Siberia has not only been a land of slavery for the Russians but one of opportunity and escape. In the late 19th century, millions of peasants fled overcrowding and serfdom in Europe to fill the lands between Baikal and the Urals. In the 20th century, idealistic pioneers — as well as those lured by higher wages and subsidies — took the train further east to the outer reaches. Siberians think of themselves as different. A group of drunken sailors on a clapped-out boat was at pains to illustrate this. "We aren't like them at all. We are the children of runaway serfs. We criticise the government — Putin and that short pretend-President he has!" said Captain Dima of the Yuri Alexsandrovich. He and his crew insulted and mocked the regime in a way I hadn't seen working-class Russians do before. 

Baikal was freezing that night. Pillars of steam danced like ghosts on the water.

In the departure lounge for my flight to Yakutsk, I began to get the feeling I was in Asia. Pale Asiatic faces of the ethnic Yakut passengers outnumbered the Russians. European get-up was out; heavy, thick fur coats and traditional fur caps were in. For six hours, the rickety Soviet plane bounced above the emptiness. As I gazed down at a world of forests and white extending for the time it would take to fly from London to Damascus, the vastness of Russia truly hit home. 

Built on stilts above the frozen ground that melts in summer, Yakutsk is, in a sense, a city that should not exist. Economists argue such places cost more than they could ever possibly make. These guzzling colonies have been dubbed "the Siberian curse". Yakutsk is ugly — dingy malls, Soviet council estates and a few wooden Tsarist cabins deformed by the ground melting beneath them. Russians are the minority in Yakutia, a titular republic the size of India.

I went to the Permafrost Institute to ask scientist Leonid Gagarin what Siberia's "potential" would be with global warming at work. He was stunned I had even asked. "The permafrost looks as if it is melting. We have evidence. Temperatures have risen by 1.5°C in the past decade and by 5°C in the past 50 years. If the permafrost melts completely, the forests will die, unleashing unknown amounts of CO₂ into the atmosphere. And what will we find below? A vast desert, the size of the Sahara."

Later that evening, a local journalist, Aidar Dimitriyev, invited me for a drink. "Look," he announced, "we all live here like one big family of Sopranos. Sometimes it's boring, sometimes it's exciting. All the politicians are businessmen, bureaucrats. They are members of United Russia, Putin's party, but that's just like wearing a hat for them." When I asked him if he felt closer to Asia, he disagreed. "We are frightened of China here. But the young people have started wearing Japanese and Korean fashion — it looks good with their eyes." 

Equipped with a new Chinese puffa-jacket, I began to ask about the 2,012km "road of bones" to Magadan. A local blogger said he could get me on the next mini-van to a remote village 300km away. I boarded the vehicle, choking on its stink of harsh tobacco and gasoline, with three Yakut villagers. Asphalt gave way to a rugged ice-track within minutes. Within an hour, the mini-van lurched violently off the road, pushing through snowdrifts.