Siberian BAM Railway Guidebook

[Athol Yates]

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    THE SIBERIAN BAM RAILWAY GUIDE IS OUT
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Just out is the book, the Siberian BAM Railway Guide: The Second
Trans-Siberian Railway.

The 3,400km BAM Railway traverses Eastern Siberia from the Pacific Ocean
to Lake Baikal and runs parallel with the Trans-Siberian but is about
800km north of it. The BAM Railway was the Soviet's largest ever civil
engineering project and was started in the 1930s by Gulag prisoners as a
branch of the Trans-Siberian near Lake Baikal. Its entire length to the
Pacific Ocean was only completed in the late 1980s. The railway gets its
name from the initials Lake (B)aikal to (A)mur River (M)ainline railway.

The guide not only covers the main BAM railway but also provides in depth
coverage of the railways connecting the BAM with the Trans-Siberian and
the line towards Yakutsk.

The book's highlights include:
*  practical information, including planning your trip, buying tickets,
what to take, getting to the region
*  kilometre by kilometre guide to the railway
*  touring the northern end of Lake Baikal
*  insights into the daily lives of Siberians
*  visiting Stalin-era gulag camps
*  27 detailed city and village maps
*  57 photographs
*  major city coverage of Komsomolsk-na-Amure, Tynda, Bratsk, Sovetskaya
Gavan, Neryungri, Severobaikalsk.

While the book meets the needs of travellers, the main readership of the
book will be armchair travellers interested in quirky Soviet history and
current conditions in remote Siberia. The book contains dozens of short
informative articles about various aspects of the region's history and
people's daily life.

Articles include:
*  the Navy dentist whose every move to open a private clinic has been
thwarted by the Ministry of Health's monopoly, and he consequently
founded a small fishing empire,
*  how kerosene filled poles beside the railway work to keep the
permafrost ground frozen to stop it from swallowing up the railway,
*  the development of feudal capitalists in remote villages
*  a town with class rooms for 6,000 students but a population of only 15,000
*  well preserved Stalin-era gulag camps for uranium mining
*  the proposed use of atomic bombs in mining
*  the location of chemical weapon storage depots and American Lend Lease
bases from World War Two
*  a native edible plant guide
*  western intelligence efforts against the railway and Soviet counter
intelligence ploys
*  North Korean logging camps which are allegedly prison camps
*  the mystical Sun City to be built on the shores of Lake Baikal which
is designed according to Sacred Geometry Architecture, based on the
belief that cosmic energy concentrates in corners.

The book's author is Athol Yates who regularly visits Russia, Mongolia
and North Korea as a journalist, tour guide and researcher. He studied
Russian at Moscow's Patrice Lumumba and Melbourne Universities. He is
currently working on two new guidebooks, Russia by Rail, and the Siberian
Lena and Amur Rivers Guide. He can be contacted at
ayates at lingua.cltr.uq.oz.au or at bmccunn at werple.mira.net.au

The Siberian BAM Railway Guide: The Second Trans-Siberian Railway, ISBN
1-873756-06-2 is published by Trailblazer Publications, The Old Manse,
Tower Road, Hindhead, Surrey GU26 6SU, United Kingdom, fax: +44
01428-607571, price 12:95 pounds.

In Australia the book is distributed by Envirobook/Trekaway, 88
Cumberland St, Sydney NSW 200, tel: 247 6036, fax: 241 1289, and it costs
$34.95.

In USA, the book is distributed by Seven Hills Book, te: 513 381 3881.
End