Ian Frazier

Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, New York

529 pages US $ 30.00 Canadian $ 34.50

 

Ian Frazier has a special affection for Russia and Russians, and seems to be in love with Siberia. He travelled more than six times to this vast region ( Siberia occupies approximately eight per cent of the landmass of the world) over several years to obtain a reasonably accurate picture and feel of the land and the people who inhabit it.

He is a keen observer and shrewd commentator, and even learned rudimentary Russian in the U.S.A to better communicate with ordinary Russians.

The main part of the Travels in Siberia involves his epic voyage from St. Petersburg on the Baltic Sea at the north western end of Russia to Vladivostok on the pacific Ocean in a van accompanied by a citizen of St. Petersburg, the driver and guide, and another person from Sochi on the Black Sea, where the 2014 Winter Olympic Games will take place.

The trip lasted 37 days and the author describes his experiences, difficulties, discoveries, observations, and provides a good portion of Russian history based on his extensive research. His notes of references a lone occupies 36 pages in the book.

In this inimitable “page turner” that took the author several years to research and write, the reader will learn abut the gulag, Stalin’s cruelties to his own people, several indigenous Siberian peoples, their villages, the rods, and general conditions prevailing in Russia after the collapse of the U.S.S.R.

His longest journey thorough the largest country of the world together with his two companions camping along the way and cooking their meals most of the time is an adventure few people in the world have experienced, and certainly, not recently.

This is an excellent book to read in an attempt to understand how and why the Russian

Mind functions the way it does. You can learn a great deal about Russian literature, philosophy, history and communism and how all these have shaped the culture.

Travels in Siberia is a fascinating book full of information and adventure presented in a lively fashion (Did you know that the coldest temperature measured in Siberia’ Oimyakon village was  - 96.0 F = - 67.1 C)

Read this book, savour it, keep it, and re-read it before you embark on a trip to Russia to experience for yourself.

Highly recommended!

 

Note: This book would be of value to all who study Slavic culture and all foreign service students everywhere.