Educational Media Reviews Online

Ranging from the western border of Russia east to Siberia, the Steppes, like the Canadian prairie, are a vast, flat, fertile plain. One region alone, the Cossack, supplies 1/10th of Russian wheat. The focus of Rosenbaum's documentary, is the land of the Cossacks, who were well know as premiere fighters in the Tsar's calvary as well as accomplished farmers as are their decedents today. They farm a land where the temperatures are often over 100 degrees in summer and below 0 degrees in winter. Perfect weather, it is said, for breaking up the soil for the next year's crops.

During the communist era, small peasant farms were bought up by the state and formed into communes. The state determined what and how much was grown. Now the commune members decide on which crops to grow and how much. They provide the minimum to the state, keep what they need, and sell the rest on the market. Pensioners are given a share of their pension in sunflower seeds which they often have made into oil. There is pride in eating food that comes from your own fields and labor.

Now there is a new breed of farmer. Roughly 5 percent of the farms in the region are privately owned. The farm profiled in the documentary was worked by family members -- brothers, sons, and nephews. As with most farming families, the chores are divided between men and women traditionally and attention is always paid to the prices being paid in the market. While some grain can be stored on the farm to wait for better prices, eventually it will have to be sold to the companies that operate the grain elevators. Dominating each town, the grain elevators can store large quantities of grain dry and pest free for more than a year before shipping it by train to various ports and mills.

The New Russia is well made and beautifully filmed. The comments of the narrator are effectively interspersed with interviews of various members of the commune and family farm that are profiled. Appropriate for 6th grade and up, it would be suitable for classes in the following: social studies; history; geography; economics; cultural studies/anthropology.