Travels in Siberia (75 page)

“hypocritical”: My source is the novelist D. M. Thomas, who told me this in Gainesville, Florida, in 1995.

“deeply interested in the country”: Travis,
George Kennan
, p. 140.

In 1901, he went back to Russia: The
Reflector
article about Kennan’s trip appeared on July 21, 1901.

At his return to Norwalk for his sister’s funeral:
Norwalk Reflector-Herald
, April 4, 1923.

Fred Brodin: Dr. Brodin later changed his name to Suuqiina Iglahlig. He has moved to Southern California.

Robert Sheldon: Reverend Sheldon is now (2010) chaplain at the Red Dog Mine, north of Kotzebue.

I mainly read about the Bering expedition: The book I spent the most time with was Len’kov, Silant’sev, and Staniukovich’s
The Komandorskii Camp of the Bering Expedition
.

Bering merely shrugged: Bancroft,
History of Alaska
, p. 80.

Commander Island: All details about the archaeology are from Len’kov, Silant’sev, and Staniukovich,
The Komandorskii Camp
.

the skeleton retraced its route to Commander Island: Bering was reburied on September 14, 1992; see “18th Century Explorer Vitus Bering to Be Buried in Russia,” Associated Press, July 30, 1992.

Vic Goldsberry: Chukotka-Alaska is still (January, 2010) doing business in Nome under the same ownership.

an anthology of short works: Otto F. Bond and George V. Bobrinskoy, eds.,
Graded Russian Readers: Books One to Five
(Boston: Heath, 1961).

Lynne Cox swam the Bering Strait: “Cox Swims Strait,”
The Nome Nugget
, August 13, 1987.

At Gorbachev’s historic meeting: Gorbachev’s comments were made at a state dinner during the third summit between Reagan and Gorbachev in Washington, D.C., in December 1987. The text of the participants’ remarks may be found in the online archives of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum.

a Mexican illegal alien: “Gateway to Siberia: Nome, Alaska, Feels It Has a Certain Ring,”
The Wall Street Journal
, September 28, 1987, p. 1.

a joint U.S.-Soviet expedition:
The Nome Nugget
, January 5, 1989.

two Soviet journalists: Ibid., April 27, 1989.

a doctor from Austin, Texas: Dr. Walter Meyer;
The Nome Nugget
, August 13, 1992.

Sir Ranulph Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes: Ibid., March 14, 1996.

Dmitri Shparo: Ibid., March 28, 1996. For more on Shparo’s Bering Strait adventures, see
Anchorage Daily News
, April 27 and June 2, 1988, September 26, 1989.

a sculptor named David Barr:
The Nome Nugget
, July 21, 1988.

a delegation of Alaskans journeyed to Provideniya: “Flight Across Bering Sea Symbolically Breaks Ice in Superpowers’ Relations,”
The Washington Post
, June 15, 1988, p. B5.

Bering Air, a small Nome airline:
The Nome Nugget
, July 13, 1989.

Trans-strait telephone connections: Ibid., August 31, 1989.

Soviet Young Pioneers: Ibid., month and day missing, 1989.

A burn victim: Ibid., October 4, 1990.

A story from
The Washington Post
: “There’s No Place Like Nome for the Cold War Meltdown,” July 1, 1990, p. B5.

“I visualize . . . ,” Solzhenitsyn wrote:
The Gulag Archipelago
, 1:550
n
.

a party of thirty-seven Yupiks: See “Bering Claims Boaters: 2 Russians Die in Native Skiffs,”
Anchorage Daily News
, August 5, 1999, p. 1.

swamped in a storm and drowned: This drowning occurred on September 7, 1995, in the course of a research project on social change in Bering Strait villages funded by the National Science Foundation. On the way to Provideniya from a village, the skin boat in which the scientists were riding overturned, and they and five villagers drowned. See “Hard Times,”
Anchorage Daily News
, June 23, 1996, p. C1.

Heidi Bradner: Many details of Heidi Bradner’s story are in the
Anchorage Daily News
report of August 5, 1999. See also “Search Still on for Russian Boaters” (ibid., August 6, 1999, p. 1) and “Coast Guard Abandons Search for Russian Boaters” (ibid., August 7, 1999, p. B1).

Russian bureaucracy makes it hard for Yupiks: Heidi Bradner was telling me what the Yupiks had told her. Other Siberians confirmed this fact to me and said all natives in Chukotka had this problem.

shot through the lung: “Witness to a Bloody Rebellion,”
Anchorage Daily News
, October 24, 1993, p. A1.

no sign of boats or men had been found: See
Anchorage Daily News
stories cited above.

Chukchis: The Chukchi are one of the Siberian peoples who have been found to be close, genetically, to Native Americans. GM
A G, an immunoglobulin haplotype found in 86 percent of the Chukchi, is also found in 98 percent of Canada’s Northern Cree. See Crawford,
Origins of Native Americans
, p. 6.

“Pushkin lyubil kidat’sya kamnyami”
: from “
Anegdoti iz Zhiznii Pushkina
” [Anegdotes from the Life of Pushkin], in Kharms’s collection of absurdist pieces,
Starukha: Rasskazy, Stseny, Povest’
[Old Woman: Stories, Scenes, Novella], p. 42.

the Russian Imperial double-headed eagle: Forsyth,
A History of the Peoples of Siberia
, p. 150; also Lantzeff and Pierce,
Eastward to Empire
, p. 219.

found among his papers after his death: The title of the poem is “Unto Myself I Reared a Monument.” It was published posthumously in 1841.

I Fin, i nyne díki Tungús
: This and other essential Russian poems can be found in a little volume called
Three Russian Poets
, translated by Vladimir Nabokov, which is interesting not only for the poems but for Nabokov’s commentary. Of Pushkin, Nabokov says, “His life was as glamorous as a good grammarian’s life ought to be.” Describing Georges-Charles d’Anthès, the “blond, fatuous adventurer” who killed Pushkin in a duel, Nabokov notes, “after shooting Pushkin through the liver [d’Anthès] returned to France, had a glorious time under Napoleon III, was mentioned by Victor Hugo in one of his poetical diatribes and lived to the incredible and unnecessary age of 90.”

The missing Yupiks had been found: “4 Russians Rescued in Bering Sea,”
Anchorage Daily News
, August 8, 1999, p. A1, and “Last of Six Lost Boaters Found, Safe,” ibid., August 9, 1999, p. A1.

bribes: Evidence shows that when America bought Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million, the Russians spent $200,000 on kickbacks to persuade American officials to pass the unpopular measure; see Florinsky,
Russia
, 2:976.

a Taoist monk named Ch’ang ch’un: The story of Ch’ang ch’un and his travels is in Bretschneider,
Mediaeval Researches
, pp. 37ff.

John of Plano Carpini: “The Voyage of Johannes de Plano Carpini into the Northeast Parts of the World, in the Yeere of Our Lord, 1246,” in Hakluyt,
The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries
, 1:134.

another Franciscan, William de Rubruquis: “The Journal of Frier William Rubruquis a French Man of the Order of Minorite Friers, unto the East Parts of the Worlde. An. Dom. 1253,” ibid., p. 229. See also Bretschneider,
Mediaeval Researches
, pp. 204–205.

enough order so that people could travel there: Howorth,
History of the Mongols
, p. 111; also Grousset,
The Empire of the Steppes
, pp. 312–13.

The Mongols: Important sources on the fascinating topic of the Mongols are “The Voyage of Johannes de Plano Carpini”; Florinsky,
Russia
; Grousset,
The Empire of the Steppes
; Gryaznov,
The Ancient Civilization of Southern Siberia
; Hosking,
Russia and the Russians
; Howorth,
History of the Mongols
; and Sinor,
The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia
.

invention of the bronze bit: Sinor,
The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia
, p. 94; the invention of the stirrup several centuries earlier freed the horseman’s hands, making him more able to use his weapons; see Hosking,
Russia and the Russians
, p. 2.

his mobility let him find new pastures: Gryaznov,
The Ancient Civilization of Southern Siberia
, p. 131.

Herodotus said they descended from Hercules’ son: Strahlenberg,
Russia, Siberia, and the Great Tartary
, p. 21.

Sarmatians: Custine,
Empire of the Czar
, p. 499.

“When the fierce strength of the mighty Boreas”: Quoted in Gryaznov,
The Ancient Civilizations of Southern Siberia
, p. 132.

mocked the Islamic cry
“la ilaha illa allah”
: The historian Ibn al-Athir, quoted in Grousset,
The Empire of the Steppes
, p. 262.

he was their punishment: After a massacre, Genghis Khan told survivors in a mosque, “If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you.” Kennedy,
Mongols, Huns and Vikings
, p. 138.

“sing and make merry”: Carpini, in Hakluyt,
The Principal Navigations
, p. 138.

“made the fullest use of the terror”: Grousset,
The Empire of the Steppes
, p. 225.

the Mongols had subdued northern China: Graves of the subject peoples during the Mongol era were so poor in treasure that even grave robbers knew not to bother with them. Mongol graves, however, had leather garments, mirrors, Chinese lacquer, and other pillage; see Okladnikov,
Ancient Population of Siberia
, p. 65.

“not one in a thousand of the inhabitants survived”: The historian al Juwani, quoted in Nicolle,
The Mongol Warlords
, p. 46.

“to cut my enemies in pieces”: Vernadsky,
The Mongols of Russia
, p. 43; also Nicolle,
The Mongol Warlords
, p. 9.

Whenever women were captured: Howorth,
History of the Mongols
, p. 107.

geneticists from Oxford University: “A Prolific Genghis Khan, It Seems, Helped People the World,”
The New York Times
, February 11, 2003, p. F3.

bring Mongol rule to the Russian principalities: For details of Batu’s campaigns, see Howorth,
History of the Mongols
, and Vernadsky,
Mongols of Russia
. See also Curtin,
Mongols
; Fennell,
Crisis of Medieval Russia
; Hartog,
Russia and the Mongol Yoke
; and Saunders,
History of the Mongol Conquests
.

The Mongols—or Tatars: The word “Tatar” can cause some confusion. It resembles the word “Tartar,” which is sometimes used in similar contexts. Originally, the Tatars were a Turkic people known as fierce horseback warriors. They and the Mongols were hereditary enemies. After the Mongol invasion of Russia, “Tatar” came to be applied to all non-Russian tribal horsemen who raided Russian lands, such as the Crimean Tatars and the horsemen of the Golden Horde. “Tartar” has a different derivation. It is said to come from “Tartarus,” i.e., hell, the Tartars’ supposed place of origin (Vernadsky,
The Mongols of Russia
, p. 12). Russians seldom or never use “Tartar,” generally preferring “Tatar” as the word for these peoples.

“Like dense clouds the tatars pushed themselves”: Bretschneider,
Mediaeval Researches
, 1:318.

“an innumerable multitude of dead men’s skulls”: Carpini, in Hakluyt,
The Principal Navigations
, p. 152.

nothing significant left to destroy: Curtin,
The Mongols
, p. 240.

did not particularly cover themselves with glory: Florinsky,
Russia
, 1:56.

sacked and burned many times: One historian counts forty-eight Tatar invasions of Russia between 1236 and 1462 (ibid., 1:61). In August 1382, Khan Tokhtamysh destroyed Moscow and burned books gathered from all around. When Grand Duke Dmitri returned, he paid one ruble for every eighty corpses buried. He ended up paying for the burial of twenty-four thousand (Vernadsky,
Mongols of Russia
, pp. 266–67).

the institutions of the Orthodox church: Mongol largess to the church was not without its price—the clergy were obliged, in return, to pray for the khan. And they had to do it sincerely: “Mongol edict reminded them that to pray ‘with mental reservations’ was a sin” (Vernadsky,
Mongols of Russia
, p. 166).

as the church chronicles had prophesied: Fennell and Stokes,
Early Russian Literature
, p. 82.

“introduced into the Russian soul”: The historian P. N. Savitsky, quoted in Izhboldin,
Essays on Tatar History
, p. 20.

words like
yamshchik
: Ibid., p. 9.

continued to serve the Siberian part of the Russian empire: Hartog,
Russia and the Mongol Yoke
, pp. 164–65.

behaving carelessly at the threshold of their dwellings: See Figes,
Natasha’s Dance
, p. 371: “The archaeologist Veselovsky traced the Russian folk taboos connected with the threshold (such as not to step on it or not to greet a person across it) to the customs of the Golden Horde.” Friar Carpini, on his way to visit the Great Khan in Mongolia in 1245–46, was taken to a “Tartar” duke who cautioned him not to step on the threshold (Carpini, in Hakluyt,
The Principal Navigations
, p. 162).