Martin Kyrle, one of the authors of Jottings from the Trans-Siberian Railway, is best known locally as a former Liberal Democrat Councillor. He served on the Chandler’s Ford committee for 50 years. He wrote his new book based on notes he kept as he travelled and long term friend, Michael Roberts, took the photographs. (These are stunning. I will share some of them in both parts of the interview, part 2 to follow next week, but the book is full of the most beautiful images and well worth investigating on that account alone).
Martin has written other books (including the history of the Liberal Democrats in our area, which may be of interest to those who like political, as well as local, history) but is branching out (some pun intended!) into railway journey books.
Martin and Michael are both graduates from Southampton University, though Martin went on to earn an MA from the University of Sussex in Russian Studies. He met Michael Roberts during their student days in the 1950s.
What a good travel book should do
A good travel book should educate and entertain its readers with regard to the places it is describing. It should help people get a real feel for the places especially when there is no chance of them getting there to find out directly. It should also give good advice and be honest about what went well and what didn’t. Martin and Mike’s book does all of this with wonderful illustrations. It is written in the form of a diary, which works very well. It makes for a very easy read.
Facts and Figures
The book has a proper index at the front (don’t underestimate the importance of that. Many a good non-fiction book is spoilt by the lack of one). It is clearly laid out (not all indexes are!).
Kyrle’s Laws are wonderfully funny and useful. (Ignore at your own peril if you ever think about going on a trip like this one and if you wouldn’t dream of going on such a trip, you will still see why Martin came up with these!).
There is a separate section on practical considerations which deals with the importance of travelling first class on a trip of this nature.
Martin also describes what he had in his cases and holdall bag, how to get around the issue of having to carry dirty laundry (which he avoided with one very simple tip). Martin also gives advice on visa requirements.
Martin also advises if you don’t speak Russian to familiarise yourself with the Cyrillic alphabet to help you read simple signs. The Russian alphabet is different from ours. (Being able to read Cyrillic alphabet will also help you to read notices in Mongolian as they are written in a standard form).
Oh, and who you travel with – well you are going to be with them for a long time. Can your relationship with that person stand that?
There is an epilogue, the author’s memoir of his links with Russia, a glossary of Russian words and guide to their pronunciation and biographical notes for Martin and Mike. There are also some beautiful maps in this book.
The interview is going to be in two parts with part 2 following next week. I will start with a brief summary of the trip.
Brief Summary of the Trip
The Trans-Siberian Railway runs from Moscow to Vladivostok. The Trans-Mongolian line runs from Ulan Ude to Beijing. Martin and Mike had to fly back home from Beijing for the very good reason that from Ulan Bator, you can fly to Beijing or Moscow (amongst other places) but there are no flights to the UK. Beijing is the nearest airport with direct flights to Heathrow. The trip took 30 days (from arrival in Moscow).
Stops on the way were Tobolsk where Martin and Mike visited the only stone kremlin in Siberia, the others had been wooden, and a new cathedral. They saw Decembrist graves here too. The Decembrists were the precursors to the Bolsheviks in that they rose up against the Tsarist regime. The former, however, paid a very heavy price for doing so, especially as they were members of the aristocracy. The Bolsheviks, of course, won.
Then came Novosibirsk, Irkutsk (where Decembrist houses can be seen), Lake Baikal: Olkhol Island (where Martin and Mike met a shaman), Ulan Ude (home of Buddhism in Russia and where Martin and Mike witnessed traditional peasant ceremonies). It was on Day 24 they went into Mongolia and from there to Terelj Country Park (where a power cut at night meant a trip to the loo was more hazardous than anyone could have wished for). Ulan Bator followed this and finally, the two men were in Beijing.
Oh, and did you know the Mongolians have a half pence note? I didn’t until Martin showed me one of them. Beautifully decorated note and not worth the paper it was printed on probably.
One problem I have when writing reviews is in working out how much to say. You want to give enough information to tempt people into finding out more about the book (and ideally buying it!) but you don’t want to give too much away.
The summary above comes from the book’s index but there is a lot of depth to the book with tales of who Martin and Mike met, how they got on with their guides, how they coped with emergency hospital services (Martin described it as doing his “Van Gogh” tribute act – you will have to see Pages 97 and 98 of the book for more!) and there are many funny stories. The book has an easy to read style, which is very appealing.
INTERVIEW
When were you first interested in writing Jottings from the Trans-Siberian Railway?
I wanted people to know more about Russia. It would be useful to see the world Putin is coming from. Freedom is a whole new concept to all of the Baltic States (whereas we have had at least some degree of freedom, from invasion at least, since 1066). The follow-up book will be a kind of Fool’s Guide to the Baltic States.
The Trans-Siberian trip (and therefore the book) started life as an idea 14 days after the funeral for my wife, Margaret. There was a celebration of her life at The Point. Mike Roberts came back to my home and told me he was thinking of taking a trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway but wanted me to go too as my background in Russian would be invaluable. I could “talk us out of trouble” should it come to it (and it did). Both of us had hitch-hiked in various places when young men and for this train trip were now doing the same as older widowers.
I planned the trip out. Mike and I also had to work out when we would need guides on the various stops on the trip. The idea was to have guides to show us around the various places enabling us to make the most of our time there.
Allison: Time to stop for now. More next week including Kyrle’s Laws (including the wonderfully named Law of the Public Bog!), Martin shares his thoughts on the criteria he and Mike used for photographs to go in the book (logically, they could have taken thousands!) and what he would have done differently, had he known.
Read interviews with Chandler’s Ford writer Allison Symes: Part 1 and Part 2.
Read blog posts by Allison Symes published on Chandler’s Ford Today.
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Years ago, 1978, I enjoyed Eric Newby’s book ‘The Big Red Train Ride.’ covering his journey on the trans Siberian express. It was not his best book by far but it gave an insight into countries behind the Iron Curtain.
I shall enjoy reading about this journey.
Many thanks, Mike. One thing I do love about the way non-fiction writing has developed (and especially for books like this one) is the way storytelling techniques have been used to enhance the writing.
Non-fiction, when written well, can be every bit as entertaining as fiction and, of course, has the bonus of giving information and hopefully being educational too. The storytelling aspect has helped non-fiction shed any “deadly dull list of facts and figures” reputation – and that is a good thing on many levels. (For one, it has helped boost sales!).
Funnily enough, you can learn from fiction too – many stories and novels have an underlying message to them but they have to be subtle. Preaching is definitely out but showing the characters’ strengths and weakneses… well the more alert reader will pick up the message from those.
Non-fiction can also reveal great (and not so great) characters but in a factual setting. It takes you into other worlds but those firmly based on this planet. (Am still waiting for the Fool’s Guide to Visiting Mars though that particular journey would make the Trans-Siberian Railway look like a local run!!).
First, my thanks to Allison for taking the time and trouble to interview me and for helping promote my latest book. When Mike invited me to visit him (he lives in Monmouth) to choose which photos to use, it took us 2½ days as he’d taken over 3,500! I’ve tried to tie the photos to some wording in the text, so that when I describe something of interest or perhaps a person we met (such as the shaman) there’s a photo (or maybe more than one) to illustrate what I’m talking about.
To get home we had to go on to Beijing because there are no flights from Mongolia to UK (I think their only scheduled flight to Europe is to Berlin). It’s 32 hours on the train and because Russian and Mongolian railways have a different gauge to the rest of the world when you cross into China they lift up your carriage with you still inside to change the bogeys – crash! bang! – and it’s 2 o’clock in the morning!
Mike’s photos of bogeys and hydraulic lifts bring the process to life, but unfortunately he couldn’t photograph the noise!
Lake Baikal was on its best behaviour, and my sister-in-law reckons some of Mike’s shots of the scenery on the island of Olkhon where we stayed would be worth reproducing in a calendar.
Finally, I’ve put together a slide show of Russia and Siberia lasting an hour (120 selected pictures, some of them not in the book) which I am happy to offer to groups who’d like to invite me to entertain them. Fees by arrangement, depending on the size of the audience (but think £30 – £50). I have my own projector, so all I need is a suitable table to rest it on and a white wall onto which to project (or a white sheet). The book itself, by the way, is hardback, 290pp, 220 photos, 3 maps @ £14.95 and I live at 16 Park Road if anyone wants to ‘stop me and buy one’ or discuss an engagement to show the slides.
Just to say Martin very kindly drew my attention to one mistake in the first version of this article. I originally stated there were no airports in Mongolia. Wrong! There ARE airports in Mongolia but there are no direct flights to the UK from Ulan Bator, which of course meant Michael and Martin had to go to the nearest airport which DID have direct flights to Heathrow, this being Beijing. I have put in the amendment above.