Self-Made Barbie

Don’t mess with Texas. RT travels to the Republic of Texas and meets Texans who are proud of their heritage, embrace self-reliance and are ready to live by what they preach, even if it strays from the norms of mainstream American society.

One man's personal journey through his own mortality is changing the way an entire city thinks and talks about death. 

Cossack troops return to France 200 years after the Napoleonic wars were over. They'll show traditional riding tricks, wield swords while on horseback and perform other spectacular stunts, but no bloodshed or wounded people this time, just fun and games. 

Where can Russians learn how to sell a hundred rubles for two hundred, or start a business from nothing? Join RT as we go on a tour of Moscow's Higher School of Economics.

RT takes an exclusive look at North Korea, the world’s most closed-off country. Life here is isolated from the outside world and every aspect of existence is regulated by order of the "Great Leader", from the art you’re allowed to see, the books you can read, even to your hairstyle.

An estimated 290,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide in 20 years. Small farms used to be the country’s economic backbone but now, owners struggle to make even a meagre profit and drown in debt. For some, the pressure is too much. Many blame GMO cotton for the failing farms, having cornered the market and replaced organic crops; they have failed to live up to expectations.

Pastor and pilgrim Gennady Mokhnenko visits Kenya to see his foster son as well as to help local communities to get clean water, access to medicine and education. He travels to the most remote and inaccessible parts of the country to talk to local people and volunteers who help them.

The rat race versus the simple life. RTDoc explores consumerism and its eye-opening alternatives.

What do small village news look like? Slow-paced? Funny? Unsensational? Perhaps, but for the viewers of the state TV company “Metronom”, with a TV tower in Raisa Soboleva’s back garden, these broadcasts are important because life in their village gets better with each aired programme.

Every August the Pine Ridge annual powwow is held to celebrate the culture and traditions of the Lakota people, but it looks like a feast in a time of plague, as most of them have lost all hope of getting through the dire straits. 

Egypt is a land where the concept of gender equality has barely taken root. It’s hard for women to make ends meet and even harder if they happen to be single parents. When Sisa’s husband died, leaving her alone to bring up and feed a young daughter, she came up with a novel solution; she became a man! For the next 43 years she pretended to be male.  Now in her 60s, she has no doubts about living that lie, saying it was a far better choice than taking another husband.

Staying at an orphanage for too long leaves a mark on a child. All children should be raised in families. Especially children from this orphanage: most of them have developmental defects, physical and psycological issues, some have cerebral palsy and some are totally blind. They all need a mum and at Hope orphanage, 98 per cent of them find one. 

“Gender equality gives children a fantastic opportunity to be whoever they want to be.” This is the basic idea of the gender-free pedagogy taught in Sweden. Any reference to gender is eliminated from toys, books and even speech. Tanja Bergkvist, a Swedish blogger, shows how this process can reach absurdity.

A stranger in his homeland and a stranger in his adopted country, a former Soviet soldier had to stay in Afghanistan for 29 years after being captured by the Mujahideen and made to fight on the side of his country's enemy. In this film, he finally comes back to his native land, but is he welcomed?

Amsterdam could compete with New York for the title of modern Babylon. More than 200 ethnic groups live here. The whole of post-war Netherlands has been working hard to build the image of Europe’s most tolerant country – but what has been the result?

The old saying, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure” has a very literal meaning for the residents of one small town on the outskirts of Cairo in Egypt.  Zabbaleen is home to a large community of rubbish collectors who gather and sort all of the capital’s waste. The process provides work for whole families as well as toys for the children and fodder for livestock.

Juno was a picture of success; he had been married for 29 years and had a PhD in biophysics, but never felt completely at ease. He took the bold decision to realign his gender. This new documentary, by RT America correspondent and director Alexey Brazhnikov, delves into transgender life in the US and explores how people face their problems, past, present and future.

A Tokal is an additional wife in a polygamous Kazakh marriage. Only a decade ago, to have a tokal in Kazakhstan was considered shameful. Nowadays though, polygamy is gaining popularity throughout the country, becoming a more common-place and accepted practice.

Recently, the German city of Cologne made the news for a string of attacks against women that many blamed on migrants. The deepening refugee crisis is polarising German society. Still, no social tensions can stop the sweet celebration of Cologne’s famous Carnival, even if this year’s also came with a bitter pill. 

What happened to the exiles of the Arab Spring? Are fruits of the revolution thriving in their European haven?