On a recent trip to Siberia, the BBC Moscow correspondent, Steve Rosenberg, was pursued by a local journalist. The next thing he knew, he was featured on the TV news and criticised for showing a less than idyllic view of Russia.
When morning breaks over the River Ob, the commuter trains rumbling across the railway bridge disappear into clouds of mist. They are the ghost trains of a Siberian dawn. Through a pink-and-orange sky bursts a golden sun, and the Ob is bathed in light. But it is bitterly cold. The wind sweeps across the frozen river and chills to the bone. What could be colder than a Siberian winter? I'll tell you what - the icy reception we're about to receive in Novosibirsk.
We're out on the streets filming a report about the Russian economy. Suddenly I hear a voice.
"I'm from Novosibirsk Television - are you the BBC?"
The reporter from this pro-Kremlin channel has tracked us down and his cameraman is already filming me.
"The journalist community of Novosibirsk wants to know why you are here? What kind of film are you making?" he asks. He informs me that a recent BBC Panorama programme on alleged Kremlin corruption was a "pack of lies… a provocation".
"Are you making the same kind of film here?" he barks.
I tell the journalist, whose name is Alexander, that we're making a news report about life outside Moscow. "Is that a problem?" I ask.
"Yes it is," he replies, "judging by the kind of programmes the BBC makes."
In the hotel that evening, I switch on the TV to see what kind of programmes Siberian Television makes - rather imaginative ones, judging by its main evening bulletin. "BBC in Novosibirsk" is headline news. But it's more fairy tale than fact. The newsreader introduces us - incorrectly - as the same BBC team that made that Panorama programme about the Kremlin.
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