Versailles, France
The sole evocation of Siberia sparks the dream. Goncharov offer us here a short tale of a journey through the eastern immensity of Siberia, more precisely in Yakoutsk and Irkoutsk.
More than the journey itself, Goncharov describes the life and kindness of those faraway lands :
Indeed, people native from Siberia are brave. Speranski would have said that the bears there are kinder than those beyond the Ural mountains, meaning the european bears. I cannot speak for the bears, but the people are indeed kind.
Through eastern Siberia, Ivan Goncharov
Goncharov also reminds us of the hard historical fact that wildlife of Siberia is the main reason for the conquest of this territory by the Hetman Ermak alongside 600 Cossack warriors in the 16th century.
…in this frozen desert, there were more animals than men, so much that a Governor was not required. The merchants coped pretty well on their own with the wild animals.
Through eastern Siberia, Ivan Goncharov