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Washington Post - August 18, 2002
Reviewed by David Tuller
Judging from Siberia Bound, Alexander Blakely seems like a pretty cool guy -- adventurous, engaging and fun to hang out with. After all, most chroniclers of Russian life base their tales in Moscow or, alternately, St. Petersburg, the most livable of Russia's not-very-livable cities. Deciding instead to settle in a former academic community outside of Novosibirsk, one of Siberia's major cities, Blakely set out to pursue, as his book's subtitle declares, "the American dream on Russia's wild frontier."
Blakely, who moved to Siberia after finishing college with an economics degree, has a breezy writing style. And although his book is flawed in many respects, it does include some sharp observations of life in Russia. "Usually with construction," he tells us, for instance, "you have two choices: 1) you can do it quickly, or 2) you can do it right. The Soviet construction worker . . . takes his time doing things wrong."
Anyone who has spent time in Siberia knows that its inhabitants are a breed apart. They disdain their compatriots in the country's Western regions and pride themselves -- perhaps excessively -- on their courage, strength and inner fortitude. Siberia, in fact, occupies a space in the Russian national psyche similar to that of the Wild West in American mythology. The efforts throughout the 16th and 17th centuries to settle Siberia's vast expanse and exploit its natural resources still resonate with Russians. So does the region's role as a convenient dumping ground for criminals and political dissidents during the czarist centuries and as home to the cruel network of gulags in Soviet times.
Unfortunately, little of this rich brew of history and myth makes an appearance in Siberia Bound. Neither do lots of other pertinent facts. Russians often say that, in Russia, anything can happen -- and usually does. So it's easy to believe that two young men could establish a chocolate business on little more than hope, smarts and chutzpah. But while Blakely describes establishing a cocoa-bean importing business with his friend Sasha, we never learn how they met in the first place or why he believes Sasha to be a trustworthy associate. The two of them strike a deal to sell their beans to a local chocolate factory, yet we find out virtually nothing about the chocolate the factory produces. Is it tasty? Disgusting? Are we talking chocolate bars, chocolate truffles or chocolate syrup? A few details would go a long way here.
The author has the makings of a terrific story. But even though Siberia Bound includes frequent humorous episodes, Blakely generally fails to transform the pungent ingredients into a satisfying meal. The constant descriptions of encounters and conversations ultimately differ little from one another. People are forever winking, smirking and slapping one another on the back. Slamming down shots of vodka and making sentimental toasts to women and friendship play an inevitable role in any account of Russian life, but reading about such occasions becomes tiresome after the 20th or 30th repetition.
Blakely is also given to facile comments that are meant to sound smart but often fall flat. "Democracy and the free market, the best institutions the West had to offer, stormed over the borders and ran deep into Russia," he tells us. "But like all foreign armies throughout history, they quickly were spread too thin and became diluted." And then there's this summation of his time in Russia: "Those four years have left me with a lifetime of rabid ambivalence to chew on until I've got no teeth left."
Blakely manages to include a few unpleasant -- and wholly unnecessary -- laughs at the expense of Chinese workers and gays. And although I like wordplay as much as the next guy, it's jarring when non-English-speaking characters make puns in English. "In a pinch," says one character, a chocolate factory director who warns Blakely not to store extra cocoa beans on site, "I'm afraid we would probably take a pinch."
Some of these faults wouldn't matter if Siberia Bound were a picaresque novel or an account that didn't aspire to authenticity. But the effect here is to undermine a reader's faith in the narrator's reliability and to reduce most of the characters to the stock figures encountered in dozens of other accounts of Russian life. So in the end, I believed the broad contours of Blakely's story but found it hard to take seriously many of the particulars. And his ultimate conclusion -- that capitalism, material comfort and wealth do not bring happiness -- hardly qualifies as a revelation.
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