Midnight in Siberia: A Train Journey into the Heart of Russia

I was just starting a new job at Morning Edition and had no time, I told him. This is not an opportunity to miss, he told me. He finally convinced me to write just a few paragraphs, which he reviewed. He liked them. So he told me to write a few more. And a few more. I knew what he was up to—but I became a willing victim of his manipulation. Within weeks, we had a book proposal. And back to Russia I went. I am enormously grateful to Howard for his instincts, for his belief in this idea and in me as an author, for his many edits and endless advice, and for his friendship. He and his partner, Gail Ross, are so much more than agents.

Viktor Gorodilov is a Russian lumberjack. He lives and works in the timber-producing village of Sagra, where there are no paved roads and no reliable police response. When a criminal gang made its way there and the police didn’t show, villagers fought them off using rifles and pitchforks.

Ivan Kichilin, flashing the peace sign, with his friend Evgeni Barandin. Ivan was orphaned as a teenager when both parents died from illness.

Many passengers are asleep, so the three of us are as quiet and unobtrusive as possible, trying not to bang our roll-aboards and backpacks into anyone’s feet. All our efforts are spoiled when a mousy little blond provodnik decides to come yell at us.

“You come from a plane? Too much luggage! You must have a document to bring so much luggage!”

Sergei screams back at her in Russian. Then she walks away, grumbling to herself.

“What does she want, a bribe, Sergei?”

“Probably.”

“Should we pay something?”

“No.”

This is not the end of her.

“Chort poberi [Oh damn]!”

It’s time for our train. Nadezhda drives us to the station and—of course—walks us in to make sure our train is on time and we know where we are going. For both me and Sergei, this is the toughest good-bye so far. Sergei and I often talk about how, on our reporting trips, we so often pick up new members of an extended “family”—strangers so much more welcoming and friendly to us than they need to be. This makes us feel incredibly lucky.

“Ogromnoe spasibo [Thank you so much],” Nadezhda says, standing in the middle of the small train station.

then she has to figure out how to get there.”

“I wish we had that kind of stability.”

to be more humane than the current government officials; they had a certain threshold that they abided by; now these corrupt clerks can take even the last piece from our mouths.”

Nadezhda, in Ishim, is fighting to survive in a system where bureaucratic corruption feeds off the chaos. If officials are never clear about what’s actually required, they can say someone is wrong—at any time. And likely collect either a fine or a bribe.

“I ended up paying 75,000 rubles [$2,500] to upgrade my fire escape,” Nadezhda says. She did everything she could to follow the regulations, but different regulations called for different requirements. In the end, hoping to avoid fines, she built the best and safest

fire escape money could buy. Just like she stayed on the phone overnight with an immigration officer, learning every detail she possibly could about the rules for registering a foreign traveler.

“Do you wonder if the money ends up in the wrong hands?”

She’s smiling. “There are so many ‘fines.’ Many are incredibly expensive. They can just show up and do an inspection. You don’t even know what they’re looking for. I wish they would just help—help me understand what the actual rules are.”

“My wife is going through the process of opening a business at home. And I’ll say the process has been hard. But I feel like one thing she has is certainty. She pretty much knows what is required, and