David Greene and his wife Rose spent three years living in Moscow beginning in 2009 when David was named Moscow Bureau Chief for NPR. He returned in 2011 and 2013 for journeys on the Trans-Siberian Railroad; Midnight in Siberia is the account of his 2013 journey.
David's journey on the Trans-Siberian Railroad is far from the plush-filled cabins of the Orient Express. David and his colleague Sergei travel in third-class, quadruple-bunked cabins, eat instant noodles more often than not, and make frequent stop-overs in towns scattered across the snowy landscape. The 6,000 mile journey takes David from Yaroslavl in the West to Vladivostok in the East. There is a map that shows which towns David visited on his journey, but the chapter titles are the names of people he met in each town.
The Trans-Siberian Railroad is Russia's spine, "a thin line of constancy that holds this unwieldy country together. it's more than just a map that underscores this. The railroad connects families, bringing distant relatives together more affordably than air travel. And it connects different chapters in this country's journey" (author's note). As David travels across Russia, he attempts to make sense of this vast, seemingly disparate country through the stories and personal accounts of everyday Russians. He also discusses Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia, and how Vladimir Putin's government has shaped relations between the United States and Russia, and local reactions to Putin's government versus Soviet socialism.
"Russian scholars and writers have long spoken of their country's confounding nature, how it takes wild turn and goes through periods of upheaval but always seems to return to a cruel, dysfunctional resting place" (9). In the novel Dead Souls, Gogol compares Russia to an out-of-control troika (a traditional Russian sled pulled by three horses) and asks, "Russia where are you flying?...Answer me...there is no answer" (9). In 2013, Russia was careening down a similar path. David saw a thin line of constancy, the Trans-Siberian Railroad, connecting Russian cities and steppes, problems and potential, its past and its future. But, an undercurrent of uneasy frustration was expressed by millions of people in a nation stretching from Europe to Pyongyang and Alaska, these millions of people are unable to answer two basic questions: where is your country going? and what do you want for it's future? (12).
I enjoyed riding along with David and "meeting" Russian's from across the country.
The map; the darker railroad tracks mark David's path; the lighter railroad tracks are main parts of the TSR that David did not travel on.
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