Consolations of the Forest

Sylvain Tesson found a radical solution to his need for freedom, one as ancient as the experiences of the hermits of old Russia- he decided to lock himself alone in a cabin in the middle taiga, on the shores of Baikal, for six months. From February to July 2010, he lived in silence, solitude, and cold. His cabin, built by Soviet geologists in the Brezhnev years, is a cube of logs three meters by three meters, heated by a cast iron skillet, six-day walk from the nearest village.

Sylvain Tesson found a radical solution to his need for freedom, one as ancient as the experiences of the hermits of old Russia- he decided to lock himself alone in a cabin in the middle taiga, on the shores of Baikal, for six months. From February to July 2010, he lived in silence, solitude, and cold. His cabin, built by Soviet geologists in the Brezhnev years, is a cube of logs three meters by three meters, heated by a cast iron skillet, six-day walk from the nearest village.

To live isolated from the world while retaining one's sanity requires a routine, Tesson discovered. In the morning, he would read, write, smoke, or draw, and then devoted hours to cutting the wood, shovelling snow, and fishing. Emotionally, these months proved a challenge, and the loneliness was crippling. Noting carefully, almost daily, his impressions of the silence, his struggles to survive in a hostile nature, his despair, his doubts, but also its moments of ecstasy, inner peace and harmony with nature, Sylvain Tesson shares with us an extraordinary experience.

'Beautifully written restrained; a song of the taiga, its harmonies resonate for a long time in the mind of the reader.' Le Nouvel Observateur