Roaming Russia

All of the feature stories in this issue in some way or another focus on travel: Russians traveling to India (page 34), Chinese traveling to Russia, traveling in search of Gulags, in search of bus stops, and traveling back in time to experience the Caucasus in the nineteenth century.

I may only have noticed this travel-heavy connection because it coincides with our epic trip across Russia, from its northernmost coast near Norway, to the southern shores of the Black Sea. In fact, soon after you receive this issue, I will be catching a flight to Oslo and Kirkenes, where Mikhail Mordasov and I will begin our adventure on the frosty edge of the Barents Sea.

Russian Life magazine has always been about armchair travel: telling stories from the past and present that help readers travel to Russia in their minds. But we also hope that our stories occasionally urge readers up out of their armchairs – to travel in Russia (or even India or China!).

We hope this because in most instances, when done right, travel is a transformative experience. Just like good fiction, which can help us to see reality through the eyes of another human being, travel forces us to see the world in new ways, from outside our comfort zone. It can remove the walls separating “us” and “them,” allowing us to mingle with lives and cultures rooted in a place that is not our home.

Because of this, travel is also a great generator of stories, the best of which are often about mishaps, misunderstandings and missteps. Now, while we are not hoping for mishaps, we feel pretty certain that our 30-day, 5400-kilometer road trip along Russia’s “spine” will generate plenty of stories and images that we will want share in these pages.

It will be something of a whirlwind tour: through 15 regions, over a dozen major cities and countless villages and towns. But it also comes at a time when US-Russian relations have dipped to their lowest point in over two decades. It is more important than ever to focus attention on the lives and concerns of “them” that happen to live in the lands of our “adversary.”

If you missed the opportunity to back this project through Kickstarter, you can still buy the book here. 

As always, enjoy the issue.