Recommend interesting books, movies etc about Siberia!
August 3, 2016 4:26 PM Subscribe
I've long been fascinated by Siberia and the Russian Far East. I seek out and consume all media, fiction and non-fiction, voraciously. But I think I may have run out of material. Can you recommend any movies, TV shows, documentaries, books or podcasts about these areas?
Things I have enjoyed in the past:
"Travels in Siberia" (book) by Ian Frazier
"The Endless Steppe" (book) by Esther Hautzig
"Happy People" (documentary) - about a Siberian hunter/trapper and his family.
Various Vice documentaries - Jesus of Siberia, Krokodil Tears, another one about North Korea that partially explored a logging camp on the transsiberian railroad.
"Girl Model" (documentary) - took place is Novosibirsk I think
"In Siberia" (book) by Colin Thubron
Podcast episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind called Akademgorodok: Siberia's Super Science Town
Things I have enjoyed in the past:
"Travels in Siberia" (book) by Ian Frazier
"The Endless Steppe" (book) by Esther Hautzig
"Happy People" (documentary) - about a Siberian hunter/trapper and his family.
Various Vice documentaries - Jesus of Siberia, Krokodil Tears, another one about North Korea that partially explored a logging camp on the transsiberian railroad.
"Girl Model" (documentary) - took place is Novosibirsk I think
"In Siberia" (book) by Colin Thubron
Podcast episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind called Akademgorodok: Siberia's Super Science Town
I think I read this book a number of years ago; it was pretty interesting. River of No Reprieve by Jeffrey Tayler. The same author has another book called Siberian Dawn, which I think is about overland travel in Siberia, but I haven't read it.
Now that I think about it, there was a travel series with Ewan MacGregor called "Long Way Round" in which he and a friend rode motorcycles from London to New York. The series/book has a section with them in Siberia.
posted by Janta at 4:43 PM on August 3, 2016
Now that I think about it, there was a travel series with Ewan MacGregor called "Long Way Round" in which he and a friend rode motorcycles from London to New York. The series/book has a section with them in Siberia.
posted by Janta at 4:43 PM on August 3, 2016
The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The early parts, describing arrests, interrogations, and trials are mostly not set in Siberia and the East, but once you get to the parts about the camps, most of them are in the areas you specified. Also see One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.
posted by Bruce H. at 5:15 PM on August 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Bruce H. at 5:15 PM on August 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
The first book of the Ice Trilogy by Vladimir Sorokin revolves around the Tunguska event. It's pretty weird.
posted by a sourceless light at 5:24 PM on August 3, 2016
posted by a sourceless light at 5:24 PM on August 3, 2016
I thoroughly enjoyed “Tent Life in Siberia” By George Keenan. It’s a great adventure tale told delightfully. It’s available free via Project Gutenberg. There are lots of reviews at goodreads
posted by X4ster at 5:37 PM on August 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by X4ster at 5:37 PM on August 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
Have you seen the Akira Kurosawa film "Dersu Uzala", set in Siberia?
posted by chimpsonfilm at 5:42 PM on August 3, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by chimpsonfilm at 5:42 PM on August 3, 2016 [6 favorites]
Long Way Round. Made for TV documentary about Ewen McGregor (the actor) and long time friend on a motorcycle ride around the world. One and a half episodes happen in Siberia. As in the other rural areas, they pull into town, inquire about accommodations, and end up eating (& drinking sometimes) with a local family who gives them a place to sleep.
posted by Homer42 at 6:02 PM on August 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Homer42 at 6:02 PM on August 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
The Tiger, a true story about Siberian hunters who are called in to deal with an aggressive man-eating tiger in a small logging village.
The Ringing Cedars books (also know as the Anastasia books) are set partly in Siberia. Caution: may contain high levels of woo. But also has a good blueprint for a beehive.
posted by ananci at 6:29 PM on August 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
The Ringing Cedars books (also know as the Anastasia books) are set partly in Siberia. Caution: may contain high levels of woo. But also has a good blueprint for a beehive.
posted by ananci at 6:29 PM on August 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
I liked Once Upon the River Love by Andrei Makine, a Russian exile with French heritage.
I read a few more of his books, but can't recall if they were also based in Siberia.
posted by UbuRoivas at 12:10 AM on August 4, 2016
I read a few more of his books, but can't recall if they were also based in Siberia.
posted by UbuRoivas at 12:10 AM on August 4, 2016
I can recommend this and thoroughly enjoyed the writing and the tale:
Off the Map: Bicycling Across Siberia . "With this brilliant account of his journey—at once edge-of-your-seat exciting and literary—Mark Jenkins established himself as the master of adventure/travel writing. In 1989 he and six companions—two Americans and four Russians—set out on an arduous, first-ever crossing of Siberia by bike, cycling across rutted dirt roads, swamps, the Ural Mountains, and through Moscow and Leningrad. "
posted by rmhsinc at 4:49 AM on August 4, 2016
Off the Map: Bicycling Across Siberia . "With this brilliant account of his journey—at once edge-of-your-seat exciting and literary—Mark Jenkins established himself as the master of adventure/travel writing. In 1989 he and six companions—two Americans and four Russians—set out on an arduous, first-ever crossing of Siberia by bike, cycling across rutted dirt roads, swamps, the Ural Mountains, and through Moscow and Leningrad. "
posted by rmhsinc at 4:49 AM on August 4, 2016
Tuva: Independent People - a documentary about one of the most interesting republics in Siberia.
posted by revertTS at 5:56 AM on August 4, 2016
posted by revertTS at 5:56 AM on August 4, 2016
Came in to recommend Once Upon the River Love, but UbuRoivas beat me to it, so I'll second it.
posted by penguin pie at 7:16 AM on August 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by penguin pie at 7:16 AM on August 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
Tuva has produced some quite extraordinary music.
Huun Huur Tu, for instance.
posted by JohnFromGR at 7:44 AM on August 4, 2016
Huun Huur Tu, for instance.
posted by JohnFromGR at 7:44 AM on August 4, 2016
Came to recommend Off the Map, but rmhsinc got here first.
As long as we're talking about Tuva, Tuva or Bust!: Richard Feynman's Last Journey by Ralph Leighton is a delightful rabbit-hole of discovery.
Did you know that the 2nd World Nomad Games are coming up in September in Kyrgyz Republic?
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 8:30 AM on August 4, 2016
As long as we're talking about Tuva, Tuva or Bust!: Richard Feynman's Last Journey by Ralph Leighton is a delightful rabbit-hole of discovery.
Did you know that the 2nd World Nomad Games are coming up in September in Kyrgyz Republic?
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 8:30 AM on August 4, 2016
> I thoroughly enjoyed “Tent Life in Siberia” By George Keenan.
That's Kennan, not Keenan, and he also wrote Siberia and the Exile System, also available free via Project Gutenberg (Vol. 1, Vol. 2).
From Paris to New York by Land, by Harry de Windt (Project Gutenberg), is an account of a 1902 journey described by the title, and the first half deals with Siberia.
East of the Sun: The Epic Conquest and Tragic History of Siberia, by Benson Bobrick (Amazon), is an excellent history.
Arctic Mirrors: Russia and the Small Peoples of the North, by Yuri Slezkine (Amazon) is, as the title suggests, an account of Russian relations with the native populations of the taiga/tundra regions; it can get depressing, but is a brilliant work of scholarship and very informative (I wrote a bit about it here).
The Shaman's Coat: A Native History of Siberia, by Anna Reid (Amazon), is a fairly superficial journalist's account of a number of native populations, but quite good for what it is.
I haven’t read James Forsyth’s A History of the Peoples of Siberia (Amazon), but it looks excellent.
Two good anthropological looks at specific peoples: Bruce Grant’s In the Soviet House of Culture (Amazon), about the Nivkh of Sakhalin, and Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer’s The Tenacity of Ethnicity: A Siberian Saga in Global Perspective (Amazon), about the Khanty of northwest Siberia.
Two books I own but haven't read yet:
Siberian Education: Growing Up in a Criminal Underworld, by Nicolai Lilin (Amazon)
White Fever: A Journey to the Frozen Heart of Siberia, by Jacek Hugo-Bader (Amazon)
posted by languagehat at 9:29 AM on August 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
That's Kennan, not Keenan, and he also wrote Siberia and the Exile System, also available free via Project Gutenberg (Vol. 1, Vol. 2).
From Paris to New York by Land, by Harry de Windt (Project Gutenberg), is an account of a 1902 journey described by the title, and the first half deals with Siberia.
East of the Sun: The Epic Conquest and Tragic History of Siberia, by Benson Bobrick (Amazon), is an excellent history.
Arctic Mirrors: Russia and the Small Peoples of the North, by Yuri Slezkine (Amazon) is, as the title suggests, an account of Russian relations with the native populations of the taiga/tundra regions; it can get depressing, but is a brilliant work of scholarship and very informative (I wrote a bit about it here).
The Shaman's Coat: A Native History of Siberia, by Anna Reid (Amazon), is a fairly superficial journalist's account of a number of native populations, but quite good for what it is.
I haven’t read James Forsyth’s A History of the Peoples of Siberia (Amazon), but it looks excellent.
Two good anthropological looks at specific peoples: Bruce Grant’s In the Soviet House of Culture (Amazon), about the Nivkh of Sakhalin, and Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer’s The Tenacity of Ethnicity: A Siberian Saga in Global Perspective (Amazon), about the Khanty of northwest Siberia.
Two books I own but haven't read yet:
Siberian Education: Growing Up in a Criminal Underworld, by Nicolai Lilin (Amazon)
White Fever: A Journey to the Frozen Heart of Siberia, by Jacek Hugo-Bader (Amazon)
posted by languagehat at 9:29 AM on August 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
The Siberians by Farley Mowat who also wrote Never Cry Wolf.
posted by cda at 11:51 AM on August 4, 2016
posted by cda at 11:51 AM on August 4, 2016
I found Farley Mowat's book fascinating, but it might be worth pointing out that his shiny happy depiction of life in the Soviet Union smells rather fishy.
posted by polecat at 1:59 PM on August 4, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by polecat at 1:59 PM on August 4, 2016 [2 favorites]
Nthing "Dersu Uzala".
posted by Moxx of Balhoon at 2:55 PM on August 4, 2016
posted by Moxx of Balhoon at 2:55 PM on August 4, 2016
Reindeer People: Living with Animals and Spirits in Siberia by Piers Vitebsky. A fantastic, beautiful book by an anthropologist.
Piers Vitebsky is an anthropologist who has spent the past 17 years (on and off) living among the Eveny reindeer herders of north-eastern Siberia. Reindeer People, his lengthy account of months at a time herding and migrating alongside the Eveny, is a tapestry of life in the frozen taiga. It is a wondrous, complex story of nomads surviving amid the dictatorships and ruin of the former Soviet Union, and Vitebsky tells it beautifully.posted by spamandkimchi at 4:10 PM on August 4, 2016
On the fictional side of things, I can thoroughly recommend Kolymsky Heights, a rollicking thriller about a super secret laboratory deep in Siberia, and The People's Act of Love, in which a revolutionary finds himself cut off in a Siberian community of voluntary eunuchs. Quite weird, that one.
posted by ZipRibbons at 5:27 AM on August 5, 2016
posted by ZipRibbons at 5:27 AM on August 5, 2016
Just as an alternative perspective, I enjoyed Kolymsky Heights but gave up on The People's Act of Love after a few chapters.
posted by languagehat at 10:31 AM on August 5, 2016
posted by languagehat at 10:31 AM on August 5, 2016
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It's not narrated, and strictly observational.
I found it interesting, both in terms of how it illustrated where the gas originates from (there are some amazing shots of Siberia), and where it travels through on its way to Western Europe (obviously highly relevant in terms of the Russia/Ukraine situation).
Review here.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 4:40 PM on August 3, 2016 [2 favorites]