the tug of love... He's your son. He's your son. Yes. ...versus the tug of blood. I don't know anything about my birth parents. Rescued from a Russian orphanage,... Our little prince. ...he returns in search of his roots. I think that's her! That's her. What he finds is extraordinary, but will he come back? Sorry. I've gotta respect his choices. Copyright Able 2014 When young Aucklander Alex Gilbert started searching for his Russian birth mother, he knew it was risky. He knew nothing about his birth mum, just her name. But Alex was determined to find and meet his own flesh and blood, despite the fears of the Northland couple who'd raised him. Would blood conquer their close family bond? Alex set off to Russia, never imagining what he would find. Here's Janet McIntyre. I can't imagine me with a Russian accent. It's just really weird. Give us your best burst. Like, what should I say? Um. Like, hey. (DEEP VOICE) Hey, Janet. Piviet. What's piviet? What's piviet? Hello. I think it's hello. I hope I didn't get that wrong. Left in a Russian orphanage, but raised a Kiwi, Alex Gilbert has never stopped wondering what his life might have been like. I would be completely Russian. I'd be in the army by now. I mean, that's a crazy thought. Yeah. Really crazy thought. Until this moment,... he's never known his homeland, never met his birth mother, never understood why she abandoned him. Hello. Maybe she just wanted to forget about it and just move on. That's why I always thought, 'Right, am I doing the right thing or the wrong thing here? 'Am I breaking the rules here? Should I not be getting into their lives, you know?' My parents warned me about that. They said, 'You've got to be prepared for the worst.' Alex, a cameraman with Choice TV in Auckland,... Hey, Choice! ...loves to document the lives of others. Last year he began to uncover the secrets of his own. As I was growing up, I was always curious to know where I was from before I was adopted, and who are my birth parents. The parents he calls mum and dad, Mark and Janice Gilbert, the ones who brought him up, couldn't help. I've always asked, 'Do you guys know how can I track down my birth parents?' or 'Do you know my birth parents?' They said, 'No, we don't. We don't have anything to do with them.' We've been totally open and honest with him all the way through, so what we have known, he has known too. Janice and Mark, an insurance broker, journeyed to northern Russia back in 1994 to an orphanage for children with health problems ` Russia's least wanted. It had a smell to it which I can still remember, which I think was just a lot of rubbish and urine. Janice picked out Alex, who'd been born premature and had asthma. Why do you think they picked you? Why do you think they picked you? Oh, I've asked them this. I've asked them this many times. I've been, like, 'Hey, did you have a certain selection?' Just this chubby, little blond kiddie. He looked... I mean, he sort of looked a bit sad, and he looked like he would try to please, I think. Yeah. Janice just said immediately she saw him, 'Our little prince.' Janice and Mark would adopt not one but two little boys from the orphanage in Arkhangelsk. Alex and Andre. Unrelated. Both 2. We really wanted to give them a chance of life, because I don't know what sort of life they would have had in Russia. They left behind 23 other little unclaimed lives. Futures unknown. I remember when we were leaving, looking up, you know, and there were all these little faces. Sorry. This is crazy. (CHUCKLES) I just thought, 'My Godfathers.' I would have loved to have taken the whole lot with us, you know. Um, because I just felt for the little souls. Mm. Really sticks in my mind. You must feel pretty grateful to your parents for coming and picking you out? Oh, very grateful. I would have been, like, too young to, like, 'Hey, can you pick me?' or stand out in the crowd. They just must have saw me and my brother, and been, like, 'Right, we're gonna get these two.' So, Alex, what did your parents tell you about where you'd come from? Oh, they've always said... They've always said to me and my brother, they've always been saying, 'You two have been adopted. They told us since I could ever remember, first thing, just growing up, is always, 'You guys are from Russia.' They always had Russian things. But it was the Kiwi things that shaped them growing up in Northland; sun, sea, holidays at the beach house. Definitely a Kiwi kid. Definitely raised. I mean, all my memories have been here. Always. Yeah. Mark and Janice brought the boys up to be kind, respectful. I've always tried to instil manners into them, and to show appreciation and thanks for things. But other traits, Alex seemed born with. Well, he loved anything to do with camera work, like his own little camera to take photos. Anything technical ` he sort of liked to get his hands on and take apart. Well, definitely his enquiring mind. You know, his mind is purely genetic. He certainly hasn't got that from me. And Alex has always been inquisitive about his past. ...a country that doesn't exist any more. All he knew was the name of his birth mother and the address of the orphanage, until, through a series of Facebook connections, the friend of a friend who knew someone at the orphanage, he found his birth mother. This lady goes, 'Yes, this is definitely your birth mum. She moved to Rybinsk after you were born.' And it was great. It was like opening a door, or a mystery, and it's finally been opened after all these years. Next, in a country of 149 million people, in one of the coldest places on Earth, Alex is finally face to face with his birth mum. Oh my God. Is that her there? I think that's her. That's her! 5 What became of Tatiana, the woman who gave birth to Alex 21 years ago? At the end of the Soviet era, Russia was in economic tatters. The gap between rich and poor was torn wide apart. SKYPE: Hello. Hello. Last year, mother and son exchanged words for the first time when Alex called Tatiana for her 40th birthday. Happy birthday. MAN SPEAKS RUSSIAN WOMAN SPEAKS RUSSIAN How's it been going? MAN SPEAKS RUSSIAN WOMAN SPEAKS RUSSIAN I work too. MAN SPEAKS RUSSIAN I think she was very shocked and she was quite emotional about it, and she had probably never would expect her son to be tracking her down, especially being in Russia. It's a such a big country. It would be hard to track anyone down. There was no stopping Alex. He was determined to meet his birth mum; go all the way to Russia,... I want to ask her all sorts of questions. ...despite the fears of the mum and dad who'd raised him. The anxiety I have is him being hurt. How do you think he might get hurt? How do you think he might get hurt? Rejection, maybe. He could have been living over there, and who knows, he might want to live there. If he chooses to do that, I've got to respect his choices, so that's fine. We'd really hate for that to happen because, as you would appreciate, he's a very huge part of our lives. I would hate to lose that. And he's your son. Yeah. Mm. Alex's big fear was making the trip to Moscow alone, and because Russia still considers him a citizen, that he could be drafted into the army when he gets there. I had a sleepless night once just thinking about it. I was just, like, 'Oh my God, if I get into the airport and they go, "Right, you've got to come with us," I'd be, like, 'God, I'm stuffed.' What do I say to my mum and dad? 'I'm in Russia. I made it, but, sorry, I've got some bad news as well. 'I won't be coming back for a year.' Right. I'm good to go. With a bag full of gifts, his father's credit card, and with hope in his heart, Alex recently made the biggest trip of his lifetime ` returning to his birth land. Good luck, mate. Good luck. After 30 hours of flying, and clearing the Russian border without being drafted,... Wow. I'm actually here now. I made it. After a long day, I'm in Moscow. ...Alex is within hours of meeting his birth mother. Until now, his only glimpse of her life ` a quick post on You Tube for his 21st birthday, just weeks after he'd found her. I've always thought to myself maybe she's tried to get in touch with me, but being in her situation, I don't think she would know how, or where to start. He's come so far to meet her ` from Auckland's North Shore to Seoul, then Moscow, and now a bleak six-hour drive north to the Arctic circle. It was a different world. You look outside. It's just... It's just dark. It's just very dark. You don't get light to, you know, 10 in the morning, between 10 and 11, and it was really rough. And finally to Rybinsk, on the Volga River, where a post-Soviet chill sits in the landscape, the buildings, and in the back seat of a rental as Alex waits for his mother to emerge from her apartment. Oh my God, is that her there? I think that's her. That's her! My heart just started beating. I was so nervous. I didn't know what to think. I didn't know what to say. It's 19 years since she left him at the orphanage. Alex is unsure what to expect. I was thinking, um, 'What does she want me to ask her? 'How am I going to have a conversation the whole time? 'I've got to keep on thinking of questions to ask her.' Hello. Oh. Good. Good. Been real busy travelling all across the world, all the way from NZ. So nervous, he begins to unwrap his gift for her. This is for you. 'My hands were just shaking the whole time, and then she was, like,' '"No, not now. Later. Later. Later. Later."' OK. I'll leave it in the box and... Was it awkward? At the start, very awkward. I mean, it was just very... just standing there. It was like two people just not being able to speak the same language. Uh, NZ's completely different. Different people, different... 40-year-old Tatiana, a waitress, lives in a tiny apartment ` just 20 square metres. She shares it with her new husband, Andre. When I walked in and I saw her... you know, I saw her bed in the lounge, it just made me wonder what her life's been like. Yeah. Da. Yeah. It's been tough Tatiana tells him. She's poor. She's had no other children. There's, um... That's my birthday. Raised in an orphanage herself, she was just 18 when she fell pregnant, after a fling with a soldier. Oh, I just found out they just met, and I think it was just like a one-day sort of thing. They just met, and they didn't even go out or anything. Tatiana and her lover parted. She never told the soldier about the pregnancy, and when Alex was born, she gave him to the orphanage. < Did you ask her about that? Why she did that? I asked her. She said it was more like the norm ` the thing to do, you know. And in the situation that they were in at the time, it wouldn't have been easy as well. (TRANSLATOR) In January, minus -40. Oh my God. They had just a few hours to get to know each other, with no shared language, no history and little, but their smiles, in common. She was just very nervous, so it was... If I spent longer with her, I would have developed a better bond. Is she sad? I think she is. Yeah. I want to make her feel a lot happier because I think her lifestyle... She gets quite upset quite easily, and she's had a rough upbringing. Her welcome may have been awkward, but Tatiana gave Alex a priceless gift ` the answer to the second half of the puzzle ` the identity of his birth father. She recently tracked down the former soldier, Alex's dad, in St Petersburg. They'd had no contact since their affair. They phoned each other for the first time this year after 20 years, and said, 'Look...' It's, like, saying, 'Sorry, but you do have a son. Sorry to break the bad news,' but it was great news, and he was just really really overwhelmed and shocked. See ya later. For Alex, there was only one option ` I'll be back. carry on to St Petersburg, 800km away. I think she got a bit... a bit teary. I just kept on smiling the whole time. I didn't want to say goodbye. It was quite hard to say goodbye. Next,... finally, the connection Alex has travelled the world for, and the baby sister he didn't know he had. Da! Da! Hi again. Alex Gilbert went to Russia hoping to find a connection. He found his mother, but what he found when he met his father is extraordinary. At Moscow Airport, 21-year-old Alex is about to make another leap into the unknown... ...a few hours later outside his birth father's apartment in St Petersburg. Hello. Oh. Oh. Hello. Mihail Kokov has learned only a few months ago, he fathered a baby in 1994, but you'd hardly know father and son have lived their lives apart. He lifted me up, and couldn't breathe for a second, you know, and grabbed my hair. 'Oh yeah.' Misha, 44, has a comfortable lifestyle as a trolley bus driver. So many gifts. First up, he brought up this big St Petersburg book. And it was all very nice, and he wrote inside it. He said, 'I'm very thankful to Janice and Mark.' Mum and Dad, so... And then I said, 'Thank you very much,' and he goes, 'No, there's more.' And he then he pulls out these bags. Meg. Oh. Meg. Oh, Meg. Yes. Meg, Meg. He was, like, 'This is for your flatmate Meg. This is for Aaron. This is for Emily.' Oh wow. Thank you. Thank you. (SPEAKS RUSSIAN) He married Liana two years ago, and they have a baby girl, Sophia,... Can I show you what I brought? ...Alex's 8-month-old sister. < For Sophia. Oh, Sophia. ALL SPEAK RUSSIAN 'It was funny. They didn't really know what it was. 'I said, "It's a lamb. It's a lamb. It's a sheep."' < She likes it. Yeah. How is her English? Is her English good? Er,... no. No. My Russian is very bad. I don't know anything. I'm trying to learn still. It's you? It's you? Yeah. You look a little bit like me when I was... when I was... Did you feel any connection to your birth dad? Oh yeah, definitely. We bonded right away. He's a lot like me. Just speaks Russian. So when I'd say something funny, he'd just start laughing. It was just laughing the whole time. That is really cool. Driver. Yeah. Driver. Bus driver. < Trolley bus. Trolley bus. Trolley bus. Trolley bus. So, what did he know about you before you turned up? So, what did he know about you before you turned up? He knew nothing about me. He thought it was a joke. Then his wife, as well, thought it was a joke. I said, 'No, it's no joke.' And how did he feel about the fact that he hadn't been told about you? He was quite disappointed. He said that he would have raised me if he found out. Yeah, found out about me at the time, but life would be totally different. The little boy with chubby cheeks, with nothing more than a name and a Russian passport, a child who wanted to please, where would Alex have been now had Tatiana told Mihail about his son? What if Mark and Janice had chosen any of the other 23 hopefuls at the orphanage and left Alex there? I think about that all the time. I always wonder ` just one little thing. I could have been the kid in the corner of a room and probably not turned round and seen them, and they wouldn't have seen me. It was just the best decision they ever made to come and get me and my brother. Great. Yeah. Alex went to Russia to find his birth mother. Extraordinarily, he found his birth father too,... Goodbye, Goodbye, Goodbye. ...and a baby sister, but, ultimately, blood could not win over his bond with the parents who raised him and the soil he calls home. It's a different lifestyle. It's a better lifestyle. It's a normal lifestyle. I said to them last week, I said, 'I'm so glad that you guys adopted us.' Dad said, 'It's the best we could do.' How do they feel to have you home? Mum was pleased. She was so pleased. Yeah. When I landed in Auckland, I said, 'I'm back,' and she said, 'Thank God you're back.' And what became of Alex's brother, Andre? They're still close, although Andre, also 21, now lives in and works in Wellington. He has no wish to find his own birth parents. Meanwhile, Alex has daily contact with his birth dad, Misha, and hopes one day his whole extended family can meet in Russia. Coming up next week... John Hudson's my name. I'm from the Sunday... 'For years, Helen Milner got away with it.' We've been looking into your former husband's death,... Phil's death. We've been looking into your former husband's death,... Phil's death. Not interested. She was living with her lover, Barry, after poisoning her husband, Phil. She asked us if we could pay someone to do it. Find someone to knock him off. < Find a hitman? < Find a hitman? Yeah. Specifically in her words, was a 'hitman'. And when her family complained to the police,... They didn't do their job. I did their job. <BLEEP> ...suppression order. Get out! Can I run 'em over? So Helen Milner kept on committing other crimes; framing her own son, stealing from her employer,... Don't touch my car or I'll have the cops on you. Now <BLEEP> off. Did you kill him? Did you kill him? No, I did not! If I had, I would have been arrested by now, would I not? So why did it take so long to nail the 'black widow'? On count two, do you find the accused guilty or not guilty? > So that's next week. And that is it for tonight. Do join us on Facebook Sunday TVNZ, and thanks for joining us on our first show of the year.