River of No Reprieve: Descending Siberia's Waterway of Exile, Death, and Destiny

Big (and Very Cold) River

Home to vast resources and President Putin's powerful conservative political base, Siberia wields a disproportionate amount of Russian power. Throw in enough Christian fundamentalists to make Jerry Falwell weep, and the remote Siberian wilderness begins to feel downright familiar. Kind of like Texas. All of which makes it the perfect backdrop for Jeffrey Tayler's latest trip through global politics on foot -- or, as this case may be, raft -- River of No Reprieve: Descending Siberia's Waterway of Exile, Death, and Destiny. Tayler takes a 2,400-mile journey down the Lena River to the arctic circle, through villages, nightclubs, and former gulags, exposing the joys and horrors of modern Siberian life, in which drunken skinheads battle Jesus freaks, petty bureaucrats compete with ruthless mobsters, and everyone wants to screw the hardened but gorgeous frontier women. It's a portrait of a ruggedly beautiful and politically influential land, an alien place you'd probably never want to visit.

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