An amateur travelogue produced by Peter Dobing and George Theaker of a visit behind the ‘Iron Curtain’ to the Soviet Union in April 1991. As well as visits to Moscow and St Petersberg in Russia, the trip also includes visits to other Soviet Union locations including Odessa in Ukraine and Yerevan in Armenia. Title: Peter Dobing and George Theaker present Title: One Hundred Nations A Soviet flag fluttering in the wind changes to a tram travelling along a St Petersburg boulevard. The tram...

An amateur travelogue produced by Peter Dobing and George Theaker of a visit behind the ‘Iron Curtain’ to the Soviet Union in April 1991. As well as visits to Moscow and St Petersberg in Russia, the trip also includes visits to other Soviet Union locations including Odessa in Ukraine and Yerevan in Armenia. Title: Peter Dobing and George Theaker present Title: One Hundred Nations A Soviet flag fluttering in the wind changes to a tram travelling along a St Petersburg boulevard. The tram comes to a stop near to a street market where crowds look around the various stalls including one selling pastries. In a park crowds gather round tables selling second-hand books, another stall sells state lottery ticket which people look over. At a Black Sea resort, a view from the window of a high-rise building changes to a well-maintained park or garden. There are a number of marble busts including that of Karl Marx as well as birds including a peacock displaying. Crowds line a rocky beach sunbathing changes to show a port where several Russian naval vessels are watched passing by a small crowd standing in a jetty. Inside a large sports stadium a number of adverting hoardings for local radio stations surround the edge of the field. At another stadium in the snowy mountains speed-skaters practice on the ice. The film changes to an industrial landscape of factories and foundries with smoking chimneys. Beside a busy road a woman works alongside her male comrades filling a bucket and throwing the content into the back of a lorry. Beside a railway track another woman shovel gravel or coal. At the city of Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, several high-rise apartment blocks in the distance built close to a number of conventional two-story houses. Views of a number of modern high-rise builds and a woman on her balcony does her morning exercises. Cars and pedestrians travel along a tree-lined shopping street. Television aerial hang from the roofs of many apartment blocks, in the distance the snowy peak of Mount Ararat. A flame burns at the centre of The Armenian Genocide Memorial Complex on the hills of Tsitsemakaberd in memory of those killed in 1915. Roses are a laid out beside the flame. A cleric from the Armenian Apostolic Church walks towards Etchmiadzin Cathedral in the city of Vagharshapat. Other men sit on benches outside, a group of women walk past crossing themselves. At the Monument of the Unknown Solider outside the city of Odessa in Ukraine, members of the Russian Orthodox Church hold a service to commemorate the liberation of the city from Nazi Germany in 1944. Soldiers parade past as local children lay flowers. Ships are docked along quaysides at Odessa, nearby Russian soldiers poses for photographs on the Potemkin Steps. The filmmaker attempts to recreate the mutiny of the Battleship Potemkin from 1905 that led to the start of the Russian Revolution itself captured on film in 1923 by Sergi Eisenstein. Views showing the beautiful exterior of St Basil’s Cathedral in Red Square, Moscow. A large crowd watch the changing of the guard outside the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The exterior of the GUM department store is followed by those of crowds walking around its interior. Back in Red Square soldiers stands guard outside Lenin’s Tomb, nearby crowds of Russian soldiers on leave wait to go inside. Outside the tomb a road cleaner sprays water onto the road to clean it while men with mops clean the steps. Inside the Kremlin crowds walk around a square surrounded by ornate government buildings and offices. Many pose for photographs beside the Tsar Canon and Tsar Bell. Other canons captured from Napoleon’s failed invasion of 1812 are also on display. A lone fisherman sits astride a concrete bollard casting his rod into the Moskva River as cars speed past. An artist paints a small church build beside a large concrete office block. A space rocket on display outside the entrance to The Memorial Museum of Cosmonautic. Inside a shrine to cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin and crowds walking displays of both American as well as Russian space rockets, satellites, and capsules. Inside a circus ring trapeze artists and other performers entertain the watching crowd. One man stands atop a free-standing ladder while playing an accordion as his colleague pass him plates which he balances on his head. A lion walks across a tightrope. Beside a large military shrine, a group of uniformed teenagers parade up and down watched by a number of visitors. This changes to show performers in a theatre dancing for an audience. The film ends in a modern discotheque where a number of young women dance for an unseen audience. End title: One Hundred Nations