Behind the scenes stories from a Canadian Journalist overseas
It has suddenly become very cold and very snowy in Moscow. Last winter, there was no snow at all. The previous two winters felt very short. Overall, the climate scientists say Russia is warming twice as fast as the rest of the northern hemisphere and it has certainly felt like that over the four winters…
There’s lot of discussion about travelling over the holiday break. We live in Russia. So returning home was something my family and I had to do. A couple of observations about flying: Flight attendants told us some flights are completely empty (like our one of out Vancouver), while many flights to Sun Destinations such as…
This is Zevengorod, about two hours from downtown Moscow. It’s where our CBC crew went to chat to “ordinary” Russians about what kind of year 2020 was for them. One of the most striking things about Russia is how detached people are from the political system, compared to Canada and other western nations. So many…
We have a cool rollout starting tonight on CBCFRONTBURNER featuring our story on Russia’s Bolshoi Ballet performing through the pandemic. We mingled with the ballerina’s in the front of the house and Corinne and Dima went backstage. Tough gig for them though. Zero way to social distance. More than 100 workers and dancers sick the…
I had a few fleeting moments of fame on Russian state TV the other day. They played one of our stories from CBC News: The National to suggest it was indicative of a chronic negative attitude towards the new Russian-made Coronavirus vaccine. Only problem was, they cut out the clip from a British expert who…
The Moscow Times is reporting that temperatures this fall were 4.4 degrees above normal. Last winter, we barely got any snow. So far, it’s off to a slow start this year too. What’s still hard to get used to though is the constant dimness of the light this far north. The street lights never turn…
Our brilliant cameraman Dmitry Kozlov went up to the 24th floor of our building to get a shot of Moscow I haven’t seen before. Terrific view!
One of our last big trips before COVID-19 changed how we had to cover news, was to Japan. We filed stories on COVID and the Olympics – which we thought might be doomed at the time. Fortunately, it looks like the games will go on.
Our CBC Moscow team got wrapped up tightly for a rare visit inside one of Moscow’s COVID hospitals. It was quite an ordeal, with an assembly line of worker adding layers of PPE and sealing off any place the (contaminated) outside air could get in. With camerman Dima Kozlov and producer Corinne Seminoff. Story coming…
North of Moscow, is Ivanovo District. It’s about 300 km away but takes up to five hours on bad roads to get there, and even more fighting traffic to get back. The payoff is some classic Russian scenes in places such as Suzdal and Plyos. By European and North American standards, the towns are badly…