Friday, February 03, 2012

In Siberia (photos and a book review)


Siberian Village (photo taken from train)
This post is mostly a book review.  But I added some of my own photos from my summer trip that took me from Beijing, through Mongolia, on to Ulan Ude, Russia and across Siberia the Urals and on to Moscow and St. Petersburg.  These photos were used in the posts that I made in the blog I kept during the summer.

Sunset over Lake Baikal

Colin Thuborn, In Siberia (1999, HarperCollins ebook, 2009), 270 pages


During the Soviet era, much of Siberia was closed off from the West.   The Soviets utilized this vast area (which contains nearly a fifth of the world’s landmass) as the Czars earlier: a place to exile criminals and political prisoners.  During the Second World War, industry began to develop in Siberia, far from the reach of Hitler’s tanks.  It is a place of great resources—minerals, oil, timber, wheat—and great hardship—the coldest temperatures ever recorded in inhabited place is in Siberia.  After the breakup of the Soviet Union and two years after the end of collective farming, Colin Thubron set out to explore this region.  Thubron, an Englishman, was familiar with Russia, having spent time there during the Cold War and having written on the nation.   In his travels, he takes the Trans-Siberian Railroad as well as the BAM (Baikal-Amur Railroad), a line that runs north of Lake Baikal, and a steamer up the Yenisei River to the arctic.  In the East, he flies to remote locations.  In all, he covers the region from the Urals to the Pacific, from the “Altai Republic” along the Mongolian border to Dudinka, beside the frozen waters of the Arctic. 

 Siberia, Thubron suggests was “born out of optimism and dissent.” (22)   Starting in the 1750s, Siberia became a place to exile criminals (just as Britain exiled its criminals to Australia) and although the number of criminals outnumbered the political prisoners, the later served as a “leavening intelligentsia” for the region (162)   Ironically, Siberia with its vastness was also a place of freedom.  In the 18th Century, those who moved there had a saying, “God is high and the czar is far off.” (22)  In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, Siberia was a stronghold out for the White Russians who fought against the Bolsheviks.   Thubron tells of talk in Irkutsk to build a statue to honor Adm. Kolchak, a leader of the White Russians who was shot by the Bolsheviks at Irkutsk and his body pushed below the ice.  He doubts the monument will be built. (This summer I discovered a beer brewed in Irkutsk with his name on it, which to me seems a fitting tribute.)

Along the Trans-Siberian (old water tower)
Traveling in the years after the breakup of the Soviet system and the end of state-sponsored atheism, Thubron is surprised to find religion so alive.  “Russia’s atheist past seemed no more than an overcast day in the long Orthodox summer,” he noted. (56)  As he traveled he witnessed new and renovated churches opening.  At the dedication of a monastery outside of Omsk, he asked himself, “Why had this faith resurrected out of nothing, as if a guillotined head had been struck back on its body?  Some vital artery had preserved it.” (59)  Not only does he explore the resurgence in the Orthodox faith, (who seemed to be profiting from the ability to import and sell alcohol and cigarettes tax free (56), but also Buddhism among the Buryat (165ff), a dying Jewish settlement in Eastern Siberia (208ff), Russian Baptist (220f), Old Believers  with their insistence of the correct way to cross themselves in prayers (175f), and even a few who were trying to revive traditional shamanistic practices (98ff).    In each situation, he meets with religious leaders.  One of the more interesting interviews was with an Orthodox priest in Irkutsk, whose father had been a communist and whose mother was a Christian.  He told about how in the Army, he began to be convicted of his sin and came to God through his guilt.  This priest feared a war between China and Russia and also felt that America was a godless land (156-7).

Dining on the Trans-Siberian
But not all of Siberia is teaming with religious revival.  Many of the encounters were with people who had lost faith in communism or who felt their world had been pulled out from them.  There was a woman who had been sent to Siberia by Stalin, yet still refused to criticize the Communist Party.    Toward the end of his journey, in northeastern Siberia, he visits Kolyma, the location of some of the most deadly camps.  Being sent here was a death sentence.  In the winter of 1932, whole camps (prisoners, dogs and guards) froze to death.   It is here that the coldest inhabit place on earth is at, where the temperature has dropped to -97.8 F, where ones breath will free into crystals and twinkle onto the ground, a phenomenon known as the “whispering of the stars.”  (254)  Yet, despite such harsh conditions, they produced nearly a third of the world’s gold in the 1930s.  It is estimated that one life was lost for every kilogram of gold produced.  Over 2 million people died here.  (251f)  The condition of the camps horrified Thubron, who seems concern that the residents of Siberia accept the camps of the past without much thought.

In his last collection of Stalin horror stories, Thuborn tells of the prison ship, the SS Dzhurma, which got caught in ice in 1933 with 12000 prisoners on board.  All the prisoners froze to death and half the guards went crazy, according to Thubron.  This would also be the most deadly maritime disaster ever, in terms of life lost.  When I read this, I thought it sounded like fodder for a horror story and I did some checking and from a couple sources on the internet, found that there are some questions of the validity of this tragedy.   Two things don’t fit according to these sources.  First of all, the ship that became known as the Dzhurma wasn’t even sold to the Soviets until 1935.  Secondly, it was only a little over 400 feet long, making it nearly impossible to have had 12,000 prisoners onboard.  However, in 1939, another “death-ship,” the SS Indigirka sank with its human cargo trapped below deck. (256)

Along the Trans-Siberian, note kilometer marker (km from Moscow)
I really enjoyed this book and wish I would have read it before traveling through Siberia last summer.  At that time, I read Ian Frazier’s excellent travelogue, Travels in Siberia.  Thubron’s book is a little out of date, but it is also excellent.  His writing is engaging and never boring as he weaves together a story about this vast and unknown landmass.   I found reading this book on a e-reader both pleasant (it’s nice and light) and also a little troublesome as I wasn’t able to easily flip back to the map at the beginning.  However, the map doesn’t show up that well and when I was home, I found myself dragging out an atlas to locate places Thubron traveled.   I recommend this book.  
Novoibisk Station

19 comments:

  1. Australia tends to be the comparison but French Guiana or rather Devils Island is better.
    I think though that in the west we err when we process that section of the earth's surface. The peoples from Kaliningrad to Sakhalin don't have an Arcadian ideal at the core of their psyche. They have the woods. And it doesn't matter if they are from Dushanbe, they will think of the Birch Woods much as someone from the Australian outback will think of Daffodils; except in a fundamentally different way. You are not simultaneously fearful and long for the embrace of Daffodils.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. i imagine this to be a very treacherous landscape...and i know of the reliegeous revival there, it is nice to see others side of the gem as well...

      Delete
    2. Brian, there are mountainous parts, but much of it is like the plains (maybe a bit more like the Canadian plains as it's cold in the winter)

      Delete
    3. Vince, You're right, daffodils aren't very fearful. But I'm sure those sent on ships to Australia (or to the French prison colonies) were ever bit as afraid as those sent to Siberia

      Delete
    4. The point is the Russian fears the Woods and loves them. Writes poetry, paints and dreams about them. And in the same way Fujiyama is fundamental to Japan and the pastoral of the green vale to us.
      When the Irish girls got to Oz and the English girls to Canada they put in flower gardens. The Russians plant woods. My point being that difference changes the very wiring.

      Delete
  2. I love the inclusion of phot's here to make it all come alive. You certainly have been blessed to have travelled to some wonderful places, and your account here has whetted my appitite to perhaps explore it myself one day.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, I have been blessed, but have yet to get to the west coast of England and Wales

      Delete
  3. A siberian village in summer is a green green thing. I imagine that winter is a somewhat different story.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I want to see Siberia in the winter.

      Delete
    2. Thanks, Sage. Enjoyed this. Always amazed at how the past is haunted by horrific events. It's denial that keeps us going.

      Delete
  4. Dear Geff, thanks for this review, now I feel like reading this book. by the way Colin was wrong with his doubts about the monument to Kolchak as it was built in 2004.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o615BG71pbk (here you can find the prove for it)
    As for the information concerned Stalin i should say that it's controversial even in Russian history study books.
    Thanks again. I'm going to find this book.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for the youtube link... I found it neat that he had is own beer, too!

      Delete
  5. an insatiable reader and a world traveler, sounds like a pretty fine life to me.

    the winter conditions seem so difficult to fathom. good enough reason right here for either despair or faith to prosper.

    xo
    erin

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have been blessed, but I am not always a world traveler--but I do travel a lot but mostly it's going spartan so I can go further!

      Delete
    2. BTW Erin, I see in your profile that you are from Northern Ontario (where I have canoed and would like to go again)

      Delete
  6. Thanks for the review. This one's definitely on the list.

    Cheers.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Great review and photos. Love the one of the old water tower. Your life is one big adventure, my friend.

    Keep on truckin'! :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Great post, Sage! I've been on trains in the Balkans in Bulgaria! They were from the 1940's! Fascinating to look back to the past and to the present with the advent of your post. I enjoyed it as always!!!

    ReplyDelete