Siberia, Siberia

Siberia, Siberia () is a non-fiction book by the Russian writer Valentin Rasputin. It was originally published in Russian in 1991 by Molodaya Gvardiya Publishers. The second and third editions appeared in 2000 and 2006; an English translation is available as well.

Rasputin is a Russian novelist based in Irkutsk in Eastern Siberia, and a master of the genre known as village prose. His fiction centers around the conflict of the traditional Siberian village lifestyle, characterized by its family values, unambiguous morality, and strong connection with one's ancestral culture and natural environment, with the modernizing developments of the post-WWII period. Since the mid-1970s, he has been increasingly involved in writing non-fiction essays and article, protesting against projects he views as environmentally destructive and advocating for the restoration of "Russian national consciousness".

His Siberia, Siberia is both an excursion into the human history of the region, and a diatribe against the industrial developments and infrastructure projects "of the last three decades" (i.e. roughly 1960-1990) that he views as wrecking not only the region's natural environments and the rural way of life, but also the very moral fibre of the nation.

Book summary

Besides an introductory overview chapters and the conclusion, the book consists of several chapters which are dedicated to particular regions: Tobolsk; Lake Baikal; Irkutsk, the city on the Angara which the...
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