Metalwork is not a job for the weak. Men armed with arc welders fight against millions of atoms of iron, aluminium and brass, forcing them into submission, transforming separate pieces into one homogeneous whole that is fused and forever bound together. This is the everyday task of a welder. It is not an easy profession and is predominantly male, however, as history has shown many times before, there will always be a woman brave enough to take on such a task and not just hang with the boys, but do their job better than them. Katya Shtayunda is one such girl and currently holds the highest-skilled position a welder can reach.
The history of Northwest Russia is closely connected to Lake Ladoga - starting in the 9th century, Lake Ladoga served as the water trade route “from the Varangians to the Greeks.” Nowadays the largest lake in Europe is one of the greatest sources of fish in Northwest Russia - more than 53 species of fish can be found here. Many of them are commercial fish such as perch, pike perch and whitefish, and fishermen catch them year-round. The month of June on Lake Ladoga is European cisco fishing season. About every three days throughout the whole month dozens of fishing boats set out on the hunt for this tasty fish. One such ship invited RTG TV host Igor Vukolov on board so that he could take part in the quest for this Ladoga delicacy.
“The Russian people in its multitude like the countless stars of the sky is unique.” These are the words of the Polish theologian Matvei Krakovsky spoken back in the 15th century. The subsequent centuries have done nothing to diminish the scale of his statement. They have multiplied and redrawn the borders of the Russian lands, and the poetic description of the population is matched by the statistics. Today, Russia is the largest country in the world. There are few blank spaces on its map today, but there are many questions still to be answered about its history. One of them is “Where did the Russian lands begin?” Even the old chronicles differ in their views on this. Increasingly, however, historians believe that the roots of the Russian state can be traced back to Staraya Ladoga. Discover an old town that is regarded as the first capital of Ancient Rus in a film by RTG TV.