I am currently reading a book about railroads and their role in history.  One railroad which I have particularly enjoyed reading about is the Trans-Siberian railroad.  One of the longest railways in the world, the Trans-Siberian spans the width of Russia (a country with eleven time zones), stretching nearly six thousand miles from the Pacific Coast to the heart of Moscow.  It seems endless.
     Countless tales have been built around the Trans-Siberian, the most well known being perhaps Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina.  It is a rail of great wonder, taking the rider past sights like remarkable Lake Bakail, the largest lake, by sheer volume of water, on the planet, or the massive snow capped peaks of the Ural Mountains, the traditional dividing line between Russian East and West, made famous in the film Doctor Zhivago.  It is also a rail of immense darkness.  It transported the Romanovs, the last tsarist rulers of Russia, to their eventual deaths in a country dacha, and during the reign of Josef Stalin it carried countless numbers of political prisoners to serve lengthy sentences in the unspeakably brutal prison camps of the dictator's Gulag.  Indeed, as the book points out, it is in the town of Yekaterinburg, tucked into the eastern Urals, where many a prisoner riding the
Trans-Siberian realized that he was now definitively leaving everything he knew behind.  His life as he had known it was gone forever.
     Overall, however, the Trans-Siberian has benefited Russia.  Rising out of the vision of Tsar Alexander III, it has enabled easier travel for many Russians, facilitated transport of goods and resources and industry, and greatly improved communication across the vast country.  How horrible, then, that something that has brought such benefit also has become the instrument of unbridled terror.  The Trans-Siberian is a monument to the grinding puzzle of humanity:  how grand and remarkable are we, yet how broken and cruel are we as well.  How does one come to grips with such aching polarity?
     Although we endeavor to understand ourselves fully, we really cannot, for we are using our faulty selves to analyze and improve what we consider to be our faulty selves.  We run in circles.  Yet we try anyway, as we should.  As I contemplate the enormous mystery, magic, and tragedy of the Trans-Siberian, however, I wonder:  how long will we look, how long will we wander for what we, in and of ourselves, will never find?
     By the way, this will be my last post for ten or so days.  I leave tomorrow for another mountain foray in the wilds of the American West.  Thanks for reading!