Discovering Russia

It must be daunting to plan a sixty-minute video in the face of one thousand years of history, art and culture from a land larger than both the U.S. and Canada combined. It's not surprising that a great deal must be left out: for example, though Tchaikovsky's music is heard, the composer is never mentioned, even in the tour of St. Petersburg, his home. Some factual errors mar this otherwise nicely produced video--the script says the Black Sea lands were "annexed by Catherine the Great at the end of the 19th century," which would have been quite a feat since Catherine died at the end of the 18th. And the recently disinterred, DNA-identified remains of Czar Nicholas' family do not include the bones of youngest daughter Anastasia, as the video claims. Still, this title is valuable in its realistic treatment of the "new" independent Russia, warts and all. Check your collection; this would be a useful update to similar titles from the Soviet (pre-1991) era. Recommended. (R. Reagan)