Many thanks to Lonely Planet for permission to publish this short story here. It was first published in Unpacked Again, an anthology of travel writing. Scene One:Zagreb. Hot day. Our Man stands with backpack and unknown purpose on central square. Market. Crowds mill, loud cries. Trams rattle busily down thoroughfare. Disgorge passengers. Middle-aged women carry…
Author: Anthony J. Haywood
High Seas Pleasure Seekers in Siberia
Ever since European Russians settled Siberia from the 16th century, eccentric travellers have been drawn to the subcontinent. Some of these were Russians. Others were foreigners. As the 20th century approached, a wave of foreign explorers and tourists set out along Siberia’s northern coastline. In 1894, while German-born Princess Alix of Hesse and by Rhine…
Fear and Loathing in Tuva
Fear & Loathing in TuvaMany thanks to Lonely Planet for permission to publish the story here. This short story was first published in the collection “Unpacked“. When it comes to Russian cities, Kyzyl is no gem even by Siberian standards. Hot, dry, swirling with dust and flat as a pancake, it is the capital of…
What Makes Switzerland Spooky?
While researching an essay for the new edition of “Switzerland” (Lonely Planet), I came across an oral myth told by alpine shepherds in the canton of Waadt. Switzerland has lots of myths about fertile, pre-glacial landscapes that become iced over and inhospitable. Often the transformation is punishment for some moral wrong-doing. Essentially, the myth goes…
Hiking Lake Baikal – The Muscovites
Outtake from Siberia, A Cultural History, published by Signal Books (UK) and Oxford University Press (USA). From the late 1960s or early 1970s, a Russian environmentalist movement sprang up that fit in well with the idea that nature begged conquest by an all-powerful Soviet system. The movement attracted ecology or outdoor minded people, such as…