The Amur River: Between Russia and China

By Colin Thubron

Harper. 291 pp. $27.99

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The Amur River, writes Colin Thubron, is "one of the most formidable rivers on earth." It is also one of the most mysterious and elusive: Estimates of its length vary wildly, as do ideas about the meaning of its name — perhaps Big River, or Kind Peace, in the languages "of indigenous peoples." Thubron's elegant, elegiac and poignant book recounts his journey from the river's source in the Mongolian mountains to Nikolaevsk, where it meets the Okhotsk Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean.

As Thubron's many fans know, the author is an intrepid traveler, a shrewd observer and a lyrical guide, introducing the reader to places he visits and people he meets along the way. In "The Amur River: Between Russia and China," Thubron covers almost 2,000 miles, much of it along the border between these two powers at a time of a rapid and tense reconfiguration of global geopolitics. It is a difficult and lonely expedition — made more challenging by a fall from a horse early in the trip that leaves him doubled up in pain but determined to go on. Only later, he reveals, did he discover that he had broken two ribs and a bone in his ankle after his plimsolls got stuck in the stirrups.

Thubron writes beautifully, describing steppeland villages dotted with huts "bright with metal roofs in carnival colours — scarlet, orange, enamel blue — as if they were toys dropped all of a piece onto the grass." He stays in dosshouses where he sleeps in a narrow room with one lightbulb and no water, and later in a hotel "whose outdoor lavatory stands in a thicket of snarling dogs."

He runs into trouble frequently but always manages to find a way out: His travels coincide with the biggest joint exercises between the Russian and Chinese armies in 40 years, taking place nearby. Detained by local police already suspicious of a stranger from far away, he raises concerns higher still by telling them about the history of their town. "Where did you learn all this?" the officers ask. "How do you know more than we do?"

The author draws on a rich supporting cast of characters whose voices sing from the pages. A guide from Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, surprises him by talking about Meghan Markle. We meet a monk who leans through a car window to tell Thubron that he is a keen supporter of Arsenal — the London soccer club. He stares down young, bored drunks who want to cadge cigarettes, to borrow a mobile phone or to find a drinking partner.

Thubron frames his journey across Siberia through windows into the past. We dip into Nerchinsk, described by the author Anton Chekhov just over a century ago as "not a knockout of a town," but a place famous as the location for the signing of a treaty in 1689 that demarcated the boundaries between Tsarist Russia and Qing Dynasty China. We learn about the ill-fated Zheltuga Republic in the 1880s, where gold prospectors and settlers set up their own state, complete with flag, currency and penal code that included lashing and scourging as punishment for drunkenness, bawdiness and homosexuality. We come across the renaissance of Genghis Khan, whose name and presence rose as the Soviet Union died — and are now to be found plastered on airports, luxury hotels and beer across Mongolia.

It is not surprising, then, that Thubron's story of the Amur is centered on change — in almost every location and place, one of sadness and decay. Towns that once fluttered into life with the promise of hope and a bright tomorrow are now shadows of their former selves and their flickering glories, such as they were. Rather, the lands that the Amur passes through are silent, as if in mourning. "I'm a good Russian," says one man in eastern Russia. "But I don't want to live here. I don't want my children to live here. We live in a prison."

In the past, Siberia could inspire visitors. "I've seen a million gorgeous landscapes," wrote Chekhov, who was enthused by the open spaces stretching for miles and the potential they offered. "I feel giddy with ecstasy." That was all very well for those with a good imagination. But today the lands the Amur cuts through are desolate, endless and poor. They are also unpopulated -- at least on the north bank.

The Amur, says the author, is unusual among the great rivers of the world. The Nile, the Yangtse, the Ganges, the Amazon, the Indus "flow like lifeblood through their nation's heart." The Amur, however, is different: "The Amur divides."

For a large part of its course, until it reaches Khabarovsk, the Amur marks the border between Russia and China. The south side of the river, known to the Chinese as the Heilongjiang (Black Dragon River), offers a sharp contrast — a world of cities, high-rises, and car dealerships selling new Subarus, Toyotas and Range Rovers with blacked-out windows. The Russians hate their neighbors, says Thubron, who writes at length about intense Sinophobia not only among those he talks to but in Russia more widely. The Chinese, he writes, "are regarded with visceral loathing and distrust."

Much of that is rooted in the depression and lack of hope of people living along the Russian side of the Amur, whose expectations are rarely met by their own government. You cannot be Russian, two young women in Blagoveshchensk tell Thubron. Why not? he asks. "Because you look happy!" they reply in unison. It is a telling observation.

As the Amur River winds its way slowly to its meeting with the sea, Thubron's journey draws to a close with no fanfare, coming to an end with the image of an old man in waders, fishing for pike. It serves as a cipher for the loneliness that a mighty river carries with it — and the faint hope of something to look forward to.