Kolyma Diaries: A Journey into Russia’s Haunted Hinterland

Kolyma Diaries: A Journey into Russia’s Haunted Hinterland
ISBN-10
1846275032
ISBN-13
9781846275036
Category
Travel
Language
English
Published
2014-04-03
Publisher
Portobello Books
Author
Jacek Hugo-Bader

Description

From the author of the award-winning White Fever, Kolyma Diaries is an excursion into one of the world's last remaining badlands, a place full of Gulag ghosts and living wrecks. All along the 2000 kilometres of the Kolyma highway, Bader is plied with vodka. He hears mesmerizing, sometimes devastating, tales of the journeys that brought his 'fellow travellers', the people who give him lifts, to this benighted land. This is a book about the descendants of prisoners eking out a living, of conmen and veterans and scrap iron dealers, of corrupt politicians and organised crime. Stories are told of sons given away, husbands who reappear after three decades, scholars who now survive by foraging for mushrooms and berries, sculptors who hoard the heads lopped off statues of Lenin, miners who dig up mass graves while looking for gold, and all the addicts, convicts, fallen heroes and even sportsmen who run away from their troubles and end up in the most remote region in Russia

Similar books

  • Knoxville, Tennessee: A Mountain City in the New South
    By William Bruce Wheeler

    In the early 1970s the Boeing Corporation had sent planners to the region for the purpose of building a new city , to be named Timberlake , near the Tellico ...

  • Britannia in Brief: The Scoop on All Things British
    By Leslie Banker, William Mullins

    Robbie Williams Like Justin Timberlake, Robbie Williams got his start in a boy band then parlayed that success into something much bigger.

  • New England, 1999
    By Wayne Curtis, Herbert B. Livesey, Marie Morris

    Frost lived in a cabin on a farm across the road for 23 summers . ... but it's also open to the public at rates of about half what you'd pay at Killington .

  • Frommer's New England 2003
    By Wayne Curtis, Marie Morris, Laura M. Reckford

    You'll never fall into the tourist traps when you travel with Frommer's. It's like having a friend show you around, taking you to the places locals like best. Our expert...

  • Frommer's? New England 2002
    By Wayne Curtis, Marie Morris, Laura M. Reckford

    "Using the expertise of knowledgeable travel writers and editors, Frommer's New England is stuffed like a turkey, with slivers of information spilling out as soon as you open the cover.Even...

  • The Rough Guide to Peru
    By Sara Humphreys, Steph Dyson, Todd Obolsky

    S/620 01 446 9414, HI Hostel Lima Casimiro Ulloa 328 hihostels.com; map. A great deal, this is the top-rated HI hostel in the capital.

  • Chicago - Frommer's Travel Guides
    By Todd A. Savage

    The most authoritative, easy-to-use guide a traveller can buy

  • French By Heart: An American Family's Adventures in La Belle France
    By Rebecca S. Ramsey

    In a year or so, y'a.ll will move back home andTodd'll buy you some big house in Crawford Creek and you're ... But what is the deal with hotel rooms here?

  • Sons of Thunder
    By James Timberlake

    Book One: Sons of Thunder is the first of two books based on one summers 2000 mile trek across southern Europe.

  • Food Artisans of Alberta: Your Trail Guide to the Best Locally Crafted Fare
    By Karen Anderson, Matilde Sanchez-Turri

    Owners J.P. Fortin and Danielle Black Fortin have a base camp and café in Capstone at Riverlands in Red Deer. Check them out at pursuitadventures.ca.