This work offers an account of the Russians' 400 years of experience in Siberia. Rasputin looks at the the peculiar physical and character traits of the Siberian Russian type, and at the gap between dreams and reality that have plagued Russians in Siberia.
Valentin Rasputin--one of the most gifted and influential Russian prose writers of the past thirty years--offers a sweeping account of and penetrating reflection on the Russians' four hundred years of experience in Siberia. Beginning with Yermak, whose Cossacks crossed into Siberia in the 1580s, through the rapid Russian exploration, conquest, and colonialization, to today, Rasputin reveals the peculiarities of the Siberians, studying the gap between dreams and reality that has plagued Russians in Siberia for centuries.
