2006.09.03: September 3, 2006: Headlines: Figures: COS - Morocco: Writing - Morocco: COS - Russia: Oregon Live: Jeffrey Tayler writes: The annexation of Siberia "facilitated Russia's transformation from a middle-sized European state into the largest country on earth, a Eurasian superpower with ports on seven seas covering, during the Soviet days, one sixth of the planet's surface."
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2006.09.03: September 3, 2006: Headlines: Figures: COS - Morocco: Writing - Morocco: COS - Russia: Oregon Live: Jeffrey Tayler writes: The annexation of Siberia "facilitated Russia's transformation from a middle-sized European state into the largest country on earth, a Eurasian superpower with ports on seven seas covering, during the Soviet days, one sixth of the planet's surface."
Jeffrey Tayler writes: The annexation of Siberia "facilitated Russia's transformation from a middle-sized European state into the largest country on earth, a Eurasian superpower with ports on seven seas covering, during the Soviet days, one sixth of the planet's surface."
In the summer of 2004, Tayler, the Moscow correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly and an American who has lived in Russia since 1993, traveled down the Lena from near its headwaters to its mouth. With only a guide to navigate the treacherous river, Tayler explored the length of the Lena and its surrounding, unforgiving landscape, in a small, custom-designed raft. Along the way, through encounters with dozens of Siberians, he also explored Russia's political history and current social conditions. Jeffrey Tayler served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco. He has published numerous articles in Atlantic Monthly, Spin, Harper's and Condé Nast Traveler and is a regular commentator on NPR's "All Things Considered.
Jeffrey Tayler writes: The annexation of Siberia "facilitated Russia's transformation from a middle-sized European state into the largest country on earth, a Eurasian superpower with ports on seven seas covering, during the Soviet days, one sixth of the planet's surface."
Frustrated, fatalistic Siberians see their future as no future at all
Sunday, September 03, 2006
BOB VAN BROCKLIN
I n the 16th century, Ivan the Terrible's Cossacks conquered Siberia -- a vast, isolated, nearly impassable land with rich reserves of natural resources. As Jeffrey Tayler writes in his new book, "River of No Reprieve: Descending Siberia's Waterway of Exile, Death, and Destiny," the annexation of Siberia "facilitated Russia's transformation from a middle-sized European state into the largest country on earth, a Eurasian superpower with ports on seven seas covering, during the Soviet days, one sixth of the planet's surface."
Inhabited by only 970,000 people, Siberia covers 2 million square miles -- roughly equivalent to the size of Western Europe -- and accounts for one-fifth of Russia's land mass. Forty percent of Siberia lies above the Arctic Circle, and permafrost runs nearly a mile deep in some places. Most of Siberia's population lives in a few villages along a handful of rivers; the Vilyuy, the Aldan, the Yana and the great Lena River.
The Lena flows more than 2,400 miles north from just above the Russian-Chinese border to the Laptev Sea, a bay of the Arctic Ocean some 450 miles north of the Arctic Circle. Fed by 500 tributaries along its route, the Lena is the 10th longest river in the world and the only major waterway in Russia unimpeded by dams. The Lena drains an area as large as Spain, France and all of Eastern Europe combined.
In the summer of 2004, Tayler, the Moscow correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly and an American who has lived in Russia since 1993, traveled down the Lena from near its headwaters to its mouth. With only a guide to navigate the treacherous river, Tayler explored the length of the Lena and its surrounding, unforgiving landscape, in a small, custom-designed raft. Along the way, through encounters with dozens of Siberians, he also explored Russia's political history and current social conditions.
During his journey, the Russians Tayler met expressed frustration and resignation about their lives and government and their nation's history. On Gorbachev: "We did just fine until Gorbachev. He told us, 'You're so isolated and far away that you're expensive to maintain! Move to the cities!' We didn't go, so they started closing down schools to get us out of here." On federal support: "Everything is falling apart. Moscow is trying to sell off our river fleet, which is all we have; this town lives off transporting oil to Yakutsk. In 2002, a huge flood hit us in the spring. Moscow offered us a thousand rubles (about thirty dollars) a person to cover losses. Think of it! You lose your house and get a thousand rubles! Nothing's improving."
Principal among Tayler's conclusions about the Russian people is that they have a "potent fatalism" that as long as things don't get as bad as they did during Stalin's Terror, "they're really not bad at all." This viewpoint, Tayler writes, leads Russians to "part with all notions of freedom, hope, (and) control" over their lives.
They are also, he observes, a people who believe in central political authority -- whether it is the tsar, the general secretary of the Communist Party, or the president. Order and security flow from autocracy, from the "iron fist" of the ruler, and take precedence over freedom. In fact, he writes, for many, the harsher the ruler, the better, and if a ruler commits "excesses" and the innocent suffer, well, as Stalin said, "When you cut down a forest, a few splinters will fly."
Bob Van Brocklin recently reviewed "The Poe Shadow" by Matthew Pearl for The Oregonian.
When this story was posted in September 2006, this was on the front page of PCOL:
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Story Source: Oregon Live
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; Figures; COS - Morocco; Writing - Morocco; COS - Russia
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