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On the Run in Siberia is the chilling tale of living in exile among Yukaghir hunters in the stark Siberian taiga region—a story of idealism, political corruption, starvation, and survival. It is also a striking portrait of the Yukaghirs’ shamanistic tradition and their threatened way of life, a drama unfolding daily in one of the world’s coldest, most enthralling landscapes.

Stephen D. Watrous provides a complete volume of pertinent information by and about John Ledyard, one of the most amazing explorers of all time. Including Ledyard’s own journal, letters between him and others, particularly Thomas Jefferson, and biographical information on eighteenth-century Siberia, Watrous offers an exceptional look at history, geography, and travel.

Perry McDonough Collins was the first American to journey through Siberia and down the 2,690-mile Amur River to the Pacific Ocean. In 1860 he wrote A Voyage Down the Amoor , an account of his adventures, and his book proved so popular that it was reissued in 1864. Siberian Journey consists of Collins’s original text framed by an interpretive introduction and explanatory notes by Charles Vevier, providing an extensive, first-hand account of Russia’s land and its people in the mid–nineteenth century.

Over the course of more than three centuries of Romanov rule in Russia, foreign visitors and residents produced a vast corpus of literature conveying their experiences and impressions of the country. The product of years of painstaking research by one of the world’s foremost authorities on Anglo-Russian relations, In the Lands of the Romanovs is the realization of a major bibliographical project that records the details of over 1200 English-language accounts of the Russian Empire. Ranging chronologically from the accession of Mikhail Fedorovich in 1613 to the abdication of Nicholas II in 1917, this is the most comprehensive bibliography of first-hand accounts of Russia ever to be published. Far more than an inventory of accounts by travellers and tourists, Anthony Cross’s ambitious and wide-ranging work includes personal records of residence in or visits to Russia by writers ranging from diplomats to merchants, physicians to clergymen, gardeners to governesses, as well as by participants in the French invasion of 1812 and in the Crimean War of 1854-56. Providing full bibliographical details and concise but informative annotation for each entry, this substantial bibliography will be an invaluable tool for anyone with an interest in contacts between Russia and the West during the centuries of Romanov rule.

This biography examines the long life of the traveller and author Stephen Graham. Graham walked across large parts of the Tsarist Empire in the years before 1917, describing his adventures in a series of books and articles that helped to shape attitudes towards Russia in Britain and the United States. In later years he travelled widely across Europe and North America, meeting some of the best known writers of the twentieth century, including H.G.Wells and Ernest Hemingway. Graham also wrote numerous novels and biographies that won him a wide readership on both sides of the Atlantic. This book traces Graham’s career as a world traveller, and provides a rich portrait of English, Russian and American literary life in the first half of the twentieth century. It also examines how many aspects of his life and writing coincide with contemporary concerns, including the development of New Age spirituality and the rise of environmental awareness. Beyond Holy Russia is based on extensive research in archives of private papers in Britain and the USA and on the many works of Graham himself. The author describes with admirable tact and clarity Graham’s heterodox and convoluted spiritual quest. The result is a fascinating portrait of a man who was for many years a significant literary figure on both sides of the Atlantic.

In Sacred Sea--the first major journalistic examination of Baikal in English--veteran environmental writer Peter Thomson and his younger brother undertake a pilgrimage, journeying 25,000 miles by land and sea to reach this extraordinary lake. At Baikal they find a place of sublime beauty, deep history, and immense natural power. But they also find ominous signs that this perfect eco-system--containing one-fifth of earth's fresh water--could yet succumb to the powerful forces of human hubris, carelessness, and ignorance.

Extrait: \"La dernière fois que j'ai pu vous envoyer de mes nouvelles, je vous ai promis de ne pas revenir en France avant d'avoir poussé jusqu'à Moscou; depuis ce moment, vous ne pensez plus qu'à cette cité fabuleuse, fabuleuse en dépit de l'histoire. En effet, le nom de Moscou a beau être assez moderne et nous rappeler les faits les plus positifs de notre siècle, la distance des lieux, la grandeur des événements le rendent poétique par-dessus tout autre nom.\"

Travel to post Soviet Siberia and the Russian Far East with author Sharon Hudgins as she takes readers on a personal adventure through the Asian side of Russia—an area closed to most Westerners and many Russians prior to the 1990s. Even today, few people from the West have ridden the TransSiberian railroad in winter, stood on the frozen surface of Lake Baikal, feasted with the Siberian Buryats, or lived in the highrise villages of Vladivostok and Irkutsk. One of the few American women who has lived and worked in this part of the world, Hudgins debunks many of the myths and misconceptions that surround this other side of Russia. She artfully depicts the details of everyday life, set within their cultural and historical context—local customs, foods, and festivals, as well as urban life, the education system, and the developing market economy in postSoviet Siberia and the Russian Far East. Hudgin's prose shines in her colorful descriptions of multicourse meals washed down with champagne and vodka, often eaten by candlelight when the electricity failed. The author's accounts of hors d'oeuvres made of sea slugs and roulades of raw horse liver will fascinate those with adventuresome tastes, while her stories of hosting Spanish, French, and TexMex feasts will come as a surprise to anyone who thinks of Russia as a gastronomic wasteland. Readers of The Other Side of Russia: A Slice of Life in Siberia and the Russian Far East will find themselves among the guests at Christmas parties, New Year's banquets, Easter dinners, and birthday celebrations. They will experience the challenges of living in highrise apartment buildings often lacking water, heat, and electricity. Above all, Asian Russia's natural beauty, thriving cities, and proud people shine from the pages, proving it is not only a land of harsh winters and vast uninhabited spaces, but also home to millions of Russian citizens who live and work in modern metropolises and enjoy a rich cultural and social life.  

No detailed description available for \"Vagabond Life\".

Fragile, gritty, and vital to an extraordinary degree, St. Petersburg is one of the world's most alluring cities-a place in which the past is at once ubiquitous and inescapably controversial. Yet outsiders are far more familiar with the city's pre-1917 and Second World War history than with its recent past. In this beautifully illustrated and highly original book, Catriona Kelly shows how creative engagement with the past has always been fundamental to St. Petersburg's residents. Weaving together oral history, personal observation, literary and artistic texts, journalism, and archival materials, she traces the at times paradoxical feelings of anxiety and pride that were inspired by living in the city, both when it was socialist Leningrad, and now. Ranging from rubbish dumps to promenades, from the city's glamorous center to its grimy outskirts, this ambitious book offers a compelling and always unexpected panorama of an extraordinary and elusive place.