Joanna Lumley's Postcards

Russia (1x3)

Air date: May 04, 2017

In episode three, ‘Joanna Lumley’s Postcards: Russia’, Joanna takes another look at her gorgeous travelogue adventures – this time she gives a personal insight into her mammoth trek across Russia aboard the Trans-Siberian Express. Having travelled to Moscow as a young model, Joanna recounts her experiences of 1960’s Soviet Russia and her expectations when she set off on her return, 50 years later. Beginning with a turbulent border crossing where the crew butts heads with Russian officials, Joanna tries her hand at the Russian language – before meeting the self-styled ‘Jimi Hendrix of bell ringing’ at the top of a church steeple in Irkutsk. Travelling through the snow-covered country, Joanna shares vodka with a fisherman in Lake Baikal and shares slightly more expensive gold-flaked vodka with a Russian Oligarch. The last stop sees Joanna in Moscow, seeing the sights in Red Square, and taking a tour of a nuclear bunker where the button was almost pressed – before coming full circle and recreating her 1960s modelling photoshoot in a Moscow train station.