Siberian Way  

Visual and discursive images of Siberia are formed by the road. Siberian tract, Transsib, the road of death, stages, BAM. The road is the main face of metropolitan power, its seal. The road has always united completely different people: people of different professions, nationalities, aspirations, free and unfree. The Siberian tract, then the Trans-Siberian Railway — these are contact zones — spaces where absolutely opposite people had to build relationships in conditions of uncertainty, sometimes danger and inequality. People were often united not by the road, but by escape: the desire to distance oneself from the world, or the world’s desire to distance itself from you. The road and the home have always been two dimensions of human life: you are either on the road or you are at home; you are either on the run or you have found shelter.The road is the core of Siberian mythology, which, like electrons, is entangled with myths of wealth, freedom and danger. These myths are a consequence of the policies of colonisation. 

Н. M. Yadrintsev, discussing the role of exile in Siberia, concludes: 'Instead of myths about the Promised Land, other myths began to form about a land where people walk underground and where the sun does not shine'. The 'promised land' and the 'wild land' are the two main characteristics that Siberia has acquired and still retains in the eyes of those who have never been there and those who live in this vast territory. These images coexist, although they are diametrically opposed. Has anything changed since Yadrintsev drew his conclusions? My task is to record the imprints of the biopolitical regulation carried out in Siberia by tsars, emperors and general secretaries. The road that appeared as a consequence of the advancement to the East in pursuit of wealth became an occasion for me to look at the relationships, paths and transformations of the people encountered on it.