Traveling Light

Travel Book of the Month

River of No Reprieve: Descending Siberia's Waterway of Exile, Death and Destiny, by Jeffrey Tayler

Atlantic Monthly correspondent Jeffrey Tayler distinguished himself as an old-school adventure scribe with books like "Facing the Congo" (which recounted a harrowing pirogue trip through central Africa) and "Angry Wind" (which documented a journey through Africa by truck, bus, boat and camel). Unlike many of his adventurous peers, who embark on expeditions laden with corporate sponsorships and film crews, Tayler travels in near-solitude, armed with impressive language skills and accompanied by local guides. 

Tayler's latest literary journey, River of No Reprieve, takes him down the waters of Siberia's remote Lena River, home to sprawling wildernesses, dying villages and a brief white-summer season known for its wind storms and freezing temperatures. For Tayler, part of the appeal of the region is its obscurity. "Historians and writers have long occupied themselves with Moscow and Saint Petersburg, written about the Volga and the steppes, and described parts of Siberia along the railway, he writes. "But the Lena? Its shores have known no chronicler, its villages no hallower in verse, its deeds and deaths no novelist.  Lives had begun and ended there — no more."

Accompanied by a misanthropic 37-year-old Russian guide named Vadim, Tayler journeys down the Lena in a custom-designed riverboat, exploring remote outposts that have not advanced much past their original frontier condition ("We're entering the twenty-first century losing our phones and electricity and still fighting bears!" exclaims one frustrated villager).  Along the way, the author recounts early Cossack explorations of the Lena, ruminates on the grim gulag history of the region, and discovers quirky ethnic and cultural enclaves — from tidy ethnic Germans in Nyuya, to beautiful Eurasian girls in Verkhnemarkovo, to cheerful Yakut Baptists in Yakutsk. 

Though few readers are likely to travel in Tayler's footsteps, his book promises keen fascination for anyone who's interested in far-flung places, and the people who live there.  Curious to know more about the deepest reaches of Siberia, I emailed Tayler some questions about his Lena sojourn.

The Lena is one of the longest rivers in the world, yet it has neither the accessibility of the Nile, nor the fabled reputation of the Congo. What inspired you to travel the length of this remote and obscure waterway?

Jeffrey Tayler: I first became enamored of the Lena in 1993, when a truck taking me from Magadan, on the Sea of Okhotsk, to Yakutsk, drove me over it.  In winter, temperatures in Siberia drop so low that an eight-foot-thick layer of ice covers the river, ice strong enough to support all manner of traffic, including sixteen-wheelers and landing aircraft.  That ice, I never forgot, was as blue as the sky.  I spent weeks traversing eastern Siberia then as part of the journey I undertook for my first book, Siberian Dawn, and ever since, I had longed to return.

If the Lena's pristine nature lured me in, the Cossack explorers' use of the river in their reconnoitering of eastern Russia (and their establishment of its borders) hooked me.  A trip down the Lena, I figured, would take me through some of the grandest, most historically significant and least-touched scenery on the planet, if scenery shot through with tragedy.  The Lena was, during the Stalin decades, the watery trunk route of the world's largest natural prison; barges took prisoners from Ust'-Kut to labor camps on its banks.  For countless gulag inmates, the Lena's landscape was the last they'd ever see. 

Russians have a reputation for being standoffish, but I noticed that most of the Siberians you met in your book were quite friendly to you as an outsider.  Is hospitality a regional virtue?

JT: In Siberia as elsewhere in Russia, there is no culture of obligatory smiling in casual social encounters.  Cretinous grins, hearty handshakes, and spurious declarations of well-being play no role in socializing there.  If Russians frown on the street or at work, it's because they're not happy; their lives are hard.  This may come across to outsiders as unfriendly or standoffish, when in fact it's just plain honest.  Conversely, if someone smiles at you, they mean it.

Among Russians, what replaces all the fausse bonhomie we see in the West is a genuine, if low-key, concern for others.  Siberians, thanks to their harsh climate, generally try to help one another out, and an outsider (that is, anyone not from Siberia) may be regarded as especially needy.  Along the Lena, a foreigner is a rare bird indeed.

The Lena basin is remote, even for Siberia.  Is it possible for independent travelers to explore the region — at least between Lake Baikal and Yakutsk? Is Russian fluency a must for travelers in the region?

JT: One can take a ferry during July and August from Ust'Kut to Yakutsk.  But note that visitors to Yakutsk now require a special permit.  Otherwise, the few roads are frequently impassible owing to mud and ice; the climate and distances are daunting, even dangerous.  On the whole, eastern Siberia isn't really for inexperienced travelers.

That said, one can take the train from Moscow (or Beijing) to Lake Baikal (getting off at Irkutsk), and also fly into and out of Yakutsk from Moscow.  The incredibly vast expanses in between will probably remain remoter than remote for outsiders, however, unless you build your own boat and hire a guide, as I did. 

I don't think most people could travel around the region enjoyably without at least survival Russian and knowledge of the Cyrillic alphabet.  If other languages are spoken, they're likely to be Buryat or Yakut. 

Lena River aside, first-timers to Siberia invariably visit Irkutsk, the "Paris of Siberia".  I visited the city myself a few years ago, and found it fascinating.  Besides Irkutsk, what Siberian destinations might be worth a visit for travelers with a limited amount of time in the region?

JT: The other great Siberian cities of yore (Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk, and Omsk) come to mind as the most attractive, and they're also along the main rail line, which makes them convenient, as long as one doesn't mind a three- or four-day train ride from Moscow.  Ulan-Ude, which is even farther east, is a stark town amid Mongolian steppes that I found intriguing during my sojourn in 1993; from there you can visit the Buddhist shrine at Datsan.  There's no tourist infrastructure set up in these places, but that has to be part of the charm.  Few road rubes are likely to get anywhere near eastern Siberia.

River of No Reprieve: Descending Siberia's Waterway of Exile, Death and Destiny, (Houghton Mifflin, $24.00) debuted in bookstores last month.