Frazier caught what he calls Russia-love and spent years going back, culminating in a nine-thousand-mile drive across Siberia in a used van with two Russian guides who argued the whole way. The book is that trip plus the whole history stuffed in around it: The Decembrists, the exile system, the Trans-Siberian, Genghis Khan’s route, the camps, and the ordinary business of getting gas and finding a place to camp among the mosquitoes. He’s the funniest travel writer going and the digressions are the point. He also went back in winter, on purpose, which tells you something.
Travels in Siberia