FULL CIRCLE WITH MICHAEL PALIN: ALASKA AND RUSSIA {SERIES PREMIERE} {EPISODE 1 OF 10} (TV)
Summary
The premiere episode in this ten-part series in which Michael Palin and his crew journey around the "full circle" of the Pacific Rim, traversing 50,000 miles and 17 countries in the course of one year. In this episode, Palin journeys from the Island of Little Diomede in the Bering Straits to the airport in Anchorage. On the way to Anchorage, Palin and his BBC crew make stops in Nome, Kodiak Island, and Camp Island. In Nome, Palin's interviews gold prospectors about their methods, then speaks to area entrepreneur Jim Stimfle about his plan to dig a tunnel under the Bering Straits in order to connect North America and Asia by rail. On Camp Island, Palin and crew stop for a bit of bear-spotting. On Kodiak Island, Palin visits an Orthodox Russian church. Palin departs for Russian from Anchorage airport; he and his crew land at Petropavlovsk in the remote Kamchatka Peninsula in Russian Siberia. While in Russia, Palin and company visit the beautiful and isolated Kranotsky Reserve and meet some members of the Evenks, a nomadic tribe that lives nearby. Palin's Russian guide, Igor Nosov, teaches Palin a Russian song. Palin also visits Magadan, a city built by prison laborers in the 1930s. In Magadan, Palin meets Ivan Ilyich Yakovlev, a surviving ex-prisoner of a Gulag Camp in the nearby Kolyma region; Palin and Yakovlev fly to a prison camp where Yakovlev discusses the life of Stalin-era prison camps. Palin also rides the Trans-Siberian railway to the port city of Vladivostok, meets the Deputy Commander of the Pacific Fleet, and sings with the famed Pacific Fleet Ensemble.
Cataloging of this program was made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, 2003.
Details
- NETWORK: PBS
- DATE: September 15, 1997 8:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:54:43
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: T:74994
- GENRE: Public affairs/Documentaries
- SUBJECT HEADING: Public affairs/Documentaries; Travel; Alaska; Russia
- SERIES RUN: PBS - TV series, 1997
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Anne James … Executive Producer
- Edward Mirzoeff … Executive Producer
- Roger Mills … Producer, Director
- Clem Vallance … Series Producer
- Nigel Meakin … Production (Misc.), Photographer
- Stephen Robinson … Production (Misc.), Photographer
- Igor Nosov … Researcher
- Michael Palin … Writer
- Elizabeth Parker … Music by
- Peter Howell … Theme Music by
- Michael Palin … Host
- Igor Nosov
- Jim Stimpfle
- Ivan Ilych Yakovlev