Russian east are the only places on earth that need urban sprawl. And what a place to sprawl in. There is confounding beauty here in bewildering amounts. Half a day was required just to skirt the southern shore of Lake Baikal. The scale of Siberia is baffling. And so is everything else about it. Lake Baikal has seals—1,500 miles from an ocean. Using a pair of flippers to drag tail all the way from the Bering Strait must make a Trans-Siberian train ride seem comfortable. We went east from the lake, through sandy plains and pine barrens, then into meadows and birch groves, riding through them all night. If the Iroquois had had these—and a capitalist free market—they might have founded a General Motors of canoes. In the morning we were out on the rolling grasslands. You could imagine the Mongol hordes riding their horses across the horizon if you wanted. I preferred to imagine the Mongol hordes playing golf. Business—even the professional- sports business—is an improvement on war. The Mongols would have been better received if they’d invaded on a PGA Tour. (And they would have won, too, what with practicing on 100,000-yard fairways. Par 900.) We traveled into the Yablonovyy Mountains and the wilds north of Manchuria, following the Amazar River and threading between heights on a roadbed chipped from the riverbank cliffs. The Amazar looked to have white- water-rafting potential. But Russia has not yet reached the stage of development where its yuppies feel the need to risk their lives on weekends. In an economy as Mafia-infested as Russia’s, they get enough danger 9 to 5. Beyond the mountains was the taiga, the boreal forest that covers an area of Russia larger than Western Europe. Anton Chekhov said, “You don’t pay attention to it on the first day of travel; in the second and third you are surprised; the fourth and fifth day give you a feeling you’ll never get out of that monster of the Earth.” Of course, Chekhov was a fussy little Western European type at heart. To an American the taiga just looks like God got carried away with the recipe for northern Maine. The only thing monstrous about the Russian woods is that they bring back memories of summer camp. There were, however, no signs of sing-along or capture the flag or any other social activity outside the train windows. Siberia is mostly a giant resource being unused. And it’s not being unused in a sweet, preservationist way. All along the Trans-Siberian Railroad’s tracks were huge pieces of discarded industrial
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