Travels in Siberia Quotes

“Sometimes travel is merely an opportunity taken when you can.”
― Ian Frazier, Travels in Siberia

“Scientists estimate that the Siberian permafrost holds the remains of 150 million mammoths—or about 8 million more than the 142 million Russians aboveground in Russia today.”
― Ian Frazier, Travels in Siberia

“She said being inside a language was like being in a person's house - after a while you came to see why the teapot was where it was.”
― Ian Frazier, Travels in Siberia

“It reflects like an optical instrument and responds to changes in the weather so sensitively that it seems like a part of the sky rather than of the land. And along with all that, Baikal is distinctly Asiatic: if a camel caravan could somehow transport Baikal across Siberia to Europe, and curious buyers unwrapped it in a marketplace, none would mistake it for a lake from around there.”
― Ian Frazier, Travels in Siberia

“In Russia, meanwhile, dedicated young people kept trying to kill the tsar.”
― Ian Frazier, Travels in Siberia

“Katya talked about how the Russian language is being destroyed by poor education and by the sloppiness of nonnative speakers who ignore case endings and have no conception of verb aspects and don't care. You find the worst speech in the street markets, she said. She called the new, bad Russian that's spreading everywhere "market language" (bazarnii yazyk).”
― Ian Frazier, Travels in Siberia

“Then a beat-up car lurched into sight towing an even more beat-up car. As the cars came near, I saw that they were connected back to front by a loop made of two seat belts buckled to each other. That was the only time I ever saw a Russian use a seat belt for any purpose at all.”
― Ian Frazier, Travels in Siberia