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

Thanks to a fellow Amazon reviewer, I was introduced to the works of Jeffrey Tayler, first reading his excellent account of a journey across the Sahel portion of Africa, through some of the world's poorest countries. Today a prudent person - yes, even Jeffrey Tayler - would not undertake that journey, due to the dangers involved from religious fundamentalists who are willing to see a "soft target" in the personage of a lone, foreign, inquisitive traveler. That account is suitably titled Angry Wind: Through Muslim Black Africa by Truck, Bus, Boat, and Camel. I checked Tayler's other works, and knew this would be the next. I was immediately reminded of Eric Sevareid, the TV news commentator's account of his canoe trip from Minneapolis to York Factory, Hudson Bay, in part, down "God's River," during the Great Depression, which is entitled Canoeing with the Cree. Severeid had just graduated from high school, 18 at the time; Tayler was (hopefully) at mid-life, 43.

The Lena River is in Siberia, with its headwaters near Lake Baikal, and it flows north, to the Arctic Ocean. Tayler travelled almost all of it, some 2,400 miles, from Ust Kut to Tiksi on the Laptev Sea, a portion of the Arctic Ocean. Naturally his journey was in the summer, or what passes for it in the Arctic region, and on occasions it was hot, with temperatures above 90 F. Though contacts, Tayler made arrangements for Vadim to be his guide. Vadim is the Russian equivalent of a "troubled-Vietnam-War-veteran," with his "Vietnam" being, of course, Afghanistan. He has turned his back on the so-called civilized world, and seeks solace in the natural world, the more rugged and isolated, the better. He, too, was very cynical when it came to the military's efforts to give him "medals." There are frictions between the two, as would be expected on such a journey, but somehow I thought Tayler underestimated how very lucky he was to have Vadim as his guide.

Certainly for me, and I suspect most of us, the Lena River, and its course through the newly-named "Republic of Sakha" is an enormous "blank spot" on my mental geographic map. Tayler did a superlative job of filling in the blanks, starting with an appropriate epigram from Leo Tolstoy: "The Cossacks created Russia." They were the ones who helped fulfill the role of providing a Russian version of "Manifest Destiny" by initially settling these remote and harsh regions, subduing the indigenous people. Subsequently, Siberia was a place of exile, as well as forced labor, and all sorts of people washed up on the banks of the Lena, from Polish nobility, to German residents of the Soviet Union, who accepted the invitation of Catherine the Great to those Russians who "crossed" Stalin, not a small number.

Along Tayler's trip, whenever they stopped near a village, Vadim seemed to be content to stay with the boat, and enjoy the solitude. Tayler would explore the village, sometimes utilizing advanced contacts. His experiences overall were flat dreary or worse. Alcoholism dominated the entire river, with few exceptions, leading to a declining population. "Nothing to do" for the youths, except to find "refuge" in the bottle. Despite America's own bad experience, it was enough to make you re-think Prohibition. Some villages had been completely abandoned. Tayler has an "eye" for the ethnographic, noting how the Russians, and other European exiles, like the Germans interacted with the Yakuts, who themselves had pushed out of the way earlier inhabitants, like the Evenk. Tayler finds a maddening fatalism among the people along the river. Clearly, the "magic of the market place" did not bring a better world after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and he encounters a fair amount of nostalgia for that earlier era. In one summation, Tayler says: "The very faith the Soviets had tried to extirpate had induced in him a docility that had him praying for his tormentors souls. I sat back, frustrated, beyond pity." In contrast, very occasionally, he experiences "pride," and he italicizes it, for example in the Evenk village of Sikhyakh, high above the Arctic Circle.

Tayler claims that shaman religious practices originated in the "pillars" north of Yakutsk. And there are many other interesting nuggets of information that he provides from this blank spot on the map. One that would keep me away: of the natural annoyances, he places the infamous arctic mosquitoes in third place (!) behind the midges and the horseflies.

Tayler is married to a Russian, and is fluent in the language, which provides much additional insight. His account is richly informative, and very well-written. Most likely, I'll see what he has to say about the Congo. For this account, 5-stars, plus.

Taylor offers a rare introspective of an American living in Russia who has enough passion of it's past and present to emerge himself on a 2000+ mile journey through the heart of Siberia via the Lena River. He does a good job of not only conjuring up a vivid visual of his experiences on the way, but also offers the reader a ton of history and social science to better understand the challenges (and atrocities) the people of Russia have endured. There are redundancies in his descriptions of rough weather on the river that feel a bit contrived at times, but the meat and potatoes of the story keeps the pages turning.

When I ordered this book I was hoping for more nature and less politics. What I got seemed to be little more than a political diatribe written by a guy who was disappointed that he couldn't find as many people who hated Putin as he had hoped to find living in the dilapidated villages along the Lena.

Not a bad read , shed a lot of light on the alcohol abuse in the former USSR and how communists for government leadership killed millions of its people . Sad ❗️

This book, beautifully written, will give you a picture of the country we rarely hear about. A delightful read and adventure.

Tayler wanders off a bit in trying to make his language too flowery and poetic, but I guess it comes from living in Russia maybe where poetry is still respected. That or he is just trying to add a little more flavor to this rather depressing tale. There was one reviewer who gave this book only 2 stars because there was not more pictures and he thought the cover photo didn't look like the guy on the back flap. All I can say is try a trip like this yourself and see what you look like in two months. If you need more pictures, stick to the children's section. Having live in Russia for 4 years now I found it very believable. Vadim the guide is exactly as I could imagine having know a few Russians much like him.
What bothered me the most is that Tayler never mentions contacting his wife even once on the whole trip. I'm sure he must have, but didn't think it worth mentioning. All-in-all, a good adventure, and a good read.

It was an interesting read about a region of the world that I knew very little of.

Arrived in good condition. No problems