Strange Telescopes

Book excerpt: The acclaimed author of Lost Cosmonaut “takes us into a world of exorcism, cults and oddballs” living in Ukraine, Siberia, and the catacombs beneath Moscow (The Guardian). In Lost Cosmonaut, travel writer and anti-tourist Daniel Kalder ventured into the most distant republics of the former Soviet Union. Now Kalder is back in Russia to explore some of its strangest communities and hidden places on a year-long odyssey from Moscow to the Arctic Circle. The trek begins in the sewers of Moscow, where Kalder encounters a lost city inhabited by people known as “the Diggers.” After exploring the depths of this underground planet and meeting the eccentric Utopians who call it home, Kalder journeys to Ukraine, where exorcists chase down demons in the dubious afterglow of the Orange Revolution. In Siberia, he meets a man called Vissarion—a former traffic cop who is now known at the Jesus of Siberia, and to his thousands of followers, the true messiah. Salvation and damnation collide in this colorful account of a truly unique adventure that “provides rare glimpses into the odd afterlife of a collapsed superpower” (Publishers Weekly).