Tony Returns to a Russia He Barely Recognizes | Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown | Season 3 Episode 7

Anthony Bourdain travels to Russia—Moscow and St. Petersburg in the weeks before the Sochi Olympics—alongside his longtime friend Zamir Gotta, sitting down with politicians, journalists, musicians, and ordinary Muscovites to see how much has changed since his first visit in 2001. In Moscow, Bourdain finds a city he barely recognizes: one of the world's highest concentrations of billionaires, and a short drive away, a communal apartment shared by twenty-six tenants, largely unchanged since Soviet times. Over Russian tapas—blini with Astrakhan caviar, Baltic sprats with beetroot, frozen muksun whitefish—Zamir sets the tone for the week. Tony joins a permitted opposition rally, shares deconstructed borscht and pelmeni with former deputy prime minister Boris Nemtsov, and eats freshly made potato chips with Alexander Lebedev, the former intelligence officer and billionaire publisher of Novaya Gazeta who now farms potatoes outside the city. Along the way he meets the rock band Luna, whose episode of an MTV documentary series was quietly pulled, and a St. Petersburg artist and filmmaker who describes what she calls the two Russias—one governed by instinct, the other by thought. Then comes the night train, rolling through dark forests of birch and snow toward Putin's hometown. In St. Petersburg, Sergey Shnurov of the band Leningrad and his wife Matilda serve farm-to-table Russian cooking at their restaurant Kokoko: black bread with sprats and cod liver, pearl barley with lightly smoked raw beef and quail egg. Tony tours the imperial palaces where a very few once lived in unimaginable luxury, fires the noon cannon at the Peter and Paul Fortress, and hears from a human rights professor who believes change here could come overnight, the way it did before. From vodka toasts and caviar to communal kitchens and street rallies, this episode is Bourdain's portrait of a country he keeps returning to and keeps finding different from the one he left. Subscribe here to discover all of Anthony Bourdain's adventures and watch full episodes:    / @anthonybourdainpartsunknown   Travel the globe with the legendary chef, author, and storyteller Anthony Bourdain as he uncovers the soul of a destination through its food, culture, and politics. Far more than just a cooking show, Parts Unknown dives deep into the corners of the world rarely seen on TV—eating with locals, exploring diverse culinary rituals, and asking the hard questions. #AnthonyBourdain #PartsUnknown #TravelDocumentary #culture #cuisine