Russia from Above

- Season 1

(2018)

Episode one shows for the first time the cities of Saint Petersburg and Moscow from the air and roams the 200 km wide Volga Delta, in which ten million birds spend the winter over the year. The camera team climbs the 5,000-meter peak of Elbrus in the Caucasus Mountains and watches the herds of antelopes in the steppes of Kalmykia in search of water points.

Russia's south is the focus of the second episode, which provides breathtaking insights into the Republic of Dagestan and grazes the city of Rostov at the mouth of the Don, which is also known as the "Gateway to the Caucasus". In the south is the largest river delta in Europe - the Volga Delta. The seemingly endless expanse is fed by the largest lake on earth - the Caspian Sea.

Episode three flies over Siberia with Lake Baikal, which despite its size is frozen six months a year, and follows the Trans-Siberian Railway on its way to the Far East. Accompany a nomad group on their way to the spring camp through the unique Altay Mountains, stop in Novosibirsk and show the deserted taiga from a bird's eye view.

In episode four it gets so cold that it takes the help of an atomic icebreaker to find a way through the ice in the Arctic Ocean. On the Lena Delta, the frozen ground draws unique patterns into the country that are particularly easy to see from the air. The camera team flies over Cape Schmidt, where polar bear families and walruses are at home, and over the Yamal peninsula.

Episode five begins with a flight to the Kamchatka Peninsula with its 29 active volcanoes, observes intrepid surfers at the eastern end of Russia and watches brown bears catch salmon. The camera team accompanies fur seals and their offspring on Tyulenyi Island and travels to the most eastern city in the country, Vladivostok, also known as "the San Francisco of Russia".