inflamed by leaders like vladimir lenin, the russian working class revolted against the czarissystem. this marked the beginning of 70 years of soviet communist government. under the czars, st. petersburg was russia's capital. it was an industrial city and a trading port, with strong links to western europe. for a city with such a significant role in both russia and the world, st. petersburg's location was, and still is, exceptional. it lies almost as far north as anchorage in alaska. yet it is actually the fourth largest city in europe after moscow, london and paris. the reason st. petersburg is here is because of one man-- czar peter the great. 300 years ago, he chose this location on the neva river delta to build an entire new city. palaces and churches, boulevards, a shipyard rose out of the swamp. st. petersburg is a remarkable and amazing city. when peter the great selected this isolated site, it didn't seem to have a chance of surviving. but he wanted to find a place and provide both an outside port for russia so that europeanization of his country could begin in earnest. it was the only way he could see to reay modernize russia, and he succeeded. st. petersburg became the cultural center and the catal right up to the time of the revolution. narrator: after the 1917 revolution, st. petersburg was renamed leningrad, after the new leader, lenin. he moved the capital to moscow and decided the cultural heart of russia would instead become an industrial center. then, in 1989, the soviet era ended. st. petersburg regained its original name. since then, russia has gone through a wrenching transition from the old communist system to the new free-market economy. the changes in this city of five million people have affected everyone. the first time i was in st. petersburg was in the late '80s, a few years before the breakup of the soviet union, and i was amazed when i landed at the airport, because as soon as i got in the terminal, i felt that i was in this completely foreign place. i was really an outsider. going back just a few years later, everything seemed to have changed. there were signs welcoming us in english, and it really seemed like st. petersburg once again was reaching out to the outside world. i think the most visible evidence of that really is in the commercial landscape of the city. i noticed in the late '80s, there just weren't goods anywhe. if you did come across anything that you needed to buy, it was probably either in a touristy state store or it was available at a small corner kiosk ere goods would be piled up and people would be waiting in line to buy things. just a few years later, those kiosks had multiplied all over the city and they were supplied with all kinds of goods. and in the last five tten years, those kiosks have transitioned, some of them, into pmanent buildings, just packed with all kinds of products for people to buy. narrator: after decades of living in a communist economy, one of the biggest changes for all russians is housing. in the soviet era, the state owned everything, so all housing was controlled by the government. in the early 1990s, the gorunovs lived in what had been a standard soviet apartment. it was built in the late 1970s and housed a family of four. mr. gorunov worked as a chemistry teacher, his wife, sofia, director of a school. they had two daughters. their apartment was small, so the gorunovs had to use every inch of space. ( speaking russian ) translator: we have a three-room apartment, one room for the children, a living room, and a study for my husband. i don't know exactly how many square meters we have. ( speaking russian ) translator: about 39 square meters-- that is the living space without counting the toilet, bathroom and kitchen. narrator: under the soviet system, the government regulated how much space was allowed per person, so the gorunovs' apartment was pical for a family of four. there were different types of housing and apartments were small, but everyone's rent was low. then in 1989, when the concept of private property was introduced, people could buy their own apartments, usually for only the cost of filing an application. woman: depending on the location of the housing in the city, how attractive the area was, people would privatize sooner or later. if you are living in a nice apartment somewhere in the central part of the city, it makes sense to make it your property. in 1991, '92, about 16% to 20% of the housing was already privatized, and now the statistics are that over... well over 50% are in private hands now. narrator: they still had to pay a monthly maintenance fee, but now it was theirs. they could even sell their apartment on the open market. those who haven't taken advantage of the opportunity to acquire their own apartment are likely thave a good rean. arkova: those who did not pratize, it's probably because they had bad apartments. they had bad apartments probably because they were not positioned well with regard to the access of goods during the soviet times. so they are in the lower socioeconomic... of a lower socioeconomic status than, for example, those who already have privatized. narrator: at the end of the soviet era, a typical st. petersburg family paid five to ten percent of their total income for housing. today the average is 40% to 50%. incomes have risen, too, but not as rapidly, so the net eecis that housing fomost people is more expensive than before privatization. the new apartments that are being constructed by private developers cost at least $1,000 a square meter, so a new apartment the size of the gorunovs' might cost $,000. the only people who can afford this kind of price are the so-called new russians. ( speaking russian ) translator: the overwhelming majority of new homeowners are the so-called new russians, people who are in the trade sector that's developing dynamically. hardwick: they would tend to be the entrepreneurs, people that are in the travel and tourism industry. some of them used to work for intourist, perhaps. they probably speak english, german, other european languages. and so they, along with, of course, the criminal element that's unfortunately all too common throughout the world, are probably going to be the few people that can afford to buy property. narrator: as long as the gorunovs still have their jobs, they can afford to maintain their apartment. but life has changed for their daughters' generation. their future is no longer guaranteed by the state. many of st. petersburg's industries were old and inefficient and haven't survived the transition to a free-market economy. hardwick: the pace of change in russia has just been so much slower than anybody could have imagined ten years ago, i think. the social problems, political problems and other issues have just been actually really surprising to people, and i think a lot of the people i've talked to have juslost faith in democracy. they see that their problems are perhaps too large to solve in the ways that they initially thought they could be solved, and so they look back to times of more authoritarian rule, almost thinking that that might be a better place for their nation to be now. so i think it's going to be a long road ahead for the kinds of changes to happen that everybody expected to happen a long time ago. narrator: one of the new continuing hopes for st. petersburg is to redevelop its harbor. the infrastructure is old and it operates far below its capacity. the city has been looking for foreign investors to modernize the port facilities. the harbor is strategically located. with the independence of the baltic states, st. petersburg along with kaliningrad are russia's only remaining ports on the baltic sea. this is all the more important because the black sea ports were lost to russia when ukraine became independent. architectural consultant vladislav miagkov is optimistic about the city's potential in the future. ( speaking russian ) translator: after perestroika, the city faced a great number of economic and political problems related to the transition to the market economy. but the city holds enormous potential in its well-educated populace, its intelligentsia and its laborers. moreover, st. petersburg is an important railway and transportation junction that stillonnects ruia with the west. that's why our city has a ance to overcome its current difficulties. at the same time, st. petersburg as an important tourist and cultural center remains a worthy representative of russia to the world community. hardwick: st. petersburg is still the most beautiful city in russia, and geographically its location means it will never lose that importance. but after more than ten difficult years of transition, i think that the future of russia's experiment with democracy and free-market economy still remains uncertain. narrator: st. petersburg's relative location to european markets and culture were key to its development on the neva river delta. symbol of peter the great's desire for "europeanization" of russia, today st. petersburg continues its role as russia's "window on the west." the transition to a free-market economy has challenged st. petersburg residents with soaring housing costs associated with privatization. but joining the global economy has also given rise to entrepreneurial new russians, people who may play a pivotal role in the future economic development critical to russia and its neighbors. russia is by far the largest country in the world, stretching across 11 time zones. its huge land area features a variety of natural environments including plains, forest, mountains and deserts. often these environments present challenging geographic conditions for successful agriculture. in the oblast, or administrative region, of vologda, we find the forests and farms of the north russian countryside. here, we explore: how physical geography affects agriculture; the transition from communist- style collective farms to privatized family farms in a post-soviet economy; and how russia's changing demography is turning the country into an archipelago of widely spaced urban centers. as the people in vologda struggle with the shift to a free market, we find ourselves asking, how much has really changed? traveling east from st. petersburg, we head into the north russian countryside. dotted along the route are small farming communities, but mainly forest, forest and more forest. after nearly 500 miles, we come to vologda, the administrative center of the region with the same name. the ci was founded in the 12th century. it is rich in historic monuments, such as the vologda kremlin. in the european part of russia, vologda lies at almost 60 degrees latitude. with an area of almost 100,000 square miles, the region is larger than england and wales together, yet it has 40 times fewer inhabitants-- some 1.3 million. vologda lies far to the north of the rich agricultural area of russia known as the "black earth" zone. the soil is much poorer here, and vologda faces many other constraints on its agriculture, as rural geographer anatoli christobaev explains. ( speaking russian ) translator: poor soils are characteristic for the n-black soil aaof russi. the soils are sandy, sometimes loamy. in the best case, we have, relatively speaking, the most fertile soils. in spite of the abundant precipitation, we need irrigation for soil improvement. the climate is moderately continental, with rather cold winters. the lowest winter temperatures vary between minus 40 and minus 42 degrees. ( christobaev continuing speaking russian ) translator: summers are short and may be rather warm-- up to 30 degrees centigrade. the summer season is only three months long; spring starts late, trees start to bud by the end of may. ( christobaev continuing speaking russian ) narrator: so the physical geography here is not very good for raising crops. but it is well suited for something else... ( cows mooing ) dairy farming. man: dairy farms in vologda have long produced high-quality milk and vologda has long been famous for its butter. vologda butter, in russian, "vologodskoe maslo," is a famous brand. fortunately, it seems like this culture of producing butter has not been lost. their milk yields currently... they are relatively small as compared with, you kn, west european or canadian or amecan mi yields, but as compared with the russian average, it's a decent yield, and in 1998, 1999, 2000 there was a positive dynamics of animal husbandry in vologda. narrator: serge is trying his luck at it. ( speaking russian ) translator: i have only just started to form a herd. now i own three milk cows. the rest are young cattle that will have calves in august or september. it is good stock. narrator: serge is one of only a few people to start private family farms. it is a challenging proposition in the post-soviet economy. ( speaking russian ) translator: i think that, although i am 40 years old, the genes have spoken. my parents w were farmers, but nobody pushed me to become a farmer. it was all my own decision, although i knew it was going to be difficult. when we talk private family farmers, this is a registered independent business, which is taxed, which qualifies for bank loans. well, these... these farmers... the heyday of these farmers was most probably in the early '90s, when it was believed that very soon the collectivized system of agriculture would be... you know, fall into oblivion and would give way to family farming western-style. well, it didn't happen in russia, and there are relatively very few really successful ive faers. narrator: instead, most farms continue to function much as they did duri the communist era. then, russian agriculture was in the hands of the state. farms were huge collective operations. today, although most of the collective farms have been privatized to form cooperative enterprises, little has changed. nominally, most collective and state farms have distributed land, divided it into shares, and the titles for these shares are in possession of rank-and-file members of the collective farms. but for all practical purposes, these socialized enterprises, as i would call them, are managed in the same way-- in the same way that the collective and state farms used to be managed in the soviet union before the... you know, so-called collapse of communism. narrator: these workers and the retired employees of the old collective are now co-owners of the company. today they breed dairy cattle. alexander aksenov is the appointed manager. aksenov ( translated ): we have 3,200 head of cattle including the calves. ( aksenov speaking russian ) translator: there are 1,500 milk cows. in total we have 4,500 hectares of land; 200 we plow under, and the rest we use for grass and hay. ( cattle mooing ) ( aksenov continuing speaking russian ) narrator: during the soviet era, this farm, just as most of the other collective enterprises, took care of its own employees. it provided housing and arranged services such as shops and a school-- practically a village unto itself. today, the farm houses over a thousand people and employs some 250 workers. people still live in these houses. although privatization means some employees now own these homes, they still live and work in a collective environment. so these collective farms persist. but why? one reason is a lack of the market infrastructures that facilitate independent farming; another is russia's sheer geographic size relative to its population. people in isolated areas were dependent on each other. this has contributed to russia's long tradition of collective agriculture and provides clues to one more reason that these farms remain so tenacious. on the one hand, they are economic units, production units. on the other hand, they are vehicles of collective survival, survival of the weakest. the age structure of rural population is such that the percentage of elderly is very high-- in some outlying regions up to, you know, 40% of the population. the collective... a collective farm creates a certain structure, a certain unit that helps rechannel some funds to the benefit of these elderly-- and not necessarily only elderly. so these people have vested interests in the retention of this collective enterprise. narrator: and so, as the farm tries to adapt to market conditions, what alexander aksenov finds most difficult is how to change the people's mentality. ( speaking russian ) translator: the most difficult task still awaits us: that is, to make clear to each employee, also to those veterans of labor, just what is meant by partial ownership and what responsibilities it entails. this can't be accomplished in one or two years. what is vital is the pchological shift that both older and younger workers need to make. ( aksenov speaking russian ) narrator: the hope is that the transition to market conditions will force all farmers to become competitive and more efficient. but the circumstances are difficult: money for investment is scarce. even sales to milk factories are no longer guaranteed. the difficulties of free-market agribusiness are forcing some people to leave the countside. people who are leaving are usually youngste. everywhere across the world, people who are prone to migrate are young parents with their kids, and when it happens over and over again, population is aging. if population is aging, death rate exceeds birth rate. this is what in vologda has been the case since the late '60s. the result has been depopulation-- a ruranarrator:ation, decades of rural depopulation have resulted in many farms and villages being abandoned. it is clearly visible that within outlying areas, land that's under cultivation is shrinking, and... because interurban distances are relatively long in russia, russia, effectively, is becoming an archipelago, whereby pockets of vibrant economic space are immersed in this sea of stagnation and decay. narrator: this archipelago effect can be seen in this nighttime satellite photra. russian cities extend eastward from st. petersburg in a thin necklace strung across the immense landmass. in a country with few paved roads outse of urban areas, these cities continue to cling to the route taken by the trans-siberian railroad. under such conditions, if farming proves difficult, what other options are there to allow people to earn a living theountryside? ( christobaev speaking russian ) translator: keep in mind the very short summer: four months of work on the farm and some activity in the processing industries. this is not a great perspective. what should the farmer do for the rest of the year? i think that forestry offers the opportunities for vologda farmers in the . narrator: wi 70% of its surface in forest, vologda is one of the most wooded areas of russia. to the northwest of vologda's administrative center is belozersk, home to one of the largest and oldest russian forestry operations. local processing of wood n esial source of income r e gi. near the city of vologda lies one of the largest wood processing companies in russia. it produces industrial paper and cardboard. the problems of post-communist transition have also hit this factory. it had troubleinding buyers. a lot of its products used to be exported to the ukrne and belorussia, but these countries no longer buy because of financial problems. with a drop in demand from current customers and the search for new markets, forestry may have an uncertain future. anatoli pak is the region's vice-governor charged with privatization. ( speaking russian ) translator: at the moment, companies see the need to decrease their production... but also to improve quality and carry out the independent trade-- not only with russians, but also with foreign partners, who demand high quality. ( pak continuing speaking russian ) translator: now that the planned economy no longer exists, companies will have to meet each other under market conditions as the buyer and the seller. ( pak continuing speaking russian ) narrator: market conditions, agribusiness. is this good news for new private farmer serge? will he be able to reach an efficient scale of production? (eaking russian ) translator: i don't know what a hectare costs, but it is big money, and for the time being, i am just getting by. to purchase land is out of the question now. that is the remote future; maybe for my son. narrator: farmers in vologda face the dual challenge of making their land productive amidst environmental constraints of the region's physical geography and adapting to a free-market economy. the transition from collective farms to privatization has not occurred as anticipated. as the younger generation migrates from rural areas to the cities, an aging population is left behind. with the human geography of these changing demographics, russia may face the future as an archipelago of widely spaced urban centers with vast social deserts in between. captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org annenberg media ♪ for information about this and other annenberg media programs call 1-800-learner and visit us at www.learner.org. august 9, 1999. on december 8, 1997. november 30, 2002. i was hit by a drunk driver. i lost both of my legs. a stranger tried to kill me with a hammer. our 7-year-old son, evan, was murdered after signing up for basketball. i was severely beaten in a hate crime. i was raped. when your child is murdered, it's devastating. you have to re-think life again. it just keeps on running over and over in my head all the time. while i was in the hospital, a friend told me about victims' services. they helped me with my medical expenses. they helped me with counseling. a victims' advocate stood by us through the court process. victim assistance paid all my hospital bills. i needed them to fight for me while i was fighting for my life. with the right help, you can move on with your life. i will dance the salsa again. justice isn't served until crime victims are. annenberg media ♪