In Siberia

In Siberia
by Colin Thubron

In Siberia
List Price: $14.99
Our Price: $7.18
You Save: $7.81 (52%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $1.87 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions


(Click here)
Buy this book at online book store in your country
Canada | UK | Germany | France

Book Summary Information

Author: Colin Thubron
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2000-12-26
ISBN: 006095373X
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: Harper Perennial

Summary of In Siberia

As mysterious as its beautiful, as forbidding as it is populated with warm-hearted people, Syberia is a land few Westerners know, and even fewer will ever visit. Traveling alone, by train, boat, car, and on foot, Colin Thubron traversed this vast territory, talking to everyone he encountered about the state of the beauty, whose natural resources have been savagely exploited for decades; a terrain tainted by nuclear waste but filled with citizens who both welcomed him and fed him?despite their own tragic poverty. From Mongoloia to the Artic Circle, from Rasputin's village in the west through tundra, taiga, mountains, lakes, rivers, and finally to a derelict Jewish community in the country's far eastern reaches, Colin Thubron penetrates a little-understood part of the world in a way that no writer ever has.


In Siberia explores a region of astonishments, where "white cranes dance on the permafrost, where a great city floats lost among the ice floes, where mammoths sleep under glaciers." Colin Thubron's latest chronicle also delivers its subject from rumor into reality. An expanse larger than the entire United States, Siberia is undoubtedly a country of contrasts, which elicits from the author both awe and melancholy. Here on one hand is a northern wilderness "shattered into a jigsaw of ponds and streams," and on the other a "black detritus of factories and ruins." No less memorable than the landscape are the people that Thubron encounters. He gathers their stories like rough jewels, showing us a self-proclaimed descendant of Rasputin, an isolated Jewish community, and a parade of "indestructible babushkas."

Woven among the often bitter and eroding memories of a Siberian past is a sense of new freedom. After all, this is the first time in Russia's history when foreigners can travel freely throughout the region--and its inhabitants can comment openly about their government without fear of reprisal. Thubron coaxes an institute official at the Akademgorodok Praesidium to speak his mind:

His face was heavy with anger. "We have one overriding problem here. Money. We receive no money for new equipment, hardly enough for our salaries. There are people who haven't been paid for six months." Then his anger overflowed. He was barking like a drill sergeant. "This year we requested funds for six or seven different programmes! And not one has been accepted by the government! Not one!"

Thubron's portrait is as elegant as it is evocative. But just as notably, his journey to the east manages to break the long and destructive Siberian silence. --Byron Ricks

Russia Books

Book Subjects
Most talked about in Russia Books
The Struggle for the Middle East: The Soviet Union and the Middle East 1958-70 (Pelican) ImageThe Struggle for the Middle East: The Soviet Union and the Middle East 1958-70 (Pelican)
by Walter Laqueur
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1972-06-30; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $416.80
Russia Under the Old Regime ImageRussia Under the Old Regime
by Richard Pipes
Penguin Books Ltd; Published: 1990-08-30; Paperback; Book
Soviet Disunion ImageSoviet Disunion
by Bohdan Nahaylo
Free Press; Published: 1990-06-18; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $7.25
Price in other shops: $35.00
Retreat from the Finland Station: Moral Odysseys in the Breakdown of Communism ImageRetreat from the Finland Station: Moral Odysseys in the Breakdown of Communism
by Murphy
Free Press; Published: 1992-08-24; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $13.95
Price in other shops: $27.95
St. Petersburg: A Cultural History ImageSt. Petersburg: A Cultural History
by Solomon Volkov
The Free Press / Simon & Schuster; Published: 1995-11-10; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $28.90
Price in other shops: $30.00
The Kremlin: Citadel of History ImageThe Kremlin: Citadel of History
by Mina C. Klein, H. Arthur Klein
Atheneum; Published: 1973-03; Library Binding; Book
Price in other shops: $8.95
The Russian Revolution ImageThe Russian Revolution
by Richard Pipes
Fontana Press; Published: 1992-02-06; Paperback; Book
Scorpion Down: Sunk by the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon: The Untold Story of the USS Scorpion ImageScorpion Down: Sunk by the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon: The Untold Story of the USS Scorpion
by Ed Offley
Basic Books; Published: 2008-03-25; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.93
Price in other shops: $16.95
Peter the Great: His Life and World (Abacus Books) ImagePeter the Great: His Life and World (Abacus Books)
by ROBERT K. MASSIE
ABACUS BOOKS (SPHERE); Published: 1982; Paperback; Book
Russia: A History ImageRussia: A History
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2000-04-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.77
Price in other shops: $22.50
Similar Books and other products
The Road to Oxiana ImageThe Road to Oxiana
by Robert Byron
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2007-05-18; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.06
Price in other shops: $15.95
The Shaman's Coat: A Native History of Siberia ImageThe Shaman's Coat: A Native History of Siberia
by Anna Reid
Walker & Company; Published: 2003-09-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $67.74
Behind the Wall: A Journey Through China ImageBehind the Wall: A Journey Through China
by Colin Thubron
Harpercollins; Published: 1989-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.50
Mirror to Damascus ImageMirror to Damascus
by Colin Thubron
Vintage Books; Published: 2009-01-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.53
Trans-Siberian Handbook: Seventh Edition of the Guide to the World's Longest Railway Journey (Trailblazer Guides) ImageTrans-Siberian Handbook: Seventh Edition of the Guide to the World's Longest Railway Journey (Trailblazer Guides)
by Bryn Thomas
Trailblazer Publications; Published: 2007-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $48.00
Travels in Siberia ImageTravels in Siberia
by Ian Frazier
Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Published: 2010-10-12; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $7.99
Price in other shops: $30.00
The Lost Heart of Asia (P.S.) ImageThe Lost Heart of Asia (P.S.)
by Colin Thubron
Harper Perennial; Published: 2008-07-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.75
Price in other shops: $15.99
Among the Russians ImageAmong the Russians
by Colin Thubron
Harper Perennial; Published: 2000-12-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.42
Price in other shops: $14.00
To a Mountain in Tibet ImageTo a Mountain in Tibet
by Colin Thubron
Harper; Published: 2011-03-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $15.34
Price in other shops: $24.99
Shadow of the Silk Road (P.S.) ImageShadow of the Silk Road (P.S.)
by Colin Thubron
Harper Perennial; Published: 2008-07-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.99
Price in other shops: $15.99
Book store. Illustrated catalog of books on different categories