A Journey to the End of the Russian Empire

THE BLEAK SIBERIAN WILDERNESS, 1890

The ship had run aground. But lucky chance the Herald was also stranded — with a band on board, so there was an excellent party. This was a high point of Chekhov’s great journey through Russia’s wilderness. He was to share a cabin with an opium-smoking Chinese man, learn why Japanese ladies were famed for their sexual prowess and witness vicious punishments in the desolate wasteland of Russia’s penal colony.