From Russia With Love

I posted a Blog recently titled 'From Moscow To Peking on 1€ A Day'. I took a peek on this program actually on local TV4 in Spain later. It was quite different from how I had imagined, that the participants were going to have a really hard or at least trying time, making the 10,000 kilometre journey with nothing but 1€ per person day, and that meagre sum was not even permitted to be spent on transport or accommodation. They are also provided with a card by the television channel, stating their identity, and certifying that they are in this contest for an adventure programme, with all the rules and conditions listed. Each couple is followed by the filming team of course.

My imagined hardship these people must endure couldn't have been further from the reality. In my mind I saw these poor souls having to suffer all sorts of difficulties and obstacles, exhaustion, hunger, begging food and water from door to door, and sleeping by the road side like homeless vagabonds. Boy was I wrong!

I had forgotten to take into consideration human vanity. The picture in my head are formed only by these wanderers with a mission to accomplish. Never thought about how other people react to their presence.

This group of contestants are made up of pairs, only one of them were husband and wife, the others were boy and girl friends, a couple of drag queens, two good friends, 2 middle aged bearded men, another undefinable person with his househelp I think. None of them have so far suffered anything more serious than a hangover with too much vodka before they had even got out of Russia.

You can check it out, or just imagine this: contract a team consisting of a movie camera, a sound technician, and a producer. Asked them to follow you around, and you can just about do anything you feel like doing and you will have the very cooperative support by total strangers. With a bit of luck, you are likely to be eating in comfortable homes or even luxury restaurants, sleeping in a cosy guest room with air-conditioning or even a hotel suit with private bath.

As soon as people realise that they would likely appear on TV themselves simply by being with you for a little while, or better still for a whole day, or actually doing something in whatever with you, most are more than willing to give you what you need, even if it's only on TV in Spain. They might not see themselves on the screen, at least they can talk to everybody about it! Naturally they all want pictures taken with you right there and then, feeding you and giving you a bed for the night you needn't even have to ask.

In my opinion, 'Peking Express', this program is called, would have been more interesting if these little groups were not followed by any TV teams, but film themselves with their own cameras, of each other and those people they encounter on the way, naturally also the places they have visited, and what event, if any, happened during the journey.

Tags: pekinexpress, Russia, TV

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