Russia

Among the Russians, by Colin Thubron (1985). "I had been afraid of Russia ever since I could remember," begins Thubron in his 1981 journey to the villages and cities of the Soviet Union. In order to discover the real Russia, he travels 10,000 miles (16,090 kilometers)by car through Estonia, Belarus, Georgia, and Western Russia. His account is an inspiring look into the people and culture of the Soviet Union, and Thubron's story is told in awe of the vast landscape and with admiration for the people he meets along the way.

Fifty Russian Winters: An American Woman's Life in the Soviet Union, by Margaret Wettlin (1992). After traveling to Russia in 1932 to teach, Wettlin fell in love and stayed in Europe for another 50 years. Before leaving the States, a friend asked, "'How do I know you will not come back a Communist?'" Wettlin writes, "That was one of the reasons for my going, to find the answer to this question." Her memoir details life in cities from Mongolia to Latvia, although she calls Moscow home, and how her family survived—with no regrets—during a time of Soviet uncertainty.

*In Siberia, by Colin Thubron (1999). "Siberia: it fills one-twelfth of the landmass of the whole Earth, yet this is all it leaves for certain in the mind. A bleak beauty, and an indelible fear," begins Thubron, who journeyed 15,000 miles along the Trans-Siberian Railway. His freeze-frame portrait penetrates the contradictions of this brutal landscape.

Reeling in Russia, by Fen Montaigne (1998). With only a duffle bag and fishing gear, Montaigne sets off on a three-month, 7,000-mile fly-fishing expedition to the far reaches of Russia. "From the very beginning, I was drawn to her dilapidated landscape, inhabited by people who knew hardship as intimately as we might a member of the family," he writes. His journey from the west to the east crosses ten time zones and is filled with encounters of ancient monasteries and Kolyma slave mines, and adventures on the Trans-Siberian Railway.

River of No Reprieve: Descending Siberia's Waterway of Exile, Death, and Destiny, by Jeffrey Tayler (2006). In the summer of 2004, Tayler traveled down the Lena River on a custom-built raft. The author's 2,400-mile-journey was a partial re-creation of a voyage the Cossacks made some 400 years ago. Tayler, the Moscow correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly, offers insights into the history and contemporary life of a remote part of Russia.

Sacred Sea: A Journey to Lake Baikal, by Peter Thomson (2007). "Absoliutno blagopoluchnoe ozero Baikal!" a Russian scientist tells environmental journalist Thomson. "Lake Baikal is perfect!" But Baikal's famous self-cleansing ecosystem isn't so perfect anymore, and Thomson wants to find out why. He meets with everyone from environmental scientists to a community of Raskolniki in Ulan-Ude, in pursuit of the ecological and cultural importance of Baikal, one of the world's most mysterious lakes.