Reeling In Russia: An American Angler In Russia

travels with a russian speaking american who takes off solo on a cross country adventure in search of salmon, and the likes, which gives us a look at not only the fishing but also a little history and a look at the dark side of this truly grand country. where it was, some of the issues it is facing, and lots of working folks who are trying to survive and prosper -- all this while fishing in some super interesting places.

The author crosses 14 time zones searching for the perfect place to practice his fly fishing hobby. Traveling off the beaten path, he encounters and effectively describes life in post-Soviet Russia. Poverty, lethargy, crime, and an occaisional instance of hope for the future. An easy, sometimes humorous read.

This book is a travel journal that takes us through the far corners of rural Russia, from Murmansk to Kamchatka. Montaigne's fly-fishing hobby takes him well off the beaten path, to explore the wilds of the backwoods and streams. Along the way, of course, he must pass through small towns and stay with friends and acquaintances in tiny villages. Most of the text is a very vivid, journalistic description of conditions in small town Russia and Siberia today, almost 10 years after the fall of Communism. His analyses of conditions on the ground are comparable to those of other travel-journalists, such as Robert Kaplan. However, he visits places that are unknown for even people like Kaplan, since he avoids the big cities altogether. What struck me while reading this book was how much backwoods Russia is a poor, developing country, with no running water or functioning government services. This makes aspects of Montaigne's travel journal quite comparable to those of writers visiting Nepal or India. Yet, one rarely reads of travel adventures in a European Third World, making this book very unique.

All of the prose is not about people and their problems, however, since this is after all, a fishing trip. Montaigne does an admirable job of describing his efforts at fly fishing. Through reading this book, I began to get an inkling for the first time of what the sport of fly fishing is all about. I'm much more interested in culture and travel than fishing, but Montaigne's fishing episodes were written well enough to hold my interest. On the other hand, serious fly fishing enthusiasts may be looking for more about fish than this book provides.

Author managed to convince his wife, Russia and an editor that he was writing a book on fly fishing by going across the Russian steppe from West to East meeting with local fly fishermen and trading tips.
However finding out there was a grand total of about 150 fly fishermen across a nation of 200 million people he started to write about the actual experiences of meeting and finding these people and the conditions they lived in.
A great look at modern life in Russia, continually amazed that everyone operated under fog of an alcoholic haze that permeated everyone.

I do a fair amount of work in Russia, so I was interested in Reeling in Russia to deepen my understanding of this complex country. Essentially a travel diary, this book provides a very personal view of the author's fishing trip through Russia, remarkably made almost exclusively by land and water. Given his fluency in Russian and his laid-back--bordering on reckless--approach to travel planning, Montaigne's book provides a fascinating and truly unique view of Russia in 1996. This approach, however, is also the book's weakness. Montaigne's encounters are wonderful to read in and of themselves, but they rarely add up to more than snapshots of a point in time. Montaigne's journalistic background prevails as he recounts the here and now (actually the then and there in '96) without fleshing things out into a more enduring book. So if you're looking for an analysis or current history of Russia's transition out of the Soviet period, you will probably not be satisfied with this book. Otherwise, I do recommend Reeling in Russia for those seeking a tale of adventures crossing the chaos and desolation of 'early post-Soviet Russia', in meeting some of the human faces of this extraordinary culture, or simply for fans of this diary style of travel writing.