Download or read book Midnight Train To Siberia written by Alicja Hartley, Teresa Hartley and published by Memoirs Publishing. This book was released on 2014-02-27 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One freezing February night in 1940, fifteen-year-old Alicja Radomski, her parents and younger sister and brother were dragged from their home and forced to board a cattle train to be transported over a thousand miles to the wastes of Siberia. They were just one of many thousands of Polish families sent to labour camps by Stalin and his thugs after the Soviets seized their country at the outbreak of World War II. They became ‘non-persons’, forced to work from dawn to dusk in freezing conditions on rations scarcely fit for a rat. Ultimately, the Radomskis were among the lucky ones – they managed to survive their ordeal, to return to Europe and find new homes eventually in post-war England, where Alicja married a British serviceman and the family found peace and security. Alicja, now 89, has now told her shocking, heart-rending story with the help of her daughter Teresa.
Download or read book Midnight in Siberia written by David Greene and published by . This book was released on 2015-02-15 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: David Green decides to travel thousands of kilometres from Moscow to Vladivostok on the iconic Trans-Siberian line. On the train and in the many Siberian outposts he stops at he meets a wide range of ordinary Russian people - from a group of Beatles-singing babushkas to soldiers and struggling entrepreneurs - with situations arising that are at times comical, awkward or poignant. Travelling in third class, he learns to adhere to the train's unwritten social codes and to navigate the unfamiliar environment of Siberia, occasionally shadowed by security agents.
Download or read book Midnight in Siberia A Train Journey into the Heart of Russia written by David Greene and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2014-10-20 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Travels with NPR host David Greene along the Trans-Siberian Railroad capture an overlooked, idiosyncratic Russia in the age of Putin. Far away from the trendy cafés, designer boutiques, and political protests and crackdowns in Moscow, the real Russia exists. Midnight in Siberia chronicles David Greene’s journey on the Trans-Siberian Railway, a 6,000-mile cross-country trip from Moscow to the Pacific port of Vladivostok. In quadruple-bunked cabins and stopover towns sprinkled across the country’s snowy landscape, Greene speaks with ordinary Russians about how their lives have changed in the post-Soviet years. These travels offer a glimpse of the new Russia—a nation that boasts open elections and newfound prosperity but continues to endure oppression, corruption, a dwindling population, and stark inequality. We follow Greene as he finds opportunity and hardship embodied in his fellow train travelers and in conversations with residents of towns throughout Siberia. We meet Nadezhda, an entrepreneur who runs a small hotel in Ishim, fighting through corrupt layers of bureaucracy every day. Greene spends a joyous evening with a group of babushkas who made international headlines as runners-up at the Eurovision singing competition. They sing Beatles covers, alongside their traditional songs, finding that music and companionship can heal wounds from the past. In Novosibirsk, Greene has tea with Alexei, who runs the carpet company his mother began after the Soviet collapse and has mixed feelings about a government in which his family has done quite well. And in Chelyabinsk, a hunt for space debris after a meteorite landing leads Greene to a young man orphaned as a teenager, forced into military service, and now figuring out if any of his dreams are possible. Midnight in Siberia is a lively travel narrative filled with humor, adventure, and insight. It opens a window onto that country’s complicated relationship with democracy and offers a rare look into the soul of twenty-first-century Russia.
Download or read book Border Crossings written by Emma Fick and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2022-04-19 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An illustrated travelogue that brilliantly captures artist and illustrator Emma Fick’s epic train journey on the Trans-Siberian Railway—from Beijing through Mongolia to Moscow—including more than 200 watercolor illustrations and handwritten text that includes cultural and historical information as well as invaluable travel tips. In May 2015, on a trip through the Baltics and Scandinavia, artist and illustrator Emma Fick and her boyfriend (now husband) Helvio discovered a worn copy of the Trans-Siberian Handbook at a secondhand shop in Helsinki. Many travelers from around the globe had used the guide to journey on the longest train ride in the world. Emma and Helvio took their find as a sign to embark on their own adventure on the legendary railway that has captured the imaginations and curiosities of many travelers and explorers since its construction a century ago. A year and a half later, with Trans-Siberian Handbook in hand, they boarded the train in Beijing. Their odyssey was just beginning. Border Crossings is the chronicle of their unforgettable 26-day, 8-city journey across Asia to Moscow. Emma offers a concise history of the railway and in vivid, visual language, takes you across a vast landscape of rural villages and bustling urban centers, through open food markets brimming with delicacies and a snowy mountain wilderness dotted with clusters of gers—nomadic homes. Emma’s detailed observations and lush descriptions, accompanied by detailed colorful illustrations, bring this remarkable journey of discovery and adventure—the landscapes, food, people and cultures—to life. Experience drinking salty milk tea, eating shoe sole cake (fried cakes shaped like shoe soles piled high and topped with milk curds and hard candies), and riding camels in Mongolia. In Russia, wander through a snow-draped countryside filled with stands of birch trees, explore the wonders of freshwater Lake Baikal—the source of omul, a ubiquitous and beloved fish delicacy—go ice fishing, and take a self-guided tour of Moscow. With its hand-drawn maps, its wealth of illustrations of every aspect of the experience—from sleeping quarters on a train to the highlights of a monastery or the details of a memorable meal, Border Crossings is an invitation to experience new destinations and cultures first-hand—to travel the Trans-Siberian Railway as never before, whether you’re a nomad looking for a new vacation destination, an armchair traveler, or just culturally curious.
Download or read book Travels in Siberia written by Ian Frazier and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2010-10-12 with total page 541 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Ghost Train to the Eastern Star written by Paul Theroux and published by Emblem Editions. This book was released on 2009-08-25 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: National Bestseller In Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, Theroux recreates an epic journey he took thirty years ago, a giant loop by train (mostly) through Eastern Europe, Turkey, the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Indian Subcontinent, China, Japan, and Siberia. In short, he traverses all of Asia top to bottom, and end to end. In the three decades since he first travelled this route, Asia has undergone phenomenal change. The Soviet Union has collapsed, China has risen, India booms, Burma slowly smothers, and Vietnam prospers despite the havoc unleashed upon it the last time Theroux passed through. He witnesses all this and more in a 25,000 mile journey, travelling as the locals do, by train, car, bus, and foot. His odyssey takes him from Eastern Europe, still hungover from Communism, through tense but thriving Turkey, into the Caucasus, where Georgia limps back toward feudalism while its neighbour Azerbaijan revels in oil-driven capitalism. As he penetrates deeper into Asia’s heart, his encounters take on an otherworldly cast. The two chapters that follow show us Turkmenistan, a profoundly isolated society at the mercy of an almost comically egotistical dictator, and Uzbekistan, a ruthless authoritarian state. From there, he retraces his steps through India, Mayanmar, China, and Japan, providing his penetrating observations on the changes these countries have undergone. Brilliant, caustic, and totally addictive, Ghost Train to the Eastern Star is Theroux at his very best.
Download or read book Midnight Train to Moscow written by B. Douglas Moyer and published by . This book was released on 2007-03 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For years Daniel Moss has been fascinated with Russia. Now, he's finally taking his dream vacation to St. Petersburg and Moscow. Just when he thinks his interesting but uneventful tourist trip has come to a safe end, Daniel's greatest fears about traveling to such a strange and exotic country on the other side of the world start to materialize. Dan and his Russian tour guide, Sasha, find themselves in the middle of a perilous journey as they are taken hostage by Separatist militants of Chechnya, the tiny country still bitterly struggling for independence from Russia. Along the way, Dan and Sasha become acquainted with smugglers and bandits, learn about a side of Russian history they never knew about, and fall in love. They soon discover the truth about the War on Terror and how it relates to the conflict between Chechnya and Russia-and the dark secret about the most dangerous and sought-after terrorist leaders in the world is revealed. Miraculously, Dan and Sasha get one chance to earn their freedom, but if they fail, they will die. If they succeed, they will accomplish one of the greatest missions of all time-and earn the ultimate victory in the War on Terror.
Download or read book Midnight in the Century written by Victor Serge and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2014-12-16 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1933, Victor Serge was arrested by Stalin’s police, interrogated, and held in solitary confinement for more than eighty days. Released, he spent two years in exile in remote Orenburg. These experiences were the inspiration for Midnight in the Century, Serge’s searching novel about revolutionaries living in the shadow of Stalin’s betrayal of the revolution. Among the exiles gathered in the town of Chenor, or Black-Waters, are the granite-faced Old Bolshevik Ryzhik, stoic yet gentle Varvara, and Rodion, a young, self-educated worker who is trying to make sense of the world and history. They struggle in the unlikely company of Russian Orthodox Old Believers who are also suffering for their faith. Against unbelievable odds, the young Rodion will escape captivity and find a new life in the wild. Surviving the dark winter night of the soul, he rediscovers the only real, and most radical, form of resistance: hope.
Download or read book River of No Reprieve written by Jeffrey Tayler and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2007-09 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a custom-built boat, Jeffrey Tayler traveled some 2,400 miles down the Lena River, from near Lake Baikal to high above the Arctic Circle, re-creating a journey first made by Cossack forces more than three hundred years ago. He was searching for primeval beauty and a respite from the corruption, violence, and self-destructive urges that typify modern Russian culture. His only companion on this hellish journey detests all humanity, including Tayler. Vadim, Tayler's guide, is a burly Soviet army veteran whose superb skills Tayler needs to survive. As the two navigate roiling white water in howling storms, they eschew lifejackets because the frigid water would kill them before they could swim to shore. Though Tayler has trekked by camel through the Sahara and canoed down the Congo during the revolt against Mobutu, he has never felt as threatened as he does on this trip.
Download or read book The Man Who Rocked the Earth written by Arthur Cheney Train and published by 1st World Publishing. This book was released on 2006-11 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It was three minutes past three postmeridian in the operating room of the new Wireless Station recently installed at the United States Naval Observatory at Georgetown. Bill Hood, the afternoon operator, was sitting in his shirt sleeves with his receivers
Download or read book One for the Road written by Bjørn Christian Tørrissen and published by One for the Road. This book was released on 2008-01-07 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Building on experience from 60 countries worth of independent travel, the author takes you on three journeys to places you may never have considered visiting, although you probably should and you definitely could. Learn about a low-budget cruise to Antarctica, understand what the Trans-Siberian Railway really is like, enjoy the natural wonders of Southern Africa. The book is a fun read, but you will also learn about far-away destinations and about how to travel independently anywhere. It's not a travel guide or a travel journal, it's both!More details, including free downloads, available from http://bjornfree.com/
Download or read book Stubborn Archivist written by Yara Rodrigues Fowler and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A young British -Brazilian woman from South London navigates growing up between two cultures and into a fuller understanding of her body, relying on signposts such as history, family conversation, and the eyes of the women who have shaped her: mother, grandmother, and aunt. During her trips to Brazil, sometimes alone, often with family, our narrator accesses a different side of herself that is as much of who she is as anything else. -- adapted from back cover
Download or read book Fifteen Flags written by Ric Hardman and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2001-02 with total page 589 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fifteen Flags re-creates the American military intervention into Siberia during the Russian Civil war, one of America's earlier failed attempts to control the fate of nations. This epic novel focuses on company commander Captain "Hunkpapa" Jack Carlisle and his second in command, Lt. Ira Leverett, known to their men as the Sioux and the Jew. Their mission was to maintain neutrality on an isolated sector of the Trans-Siberian railway which was targeted by Bolshevik and Czarist troops, by roving bands of Cossacks and by the forces of a dozen other nations which sought to control Siberia. In 1920 when they received orders to withdraw Lt. Leverett deserted the company to find Maryenka Austin, widow of an American sergeant who died in action. Captain Carlisle and his men, riding two rail wagons behind an erratic wood burning switching engine, beat their way East toward Vladivostok trying to outrun an armored train commanded by a rogue White officer, Colonel Sipialef, who has stolen the Cazrist gold reserves. When Leverett locates Maryenka with a band of Partisans and learns she is pregnant, he convinces her and the Partisan leader that Maryenka should be evacuated with the American forces so that her child can be born in the United States.
Download or read book Randy Black s Favorite Tales from Siberia written by Randy Black and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2007-08 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: HardcoverNominated for the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Non-Fiction."Tales from Siberia is sincere, fresh and interesting. Mr. Black's stories portray the essence of Siberia and her people, especially the babushky (grandmothers). I recommend this book.†Sergei Khrushchev, son of Nikita Khrushchev. “Black captures the harsh conditions, the stern babushky, the bone-chilling Siberian winter juxtaposed with the generosity and warmth of the Russian people.†The Dallas Morning News “From the Russian Mafia to the politicians and the retired surgeon who found it hard living on her $14 a month pension, Black provides avenues of concern, laughter and shear delight.†The Minneola MonitorThis collection of warm, inspiring, heart-touching and humorous stories brings to life Russians as they confront the painful thawing out process from their 75-year communist deepfreeze.
Download or read book The Geography of Bliss written by Eric Weiner and published by Twelve. This book was released on 2008-01-03 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now a new series on Peacock with Rainn Wilson, THE GEOGRAPHY OF BLISS is part travel memoir, part humor, and part twisted self-help guide that takes the viewer across the globe to investigate not what happiness is, but WHERE it is. Are people in Switzerland happier because it is the most democratic country in the world? Do citizens of Qatar, awash in petrodollars, find joy in all that cash? Is the King of Bhutan a visionary for his initiative to calculate Gross National Happiness? Why is Asheville, North Carolina so damn happy? In a unique mix of travel, psychology, science and humor, Eric Weiner answers those questions and many others, offering travelers of all moods some interesting new ideas for sunnier destinations and dispositions.
Download or read book Midnight Train to Trieste written by Shel Weissman and published by Author House. This book was released on 2013-12-16 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stan bought an open second class ticket to Belgrade, and packed food to reduce expenses. The Yugoslavian landscape was dreary; in winter, the animals were in the barn and the fields were blanketed with snow. Midnight Train to Trieste tells the story of Stan Ivy, an American university student on his first globetrotting experience through Europe. He was unprepared for his struggles with a near rape in his train compartment, local sadistic soldiers, and a gypsy globetrotter who altered his perceptions about the world. This is a poignant tale that generates both mesmerizing suspense and astonishing empathy into the intense nature of human frailty.
Download or read book The Trans Siberian Railway written by Aleksandra Litvina and published by Crocodile Books. This book was released on 2022-10-25 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating and enriching journey along the longest railway in the world. The Trans-Siberian Railway links Russia like a sewing thread on which towns and villages are skewered like pearls. This large-format book takes readers on a fascinating journey along its whole length, from Moscow to Vladivostok, a journey that takes seven days and covers over 5,700 miles. In a striking style, reminiscent of a graphic novel, readers will discover facts about the journey and the history of the railway, but will also hear from local people who live along the line as they share details of their lives, their favorite places, and everything they would like to tell travelers on the Trans-Siberian railway. The book also includes tips such as how to organize one’s life on the train and what souvenirs to look out for. Exquisitely illustrated by award-winning Anya Desnitskaya, this book will make a perfect gift for people young and old who are fascinated by trains, railway adventures, and Russian history.
