On the road in Siberia
By Joshua Hammer |
October 31, 2010, Sunday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
IAN Frazier's "Great Plains," published in 1989, was a tour de force of travel writing. In that and in "On the Rez," Frazier's skillful storytelling, acute powers of observation and wry voice captured the soul of the American West.
Now Frazier has set his sights on another region of wide-open spaces and violent history: the Russian East, Siberia. Shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, he joined some Russian artists he'd met in New York on a trip to Moscow, where he became infected, he writes, with "dread Russia-love."
In particular, Frazier was enthralled by Siberia, that vast, forbidding region that stretches across eight time zones, running from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, bordered by Mongolia and China to the south and the Arctic Circle to the north.
Frazier learned Russian, immersed himself in the literature and history of the territory, and embarked on more journeys across the taiga and tundra.
The result is "Travels in Siberia," an uproarious, sometimes dark yarn filled with dubious meals, broken-down vehicles, abandoned slave-labor camps and ubiquitous statues of Lenin - "On the Road" meets "The Gulag Archipelago."
"For most people, Siberia is not the place itself but a figure of speech," Frazier remarks at the beginning of the book: a metaphor for cold, remoteness and exile. He turns the metaphor into reality through various exploratory trips. Arriving in Alaska (Nome is a short hop to Siberia) in the early 1990s, Frazier found a flurry of unlikely activity: intrepid Christian missionaries planning snowmobile expeditions across the frozen sea, and an eccentric entrepreneur, the sole member of the Interhemispheric Bering Strait Tunnel and Railroad Group, dreaming of building a 72-mile-long Chunnel across the strait.
He later undertakes a trans-Siberian journey in a used Renault delivery van. Accompanied by a pair of raffish guides, Sergei and Volodya, Frazier set out from St Petersburg.
He forded giant rivers, waded through piles of trash, overnighted in mosquito-plagued campgrounds and met scientists, poets, Scuba divers, sales ladies and many, many others whom fate had tossed to the far end of the Russian frontier.
The Renault broke down repeatedly. The two guides came to exemplify a very Russian mix of unreliability and resourcefulness, gregariousness and gloom - miraculously repairing the dying van, then disappearing to party all night with locals.
In his many visits, Frazier experienced Siberia's highs and lows. In Tobolsk, the former capital, he gazed admiringly at the kreml, a medieval walled city.
On the other hand, the modern industrial city of Omsk, a symbol of Siberian desolation, is little more than "crumbling high-rise apartment buildings, tall roadside weeds, smoky traffic and blowing dust."
Frazier has the gumption and sense of wonder shared by every great travel writer, from Bruce Chatwin to Redmond O'Hanlon, as well as the ability to make us see how the most trivial or ephemeral detail is part of the essential texture of a place: the variety of TV antennas on Siberian rooftops, the giant bison skull in the paleontology museum of Irkutsk.
Frazier never fully explains the nature of his "dread Russia-love," though he clearly sees himself as the spiritual descendant of a long line of Russophiles.
Frazier suggests that the country's opaqueness has given it a twisted appeal. "Russia is older, crookeder, more obscure," he writes.
He's also fascinated by the role Siberia has played in the Russian psyche, recounting in bloody detail the exploits of the Golden Horde, the Mongol conquerors who reduced Kiev and other cities to smoldering ruins. That turned the attention of the czars to the East, and led to the gradual colonization of Siberia.
Most of all, this region has served as a place of exile, an end-of-the-world dumping ground for everyone from petty criminals to visionaries and would-be reformers.
Mikhail Bakunin, the anarchist and revolutionary, was one of the few who succeeded in escaping from Siberia's bleak prison camps.
Dostoyevsky, sentenced to death for anti-czarist activities, was spared at the last minute and sent to hard labor in Siberia. Anton Chekhov, who traveled to Sakhalin Island to examine the conditions of internal exile, described a prison cell with a "black crepe" of cockroaches on the walls.
Ultimately, Frazier seems more interested in exploring Siberia's past than contemplating its future. He barely flicks at its crucial role in gas and oil exploration, which is gradually making this vast territory the prime source of Russia's wealth.
And he never managed to visit the reindeer herders of the far north, whose nomadic lives have come under threat from Gazprom, the Russian gas giant. However, Siberia's richness in metaphor is enough to sustain this endlessly fascinating tale.
Now Frazier has set his sights on another region of wide-open spaces and violent history: the Russian East, Siberia. Shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, he joined some Russian artists he'd met in New York on a trip to Moscow, where he became infected, he writes, with "dread Russia-love."
In particular, Frazier was enthralled by Siberia, that vast, forbidding region that stretches across eight time zones, running from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, bordered by Mongolia and China to the south and the Arctic Circle to the north.
Frazier learned Russian, immersed himself in the literature and history of the territory, and embarked on more journeys across the taiga and tundra.
The result is "Travels in Siberia," an uproarious, sometimes dark yarn filled with dubious meals, broken-down vehicles, abandoned slave-labor camps and ubiquitous statues of Lenin - "On the Road" meets "The Gulag Archipelago."
"For most people, Siberia is not the place itself but a figure of speech," Frazier remarks at the beginning of the book: a metaphor for cold, remoteness and exile. He turns the metaphor into reality through various exploratory trips. Arriving in Alaska (Nome is a short hop to Siberia) in the early 1990s, Frazier found a flurry of unlikely activity: intrepid Christian missionaries planning snowmobile expeditions across the frozen sea, and an eccentric entrepreneur, the sole member of the Interhemispheric Bering Strait Tunnel and Railroad Group, dreaming of building a 72-mile-long Chunnel across the strait.
He later undertakes a trans-Siberian journey in a used Renault delivery van. Accompanied by a pair of raffish guides, Sergei and Volodya, Frazier set out from St Petersburg.
He forded giant rivers, waded through piles of trash, overnighted in mosquito-plagued campgrounds and met scientists, poets, Scuba divers, sales ladies and many, many others whom fate had tossed to the far end of the Russian frontier.
The Renault broke down repeatedly. The two guides came to exemplify a very Russian mix of unreliability and resourcefulness, gregariousness and gloom - miraculously repairing the dying van, then disappearing to party all night with locals.
In his many visits, Frazier experienced Siberia's highs and lows. In Tobolsk, the former capital, he gazed admiringly at the kreml, a medieval walled city.
On the other hand, the modern industrial city of Omsk, a symbol of Siberian desolation, is little more than "crumbling high-rise apartment buildings, tall roadside weeds, smoky traffic and blowing dust."
Frazier has the gumption and sense of wonder shared by every great travel writer, from Bruce Chatwin to Redmond O'Hanlon, as well as the ability to make us see how the most trivial or ephemeral detail is part of the essential texture of a place: the variety of TV antennas on Siberian rooftops, the giant bison skull in the paleontology museum of Irkutsk.
Frazier never fully explains the nature of his "dread Russia-love," though he clearly sees himself as the spiritual descendant of a long line of Russophiles.
Frazier suggests that the country's opaqueness has given it a twisted appeal. "Russia is older, crookeder, more obscure," he writes.
He's also fascinated by the role Siberia has played in the Russian psyche, recounting in bloody detail the exploits of the Golden Horde, the Mongol conquerors who reduced Kiev and other cities to smoldering ruins. That turned the attention of the czars to the East, and led to the gradual colonization of Siberia.
Most of all, this region has served as a place of exile, an end-of-the-world dumping ground for everyone from petty criminals to visionaries and would-be reformers.
Mikhail Bakunin, the anarchist and revolutionary, was one of the few who succeeded in escaping from Siberia's bleak prison camps.
Dostoyevsky, sentenced to death for anti-czarist activities, was spared at the last minute and sent to hard labor in Siberia. Anton Chekhov, who traveled to Sakhalin Island to examine the conditions of internal exile, described a prison cell with a "black crepe" of cockroaches on the walls.
Ultimately, Frazier seems more interested in exploring Siberia's past than contemplating its future. He barely flicks at its crucial role in gas and oil exploration, which is gradually making this vast territory the prime source of Russia's wealth.
And he never managed to visit the reindeer herders of the far north, whose nomadic lives have come under threat from Gazprom, the Russian gas giant. However, Siberia's richness in metaphor is enough to sustain this endlessly fascinating tale.
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