Pushkin House and the Great Britain-Russia Society invite you to an evening with Charlie Walker who will discuss his new book On Thin Ice with Joe Luc Barnes. On Thin Ice describes Walker’s 600-mile walk along a zimnik (a winter ice road cleared on the surface of a river) in Siberia's Sakha Republic in early 2022.

Walker started his journey in mid-February 2022, with the aim of reaching small indigenous groups living in the far north while experiencing winter in the taiga and on the tundra. However, a few days after his arrival, Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. He seized the opportunity to chart the opinions of ordinary citizens living in the Arctic north of Russia’s Far East. Over the following two months of camping in temperatures down to -50ºC, he visited fast-dwindling communities of Sakha pastoralists and Eveny reindeer herders. Increasingly, the topic of the “special military operation” pushed its way to the forefront of every interaction, and Walker encountered a wide range of opinions. Ultimately, his presence attracted the attention of the authorities and upon completing the hike he was arrested and spent four weeks behind bars.

Charlie Walker is an adventurer and travel writer specialising in human-powered expeditions. Over the last 15 years, he's covered more than 60,000 miles by foot, horse, bicycle, ski, kayak and dugout canoe. Among other places, he has traversed the Tibetan plateau, Mongolian steppe, Congolese Jungle, Arctic Tundra, New Guinean highlands and the Sahara Desert. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a four-time recipient of the "Mad but Marvellous" award, and his work has featured in The Sunday Times, The Sunday Telegraph, Geographical Magazine and the BBC. On Thin Ice (Duckworth, June 2026) is Walker’s third book. 

Joe Luc Barnes spent six years living in former Soviet countries from 2014, has a Master's degree in Russian and East European Studies from Oxford University and now reports from the region as a journalist. His work has been published in outlets including the Financial Times, The I Paper, Nikkei, The Diplomat and the Times of Central Asia, where he is also an editor. He is the author of Farewell to Russia: A Journey Through The Former USSR (Elliott and Thompson, March 2026), which describes the visits he has made since February 2022 to all 15 former USSR republics.

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