Siberia is known for the gulag, cold weather, and mosquitoes, none of which is a big tourist draw. Fortunately for those of us who are unlikely ever to visit Siberia, Ian Frazier has been there five times. As a traveler, he is omnivorous, investigating and reporting on the history, the people, the land, the language, the prisons, the trash, the bathrooms, and most of all the mystique of the place.
Frazier is an engaging, self-deprecating guide. For the longest of his five trips, he hired two Russian men to drive with him from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok, about 6,000 miles. A typical safety-conscious suburban American, Frazier is aware of feeling less than manly compared to his traveling companions, who smoke, drink, and chase women; are able to fix anything that goes wrong with their clunker of a van; and who never, ever wear a seatbelt. When he notices a car being towed by means of a seatbelt, he observes that this is the only time he ever saw a seatbelt being used in Russia.
Like fellow travel writer Bill Bryson, Frazier has a fondness for odd facts and small, local museums. A native of Cleveland, he rather endearingly collects every possible scrap of information about fellow Ohioans who have visited Siberia, beginning with George Kennan, a famous explorer and cousin of the noted Cold War diplomat of the same name.
Siberia is a big place—encompassing nine percent of earth’s land mass—and it takes a big book to cover it. This is a rambling trip, full of personal and historical digressions. It takes in the Mongols, the tsars, and Stalin as well as today’s oil boom and climate change. At many points in his narrative, Frazier mentions that he has stopped to sketch, and the results, a series of delicate, expressive drawings, make fine illustrations for this quirky, eye-opening travelogue.
Check the WRL catalog for Travels in Siberia
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