Siberian Village: Land and Life in the Sakha Republic

by Terry G. Jordan-bychkov, Bella Bychkova Jordan, Bella Bychkova Jordan, etc.

Release Date: January, 2001

Edition: Hardcover

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A Personal Geography

Yesterday, 26 April, I wrote a review for you of this book under the above title, & I'm wondering if it is possible to add 2 words to the final sentence of that review. The final sentence said, "It breathes with life." What I'd like for it to say is, "It breathes with life and love." I hope it's possible to make this addition. Thanks!

A Personal Geography

First & most basically, this is a geography & history text, complete with dates, stats, maps, data, 329 footnotes & a 253-item biblio. But it is unlike any such book I've read. As the title says, it describes life on the land of central Siberia by focussing on the tiny village Djarkhan, representative of 250 such hamlets in the huge Republic of Sakha. Djarkhan is in "polar land," less than 300 miles south of the Arctic Circle (1200 miles north of Chicago!), with 8 or 9 months of what I can only call winter. How the people have managed to survive there since 1600, from pre-Czarist to post-Communist eras, is an enthralling, almost unbelievable, story. But the sub-text of the book tells another tale, of 3 Djarkhan natives -- a grandfather who was honored in distant Moscow as the Sakhala record-holder for hay cutting, a mother who was "the most famous plastic oral surgeon in Sakha," & a daughter who is the co-author of this book with her husband, a distinguished American geographer. Thus its 112 pages of text are enriched with 62 personal photographs, reminiscences by villagers & on-the-spot observations. It breathes with life.