Travel books

Find the music behind the silent Siberian landscape in our top read

The Lost Pianos of Siberia Sophy Roberts Doubleday, £19

What is it about Siberia that continues to draw our attention? Is it the vast emptiness facing us on a map, as we contemplate a land that covers most of the ten time zones on the Trans-siberian railway, stretching from Russia’s Ural Mountains to the steely Arctic waters of Okhotsk? Perhaps it’s the dark fact that trips there – made by convicts, rebels and doomed royals – often proved fatal.

While the fates of the exiled may be less than pretty, their stories endure in this compelling debut from travel writer Sophy Roberts who guides us through Russia and its outer peripheries. Setting out through the wilderness to find one of The Lost Pianos of Siberia for a Mongolian pianist, Sophy traces the movements and history of these grand European instruments, dating from the time of cultural catalyst Catherine the Great to the chaotic journeys forced by revolution.

The former exile post of Irkutsk – also known as the gateway to Lake Baikal – and the golden domes of wartime safehouse Novosibirsk provide backdrops to this quest, but it’s the people she meets who stand out. Bell-ringing veterans and piano-tuning families show us the importance of music to Siberia, offering a solace similar to the trembling chords of great composers that comforted the tortured souls who trudged over the Urals to face punishment.

But shining throughout all of this is that landscape. Etymologically, Siberia is ‘a land of slumber’; historically, it’s where nightmares were realised. As Sophy finds, it’s also a destination of courage and dreams. Kirtey Verma

In my mind’s eye, Siberia began to burn with possibility, in the faults and folds of a landscape full of risk and opportunity. Sophy Roberts