Next morning we drive to a business centre to interview the head of a local internet company about Russia's recession. And who should turn up uninvited? Yes, it's Alexander again with cameraman and questions.
"I want to know what kind of a report about Russia are you making?"
By now it's clear we're being followed. I tell Alexander it's very strange that we are being pursued.
"I haven't been following you," he replies. "I just got a telephone call telling me you're here."
I tell Alexander I don't think it's very polite to barge in to someone's private office.
"But we're doing the same job," he explains. "You're making a report about Russia - and so am I."
We get on to the subject of Russia's economic crisis. "Yes, but everyone's got economic problems now, haven't they?" says Alexander. "There are problems in Britain, in America..."
"Yes," I respond, "but Russia's economy - much more than Britain's - is reliant on its energy exports, so when global oil prices fall, Russia is hit badly."
That night, when I sit down to watch the local news there we are again. Not surprisingly the part of the conversation that mentioned being followed, barging in and Russia's oil dependency didn't make it into this report. Instead, in his news piece, Alexander declares, sarcastically, that "the BBC knows how to show the 'pretty side' of Russia," accusing us of filming "food markets, bus stops and private houses".
"We may have plenty of dirt in our city," he says, "but there's plenty of dirt in the West, too."
And in a bizarre attempt to prove his point, he shows some photographs of dilapidated homes in the Essex seaside town of Jaywick - officially the most deprived neighbourhood in England. "The BBC would never show this," he declares.
