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Russian Empire

In the 1880s, the daring American journalist George Kennan first revealed the horrors of the tsar’s system of Siberian prisons, where the regime sent dissidents who favored democratic reform in Russia.

Editor’s Note: Gregory J.

An American journalist, George Kennan, was the first to reveal the full horrors of Siberian exile and the brutal, studied inhumanity of czarist “justice”

Flags flew and champagne flowed when the Czar’s ships anchored in New York Harbor. Fifty years later we learned the reason for their surprise visit

An Imperial colony on our West Coast was their aim; Fort Ross was their military outpost; and the stakes—higher than they realized

Curiosity motivated the first American who crossed Siberia. But he also made a handsome profit.

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