Black Dragon River: A Journey Down the Amur River Between Russia and China

"This is a fascinating guide into the most obscure, intriguing parts of Russian and Chinese, East Asian and Siberian history that I knew absolutely nothing about. It’s quite an eccentric venture, because it’s extremely difficult to travel along the Amur River. In very remote places, unlike the Ganges, it’s not heavily populated along most of its length, running through Siberian areas. There are very few people around when Ziegler first sees it, from an aircraft. He looks down, sees a magnificent river winding its way through Siberia, and realises there’s no one living along it. Of course, he’s immediately fascinated. It’s extremely cold and hostile, and also politically hostile because neither the Russians nor the Chinese are very much in favour of journalists wandering around their border regions, asking awkward questions about their rivers, so you can imagine how difficult it was. I think all of the travellers who have gone down the river have had a very difficult time getting access. Dominic Ziegler arguably had the most demanding time, simply getting visas and permission. “Neither the Russians nor the Chinese are very much in favour of journalists wandering around their border regions, asking awkward questions” Ziegler is also fascinated by wildlife. He’s particularly interested in birds and studies the cranes that are found along the Amur River. By virtue of its isolation, the Amur is an area of great natural beauty. But when he’s there, he discovers bizarre and intriguing parts of 19th century Russian history, about how the Russians have grabbed territory in what is now Eastern Siberia, but used to be known as Outer Manchuria. Politically, the Russians and the Chinese are arguing about whether the river rises in China or in Russia. They get all of these huge maps and study them for many days, then they discover that actually the true source of the river, if you take the furthest point away from the mouth, is in Mongolia. The river that has been probably most talked about recently in that regard is the Yalu, which forms the border between North Korea and China. In places the Yalu is very narrow and freezes over, and people have for many years walked across to China and eventually to freedom. So I guess when a river is frozen it’s not a very effective border. There are also potential disputes between upstream and downstream states. For example, the Indus actually rises in China but then runs through a part of what is now India and then into Pakistan, so potential sources of conflict are often there."