Joanna Lumley's Trans-Siberian Adventure

Actress Joanna Lumley starts her journey from Hong Kong where her father was stationed and where her family lived when she was 4. She travels through China and Mongolia into Russia. She takes the Trans-Siberian Express to Moscow where she last visited as a young model. She carries with her a picture of herself in the Moscow subway.

I love Joanna in AbFab. As a travelogue presenter, she has a caring inquisitiveness. She has a tendency to go off track to some lesser seen places. I like fisherman Sergei and the shaman who has never seen blonde hair. They're not the flashiest of locations but it has plenty of humanity. I don't care as much about the minor oligarch. He's obviously putting on airs and it lacks authenticity. Of course, we can't expect real insights but there are glimpses. Joanna seems more interested in the people than sightseeing. She does inject this with slight humor but not hilarious. She's not trying to play up the jokes and that does hold this back for me. This is nice but not really superior to others of its kind.

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.

I actually had no idea Joanna did these wonderful series until they popped up on Netflix and i'm glad they did. A great host and very interesting. I felt her nerves go in Russia, too! Wouldn't catch me going there haha 'hard people' indeed. Great history given with the places she visits as well! Definitely worth a watch.