- Actress/activist/supermodel Irina Pantaeva journeys from the catwalks of jet set fashion back to her roots in Siberia--the remote world of the Buryats, a nomadic Mongolian tribe with a long history of political and cultural upheaval.
- This is a character driven story of one immigrant's journey and success, her endangered culture in Siberia and her battle with communist authorities in the former Soviet Union. Among the issues covered are the effects of the downfall of the Soviet system and the collective farms, and the revival of Buddhism and Shamanism through the eyes of author, actress and fashion icon Irina Pantaeva and her family. It is a long way from Ninth Street and Astor Place in New York's hip East Village to Southern Siberia. Yet Irina makes the trip through 14 time zones. The Buryat-Mongol community was the largest ethnic indigenous community in Siberia in 1911. Stalin imposed collectivization on the Mongols as well as other peoples under Soviet control starting in 1929. In Buryatia and Mongolia, people were dispossessed of their farms and herds, including the Pantaeva family. Born into a family of artists and shaman, their daughter came of age amidst the repression of the final years of the Soviet Union at a time when arts were censored and individuality stifled. Her parents' life was rooted in theater but they refused to join the Communist Party. Their daughter struggled against all odds to find her own path to the freedom she had dreamed of for so long. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the story of her struggle was told in part in her critically acclaimed memoir, Siberian Dream, published in 16 countries and translated into 14 languages. Irina Pantaeva's hypnotic eyes, high cheekbones and slim five foot ten inch frame may be more familiar than her name. She broke racial barriers with her unique look and found her way onto the runways in Moscow, Paris, and New York in the 1990s. She made a cameo appearance in Woody Allen's film Celebrity and was featured in the TV series Third Rock From the Sun and New York Undercover.—Janet P. Gardner
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