In Siberia
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Overview
An enormous and mysterious land, Siberia remains an exotic unknown that has haunted the imagination of Westerners for centuries. Colin Thubron takes us into the heart of Siberia on a journey of discovery from Mongolia to the Arctic Circle, from Rasputin's village in the west through tundra, taiga, splendid mountains, lakes and rivers to the derelict Jewish community in Birobidzhan in the far eastern reaches of the region. More than a travel book, In Siberia is a moving and profound portrait of a region rich with history and the remains of an intriguing prehistorical past, religions, and a profusion of fascinating peoples and cultures.
Traveling alone, by train, boat, car, and on foot, Thubron explores this vast territory, talking to anyone he can find about the state of the country today and what it is like to live there. He finds a land of spectacular natural beauty, marked by the horrors of the Gulag and Soviet exploitation of its abundant natural resources. Beneath the permafrost, all too near the surface, lie bones and nuclear waste. And yet in counterpoise to the horror is the extraordinary human compassion he encounters: Wherever he goes, somebody takes him in and feeds him, no matter how poor they are. Perhaps the "core to Siberia" for which Thubron is searching turns out to be an unshakeable desire to believe, a quintessentially Russian hopefulness that is born of faith. Thubron traces it from Dostoevsky through the wreckage of communism to present day Siberia where it appears under other names.
Written in a marvelously elegant prose, In Siberia penetrates a mysterious and beautiful part of the world in a way that no other book has been able to do.
Synopsis
An enormous and mysterious land, Siberia remains an exotic unknown that has haunted the imagination of Westerners for centuries. Colin Thubron takes us into the heart of Siberia on a journey of discovery from Mongolia to the Arctic Circle, from Rasputin's village in the west through tundra, taiga, splendid mountains, lakes and rivers to the derelict Jewish community in Birobidzhan in the far eastern reaches of the region. More than a travel book, In Siberia is a moving and profound portrait of a region rich with history (and the remains of an intriguing prehistorical past), religions, and a profusion of fascinating peoples and cultures.
Traveling alone, by train, boat, car, and on foot, Thubron explores this vast territory, talking to anyone he can find about the state of the country today and what it is like to live there. He finds a land of spectacular natural beauty, marked by the horrors of the Gulag and Soviet exploitation of its abundant natural resources. Beneath the permafrost, all too near the surface, lie bones and nuclear waste. And yet in counterpoise to the horror is the extraordinary human compassion he encounters: Wherever he goes, somebody takes him in and feeds him, no matter how poor they are. Perhaps the "core to Siberia" for which Thubron is searching turns out to be an unshakeable desire to believe, a quintessentially Russian hopefulness that is born of faith. Thubron traces it from Dostoevsky through the wreckage of communism to present day Siberia where it appears under other names.
Written in a marvelously elegant prose, In Siberia penetrates a mysterious and beautiful part of the world in a way that no other book has been able to do.
Publishers Weekly
Many adventurers plunge into Siberia in search of untrammeled roads or unspoiled grandeur; only a handful bring with them a significant knowledge of the land's history, geology and wildlife. Even rarer are those who relay the experience as magically as does this award-winning author. Thubron (The Lost Heart of Asia) recounts a journey studded with fantastic encounters: in Pokrovskoye, a peasant who claims to be a descendant of Rasputin wrestles with his own identity as he nears the age of the infamous holy man's death; in Omsk, wizened grandmothers talk of skinny-dipping in holy water; in the Pazyryk valley, excavators remove a prince, his concubine and a team of stallions from two and a half millennia of frozen slumber; in Kyzyl, a local shaman places an order for Scottish walrus tusks. The author marvels: "wherever I stopped seemed atypical, as if the essential Siberia could exist only in my absence." In fact, that phantom essence pervades Thubron's journey, which stretches from the site of the grisly murder of the Romanovs to the Far Eastern epicenter of the brutal penal camp system that killed millions of Soviet citizens. More than a report of an inquisitive traveler's adventures, Thubron's account doubles as a haunting elegy to the victims of the bloodshed and hardship that are Siberia's most lasting legacy. Only his tender treatment of Siberia's enchanting characters and extraordinary natural beauty brighten what would be an otherwise dark and desolate path. 4-city Author tour. (Jan.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
In Siberia, a startling examination of contemporary Siberia, is a departure from the existing body of literature that references or discusses Siberia. Written by a British travel writer who is older than the average Russian male and objectified for his Westernness, In Siberia is also an exploration of how people try to reconcile their past with their hopes for the future against the backdrop of a turbulent political landscape, and a stagnant economic one. Thubron weaves his tale of his journey across Siberia around relevant history and background, as well as fascinating encounters with Siberia's inhabitants, to produce a stunning portrait of a land that defies characterization.
Thubron writes that he set out across Siberia "to find a core to Siberia, where there seemed none; or at least for a moment to witness its passage through the wreckage of Communism -- to glimpse that old, unappeasable desire to believe, as it fractured into confused channels, flowed under other names. Because I could not imagine a Russia without faith."
Thubron did find an amazing amount of faith among the abject poverty, barren land, and desperation of Siberia -- faith that the proud history of Russia will usher in another era of Russian dominance, faith in the promise of a better life in the future, spiritual faith, faith in science and math. He also found that Siberia's transition from Soviet wasteland to free state has been especially painful. Although capitalism and democracy promise freedom, Thubron finds that the current inhabitants of Siberia are fighting a difficult battle to see just what good can come of the newest "ism" that has been thrust upon them.
One of the greatest ironies of contemporary Siberia is depicted in a conversation Thubron has with the captain of an oil tanker who picks up Thubron in one of Siberia's most desolate and suffering regions, Dudinka. His hopes of a better life in the post-Soviet era have been dashed by the Former Soviet Union's bleak economic situation. "(The captain) wanted to retire to a dacha, he said -- but his pensions was too small. 'What pension? Bread and water!' Once he slurred he had operated on secret service with the Soviet navy in Algeria and Syria: he couldn't have spoken of it before because of the KGB. He couldn't speak of it now because of the vodka," Thubron writes. In this small exchange, Thubron precisely exacts how many Russians and Siberians are still horribly oppressed. But still, among a different oppression than under communism, Thubron finds a jarring honesty and faith within Siberia that he shares with his readers brilliantly.
Thubron concludes that this faith has inspired a notion that somehow, some way, Siberia will survive, as it always has. "The mystique of a chaste, self-reliant Siberia rises again. Siberia is more Russian than Russia is, people say, as if it were a quintessential Russia, or the imagined country which Russia would like to be," Thubron writes.
Thubron's eloquent, insightful observations of this distant and troubled land are a bittersweet pleasure to read. In Siberia is a remarkable book to curl up with as the winter here draws near. The way in which Thubron deftly navigates the paradoxes of a land that bears a heavy history and of a people trying to find their way among the ruins of a bygone political system makes In Siberia a unique and astonishing work that casts a much discussed but rarely understood place in an intriguing light.
—Emily Burg is a freelancer living in New York.
Publishers Weekly -
Many adventurers plunge into Siberia in search of untrammeled roads or unspoiled grandeur; only a handful bring with them a significant knowledge of the land's history, geology and wildlife. Even rarer are those who relay the experience as magically as does this award-winning author. Thubron (The Lost Heart of Asia) recounts a journey studded with fantastic encounters: in Pokrovskoye, a peasant who claims to be a descendant of Rasputin wrestles with his own identity as he nears the age of the infamous holy man's death; in Omsk, wizened grandmothers talk of skinny-dipping in holy water; in the Pazyryk valley, excavators remove a prince, his concubine and a team of stallions from two and a half millennia of frozen slumber; in Kyzyl, a local shaman places an order for Scottish walrus tusks. The author marvels: "wherever I stopped seemed atypical, as if the essential Siberia could exist only in my absence." In fact, that phantom essence pervades Thubron's journey, which stretches from the site of the grisly murder of the Romanovs to the Far Eastern epicenter of the brutal penal camp system that killed millions of Soviet citizens. More than a report of an inquisitive traveler's adventures, Thubron's account doubles as a haunting elegy to the victims of the bloodshed and hardship that are Siberia's most lasting legacy. Only his tender treatment of Siberia's enchanting characters and extraordinary natural beauty brighten what would be an otherwise dark and desolate path. 4-city Author tour. (Jan.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.Library Journal
From a British travel writer who wins awards and sells lots of books. Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.Newsweek
A cinematically evocative, often evocative accountof one of the world's wildest, loveliest places...Ken Kalfus
Thubron is a sensitive and observant traveler who clearly respects the Siberians for the hardships they have endured . . . [The] history is never didactic or potted. Above all, Thubron is never a travel bore.—The New York Times Book Review