Siberia

Two things seem certain about Siberia: It's a tough place to visit, and you wouldn't want to live there.But a surprising number of people do -- live there, that is -- and the latest edition of "ABC's World of Discovery" tonight at 8 p.m. on Channel 13 takes viewers on a visit to the coldest significantly inhabited corner of the world.In "Survive Siberia," narrator Linda Hunt invites us aboard the nuclear-powered ice breaker Arctica for a trip from Murmansk to Pewek, above the Arctic Circle.

The Sun's recent editorial ("Torture by another name," July 8) reports the disturbing fact that 8 percent of prison inmates in our state, some 1,760 people, are held in some form of administrative or disciplinary segregation. More incredibly, the Maryland State Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, while providing this figure, does not keep records to indicate how long the average inmate stays in segregation, whether these inmates are juveniles or suffer from mental illness, or what the recidivism rate of such prisoners is once released.

Siberia was Russia's Wild West -- or, to be more geographically correct, its Wild East.In "The Conquest of a Continent," historian W. Bruce Lincoln details Siberia's role in Russian history, one remarkably similar to that of the frontier in the development of the United States.The American West and Russia's Far East both were just across a mountain barrier from their country's original area of settlement. Both hinterlands were immense, sparsely populated regions that tempted the adventurous and restless.

A few weeks ago I would have admitted that I'd never heard of a squirrel monkey. Now they're an Unleashed favorite! The other day, we featured these sporty squirrel monkeys . Now we've got Masha, giving a ride to her one-and-a-half month-old cub. The two are residents of the Royev Ruchey zoo in Siberia. The cub is the first squirrel monkey born in captivity there.

As if to make amends for last month's inane cover package -- a thumb-sucker on that perennial puzzler, What Women Really Want -- GQ sends us a March issue full of goodies, starting with Walter Russell Mead's immodest proposal: "Let's buy Siberia." Or, if not buy it outright, then lease it: Only cash, says Mr. Mead, will strengthen the Russian government's feeble grip on capitalism. Meanwhile, access to Eastern Siberia's reserves would free us from bondage to Mideast oil, and we're better equipped than the Russians for the job of policing the neighborhood.

River of No Reprieve Descending Siberia's Waterway of Exile, Death, and Destiny Jeffrey Tayler Houghton Mifflin / 230 pages / $24 Anyone who wants to understand Russia, the great northern empire, might as well go to the Far North to find its essence. Jeffrey Tayler did just that, traveling in a two-man rubber boat almost the entire length of Siberia's Lena River. He began in Ust-Kut in the forests near Lake Baikal at the beginning of summer and finished in mid-August in the tundra town of Tiksi on the shores of the Laptev Sea high above the Arctic Circle.

For decades, scientists in the Siberian town of Akademgorodok were the pride of the Soviet Union. Now, left destitute and often jobless by the union's economic and political collapse, they're opening their homes to a missionary team based in Columbia's Wilde Lake village.Project Aid/Siberia will send at least seven people to Akademgorodok by the middle of next month. But first they hope to raise $40,000 to ship the 300 tons of food that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has promised will be waiting for them in a Siberian port.

Vladimir Kataev had a headache and wasn't feeling so great until he was handed a tablet of ibuprofen.Now, if only he and the 10 other directors of Russian community colleges in Siberia could find as quick a cure for the educational headaches in their country.The group of Russian educators visited Anne Arundel Community College yesterday as part of a U.S. tour to see how students in this country are trained for the job market."We came here to get acquainted with how American community colleges work," said Vladimir Bespalko, a professor of the Russian Academy of Education who was the group's interpreter.

A few weeks ago I would have admitted that I'd never heard of a squirrel monkey. Now they're an Unleashed favorite! The other day, we featured these sporty squirrel monkeys . Now we've got Masha, giving a ride to her one-and-a-half month-old cub. The two are residents of the Royev Ruchey zoo in Siberia. The cub is the first squirrel monkey born in captivity there.

On deck Randy johnson of the Diamondbacks goes for his 13th victory today, facing the Giants. He said it "This isn't a trip to Siberia. This is a pause." Clint Hurdle, Rockie manager, after demoting Denny Neagle to the bullpen.

Whoever chose the artwork for the cover of The Baltimore Sun's "Live!" section guide to Artscape (July 16) should be sent to Siberia, or maybe Rockville. A guy with a Washington Nationals cap on the cover ????? How disloyal. How despicable. How thoroughly un-Baltimore. Mary Lehman MacDonald, Baltimore

Alex Griffith doesn't remember it, but he lived the first year of his life at a Siberian hospital for abandoned children where the playground consisted of a single metal swing and an unkempt sandbox. Today, because of the efforts of the North Harford High School sophomore, the play area has slides, a climbing wall and dozens of other pieces, and has become a symbol of friendship and cooperation between two nations separated by an ocean and vastly different ideologies. Alex lived the first year of his life at a hospital for abandoned children in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk.

River of No Reprieve Descending Siberia's Waterway of Exile, Death, and Destiny Jeffrey Tayler Houghton Mifflin / 230 pages / $24 Anyone who wants to understand Russia, the great northern empire, might as well go to the Far North to find its essence. Jeffrey Tayler did just that, traveling in a two-man rubber boat almost the entire length of Siberia's Lena River. He began in Ust-Kut in the forests near Lake Baikal at the beginning of summer and finished in mid-August in the tundra town of Tiksi on the shores of the Laptev Sea high above the Arctic Circle.

On learning that 2005 was the 100th anniversary of the completion of the Trans-Siberian Railway, we decided that it was time to fulfill a lifelong desire of riding the rail line and visiting Lake Baikal, which contains 20 percent of the world's freshwater. After a flight to Moscow, we spent a day and a half revisiting Red Square and surrounding attractions, and meeting the travel agent who put together our journey, which also would include trips to Mongolia and China. The first rail segment was a 30-hour ride to Yekaterinburg, during which we communicated using our Russian-English dictionary and learned how to survive the remaining five segments of our railway travel.

It hadn't occurred to me to take sunscreen to Siberia. But as I lay baking in 85-degree sunlight, I realized that a tube of SPF 30 was as important here in the summer as a down jacket in winter. Siberia tends to conjure up images of an Arctic wasteland and unforgiving weather, a place of harsh exile for people who did not toe the Soviet line. And although there is some truth to that stereotype, Siberia is a different place in the summer, as I found out during a two-week visit last July.

On deck Randy johnson of the Diamondbacks goes for his 13th victory today, facing the Giants. He said it "This isn't a trip to Siberia. This is a pause." Clint Hurdle, Rockie manager, after demoting Denny Neagle to the bullpen.

It is impossible for most Westerners to grasp the full significance of Russian legislators' decision to abolish the practice of internal exile, along with such other cruel and unusual penalties as banishment from cities like Moscow, forced labor in lieu of incarceration and parole conditioned on performance of hazardous and life-threatening jobs.Over the centuries, millions of suspected troublemakers have been isolated from society, friends and relatives this way. They have been banished to slave work in Siberia and other faraway places where multitudes died of hunger and diseases.

Whoever chose the artwork for the cover of The Baltimore Sun's "Live!" section guide to Artscape (July 16) should be sent to Siberia, or maybe Rockville. A guy with a Washington Nationals cap on the cover ????? How disloyal. How despicable. How thoroughly un-Baltimore. Mary Lehman MacDonald, Baltimore

KRASNOYARSK, Russia -- They only come for the big dogs. Across Siberia, they're taking the mastiffs, St. Bernards, Afghans and German shepherds -- dogs that in every sense are members of the family in a Russian household and not pets at all.By fair means and foul, predatory traders are getting their hands on Russian dogs and packing them off by the busload across the border to China to supply a booming demand there. Thousands of animals have been taken out of Siberia, in a business that's ruthless, dishonest and violent -- and that is breaking the hearts of Russia's dog lovers.

PASADENA, Calif. -- The El Nino current wreaking havoc with the world's weather is resurging with new strength across the tropical Pacific Ocean, according to satellite data released yesterday by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.The new satellite measurements, which show the current regaining momentum after receding dramatically earlier this month, bolster federal forecasts of a fierce, tempestuous winter, climate experts said. Drawn from the Topex/Poseidon satellite, the images indicate that El Nino grew by 10 percent in the first 10 days of December, after shrinking by the same amount at the end of November.