Soul Hunters

Soul Hunters

Author: Rane Willerslev

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2007-08-24

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 0520252179

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Basing his study on firsthand experience with Yukaghir hunters, Rane Willerslev focuses on the practical implications of living in a 'hall of mirrors' world, one inhabited by humans, animals and spirits, all of whom are understood to be endless mimetic doubles of one another.


The Lost Pianos of Siberia

The Lost Pianos of Siberia

Author: Sophy Roberts

Publisher: Grove Press

Published: 2020-08-04

Total Pages: 443

ISBN-13: 0802149308

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This “melodious” mix of music, history, and travelogue “reveals a story inextricably linked to the drama of Russia itself . . . These pages sing like a symphony.” —The Wall Street Journal Siberia’s story is traditionally one of exiles, penal colonies, and unmarked graves. Yet there is another tale to tell. Dotted throughout this remote land are pianos—grand instruments created during the boom years of the nineteenth century, as well as humble Soviet-made uprights that found their way into equally modest homes. They tell the story of how, ever since entering Russian culture under the westernizing influence of Catherine the Great, piano music has run through the country like blood. How these pianos traveled into this snowbound wilderness in the first place is testament to noble acts of fortitude by governors, adventurers, and exiles. Siberian pianos have accomplished extraordinary feats, from the instrument that Maria Volkonsky, wife of an exiled Decembrist revolutionary, used to spread music east of the Urals, to those that brought reprieve to the Soviet Gulag. That these instruments might still exist in such a hostile landscape is remarkable. That they are still capable of making music in far-flung villages is nothing less than a miracle. The Lost Pianos of Siberia follows Roberts on a three-year adventure as she tracks a number of instruments to find one whose history is definitively Siberian. Her journey reveals a desolate land inhabited by wild tigers and deeply shaped by its dark history, yet one that is also profoundly beautiful—and peppered with pianos. “An elegant and nuanced journey through literature, through history, through music, murder and incarceration and revolution, through snow and ice and remoteness, to discover the human face of Siberia. I loved this book.” —Paul Theroux


The Reindeer People

The Reindeer People

Author: Piers Vitebsky

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 500

ISBN-13: 9780618773572

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Cambridge anthropologist Piers Vitebsky, the first westerner to live with the Eveny of Siberia since the Russian revolution, brings readers an extraordinary case of survival in one of the most inhospitable places on Earth. of photos.


Great Soul of Siberia

Great Soul of Siberia

Author: Sooyong Park

Publisher: Greystone Books Ltd

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1771641134

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In The Great Soul of Siberia, renowned tiger researcher Sooyong Park tracks three generations of Siberian tigers living in remote southeastern Russia. Reminiscent of the way Timothy Treadwell (the so-called Grizzly Man) immersed himself in the lives of bears, Park sets up underground bunkers to observe the tigers, living thrillingly close to these beautiful but dangerous apex predators. At the same time, he draws from twenty years of experience and research to focus on the Siberian tigers' losing battle against poaching and diminishing habitat. Over the two years of his harrowing stakeout, Park's poignant and poetic observations of the tigers draw a fiercely compassionate portrait of these elusive, endangered creatures.


Siberian Light

Siberian Light

Author: Robin White

Publisher: Island Books

Published: 1998-11-10

Total Pages: 530

ISBN-13: 0440224608

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Against the vivid backdrop of a country replacing corrupt communism with an equally corrupt capitalism, the geologist-turned-mayor of Markovo becomes obsessed with a grisly murder. Ordered to investigate, Mayor Gregori Nowek, no detective, soon finds himself in a labyrinth of deception that nevertheless begins to yield clues that point first toward a scientist studying the nearly extinct Siberian tiger, the beautiful Dr. Anna Vereskaya and ultimately towards an American-financed oil exploration venture.


The Tiger

The Tiger

Author: John Vaillant

Publisher: Knopf Canada

Published: 2010-08-24

Total Pages: 407

ISBN-13: 0307375277

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It's December 1997 and a man-eating tiger is on the prowl outside a remote village in Russia's Far East. The tiger isn't just killing people, it's annihilating them, and a team of men and their dogs must hunt it on foot through the forest in the brutal cold. To their horrified astonishment it emerges that the attacks are not random: the tiger is engaged in a vendetta. Injured and starving, it must be found before it strikes again, and the story becomes a battle for survival between the two main characters: Yuri Trush, the lead tracker, and the tiger itself. As John Vaillant vividly recreates the extraordinary events of that winter, he also gives us an unforgettable portrait of a spectacularly beautiful region where plants and animals exist that are found nowhere else on earth, and where the once great Siberian Tiger - the largest of its species, which can weigh over 600 lbs at more than 10 feet long - ranges daily over vast territories of forest and mountain, its numbers diminished to a fraction of what they once were. We meet the native tribes who for centuries have worshipped and lived alongside tigers - even sharing their kills with them - in a natural balance. We witness the first arrival of settlers, soldiers and hunters in the tiger's territory in the 19th century and 20th century, many fleeing Stalinism. And we come to know the Russians of today - such as the poacher Vladimir Markov - who, crushed by poverty, have turned to poaching for the corrupt, high-paying Chinese markets. Throughout we encounter surprising theories of how humans and tigers may have evolved to coexist, how we may have developed as scavengers rather than hunters and how early Homo sapiens may have once fit seamlessly into the tiger's ecosystem. Above all, we come to understand the endangered Siberian tiger, a highly intelligent super-predator, and the grave threat it faces as logging and poaching reduce its habitat and numbers - and force it to turn at bay. Beautifully written and deeply informative, The Tiger is a gripping tale of man and nature in collision, that leads inexorably to a final showdown in a clearing deep in the Siberian forest.


On Being a Bear

On Being a Bear

Author: Rémy Marion

Publisher: Greystone Books Ltd

Published: 2021-03-30

Total Pages: 167

ISBN-13: 1771646993

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This up-close, captivating look at an iconic animal traces our complex relationship to bears throughout history—and what they can tell us about ourselves. On Being a Bear draws on history, legends, scientific studies, and the author’s thirty years of observing bears around the world to offer a richly detailed biography of these iconic animals, including the many ways bears have figured in our lives and imaginations. As author Rémy Marion tells us, some cultures view bears as our wild cousins—as humans cloaked in fur—while others cast bears as cuddly characters in cartoons or seek to eradicate their grizzled forms from civilization. Scientists have made new discoveries into bears’ varied diets, their powerful sense of smell, and a mother bear’s stubborn patience with her cubs. Bears play a vital role in our ecosystems, and new studies into bear hibernation could lead to medical breakthroughs for humans. Offering these and more astonishing insights, On Being a Bear brings readers face-to-face with these long admired, feared, and misunderstood animals, and sets the record straight through a combination of thrilling science and expert storytelling.


Travels in Siberia

Travels in Siberia

Author: Ian Frazier

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Published: 2010-10-12

Total Pages: 541

ISBN-13: 1429964316

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A Dazzling Russian travelogue from the bestselling author of Great Plains In his astonishing new work, Ian Frazier, one of our greatest and most entertaining storytellers, trains his perceptive, generous eye on Siberia, the storied expanse of Asiatic Russia whose grim renown is but one explanation among hundreds for the region's fascinating, enduring appeal. In Travels in Siberia, Frazier reveals Siberia's role in history—its science, economics, and politics—with great passion and enthusiasm, ensuring that we'll never think about it in the same way again. With great empathy and epic sweep, Frazier tells the stories of Siberia's most famous exiles, from the well-known—Dostoyevsky, Lenin (twice), Stalin (numerous times)—to the lesser known (like Natalie Lopukhin, banished by the empress for copying her dresses) to those who experienced unimaginable suffering in Siberian camps under the Soviet regime, forever immortalized by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelago. Travels in Siberia is also a unique chronicle of Russia since the end of the Soviet Union, a personal account of adventures among Russian friends and acquaintances, and, above all, a unique, captivating, totally Frazierian take on what he calls the "amazingness" of Russia—a country that, for all its tragic history, somehow still manages to be funny. Travels in Siberia will undoubtedly take its place as one of the twenty-first century's indispensable contributions to the travel-writing genre.


The Consolations of the Forest

The Consolations of the Forest

Author: Sylvain Tesson

Publisher: Rizzoli Publications

Published: 2013-10-01

Total Pages: 245

ISBN-13: 0847841405

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A journalist embarks on the adventure of a lifetime—living in a remote cabin in Siberia—in this Thoreau-esque meditation on escaping the chaos of modern life and rediscovering the luxury of solitude. “…wry, exuberant, and a perfect balm for anyone who dreams of running away to the middle of nowhere.” —San Francisco Chronicle No stranger to inhospitable places, journalist Sylvain Tesson exiles himself to a wooden cabin on Siberia’s Lake Baikal—a full day’s hike from any “neighbor”—with his thoughts, his books, a couple of dogs, and many bottles of vodka for company. Writing from February to July, he shares his deep appreciation for the harsh but beautiful land, the resilient men and women who populate it, and the bizarre and tragic history that has given Siberia an almost mythological place in the imagination. Rich with observation, introspection, and the good humor necessary to laugh at his own folly, Tesson’s memoir is about the ultimate freedom of owning your own time. Only in the hands of a gifted storyteller can an experiment in isolation become an exceptional adventure accessible to all. By recording his impressions in the face of silence, his struggles in a hostile environment, his hopes, doubts, and moments of pure joy in communion with nature, Tesson makes a decidedly out-of-the-ordinary experience relatable. The awe and joy are contagious, and one comes away with the comforting knowledge that “as long as there is a cabin deep in the woods, nothing is completely lost.”