https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/feb/05/the-lsot-pianos-of-siberia-by-sophy-roberts-review-a-journey-to-the-end-of-everything

An obsession with finding ‘washed up and abandoned’ pianos leads to an impressive exploration of Siberia’s terrifying past

In the summer of 2015, travel journalist Sophy Roberts found herself in a tent in Mongolia deep in conversation with a talented young local pianist who lamented the lack of a proper instrument on which to play her beloved Bach and Beethoven. The pianist’s family had roots in the region of Lake Baikal, in neighbouring Siberia. So began for Roberts a form of “selfish madness”, an obsession not only with sourcing a piano for her friend, but searching for pianos “washed up and abandoned” in Siberia, and for the stories of how they came to be there, and how they survived.

The result is a richly absorbing account of Siberia over the last 250 years, as Roberts zigzags her way from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia’s far east. Along the way, she takes in how pianos entered Russian culture under Catherine the Great, the later rock star-like tours of the Hungarian Lizst, as well as the enduring influence of the Polish “subversive” Chopin and Russian musical giants Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov and Shostakovich.