Recollections of Tartar Steppes, first published in 1863, is a lost
classic of women's travel writing that remains one of the earliest
and best examples of the genre. In February 1848 the erstwhile
English governess Lucy Atkinson set off from Moscow with her new
husband Thomas Witlam Atkinson on a journey that would eventually
last almost six years and cover more than 40,000 miles through the
unknown wastes of Siberia and Central Asia. To add to the
challenge, Lucy found soon after setting off out that she was
pregnant. Having barely ever ridden in her life, she spent her
entire pregnancy on horseback, before giving birth to a son in a
yurt in a remote corner of Central Asia. Remarkably, her child
survived and for the next five years accompanied his parents
wherever they travelled - through the Djungar Alatau Mountains on
the borders with China, the Altai Mountains in southern Siberia and
then thousands of miles east to Irkutsk, Lake Baikal and the Sayan
Mountains. Lucy Atkinson was not simply a passive witness on this
remarkable journey, but an active participant, handling horses and
camels, organizing Cossack and local guides and learning to shoot
for the pot. On several occasions she levelled a rifle to protect
her husband when he was threatened by brigands. Throughout this
book, based on diaries she kept, she brings to life her remarkable
experiences, whether sharing a meal with a Kazakh chieftain,
negotiating the hire of reindeer to carry her baby son, or setting
off for two weeks in an open rowing boat onto the unpredictable
waters of Lake Baikal. During the bitter winters, when the
Atkinsons hunkered down in one of the scattered towns of Siberia to
avoid the worst of the sub-zero temperatures, she was a sensation
at the soirees and parties that punctuated the long, dark evenings.
Through her connections to her former employer in St Petersburg she
also met with many of the exiled Decembrists and their wives,
including Princess Maria Volkonsky and Princess Katherine
Troubetskoy. Out of print for many years, this new edition includes
a detailed introduction by Nick Fielding and Marianne Simpson - a
direct descendant of Lucy Atkinson's brother Matthew - which
explains the background to Lucy's travels and the fascinating
events that followed her return to London and her husband's death
in 1861.
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