Run Across Siberia — 1989
Forty Miles a Day Through the Edge of the World
In the summer of 1989, Ted Epstein set out on one of the most unusual runs of his life — not around a track, not through a city, but across the vast wilderness of Siberia.
He had read about an international ultrarun in Ultra Running magazine. The plan sounded almost mythical: runners would begin in Tynda, deep in eastern Siberia, and make their way across remote terrain toward Pyongyang, North Korea. All participants had to pay was their airfare to Moscow; everything else was supposedly arranged.
It was the kind of adventure Ted could never resist.
After four long Aeroflot flights from Moscow, Ted arrived in a land so immense it dwarfed the United States, even including Alaska. Siberia stretched endlessly — forests, rivers, rail lines, and tiny villages scattered across a landscape that felt both timeless and forgotten.
But there was a problem.
The race organizers were disorganized and unreliable. Each day, the official start was delayed. Ted grew restless. He hadn’t come halfway around the world to wait. The promise had been forty miles a day, and Ted intended to keep that promise — even if he had to do it alone.
So he did.
Leaving his gear in the group truck, Ted set off each morning on his own, running along the Baikal-Amur-Magistral — the BAM railway line that cuts through remote Siberia north of the famous Trans-Siberian Railroad. The steel tracks became his guide across an unfamiliar land.
Hospitality Without Words
Each evening, Ted reached a small village. He spoke no Russian. The villagers spoke no English.
Still, he knocked on doors.
With simple hand gestures, he asked for food and a place to sleep. Every time, doors opened. Families welcomed him as if he were an old friend returning home. Often, a wooden sleeping platform — the family’s own bed — would be taken down from the wall. A few times, the hosts insisted he lie between them for warmth and comfort.
Ted felt strangely at ease. As a child, he had visited his Russian émigré grandparents’ small farm outside Denver. He had grown up eating traditional foods — organ meats like liver, kidney, and intestines. That same hearty fare was placed before him in Siberian kitchens, and he ate gratefully.
Running forty miles a day was exhausting.
But the kindness of strangers carried him forward.
A Jarring Encounter
One day, his journey took a darker turn. Police stopped him and demanded identification papers. Ted had none. He was taken to jail.
Eventually, one officer who spoke English realized Ted was no threat and arranged his release. But before letting him go, the officer said something that stunned him. Learning Ted was both American and Jewish, the officer told another in English, “Get me a Jew,” wanting Ted to meet someone else “like him.”
Ted was shaken. The encounter was a reminder that endurance sometimes means more than physical stamina — it also means holding onto your humanity in the face of prejudice and misunderstanding.
Still, he kept running.
A Traveling Circus of Runners
Eventually, the rest of the international group caught up. Some ran; others were transported by bus. Nights were spent on gym floors or in makeshift camps.
Ted, always one to bring a little joy wherever he went, had packed a gorilla mask. When surrounded by curious children, he would put it on and clown around, turning exhaustion into laughter.
He had promised Vivian he would call nearly every day. The challenge? Crossing eleven time zones. All calls had to be routed through Moscow. Ted had prepaid for the calls, expecting to hit his daily location targets. Vivian, in turn, would pass along updates to the families of other American runners. Communication was slow and uncertain — but it mattered.
An Unofficial Victory
The run officially ended in Irkutsk. By then, Ted had lost all faith in the race organizers and asked locals to help arrange his return home.
In what turned out to be an “unofficial” event, Ted was declared the winner — not because of medals or ceremonies, but because he had simply run more, and longer, than anyone else.
He and fellow runner Joe Oakes were the oldest in the group. Joe later devoted an entire chapter to the experience in his book With A Single Step.
Lessons from the Road
Over 480 miles, Ted saw a landscape littered with abandoned materials — toilets, lumber, piles of debris — signs of stalled projects and a struggling system. He sensed that the Soviet Union was not the unstoppable force many in the West believed it to be.
Two years later, in 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed.
Ted had run through history in motion.
This journey wasn’t about finish lines or trophies. It was about courage, curiosity, and connection — about discovering that even in the most remote corners of the world, kindness can cross any language barrier, and endurance can carry a person far beyond what they ever imagined.
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