Mention the word Siberia, and you immediately conjure up visions of a vast and desolate wasteland, a place of exile and rejection, of snow and ice and wind.
Many people think of Siberia as a dark and forbidding place, something of a cross between the North Pole and Antarctica - a place where no one would go unless they were forced.It has always had that reputation, it seems. A "geographical" report from the 16th century described Siberia as a place inhabited by people with beast-like heads and bear-like bodies, who hibernated from October to April. These were the only kind of people the author could imagine surviving the harsh elements.
Siberia has only been open to outside visitors during the past couple of decades. Modern-day visitors (who perhaps read these old reports) have been known to show up in the summer with a fur coat (in case it snows in July) and a list of rules for scaring away wolves.
But the Siberia of fact and the Siberia of fiction are very different places. True, it gets cold there in the winter (as cold as 90 below zero in some regions). True, it has been a dumping ground for political prisoners and criminals, particularly during the Stalin era, who were often forced to work as laborers, building factories, mines and railroads under less-than-ideal conditions.
But - even beyond the fact that more than one exile probably noted it is better to be alive in Siberia than dead in Moscow - the idea that this area is without any redeeming value is far off the mark. Especially in the summer, when the days are long and the air is fresh - and the lilacs bloom in July.
Covering roughly 6 million square miles - an area that could contain all of Western Europe - Siberia accounts for about half of Russian land. However, it is sparsely populated; only one-eighth of the Russian people live here. It is an area heavily forested, with rich coal and iron deposits. There are oil fields and also veins of gold, silver and other precious metals.
The area has three main divisions: the western plains, the central plateau and the eastern highlands. Our visit centered on Irkutsk, capital of Eastern Siberia.
I had heard of Irkutsk - from the old Risk game we used to play as kids. Inevitably, it seemed, the person who controlled Irkutsk used it to amass the little square blocks that were armies and went from there to control the world.
We laughed about that as we walked along the river, because although Irkutsk was an important supply station during World War II, it is hard to imagine a more unlikely place for starting a campaign to control the world.
Even the political upheaval of Moscow seems far away from the tree-lined boulevards. There must be below-the-surface currents that are hard for outsiders to pick up on a short visit, but life seems less restricted than in many Russian cities. "Everyone says how bad it is here," our guide told us, "but we stay."
Still, one senses a bit of uncertainty - not only with the future, but also with the past. Irkutsk has the requisite Karl Marx boulevard and statue of Lenin (sometimes now called "Lenin Waiting for a Taxi," because of his posture and outstretched hand). But the people would rather talk about Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, or perhaps Grigori Shelekov, known as the Russian Columbus, who established the first settlements in Alaska in 1784. Both lived in Irkutsk. And there were the Decembrists, exiled to Siberia in 1825 because of their revolt against serfdom. Today, they are honored as enlightened.
But what do they think of their recent Communist history - in fact, anything that happened between the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45 and the breakup of the Soviet Union? Suddenly, old pre-mises and old teachings have changed and there is still a struggle to find meaning and perspective.
In the meantime, life goes on in Irkutsk as it has (long-suffering though it has been at times) for 300 years. The city was founded in 1661 as a Cossack garrison. Today's Irkutsk, which is a seven-hour flight from Moscow, is a city of youth and education, with 36 institutes and colleges and an average age of 31.6 among its population. Its three rivers have made it a crossroads of commerce, a source of hydroelectric power. And its proximity to Lake Baikal has made it a science center.
In 1879, 80 percent of the town was destroyed in a three-day fire. It took 10 years to rebuild, but the results were what Russian writer Anton Chekhov called "Dandy. Quite a European city." In fact, he called Irkutsk "the Paris of Siberia."
"Some people," said our guide, "say Chekhov had a good sense of humor."
But if Irkutsk is not quite Paris, it is learning how to accommodate the visitors that are starting to come. The local Intourist hotel is adequate, if not fancy; the food is ample and good: some fish, some beef, lots of potatoes, cucumbers and tomatoes. And an evening walk along the river finds artists and craftspeople out in increasing numbers.
Nearby, Lake Baikal truly is one of the planet's natural wonders. The world's oldest and deepest lake, it is 400 miles long and varies in width from 18 to 50 miles wide, a total area about equal to that of Belgium and the Netherlands combined.
Baikal contains about one-sixth of the world's fresh water. Its saber-shaped basin would take all the rivers in the world nearly a year to fill. Some 336 tributaries flow into the lake; the Angara River, which runs through Irkutsk, is the only outlet taking water away. If all the tributaries dried up, the Angara would flow on for 400 years.
There is a legend, of course, surrounding the huge rock that marks the place where the river meets the lake. Daughter Angara wanted to run away from her father Baikal to join her fiance Enisei-river. Baikal became so furious that he threw a rock after his fleeing daughter, which only landed on the hem of her dress.
Baikal's water is crystal clear; its currents slow. And it is so much a world unto itself that a whole branch of "Baikalology" has been created among the scientists that study it. More than 1,200 different creatures are found here - and three-fourths of them are found nowhere else.
The lake has 52 different kinds of fish. But one particular mystery is how the nerpa seal, the lake's only mammal, wound up only here, perfectly adapted to fresh water and separated by more than a thousand miles from its nearest relative, the Arctic ringed seal.
It's not surprising that the lake is praised as "majestic ocean, holy Baikal" in Russian song. The modern world has brought concerns about pollution, particularly from a cellulose plant on the southwest end. But in 1987, the government issued a decree protecting Baikal, at least in theory.
Forty lakefront towns are built on the shores of Baikal. Typical is Listvyanka, filled with old-style wooden houses - some chocolate brown, some brightly painted, all decorated with richly carved "wooden lace." Only three colors of paint are used: green for life, blue for hope and white for purity.
A chance to wander through a town such as Listvyanka is a treat. Though we spoke little Russian, and the townspeople spoke little English, they were warm and welcoming - as curious about us as we were about them.
We were invited inside one neatly tended wooden home. The owner's pride and hospitality, the balalaika serenade, the sprig of lilacs we left with were gifts long-remembered.
No visit to Siberia would be complete without a trip on the famous Trans-Siberian railroad. The longest railroad in the world, it makes the 5,778-mile journey from Vladivostok on the Pacific Coast to Moscow and has a branch that runs from Irkutsk to Ulan Bator, Mongolia, and on to Beijing, China.
We were on the Irkutsk-Ulan Bator leg of the journey - two nights and a day's worth.
Built between 1880 and 1900, the blueprints of the Trans-Siberian won a gold medal at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893. The first train arrived in Irkutsk in 1898. Not a lot has changed since.
This is what one guidebook said about the Trans-Siberian: "Its green-and-cream cars are air conditioned, offering two-berth sleepers, with a shower between two compartments, an excellent diner and a powerful electric engine."
But this is what we experienced: The cars were green and maybe cream (if you scraped off layers and layers of dirt and grime). We had two toilets - one at each end of the car, which were passable after they had been scrubbed out with Lysol. The only air conditioning came if you could pry the ancient windows open a crack; the only shower would have come had it rained in through the open window.
The door on the dining car was broken, so we didn't get to sample any excellent fare, subsisting instead on crackers, peanuts, granola bars and anything else we had brought along. Hot water was available, heated morning and evening by our stoic train matron.
We did have curtains, unhemmed strips of cloth, which the train matron carefully came and took down as we reached the Mongolian border.
We had clean sheets and pillow cases, but the bedding they covered didn't bear looking at closely. We kind of hoped that the red bumps that showed up on our arms and legs the next morning were from mosquitoes that flew in the window, but we rather doubted it.
And the powerful engine? Probably. It got enough of a workout starting and stopping at every little village along the way.
Yes, the Trans-Siberian is an adventure in travel - and one that we wouldn't have traded for anything. The view it provided not only of the transportation system, but also of the countryside was unparalleled.
We saw the wooden villages, built close and compact and fenced against the winter snows, and the stretches of mountains and forests and valleys. We saw areas that looked just like Cache Valley or southern Idaho and realized how similar and how different were these places half a world apart. And through it all came a better understanding of the scope and breadth and beauty of this wide, wild place called Siberia.