a dangerous place.
(dramatic music)
There are only around 100 Amur leopards left on Earth.
(dramatic music)
Almost all of them in the forests of southeast Russia.
They're hardly ever seen or filmed.
(dramatic music)
Decimated by hunting, legal protection might now allow
this cat to creep back through the forests of Russia.
(gentle music)
(water flowing)
The forests of southeastern Russia have another feature.
(water flowing)
At 600 kilometers long, it's not exactly hidden.
This is Lake Baikal,
the biggest body of fresh water on Earth.
It contains 20% of the world's fresh water.
(gentle music)
Russians don't do lakes by half.
This one's the oldest.
(water lapping)
Clearest and deepest.
(gentle music)
A natural wonder.
And it's getting bigger.
It's a rift valley,
formed as tectonic plates pull apart from each other.
It gains a few centimeters every year.
The phenomenal lake contains several
thousand species of animal,
most of which are found nowhere else on Earth.
(soft dramatic music)
It even has its own species of seal.
(seals groaning)
Seals are usually saltwater marine mammals
that live along the coasts.
(seals howling)
Quite how they got here is a mystery.
(water lapping)
They might have brought themselves in by swimming up rivers.
Or the lake might in its past
have been connected to the sea.
Either way, the seals have been living here
for at least two million years.
(water lapping)
(soft music)
The lake is fed by more than 300 rivers
flowing from several surrounding mountain ranges.
From the northern shore, the Baikal Mountain Range
stretches across the rest of Russia to the east,
forming a border with neighboring countries.
Until finally, it reaches the eastern coast
and the Pacific Ocean.
(soft music)
Here, Russia has one more surprise.
A vast peninsula, Kamchatka.
(soft music)
It's huge, about the size of Switzerland,
Germany and Austria.
(soft music)
Over 1,000 kilometers long,
it looks like a land left behind in the mists of time.
(soft music)
160 volcanoes, 30 of which remain active,
punctuate the skyline,
while boiling mud holes and vents of steam
reveal the fury of the fiery underworld.
(water bubbling)
(soft dramatic music)
(steam hissing)
It's the highest concentration
of volcanic activity anywhere.
(water flowing)
(soft dramatic music)
Tundra, forests and 100,000 lakes and streams
fuel the perfect image of untamed wilderness.
(rain falling)
It's a wet wonderland.
(thunder rumbling)
(soft dramatic music)
Moisture is carried in from the surrounding
Okhotsk and Bering seas and the mighty Pacific Ocean.
Very productive waters that draw in giants.
(whales vocalizing)
(soft dramatic music)
Killer whales.
The supersized dolphins are here because they are following
prey that has brought them close inland.
(water lapping)
(soft music)
They are not the only predators aware of the arrivals.
Hungry bears are gathered, waiting along the coast.
(birds calling)
The surface of the sea is calm.
Apart from the first signs of salmon.
Kamchatka is famous for its salmon.
A fifth of all Pacific salmon of all six species
come here to breed.
It was in these rivers that the fish
hatched from their eggs.
They went through a spectacular transformation,
from a young freshwater fish
to one that lives in the open ocean.
(bear growling)
(water lapping)
They've been at sea for several years,
but now mature, they are back and ready to breed.
What starts out as a trickle
(soft dramatic music)
is soon a tsunami of fish.
And the bears are ready.
(dramatic music)
(water splashing)
(dramatic music)
Russia could be called the Land of the Bears.
With brown, black and polar bears,
it has more than its share.
(water splashing)
And the brown bears of Kamchatka
are the biggest in the world.
(birds calling)
(dramatic music)
The salmon come at the perfect time.
From late summer, they arrive.
(soft dramatic music)
Offering a feast to the bears,
who are trying to build up their fat reserves,
ready for their winter sleep.
(soft dramatic music)
Bears are usually solitary, but with food in abundance,
they're more tolerant.
(dramatic music)
Though most still politely respect social hierarchies,
the biggest male bears claim the best fishing spots.
(dramatic music)
And everyone else gives them a wide berth.
Especially mothers with young.
Big male bears are their only real threat.
Fortunately, there are plenty of salmon.
And soon even the smaller streams are packed.
And a family finds a quieter place
to work on their fishing skills.
(gentle music)
The salmon that escape the claws release their eggs,
which will mature in the streams until they are ready
to venture downstream to the ocean.
(gentle music)
But for their parents, this was a one-way trip.
Exhausted by the upstream battle and competing
with each other, and above all the impact
of fresh water on marine bodies,
their lives are over.
Their carcasses will add nutrients to the waterways
and ensure a rich nursery for their young.
(water splashing)
(bear snoring)
(gentle music)
From this Pacific coastline,
Moscow is a 10-hour flight away.
The end of a nation that stretches
9,000 kilometers east to west.
(gentle music)
A giant country that dominates two continents.
(gentle music)
But because Russia lies so far north,
its landscapes are cold and dry.
Harsh places that have limited development.
(gentle music)
Most of Russia remains wild and beautiful.
And if you look for its hidden treasure,
the spectacular diversity of Russia's wildlife is revealed.
(gentle music)