Into Siberia

George Kennan’s journey into the far eastern reaches of imperial Russia in order to investigate its exile system is the kind of story that honestly baffles me upon first hearing about it - namely over the fact that something so fascinating has apparently managed to fall so far out of the historical narrative into obscurity.

I would say that Gregory Wallace has definitely done quite a favor by not only shining a spotlight back onto this event, but by doing so with as rich a context as he could have possibly supplied. “Into Siberia” includes Kennan’s first foray into Russia as part of the attempt to establish a Russian-American telegraph via the Bering Sea, his subsequent journeys through the recently-conquered Caucasus region, brutal detail about the ordeals of Russian exiles learned through his third journey into the country, a surprising amount of information about the indigenous peoples of the Siberian region, and so, so very much more. The book practically bursts with abundant information that for me was all quite new, and which I was very, very happy to absorb in turn through that lens of Wallace’s thrilling narrative.

For anyone who enjoys curling up with an excellent history book, I can quite confidently say that “Into Siberia” is definitely one for your to-read itinerary.

Since people are typically familiar with Soviet Gulags, many don't realize that they were built on the 19th century precedent of Tsarist labor camps. George Kennan traveled throughout the Russian east and brought news to America of the practices of Russia. Since the Russians were the only power to really back the US during the Civil War, this was unwelcome news to the American public.

This book reminds me a lot of King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild; stories of men who exposed human rights abuses to an unsuspecting world.

This book was very difficult to read in places and I had to take a couple of breaks. I read it over a period of a couple of weeks with a few days off between readings. This is a nonfiction account of the Siberian exile system in Czarist Russia. It is not pretty. I did not expect it to be. It is a modern account of a late 1800s researcher/journalist who visited Siberia and the prison camps in that region.
It is well written and well researched. It is so well-presented, it is heartbreaking. The author places the reader in the situation and spares no unpleasant detail.
You do not need to be a historian or especially knowledgeable about Russian history to understand and appreciate the content of this book. Index and footnotes included.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Into Siberia: George Kennan’s Epic Journey Through the Brutal, Frozen Heart of Russia
Gregory J. Wallace
George Kennan, an American Diplomat, is associated with the term “containment.” He was responsible for the Cold War Policy of Containment as it was applied to Russia. Kennan became a persona non grata by Stalin within a few months of traveling to Moscow. In 1885 Kennan traveled to Siberia where he witnessed the viciousness Russia was exercising to destroy opposition. Author Gregory J. Wallace shares Kennan’s journey through Siberia and the things he witnessed. Traveling by horseback, horse drawn carriage and sleighs, Kennan survived blizzards and sandstorms. He interviewed detainees, offenders, and refugees. Through the interviews he observed the agony and fear Russia utilized to keep the people inline. Babies died of exposure as their mother’s cradled them in their arms. Convicts were shackled to wheelbarrows deep in the mines as punishment. When George Kennan returned to the United States, he wrote Siberia and the Exile System in order to spawn public fury over the treatment of the exiles. He spent years conversing the lecture circuit sharing the suffering of the exiles.
This is a difficult book to read for the cruelty was real the treatment inhuman. Author Gregory J. Wallace did a superb job in presenting the life of George Kennan.

Gregory Wallance neatly packages all one would want to know about the distant, ominous region of <i>Siberia</i> into his forthcoming book. Readers will learn how Siberia’s exile system came to be, as well as get to know George Kennan, the American explorer-journalist who first cast it into the searing spotlight in the late 19th century. Wallace meticulously details Kennan’s journeys into Siberia, and one can understand how Kennan’s findings shocked the American public and forever impacted U.S.-Russia relations. <i>Into Siberia</i> is a robust, engrossing, and informative read.

My thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me a digital ARC of this book.

In the latter half of the 20th Century, diplomat George Frost Kennan rose to prominence as the architect of US containment strategy during the Cold War. A century before that, his older cousin, George Kennan, rose to prominence exposing Tsarist Russia’s system of exiling political and criminal prisoners to Siberia and the inhuman conditions under which they were forced to live.

Gregory Wallance’s “Into Siberia” is a well-written history. As much a biography of Kennan as it is a tale of 19th-century Russia and Siberia, it tells the story of an adventurous young man who began his career as a telegraph operator during the Civil War and used that experience to get himself appointed to a several-years-long expedition to build an overseas telegraph link through Siberia. Upon his return, he became a writer/lecturer on Siberia, taking the position that Russia’s exile system was benign. To support that position, he returned to Siberia to inspect the various prisons, transfer stations, mines, factories, etc. comprising the exile system. The conditions he found were so brutal and inhumane that the articles he wrote describing them changed America’s then-favorable public opinion of Russia. Those articles were later published as “Siberia and the Exile System,” a two-volume set that, along with Kennan’s extensive lecturing, would adversely affect America’s perception of Russia into the latter part of the 20th Century.

Mr. Wallance does an excellent job of telling this story. His descriptions of Mr. Kennan’s participation in the telegraph expedition give us a great sense of how hostile conditions in Siberia can be. Long, freezing, blizzard-filled winters, savage swarms of mosquitos in summer, unreliable food supplies, towering mountains, primitive roads, bone-bruising conveyances (horse-drawn sleighs and carriages), no way to call for help—these are only some of the dangers Kennan and his co-workers faced. And those dangers pale in comparison to what Kennan found on his later months-long odyssey with artist George Frost to investigate the exile system: prisoners being worked to death amidst the cruelest, most filthy, perilous, and soul-crushing conditions, all to the enrichment of the Russian government. Mr. Wallance concludes by explaining the impact of Kennan’s later writings and lectures on American public opinion of Russia and on Russia itself. (Indeed, the Russian government was so displeased with Kennan that it arrested him on a later trip and permanently barred him from re-entering the country.)

In short, “Into Siberia,” is one-part adventure tale, one-part biography, one-part lesson in 19th century Russian/Siberian history and geography, one-part civil rights story, and one-part “backgrounder” on U.S. – Russian relations. I found it to be a highly informative “must-read” for anyone interested in Russia, the Soviet Union, Siberia, and the course of US-Russian relations over the past century and a half.

My thanks to NetGalley, author Gregory Wallance, and publisher St. Martin’s Press for providing me with an electronic ARC. The preceding is my honest, independent opinion.

Well, naturally I expected an early adventure of George Kennan The Moscow Guy, so was briefly disappointed. But when I got into the story of George Kennan The Siberia Guy (a cousin, as it happens), I was interested again. Amazing how people can get obsessed by a country, especially a country as problematical as Russia. Whether the monster in the Kremlin is a Putin or a Party Secretary or a Tsar, the hardships for the Russian people don't seem to change.

"We may die in exile and our grand children may die in exile," one woman told him, "but something will come of it at last." I'm afraid she was wrong.

Very much worth reading.

1864: Russia and the US were on good terms. George Kennan signed up with Western Union to establish a path for the Russia-American Telegraph Expedition. He spent 3 years traveling under horrific weather conditions by equally horrendous modes of transportation; ship, boats, sleds pulled by dogs, horseback, various types of carts pulled by horses and by foot.
1885: Kennan went back to Russia as a journalist to investigate the Siberian Exile System. He spent a year traveling thousands of miles and visiting untold number of prisons, labor camps and people in exile. Once in exile whether a prisoner or family member of a prisoner, you will always live as an exile. The monstrous abuse and suffering of the exiles was so offensive, that they can’t be exaggerated.
On his return to the states he wrote a book and gave lectures with the hope that the Siberian exile system would be dissolved or improved. The relationship between Russian and the US has never been the same.
The author did extensive research and wrote this book as a story. It’s a novel I won’t forget.
Thank you St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley

As someone who gravitates toward nonfiction books about adventure, exploration, geography, history, and social justice, "Into Siberia" manages to cover all of these subjects and more. It also functions as a riveting memoir of a man whose personal and political beliefs are inverted over the course of many brutal months witnessing the Siberian prison system of the late 19th century.

The first chapters begin a bit slow as we are fed the necessary exposition. But once the story got going, it was a hard book to put down. Our subject Kennan begins a tortured expedition across Russia with artist colleague George Frost to document Russia's Siberian penal system. Before this trip, Kennan downplayed the exile of Russian prisoners to Siberia but what he saw on his journeys shook him to the core. Witnessing such torment and deprivation, along with a stressful, months-long overland journey across thousands of miles, brought both Kennan and Frost to a physical and emotional breaking point.

A fascinating and thought-provoking book. If you enjoyed "The Lost City of Z" or "In the Heart of the Sea," "Into Siberia" is the book for you.

George Kennan's Epic Journey Through The Brutal, Frozen Heart of Russia

This is a nonfiction account of the Siberian exile system in Czarist Russia. It has at times been a difficult read, but the fact that I knew next to nothing about this kept me coming back.

Not a pretty telling, but I knew that much going in. I am in debt to Mr. Wallance for bringing this to us. There is a mysteriousness about all things Russian and this helped me understand quite a lot.

This man did the leg work too. The conditions were grim and he was interviewing all kinds of people and it was just awful.

I fully intend to read this again. I learned quite a bit I did not know and I will be curling up with this during the cold winter months, happy I don't live in Siberia!

NetGalley/St. Martin's Press, December 05, 2023

an amazing mix of nature writing combined with action and history. I really appreciate the storytelling on exiles of the regime so neatly interwoven into nature writing, showing all the pains and atrocities the people had to take just for a chance to breathe a little more...

Wonderful book on a surprising important historical figure many know nothing about. Very well written, grab me from page one and finished book in a few days. This is a fascinating time period in world history. Provides the background for Europe and America after Civil War and into 1880s and 1890s as we turn into the first half on 20th century. If you love history and individual endurance stories, love the 19 century's sense of adventure this is the book for you. Could make a wonderful movie.

Very raw and real account of Siberia in the 1880s including prison camps. It's gonna be tough to read and I had to read it in chunks. Not something you can plow through in a couple of days. Very well written and researched.

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC

Russian enthusiast George Kennan traveled to Siberia in 1885 to explore the Siberian exile system. Expecting to find a humane and advanced imprisonment system, he saw the brutality, senselessness, and inhumanity of the system. After returning home to the US, he began to speak out against Russia, changing the landscape of American-Russian relations forever.

George Kennan was an interesting explorer and humanitarian. It was exciting to read about his life and travels. I was particularly interested in reading about Siberia, as I knew very little about the exile system before picking up this book. What a horror! The author did an excellent job weaving history into a story. Overall, highly recommended.

Reading Into Siberia was a wonderful experience. I learned so much about the United States as well as Russia. Gregory Wallace has certainly done his research and brought to life the story of George Kennan and his great influence on America’s understanding of Russia.

The George Kennan story is so interesting. As a young man he was stuck in an insignificant job in a telegraph office and with a sense of adventure, he took a chance to become part of an exploration team in 1864 with the Russian-American Telegraph Company to do a feasibility study overland in Siberia across the Bering Strait. This starts the incredible journey of George Keenan.

The story delves deep into Kennan’s love for Russian and his ability to make friends in a country that at the time was considered friendly to the United States. After his first trip, Kennan not only learned the language, but starts to lecture, write and is considered an authority on Russia as he writes a well-received book called Tent Life in Siberia, about his experiences and his interactions with the various tribal people he encountered.

On subsequent trips he traveled to the northern Caucasus and to regions that were never explored by other Americans. He traveled to such remote regions that his observations made him an “expert.” During one of his trips, Keenan decides to study the penal systems of Russia, and meet with fellow exiles as they are marched and forced into penal colonies. The book delves into many personal accounts and heartbreaks of so many of the exiled that Keenan, who had been a great lover of Russia, decides to change his mind about the country.

I don’t want to give more away. If you are curious about Russia, before the revolution, then you must read this fascinating book.

This is an extraordinary book about an extraordinary man who you think you know but you don’t. Most of us bon vivant avant garde modern peoples hear the name George Kennan and say, “Ah, yes, a wizard of Armageddon, containment policy, yes, yes, one of those Cold Warriors to whom one must attribute great success,” but this isn’t that George Kennan. This is an ancestor, a guy who, if the George we know had to claim antecedents, is the guy he’d point out because, man, was the ancestor one helluva tough guy, And fearless. And righteous. This George Kennan crossed Siberia - twice - in the late 1800s on dog sleds and death-trap coaches driven by surly Cossacks and on foot in temperatures that make Alaska look like a balmy paradise, all to see what’s to be seen. And what he saw wasn’t to his liking.

The first time George Kennan braved the ice pack was to survey a telegraph line from Alaska to St. Petersburg which is, yes, as crazy as it sounds. Young George, a master telegrapher who was driven almost to collapse handling all the telegraph traffic during the Civil War, decided he needed a break and joined this expedition. I don’t know if this is commentary on how tough the Civil War job was or how crazy George was; probably a combination of both. Anyway, George signs on, goes to Siberia, and spends the next few months trying not to die while doing his job, only to find the transatlantic cable has rendered all of his efforts for naught.

But George came away with a love of the Russian people and a fondness for the Tsar and his government. That last part may sound a bit odd in retrospect but, back then, the US and Russia were very close friends, downright allies, and George reflected the current thought. This is why we have to guard against revisionism because we cannot understand what people were thinking back then if we judge it by today’s standards. It’s only these days that we have a collective loathing for Russia and its regimes. But George Kennan is one of those persons who helped change our minds about the place. What? Why? I thought he loved Russia.

He did, until he went back to defend the Russian exile system of punishment, and had his mind changed.

During his first trip, which he immortalized in his book 'Tent Life in Siberia,' George occasionally ran across chain gangs of Russian convicts on their way to various Siberian prisons, exile towns, or mines. He concluded that this system was far more humane than what a lot of other countries did to their prisoners and, when he heard persons in the West disparage it, became incensed and returned to Russia as a journalist to write articles defending it. Then he followed some convict convoys out to the mines. And what he saw horrified him.

What you will read in this book will horrify you.

This is an extermination of political prisoners and dissidents and maybe the occasional real criminal by a combination of deprivation, exposure, and downright murder. The prison conditions are abominable, worse than anything you ever read in Dickens, things that make the Black Hole of Calcutta look positively benign, as the cruelty of the Russian government flexes against anyone it chooses in the most arbitrary of manners. Many people are sent into the system without trial, without even knowing why they were seized and transported to the ice wastelands, some of them because a village official just didn’t like them.

It didn’t take Kennan long to change his mind about this system, and the articles he wrote shocked the West and turned him into a celebrity, a crusader who drove himself to exhaustion while crossing the US giving lectures. Kennan single handedly changed the relationship between the US and Russia, turning the two against each other, something that lasts to this day for pretty much the same reasons.

There are Russian heroes in this story, most of them the dissidents that the Tsar sends into the wastelands who, despite the efforts to break them, remain dedicated to installing a democratic form of government. It’s a chicken and egg story whether the increasing violence and fanaticism of the dissidents drove the Tsar to even more repressive measures, because there is little doubt Americans would have assembled on the Lexington green at just a fraction of the provocations the Tsar initiated. Well, maybe not today’s American, but the real Americans we had a few years ago.

Read this to discover that the Russian character has changed little, while it’s very apparent the American one has changed a lot. I don’t think you’re going to find another George Kennan out there anywhere. At least, not one the budding tsarists among us will tolerate.

Into Siberia is your next real-life adventure story, with a sobering look at the Russian penal system at its core. This non-fiction book follows the journeys of George Kennan into Siberia and Russia in the latter half of the nineteenth century. His first trip, during the end of the Civil War and into Reconstruction, is a straight forward journey as part of a team looking to build a telegraph line through a Pacific route to reach Europe, as multiple attempts to lay cable in the Atlantic Ocean is unsuccessful. By no means an easy journey, fraught with primitive conditions, limited supplies and bitterly cold temperatures, it is one that is a mutually agreeable visit between the United States and Russia that leads Kennan to become one of the primary American champions of Russia, two countries that had a good relationship at the time. Years later, as a journalist, he undertakes another mission, one that will report on Russia's exile system of criminals of various offenses to Siberia. Initially a champion of a system that doesn't imprison or execute its people for their crimes, Kennan's journey and the things he witnesses, cause a dramatic change in his mindset and set the two countries on diverging paths that have not yet met again. Wallace doesn't shy away from writing about horrible conditions that the exiles faced, yet avoids ever getting exceptionally graphic. He, in fact, does an excellent job of conveying how brutal and harsh the conditions these people faced were while making the book engaging and easy to read. The fact that Kennan and his artist partner Frost, who were both part of the Western Union team to explore establishing telegraph lines in Siberia years before, had to take several vacations during their investigation, and were still barely hanging on to the threads of their sanity (this is disclosed early in the book) by the end should be an indicator to the reader just how taxing their experience was - and they weren't undergoing all of the suffering that the actual prisoners were. I'm always amazed and excited when I discover a history book that delves into something I know nothing about, and in cases like this book, I'm also pleasantly surprised when the author makes it an engaging and interesting read that keeps my attention and makes me want to learn more. A complimentary copy of this book was provided by the publisher. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

explorers, journalist, historical-places-events, historical-research, historical-setting, history-and-culture, Russian-heritage, Russia, expedition, 1885, brutality, extreme-weather, nonfiction, arctic-conditions, Siberia, primitive-living, biography, indigenous-people, adventure, starvation, bibliography*****

Fantastic recounting of a trek across the most dangerous parts of frozen Russia. Headed up by an American with visions of telephone/telegraph poles and including a very interesting biography of the men and dangers they faced, this is truly an epic. Well done!
Includes maps and old photos as well as a relevant chronology.
I requested and received an EARC from St. Martin's Press via NetGalley. Thank you.

Vivid account of George Kennan’s initial voyage into Eastern Russia exploring the Russian/American telegraph wire installation, his follow up trips to Russia reporting on Siberian Exile system, and the perception changing effects his work had on the world. A harrowing, sobering but highly fascinating view into 19th century Russian history.
I love this type of real world adventure story despite the graphic and somber nature of the subject matter. The book is fairly short and could be binged in one day if you are inclined to do so. Very “atmospheric” with strong descriptions. If you’re one of those people fascinated by Russian history and particularly Siberia, this is a great installment and I fully expect this book to make it on to many of those best nonfiction books of the year lists.
Thank you to netgalley, the publisher and author for an advanced review copy of the book.

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher St. Martin's Press for an advance copy of this memoir/travel adventure about journalist who taste for exploration, and even more importantly the truth, changed policy and even relations between the United States and Russia before the start of the Twentieth Century.

Siberia is one of those places that people know, but really don't know. It's cold. It's barren. Maybe some will talk about gulags and exile. Maybe some have seen the movies that are set there, or even spy novels. Covering more area than the United States, but with less people than in the Tri-State area, Siberia is vast, can be freezing cold, very hot, dangerous and beautiful. Also Siberia has a rich history in being the last place that many Russian citizens, revolutionaries, assassins-in-training, their families and other innocents, were sent, to work in farms, or just to die. Near the end of the nineteenth century one reporter, with the backing of a financially secure magazine traveled to Russia to study this system of exile. One that he was sure was a good system, until he saw at close hand. Into Siberia: George Kennan's Epic Journey Through the Brutal, Frozen Heart of Russia by lawyer and writer Gregory Wallance is a history of the travels of George Kennan and artist George Frost through Russia, what they found and how Kennan changed America's policy with Russia.

George Kennan was born in Ohio to a family that was educated, but financially unstable forcing young George to live school at twelve to work. Kennan began work on the telegraph line, and Kennan took to it quickly. During the Civil War Kennan worked long hours transmitting and deciphering Morse messages, a job that soon drained him both mentally and emotionally. A job to wire Alaska with telegraph lines, interested him enough that soon Kennan was across the country, and feeling better. Arriving in the west, Kennan was offered a more interesting job, to travel to Siberia for the same purpose in hopes of making a telegraph system to span the world. Two years in Siberia, exploring, rescuing lost Americans taught him the language, a rough version, and a love for travel. Retuning home and finding employment in offices boring Kennan took to the lecture circuit, gaining fame for his talks, and parlaying this into journalism. An offer was made to return to Russia, and see what the exile system, moving dissidents to Siberia was about. Kennan had been a fan until his arrival in Russia. Seeing the prisons, the marches, the living quarters. The death. And Kennan's writing soon became popular in the offices of power.

A fascinating book about a man I was unfamiliar with, though the name is familiar. The Kennan of this book is the cousin of George Kennan who wrote the popular Domino theory that made the Cold War nearly a hot war. Wallance is a very good writer, who has done a tremendous amount of research and work and yet has written a very readable, and in many places exciting book. There is a lot of rescues of lost explorers, dangerous travels, midnight sled rides and meetings with people who could be foes, but become staunch allies. The book is very readable with sections on telegraph history, lots of Russian history, and a lot of detail on the places that Kennan traveled to and wrote about. A book where I kept learning new things on every page, and enjoyed the entire way through.

Recommended for exploration fans and for those interested in Russian history. A really readable and engaging account of a man who really saw much of the world, and let himself be changed by all he saw. A really good read for the holidays, or for the beach if one is getting away from the snows of winter.

I don't know what is harder to believe. That someone would voluntarily go spend months in Siberia or that the same person thought the Russian prisons in the area wouldn't be that bad. George Kennan was that man and, to his credit, he realized he was wildly naive.

Gregory Wallance tells the story of Kennan's two trips to Siberia in his immensely entertaining Into Siberia. I knew nothing of Kennan before this book. Wallance does an amazing job of explaining Keenan and why he ended up in one of the most desolate places on Earth multiple times. Sure, I still think he was a little nuts, but I definitely enjoyed reading about his adventures. The book is on the shorter end for a history book, but it is part of the strength of the narrative. Wallance does not bury the important parts of Kennan's life and travels in needless detail. Specifically, Wallance's ability to convey the horrors of Keenan's journey in minimal page count is a feat in and of itself. Nothing lingers too long and Wallance might even convince me to read Keenan's Siberia and the Exile System.

Wait, Keenan's book is over 1,000 pages. Just read this instead. You'll love it.

(This book was provided as an advance copy by Netgalley and St. Martin's Press.)

Into Siberia is the nonfiction account of George Kennan’s 1885 journey through Siberia to witness and report on its exile system. At the time, the US and Russia enjoyed warm diplomatic relations. Kennan had become a Russian “expert” and enthusiast during his 2 years of service as a Western Union explorer in the 1860s so was deemed the perfect person to report on the program.
The book gives us Kennan’s background and a full description of his first time in Siberia working for Western Union, which sought to lay a telegraph line across the Bering Sea through Siberia to western Russia and Europe.
The story is well researched. I had been unaware of the strong diplomatic ties between our country and Russia, despite the fact that Russia “was the last European country to deny its citizens any voice in government.” While relations were starting to fray because of political repression put in place by Alexander III, Kennan’s expose was the final nail in the coffin. He had gone to Siberia fully expecting to “rebut the critics who claimed that the Siberian exile system was inhumane.” His rationale was that the Russian system was humane because it allowed families to join the exiles in Siberia.
Kennan’s eyes were quickly opened to the atrocities of the prisons - the overcrowding, lack of beds, the smell, vermin. The prisoners had to wear chains even when marching thousands of miles or working in the mines. He and George Frost, who sketched what they saw, were also damaged by their travels. Kennan suffered depression and physical ailments, while Frost had a nervous breakdown. Upon his return, Kennan wrote a series of articles for Century magazine, which were then consolidated into a 1,000 page book. He also went on the lecture tour for 9 years.
The book provides a good mix of Kennan’s personal experiences with the facts of Russia’s political reasons for and economic reliance on the system.
At times, especially in the beginning, the book is a little too dry for my taste. But it definitely taught me a lot about the plight of the Siberian exiles.
My thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for an advance copy of this book.

George Kennan was an America who romanticized Russia. In the late 19th c, Russia was considered an American ally. He had made one trip across Siberia as part of a team searching for a route for a telegraph service that would cross to America. A decade later, he wanted to return and study Russia’s prison system in Siberia, convinced that it was a more ideal solution than the American prison system. The families could go to Siberia with the men, and that seemed humane.

The journey was grueling, the hardships of travel rigorous. Kennan and his artist Frost spent days without sleep, plagued by bedbugs or tossed around in carriages traversing primitive roads. They crossed through Arctic cold and sandy deserts.

What they saw was disturbing. The overcrowded, stinking prisoner housing, the brutal work conditions. Prisoners forced to walk a thousand miles to reach the prison camps before their term even began. They heard stories of those who didn’t know why they were arrested, or who were falsely imprisoned. Women from elite families whose political actions landed them in exile.

They men returned with broken health and minds, but it didn’t stop Kennan from lecturing across the country to inform Americans about the truth. It shifted American sympathies away from Tsarist Russia.

The book is at once a travelogue, an adventure story, a biography, and the history of a cruel and unjust penal system.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book.

What an absolutely fascinating book. As a history buff I can truly appreciate all the research and hard work that went into this. Outstanding book.

Into Siberia: George Kennan's Epic Journey Through the Brutal, Frozen Heart of Russia is a intriguing book to read by Gregory J. Wallance. I give five stars.

Fascinating. Who knew George Kennan traveled around Russia in the 1880s to investigate the Tsarist prison camps? Wallance brings Kennan and the journey, with all its difficulties and grim findings to life in this highly readable volume. He's expanded on Kennan's own writings, adding new information which illuminates and informs. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A very good read.

Into Siberia
By Gregory J. Wallance

This is the true story of not one but two treks through Siberia, some 20 years apart, which led to very different conclusions concerning imperial Russia and her treatment of her own citizens.

George Kennan was an American sent to Siberia as part of an expedition to map out a telegraph line to link up the United States and Europe. While this first expedition suffered untold hardship, Kennan came away from the experience believing the Russian manner of exiling criminals and dissidents to the harsh conditions in the far reaches of Siberia was a more humane way of dealing with prisoners – who were allowed to take their families with them – than the western world's incarceration of prisoners.

But years later, Kennan returned to Siberia to do an in-depth report on the exiles and their living conditions. What he found caused him to change his mind. Kennan's report caused a great upheaval in the West's views of Russia. He was so horrified by what he experienced that he spent the rest of his life advocating for more humane treatment of the exiles and their families.

While this is a true life adventure story, it goes beyond that. Kennan's experiences changed the shape of America's thinking about Russia – and still affect our viewpoint to this day.

Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for access to this arc.

To be honest, I was drawn to reading this book because of the subtitle – “George Kennan’s Epic Journey Through the Brutal, Frozen Heart of Russia.” Adventure, excitement, travel, I thought. Then I read further and realized that there was a great deal more to the book than that.

What a journey! Holy &^#$. The bitter cold, the roads, the travel inns, the bed bugs. And then the two men traveled into (to borrow a phrase) “the heart of darkness.” Remember that Kennan had begun this trip as a friend of Russia and generally agreed with the need for a penal system given the political upheavals that were convulsing the country. What he saw exposed him to depths of human suffering of which he had no inkling. No one to whom he applied for permission to visit jails, camps, and mines said no. Nothing was prettied up though Kennan realized that word and intent of his journey had been telegraphed ahead of him. He said that the people in charge there appeared to feel that attempting to deny the horror of it was useless. One of the things that Kennan had (in theory) liked about the Russian system – that wives and children could travel into exile with their male relations rather than having the family broken up – became a reality that crushed him.

As the trip continued, both Kennan and Frost began to feel the effects. They were constantly afraid of being arrested in spite of the documents and letters they carried which added to the mental and physical exhaustion of the trip itself. Unknown to Kennan, Frost had suffered from a nervous breakdown before the trip and he slowly slipped back into another while Kennan’s physical health began to deteriorate. When they emerged back into European Russia and then London, friends barely recognized them. Kennan’s wife feared for his health.

The first hand information they carried out and to the world set off tsunamis of dismayed emotion among the American public and while the diplomatic corps had to try to smooth relations between the two countries. After writing an extensive series of articles, Kennan tirelessly lectured to packed auditoriums for years – which further damaged his health. But there were critics as well who pointed out that by speaking for those imprisoned for crimes against the state, he was sanctioning their violent actions and oh what about the similar crimes that the US was perpetrating against its own minorities and Native Americans that no one who was lauding Kennan seemed to care about. Kennan was also banished from entering Russia and later arrested when he did.

Up until the 1890s, the US and Russia had had a friendly diplomatic relationship. Kennan’s book and lectures in part dropped a bomb on this so that, even before the October Revolution (which Kennan foresaw turning into something even worse than the Czarist system), it had been cooling. Experiencing it and reporting on it brought George Kennan and George Frost to the brink, physically and emotionally. Sadly the Gulag that followed might have been worse than the Imperial penal system. Gregory Wallance covers all this expertly and distills Kennan’s efforts into a very readable book. B

Loved this brutal history - a true story about George Kennan who traveled to and through Siberia all to learn how Russia was treating or mistreating its political prisoners. Great research!

Into Siberia by Gregory J. Wallance is the true adventure story about American George Kennan who as a young man joined Western Union to route a telegraph line from Alaska to St. Petersburg. Russia and America were allies in the 1860s and though Kennan endured frigid winter conditions on foot, appalling jarring "roads" with wagons and carriages, sleepless nights in furs under the stars and danger at every turn, he viewed residents and their exile system favourably. His adventurous spirit was sometimes cracked by fear but he pressed on and often experienced fulfillment.

Two decades later, Kennan and his friend Frost traversed to Siberia to research conditions of the Siberian Exile System. What they saw with their own eyes horrified them. Women had to decide whether to stay home and starve or leave with their exiled husbands as they journeyed under deplorable conditions to despicable prisons. But at least they'd be together. Or would they?

Rife with disease, vermin, sleep deprivation and humiliation, prisons were pure misery. Details are not glossed over. Upon witnessing this themselves and gagging at the putrid prison smells, the two researchers were stunned. Kennan's previous ideas were upended and he was flooded with disgust. He returned to America and his research contributed to the changing of American views of Russia. He lectured on the topic and drew attention to grim realities with a view for improvement.

What an eye-opening book! It's written conversationally with a kaleidoscope of colourful vividness through the eyes and writing of George Kennan. Interestingly. the landscape and winter conditions are so bleak and depressing but somehow alive. If you seek true adventure chock full of riveting moments, Into Siberia is the ultimate reading experience.

My sincere thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for providing me with a digital copy of this stupendous book.

This is the story of the journey of a young man looking for both adventure and reassurance of his ‘manliness’ becoming an outspoken advocate for prisoners in a foreign country. That journey involved three treks into Siberia and the Caucasus. The first two trips led to a career in writing and Kennan’s emergence as an authority on Russia, which led, in turn, to the third expedition. He thought he would verify his belief that the Tsarist system of internal exile was fairly benevolent. It was physically and emotionally arduous and he returned to crusade against the corruption and abhorrent cruelty he saw. Gregory Wallance has combined biography, travel, politics and history into a very readable book of George Kennan’s accomplishments and his person.

Into Siberia by Gregory J. Wallance was received directly from the publisher and I chose to review it. This book surprised me as I was expecting a more "boring" book. This book is an adventurous travel guide covering travels across Siberia, a land much more vast than I ever imagined and I lived in Alaska for many years. The book is also a biography and gives a lot of history about several topics such as telegraphy, Russian penal systems we have heard about growing up, Russia/the Soviet Union as a whole, and Siberia in general. If any of this interests you, this is the book to read as it is apparently well-researched, moves along, and is never boring.

4 Stars

George Kenan was a telegraph operator and he felt stifled by always being in the booth with no sense of adventure to his life. Ever since he was a young boy he loved anything to do with nature and would read every book he could get his hands on but do to a childhood event he feared he was too scared to be an adventurer. Throughout his first years in the wilds of Siberia he would put himself to the test and pass with flying colors even when he returned home he would force himself to be in dangerous situations go down dark alleys and it was all to prove he wasn’t as scared as he initially feared. his first trip into Siberia was to help run the Atlantic telegram line four Western Union in thus begun his love affair with the people the country and the culture it would be those exiled to Siberia that called him back time and time again. Even after he married Emmaline Wells she would have to share her husband with Russia. Just the beginning of the book and his travels for Western Union in Siberia would’ve been enough for a great adventurous read but the fact that they told his whole life story makes it an epically awesome book! I love historical nonfiction where there’s a witnesses viewpoint and that is definitely what into Siberia is I love this book and highly recommended for any historical nonfiction fan Who loves an eye witness viewpoint of an adventure in the trials that he lived through that most of us never even get to witness this is a great book in George Kenan was a True adventurer. I want to thank Saint martins press and Net galley for my free art copy please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.

Very compelling. Well-researched and well-written, giving detailed, in-depth accounts of late 1800s researcher/journalist George Kennan's early life, his travels throughout Russia and his realization that conditions in the prison camps in Siberia were so much worse than his naïve mind could ever have imagined. Once his eyes were opened he was determined to reveal the truth whatever the cost. What follows in fascinating, even if it is very difficult to read about the brutal cruelty inflicted on the prisoners. Kennan sometimes seems like a bit of an odd duck but this only adds to the allure of this book. He is dedicated and single-minded, and his strength, endurance – and stubbornness – are amazing. This is not a book to be rushed through. I had to take a break now and again because it is heartbreaking and overwhelming at times, but well worth the read. Informative and thought-provoking.

Thanks to St. Martin’s Publishing Group for providing an advance copy of Into Siberia via NetGalley. I voluntarily leave this review; all opinions are my own.

Into Siberia: George Kennan's Epic Journey Through the Brutal, Frozen Heart of Russia
Gregory J Wallance (author)
(This review was from an ARC sent to me by Netgalley)

In the late nineteenth century, close diplomatic relations existed between the United States and Russia.
This is a well-researched compelling biography of George Kennan who began his career as a telegraph operator during the Civil War and managed to get himself appointed to a years long expedition to build an overseas telegraph link through Siberia. He had been very publicly positive about the Tsarist Russian government and its policies.
In 1885 George Kennan, rose to prominence exposing Tsarist Russia’s system of exiling political and criminal prisoners to Siberia and the inhuman conditions under which they were forced to live. Kennan changed his mind about the Russian imperial system. Over ten months Kennan traveled eight thousand miles, on various modes of transport. He endured sandstorms in the summer and blizzards in the winter. His interviews with convicts and political exiles revealed how Russia ran the prison system. He then went on a nine-year lecture tour to describe the suffering of the Siberian exiles, and human rights abuses intensifying the newly emerging diplomatic conflicts between United States and Soviet Union and continued to this day with Russia.

This book was a fascinating view into a bit of history I knew little about. My regular readers will know that I love that stuff.

The book tracks Kennan's visits to Siberia, first in 1865 with the Russian-American Telegraph Expedition, an ambitious project to connect the Americas with Europe via Siberia and Russia (spoiler alert: didn't happen). That was when the young man discovered his love of Siberia--and a fondness for wilderness travel, through which he may have finally put to rest his inner doubts that he had courage.

At that time, the US was on the best of terms with Russia, and Kennan, like (most of)the rest of the world, believed that the Siberian exile system was both humane and effective. When he returned to Russia in 1885, it was with the intention of researching the system in order to demonstrate to the world that it was better than the US prison system (an admittedly low bar).

Probably what I most admire about Kennan is that though he left the US with his mind made up and his opinions already set, when he got to Siberia and began to uncover the horrors and inhumanity, and the one-way nature of the system--for wives and children as well as convicts--he was able to change his mind. He became, by the end of his trip, the loudest voice calling for the end of the system, especially perhaps as it was used against political prisoners. All prisoners were condemned not just to exile, but to a specified number of years of hard labor--a sentence which began only after they reached their destination, which could take years of walking, usually in chains. The mortality rate was appalling. When the sentence was up, they might be free--to remain in Siberia and continue to labor for a pittance.

One of the features of the system that Kennan had originally thought was humane, that it permitted families to go with convicted husbands and fathers, proved to be, in reality, one of the most horrific. The women who went labored, starved, and died often with little contact with their men but in equally inadequate prison quarters. And they were too often forced to prostitute themselves to the guards in order to survive at all.

In addition to the grim accounting of what Kennan learned, Wallance's book also tells of Kennan's own trip into Siberia, which might be called Adventure Travel, of the extreme sort which meant discomfort, privation, and repeated near-death experiences. Kennan thrived on it, and he was in love with the land, despite the horrific things he saw there.

When he returned to the US, Kennan went on speaking tours and campaigns against the exile system, calling loudly enough for change that he was eventually banned from entering Russia. The fallout of Kennan's discoveries--and his campaign--are felt to this day, in our nation's difficult relations with Russia (I'm not sure any of it made any difference to the exile system). This book makes a lot of things clear to me, some more clear than I might have wanted them.

My Recommendation:
This isn't reading for the faint of heart, but I definitely learned a lot from reading it!

This book is part adventure, part fast paced history that covers the life of George Kennan whose writings of the conditions of the prisons and mines and exile in general inspired even Anton Chekhov and Leo Tolstoy.
Great attention to detail and research makes this book an easy read even though it’s fact heavy and fast paced.

A fascinating account of George Kennan's travels in Siberia, his lectures afterwards and its impact on American-Russian relations. It is hard to imagine what Kennan went through during his travels and even harder to imagine the suffering of those caught up in the Russian exile system. The scale of suffering and disruption is hard to wrap your mind around. The extremes of weather and geography, the lack of basic comforts in practically every area of life, meant Kennan pushed himself physically and mentally to the breaking point. But his writing and lectures fundamental changed the way Americans saw Russia.

The book is part Kennan biography, part history of Kennan's work on the exile system. and part exploration of the exile system and its relationship to American-Russian relations. Sometimes the jumping between these threads slowed the momentum and felt momentarily disjointed but not enough to truly undermine the story. It truly does capture an amazing slice of history and the man at the center of this unique issue.

An Epic Adventure that Changed History

In the nineteenth century, relations between Russia and the US were good. In the 1860’s, George Keenan, a young telegraph operator was part of an expedition to Siberia by the Russian-American Telegraph Expedition, a project to build a connection between the Americas and Europe. The project never happened, but George Keenan began a life long love affair with Siberia.

At that time many people believed the Siberian exile system was superior to the American prison system. In 1885 Keenan returned to Siberia with the intention of documenting the system. He started believing that the Russian system was preferable because prisoners were able to take their wives and children. The reality was sickening. The women worked themselves to death, froze, and many of the children didn’t survive.

When Keenan returned from his trip, he made it his mission to expose the system. His descriptions of the hardships endured by the prisoners opened people’s eyes to the abuses and led to deteriorating relations with Russia that last to this day.

This is an excellent book part biography of Keenan, part Victorian travel story, and part a discussion of the abuses to the exile system. The book is well documented. Most of the book is easy to read and the travel descriptions are enthralling. Occasionally, the pace slows, but the content is so interesting, I didn’t mind the slow places. I highly recommend this book for an early look at Russian American relations.

Thanks to the publisher and Net Galley for this review copy.

Gregory Wallace’s Into Siberia (12/5) ✨

⁉️: Do you enjoy the winter weather? Any activities that you do during these months?

I tend to prefer being cozy in my living room having hot cocoa/masala chai and reading at home, though I did enjoy tubing when I was in Canada. We also recently finished watching Julian Fellow’s rendition of the Titanic which also resulted in a crash near the chilling Atlantic Ocean.

Gregory Wallace’s Into Siberia is another story of how one man’s harrowing journey exposed the barbaric Siberian exile system that sent a millions Russians without a roof in the late 19th century. George Kennan went to Siberia in 1885 to investigate the exile system and traveled 8000 miles, mostly in horse-drawn carriages, sleighs and horseback in treacherous weather.

Kennan’s adventure in the brutal Siberian winter is captured in this immersive book, in which he exposed the conditions that the prisons had to deal with at the time, including convicts and political exiles who were chained day and night to their wheelbarrows as punishment and often froze to death. After returning to the United States, Kennan generated national outrage over the plight of the exiles by writing the renowned Siberia and the Exile System and going on a nine-year lecture tour, with consequences for the US-Russia relationship that are still felt today.

This story reminded me of the Donner party and how their journey was horrific as they migrated towards California. If you enjoy history, biographies, and adventure novels, then this one is for you.

Thank you @stmartinspress and @gregorywallance for the gifted copy!

#IntoSiberiaBook #SMPInfluencer #GregoryWallace #StMartinsPress #Nonfiction

Russia always seems to have vicious, cruel, authoritarian governments. George Kennan documented the horrifying repressions of the tsarist regime of Alexander III, father of the ill-fated Nicholas II. The adventurous man whose trip through Siberia Author Wallance is epitomizing first went to Siberia, governed by our then-close ally Russia, to lay a telegraph line across the country beginning in 1864 and eventually have it reach Western Europe. There was an Atlantic cable to England, but the Atlantic has these terrible, damaging things called "hurricanes" every so often, and then there's that big line of volcanoes up the middle of it that periodically erupts here and there...think Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull, 2010...so it has always made sense to have a backup.

Kennan spent a couple years doing the work, and was in love with Siberia by the end of it. The US and Russia, after a long period of close ties that peaked after we bought Alaska from them in 1867, began getting terrible reports about the political prisoners being abused in Siberian prisons. Kennan, by now a professional journalist, was widely thought to be the best possible person to investigate the situation on behalf of the US. He was vocal in his love for Siberia. He said publicly that he felt the complaints of terrible conditions were unlikely to be true...prisoners' families could join them there, after all!

Kennan and artist George Albert Frost traveled through the tsarist penal system, documenting conditions as they found them. Kennan wrote an eleven hundred-page exposé of the horrors they witnessed; Frost's drawings and photographs were included. Frost himself suffered a breakdown—what we would call today PTSD—and really was never quite the same again.

Kennan never lost his love for Siberia and its people but he became an implacable detractor of the Imperial Russian government. He had the evidence to back his outrage and disgust up. He devoted his next decade to a lecture tour enlightening audiences to the facts of what was euphemistically called "the Exile System" of political repression. When, decades later, the October Revolution brought the Bolsheviks to power, Kennan famously said that "the Russian leopard has not changed his spots."

I read this fascinating history of events I'd had only a passing awareness of in the context of Kennan's report to Woodrow Wilson about the Bolsheviks and his subsequent criticism of the Wilson Administration's pusillanimous response to them. His 1885 trip was touched on, but I now know why he was tasked by Wilson with preparing the ignored report. This book, not at all a long read, brings the full awfulness of Kennan and Frost's experiences to life. It is nothing short of gut-wrenching at times. It is extremely carefully footnoted and supplied with an admirable bibliography. I believe Author Wallance has done everything except invent time travel to bring us the best report of the facts possible. His contextualization was emotionally honest, but not of the sort that leads me to mutter, "don't try so hard."

I recommend it highly...but with the warning that delicate fleurs who don't enjoy details of physical cruelty should pass right by. I did, to be honest, feel as though these facts were rather more abundant than was strictly necessary. I had a half-star knocked off for feeling like I was being knocked in the teeth. As Frost's art exists, I wanted to see it, or some of the photos, just to see the realities behind the descriptions of the place itself, though not the abuses!

Not always an easy read, but a wonderfully immersive and interesting historical light on a country whose past binds it to the US.

Into Siberia is a biography, a history, a lesson in geography and a story of human rights abuses that changed the American opinion of Russia. George Kenner always wanted to explore. He also had a fascination with the telegraph. Too young to serve during the Civil War, he became a telegraph operator. When a joint Russian and American project was proposed to run a telegraph line through Alaska and Siberia, Kenner traveled to Siberia to explore a route for the line, encountering hostile weather conditions and the indigenous people of the area. He developed a love of the region and the people that never left him.

Russia supported the Union in the war and became a friend to America. When rumors reached America of the abuses in the Tsar’s penal system Kenner was sent to investigate. By that time he had become a journalist and his familiarity with the area was an asset. Accompanied by George Frost, an artist, he set out to discover the truth, interviewing prisoners and their families, witnessing the abuses and the conditions that the prisoners were subjected to. The revelations were disturbing and left Frost to suffer a breakdown. Kenner’s initial support of the Tsar’s penal system changed drastically by what he saw. Writing a series of articles that were published as Siberia and the Exile System, it changed the way America viewed Russia. From the son of an American pioneer to an explorer and journalist, Gregory Wallance tells a story that is fascinating, yet sometimes disturbing. It is a well told tale and an important part of history. I would like to thank NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing this book for my review.