Episode 5

Charlie Walker is an award winning explorer and writer. He has travelled tens of thousands of miles, crossing extreme territories such as deserts, wilderness and jungles, fascinated by the land and the people he meets. He has published books about cycling to the ends of the world (Through Sand and Snow) and through Asia and Africa (On Roads that Echo).
In On Thin Ice he is in Siberia, the coldest inhabited place on earth where in the long winters temperatures can fall to minus 50 degrees and the rivers are so frozen trucks can drive along them. Your breath can freeze in mid-air:
‘A strange phenomenon occurs: a delicate hissing can be heard, similar to the sound of running sand, as the moisture in one’s own breath crystallises and falls through the cold, dry air. The indigenous Sakha people call this “the whisper of the stars.”’
Facing ridiculously low temperatures he skis and walks his way from one small isolated town or village meeting both kindness, and distrust. It quickly becomes clear that the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, the FSB, know he is there. The FSB are suspicious at the best of times, but Charlie’s voyage has unwittingly coincided with Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine leaving him shocked how so many he meets do not question Putin’s motives or the lies told about the Ukrainian people, unsure how or if he is ever going to get home, and realising all his bank cards have stopped working. His expedition ends, unexpectedly, in a Russia jail.

Written and read by Charlie Walker
Abridged by Libby Spurier
Produced by Caroline Raphael
Executive Producer Peter Hoare
Sound by Matt Bainbridge
Production Coordinator Dawn Williams

On Thin Ice is published by Duckworth Books.

On Thin Ice is a Pier Production for BBC Radio 4.