Neil Hopcroft

[Read aloud to Adelle]

Beyond Siberia by Christina Dodwell

I found this book in large print lurking in a National Trust second hand bookshop, and I have yet to find a way to resist travel books, especially when they involve tundra.

As a book published in 1993 this offers a window into a parochial world distant in both time and space.

Dodwell took the opportunity shortly after the dissolution of the Soviet Union to travel to the farthest reaches, the Kamchatka peninsula. An area crude even by the standards of the rest of Russia at the time.

She spends some time with a dance troupe entertaining some of the local tribes, visits a nature reserve and joins some reindeer herders for their springtime. Immersing herself in the local life for three months she documents a lot of what she sees and the people she meets.

It was not common for there to be visitors from outside the area at that time, never mind from another country, but it seems like everyone was welcoming and happy to share their experiences with her.

She was game for all kinds of immersion, driving reindeer sleds and eating blood soup and riding vezdekhod (water tanks for in Russia) and hunting mammoth bones, and describes some of those experiences in gory detail.

My wanderlust is not so strong with the subject matter, it all seems rather primitive and I’m pretty sure I would have baulked at the food. This is why I like reading about these things that other people have done, I can find out about places I have no way or desire to visit myself.

The writing style is a more like a diary that has been edited rather than an actual book being written. This gives it a charm of following the lives of her companions, while making it feel a little incoherent.