The Amur River
Between Russia and China
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4.7 • 6 Ratings
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- £6.99
Publisher Description
In his eightieth year, Colin Thubron takes a dramatic and often treacherous journey from the Amur's secret source to its giant mouth, covering almost 3,000 miles.
'Thubron on top form. Richly detailed, immaculately written and full of insights and encounters that bring a complex corner of the world to life' MICHAEL PALIN
Rising in the Mongolian mountains and flowing through Siberia to the Pacific, the Amur River forms the tense border between Russia and China. This is the most densely fortified frontier on Earth.
Harassed by injury and by arrest from the local police, Thubron makes his way along both the Russian and Chinese shores. By the time he reaches the river's desolate end, a whole, pivotal world has come alive.
'A masterpiece' William Dalrymple
'Unforgettable' Antony Beevor
'An epic journey along a frozen, fraught frontier... Fascinating' The Times
'This book is a triumph' Daily Telegraph
Winner of the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year Award 2022
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Novelist and travel writer Thubron (Night of Fire) evokes in this breathtaking account the beauty and harshness of the 1,100-mile-long Amur River that forms the border between Russia and China. Setting out on horseback from the river's source in Mongolia, where a campfire is "the sole human light seen only by wolves or woken bears," Thubron travels by sailboat, train, and car to the Russian town of Nikolaevsk-na-Amure, where, "thick with silt and pollution," the Amur empties into the Pacific Ocean. He writes sensitively and cogently about the life along the river's shores, profiling the semi-nomadic Buryats, whom Stalin and his Mongolian counterpart, Khorloogiin Choibalsam, persecuted relentlessly in the 1930s, and the Manchu, who rose up from the region in the 17th century and ruled China for nearly 300 years. In desolate villages, aged cities, crumbling monasteries, and roadside shrines, Thubron documents the interplay of politics and history, contrasting the "subdued fatalism" of Russians living in the river basin with the bustling optimism of the Chinese, whose glitzy restaurants and markets mask signs of discontent. Thubron's powers of observation and his dogged determination to complete this arduous journey—despite numerous injuries and a police interrogations—make this a top-notch travelogue.
Customer Reviews
A step outside the western world
An excellent insight into lost lands both Russian and Chinese. A people trammelled by outsiders with little interest in their traditions or wellbeing. Perhaps even a political battleground yet to surface. A thoroughly good read.