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River of No Reprieve: Descending Siberia's Waterway of Exile, Death, and Destiny | 
 enlarge | Author: Jeffrey Tayler
Publisher: Mariner Books
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
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You Save: $13.65 (91%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 381960
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.4 x 0.6
ISBN: 0618919848
Dewey Decimal Number: 914
EAN: 9780618919840
ASIN: 0618919848
Publication Date: September 13, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Condition: SHIPS TODAY!!! BRAND NEW BOOK
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Product Description
In a custom-built boat, Jeffrey Tayler traveled some 2,400 miles down the Lena River, from near Lake Baikal to high above the Arctic Circle, re-creating a journey first made by Cossack forces more than three hundred years ago. He was searching for primeval beauty and a respite from the corruption, violence, and self-destructive urges that typify modern Russian culture.
His only companion on this hellish journey detests all humanity, including Tayler. Vadim, Tayler's guide, is a burly Soviet army veteran whose superb skills Tayler needs to survive. As the two navigate roiling white water in howling storms, they eschew lifejackets because the frigid water would kill them before they could swim to shore. Though Tayler has trekked by camel through the Sahara and canoed down the Congo during the revolt against Mobutu, he has never felt as threatened as he does on this trip.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
Too flowery, but a good tale February 27, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Tayler wanders off a bit in trying to make his language too flowery and poetic, but I guess it comes from living in Russia maybe where poetry is still respected. That or he is just trying to add a little more flavor to this rather depressing tale. There was one reviewer who gave this book only 2 stars because there was not more pictures and he thought the cover photo didn't look like the guy on the back flap. All I can say is try a trip like this yourself and see what you look like in two months. If you need more pictures, stick to the children's section. Having live in Russia for 4 years now I found it very believable. Vadim the guide is exactly as I could imagine having know a few Russians much like him.
What bothered me the most is that Tayler never mentions contacting his wife even once on the whole trip. I'm sure he must have, but didn't think it worth mentioning. All-in-all, a good adventure, and a good read.
River of No Reprieve December 14, 2007
Very interesting. The author does an excellent job weaving in historical backgroung. He describes a very harsh environment inhabited mostly by drunks. Moves along quickly for a 2500 mile boat ride.
The Other Russia January 9, 2007
9 out of 11 found this review helpful
Most of us who have visited or lived in Russia since 1990 have spent out time in the major cities or around them. Jeffrey Tayler takes us to places in Russia that we will probably never have an opportunity to see. He does more than look and see. He experiences. If you are familiar with Russia or parts of it, the story makes sense and we can relate. Certainly what he experiences is far more extreme than what most of us know. And yet, it is still familiar. From his travel companion's contempt for all people who aren't "real" Russians, to the wish for and fear of contact with nonRussians that others exhibit, this is a story of Russian people. I learned, I was depressed, I laughed, and this book made me want to go back to Russia and experience it again and again.
Walter Brooke
 A vivid adventure comes to life in a compelling 'you are there' story. October 15, 2006
8 out of 11 found this review helpful
Author Jeffrey Taylor used a custom-built boat to travel over two thousand miles to the Arctic Circle, recreating a journey first made by Cossacks over three hundred year ago, seeking a respite from the modern world. RIVER OF NO RETURN: DESCENDING SIBERIA'S WATERWAY OF EXILE, DEATH, AND DESTINY charts his journey, providing true life travel adventure at its best as Taylor comes to realize his guide is a bitter Soviet army veteran who hates all humanity - including Taylor. A vivid adventure comes to life in a compelling 'you are there' story.
Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
Summer rafting in an extreme place with an uncertain future September 21, 2006
19 out of 20 found this review helpful
Burdened with a brutal history of Cossack conquest, labor camps, gulags, displaced people and rapacious resource plundering, and all but abandoned by the state that exploited it, Siberia is the perfect choice for a certain sort of travel writer to go and reflect on the state of the world.
Jeffrey Tayler ("Siberian Dawn," "Angry Wind"), a linguist who speaks Russian, Arabic, French, Greek and several other languages, writes about remote and difficult places - the Sahara, the Congo, Siberia. His previous trip to Siberia was in winter, when he traveled on the frozen Lena River by truck.
This time he goes in summer by inflatable raft down the same river, retracing some 2,400 miles of Cossack exploration, from Lake Baikal to Tiksi on the Arctic Ocean, 450 miles above the Arctic Circle. Tiksi is the sort of place where the deluxe hotel suite does not come with hot water in the "warm" months, the months of "rain and snow, not just snow."
The trip grew out of a desire to clear his head of city clamor and explore the lives of real Russians - the impoverished rural masses. Having lived in Russia for 11 years, made a life and married, Tayler, an American, finds himself despairing of the place. The collapse of communism seems only to have opened the doors to corruption and chaos. "I was seized by a desire to find out what had gone wrong? Had I really devoted my life to a doomed land?"
His guide is the misanthropic Vadim, a Muscovite and Afghan War veteran who drives a truck and spends every summer in the North. He would prefer his beloved Siberia without people and his disdain for Tayler's insistence on stopping at each down-at-heels village to talk with the inhabitants only grows with time. His enthusiasm for the land is vocal and passionate and Tayler's restraint baffles him. Their personalities chafe, but Tayler grows to appreciate his expertise - from his boat handling skills to his precision in setting up the daily camp.
The trip itself is as grim as it is adventurous. The indigenous Yakuts and Evenks, forced by the Soviets to abandon nomadic lives for villages, factories and government subsidies, now find themselves abandoned, the old ways forgotten. The Russians include descendants of prisoners - criminals, dissidents and intellectuals - as well as exiled Baptists and Germans. Others came for the high pay and benefits offered by the Soviet government to harvest the land's rich resources. And now the factories are closed and the benefits long gone.
People, even descendants of those banished by Stalin, yearn for the security and order of a strong central authority. Tayler despairs at their nostalgia for Soviet rule and their support for Putin's strong-arm tactics. Alcohol is a ubiquitous plague.
Even the weather seems to signal collapse. As the raft heads north storm follows storm, lashing the travelers with frigid rain and gale-force winds, when the season calls for balmy temperatures and alpine tundra blooms. Climate change, the inhabitants comment, has deprived them of summer.
Tayler writes with an eye for detail and a certain reserve. Though open to everyone he meets, he is also wary and not easily bamboozled. While Vadim exults over the view at every bend in the river, Tayler's enthusiasm is tempered by the (literally) choking clouds of bugs and a certain impatience with Vadim's insular chauvinism. This is a thoughtful, sympathetic, often melancholy portrait of an extreme place with an extreme history and an uncertain future.
-- Portsmouth Herald
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