No comments about Russian Ride.

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5 comments about Lost in Mongolia: Rafting the World's Last Unchallenged River.

1. I received this book on Christmas day and, much to the dismay of the rellies, I finished it on the same day. As the miserable weather outside lashed at the windows and my Aunt Jennifer babbled about napkin handling etiquette, I was far removed to another world; a land of gushing rivers, Russian mafia, indigenous people, and non-stop action. "Lost in Mongolia" is a true modern-day adventure and Angus vividly details the trials and tribulations that he and his team encounter as they attempt to become the first to fully navigate the length of the world's fifth longest river. It is obvious that the quest to be "first" comes secondary to the team's desire to simply get out and explore the most remote regions of our planet from a unique perspective. Angus' strongest writing comes through as he describes the varied characters that they enounter the whole way down the river. For me, the most haunting moment came near the end where, at 71 degrees lattitude in the perpetual grey twilight of the tundra, they come across a scattering of human bones, remnants of Stalin's period of terror. And amongst the bones a small rotted leather shoe is found, obviously from a little girl. It is a mystery that leaves the reader feeling uncomfortable, juxtaposed near the team's triumphant ending at the Arctic Ocean.

   This adventure is definitely worth reading about. It is an insightful and difficult journey through one of the last regions on the planet untouched by tourism.




2. I am very concerned that a review of the book "Lost in Mongolia" by my son, Colin Angus, appears under my name in one of a series of reader reviews on your web-site. My name is Valerie Spentzos, and I DO live on Vancouver Island, but there is no way in the world that I would submit a review, plagiarized at that, on any web-site, for a book by a family member. Colin and I believe that someone is using my name (easily discovered in the book), to discredit his favourable reviews. Kindly remove this review, which I certainly did NOT write, from the web-site, and if possible, print my disclaimer, as such dishonesty is really reprehensible.



3. Angus' straightforward and readable tale of daring adventure and relentless stamina is a refreshing insight into one of the least documented regions of earth.

   Although not as well written as the version penned by his expedition team-mate Ben Kozel, "Five Months in a Leaky Boat", it is nonetheless a most enjoyable read and highly recommended to anyone with a spirit of adventure.

   I suggest readers ignore Bozeman's review of this book on this page, as it looks suspiciously like a bad case of sour grapes from someone who didn't have the skills and perseverence to get his own dream expedition up and running.




4. Not knowing anything about Colin Angus and his past heroics, I picked up this book based on a personal interest in Mongolia and the paucity of travel literature on the region. About seventy pages in, I was utterly exasperated by the author's gloating about his impending accomplishment of being with the first documented group of travelers to run the fifth longest river in the world. There's one stretch where he makes no fewer than five comments over a five page span about how he'd be with the "first Westerners to lay eyes on the landscape." In the opening pages, he shows exruciating attention to detail that is irrelevant to the larger story. What's more, he makes a point of documenting instances where he makes his friends laugh, and points out a friend's failed attempt at making him laugh.
   
   And then... his raft flips over, he loses track of his friends for a couple weeks, and as he slips out of self-absorption we actually see a remarkably humanistic portrayal of people in Mongolia and Siberia. There are some really colorful scenes... for example, playing charades and drawing pictures with rural Mongolians to explain his plight when he is lost; hearing about a doctor prescribing vodka for a leg wound; putting up with a babbling stranger who watches them repair a boat and warning them that they would never succeed. Ultimately, this is a heartwarming story, showing remarkable hospitality- warm meals and warm receptions in a cold climate. At one point a Russian sailor stalks him in his cabin as he is trying to write: "Write later. Drink now!" he insists. Angus embraces this hospitality, and as a result the strangers he encounters come to life in the book.
   
   The river journey itself is thrilling- at times the only way I could assure myself that the travelers would survive was the fact that I was holding a finished book in my hands. And it's clear from the reactions the group receives from the locals that their journey is a remarkable feat, and the travelers are goal-driven achievers.
   
   This is actually a very well-written book, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it. You just have to be patient at the start, and the story may win you over just as they were won over by the east Asian hospitality- and the river itself.



5. As an explorer, Collin Angus has a deep respect for the natural wonders of earth. In "Lost in Mongolia," he makes an attempt to give readers a sense of what it is to travel down a river at the mercy of nature and he provides an excellent description of how the river acts like a living being with a personality of its own. Through the discoveries readers make about the process of moving from source to mouth, as well as how the water affects surrounding life, he establishes for others the same appreciation that he has for the Yenisey River. The book also doubles as a documentary of the full length of the waterway that is as unique and surprising as the river itself.
   
   Collin has traveled the world on various expeditions since the age of nineteen and ever since has built up a thirst for exploration and adventure. He has rafted all of the world's major rivers including the Nile, Amazon, and Yangtze, with more adrenaline and fervor each time. Soon, adventure became a regular part of his life and would often turn out to be a priority. The Yenisey was the only major river that had not been fully explored by then, and Collin had become set on changing that fact. Angus has written books on most of his trips, and each one reveals more about his double life as a normal human being and an adventurer.
   
   Though his writing does not use spectacular literary techniques to form a connection with the reader, the amazing detail with which he describes each activity and event of almost every day of his voyage is what captures readers. It successfully reels the reader in, slowly but surely and with increasing intensity, by starting with the everyday and at times, escalating to points of rare or special encounters and events. Though some of the curiosities are rather small and may seem unimportant in the grand scheme of things, by the time the reader reaches the middle of the book, all the little foreign wonders of the journey start to break through and impact the reader with a whole new sense of culture and living in a region unfamiliar to the West.
   
   "Lost in Mongolia" is a relatively simple read for any teen or adult. Through simple writing and connections that are easily made, yet with more than enough individuality and detail to seem as if the memory of the expedition is just as much the reader's as it is Collin's, the documentary successfully leaves the reader with some sort of newfound knowledge of the region. Whether it is appreciation, thrill, or cultural wisdom, it will strike readers on a powerful, personal level that is definitely capable of providing insight much later in life.

1 comments about BETWEEN EAST AND WEST: ACROSS THE BORDERLANDS OF EUROPE.

1. If you have Eastern European roots, this is a fascinating book. Ms. Applebaum has done a brilliant job of describing life in a region where half a dozen cultures have lived side by side

1 comments about Moscow (Insight City Guides).

1. I'd already traveled to Moscow 10 times or so before I bought this guide. However, it showed me places to go and things to do in a great, logical manner with really nice color pictures to go along with it. The maps were helpful. Included info on Metro stops. A friend of mine who also travels on company business to Moscow bought the same book independently. We both thought it was a really great guide. BUY IT!

1 comments about Russian Diary.

1. Charlotte Salisbury regularly accompanied her writer husband Harrison ("The 900 Days -- The Siege of Leningrad") to the former USSR. An accomplished author in her own right, she had a number of Russian friends, and it was for them that she published her candid impressions. "Russian Diary" comes from the perspective of a post-War American tourist who dearly loved Russia and her people, but was critical of the bureaucracy and xenophobia of the Soviet system. In those days, visitors' accomodations and activities were closely regulated by the frustratingly oppressive Intourist. Their comings and goings were monitored, not so clandestinely, by the KGB. And Soviet citizens who associated with Westerners did so at risk to themselves. Mrs. Salizar's independently-minded friends occasionally found themselves summoned and questioned about their conversations and correspondence. But the author's interest was more in everyday life rather than the workings of the government. Her diary describes family relationships, housing, shopping, fashion, dining, transportation, education, and careers, with particular regard to the Soviet concept of Women's Equality. "Russian Diary" provides an interesting contrast to modern conditions for citizens and visitors alike. Russia is one of a few countries which still requires an entry visa, but after perfunctory registration with bored OVIR officials, foreign visitors may reside and travel where they wish. Russians are free to host and escort their American friends anywhere, and to exchange correspondence with them. This book is out-of-print, but worth acquiring from Amazon's affiliates.

4 comments about A Travel Guide to Jewish Russia & Ukraine.

1. Not only informative but terrific reading. It will keep you on the edge of your seat. A travel log that's enjoyable to read whether you visit the places or not. Put on your seatbelt because this is a journey well worth taking!



2. Approximately 120 years ago the majority of the world's Jews lived in what was called the "Pale of Settlement" in the Russian Empire of the Czar. Most American Jews today trace their ancestry to Russia, the Ukraine, and the surrounding territories and provinces of the old empire. Until Communism fell, the Jews of Russia and Ukraine had been suppressed and denied human and religious rights. With the collapse of the Communists, Judaism has emerged from centuries old persecution and pogrom and the synagogues, monuments, schools and other Jewish historical sites are available and accessible to the western visitor. Ben Frank's A Travel Guide To Jewish Russia & Ukraine is an invaluable, highly recommended travel guide for planning and implementing a trip in search of their family heritage and religious roots throughout Russian and the Ukraine.



3. This is a response to an earlier review that contained a major, major Big Lie.

   Specifically, "daryoush" from Seattle, in the course of commenting upon this book and expressing interest in a book about "recent Jewish history" in Lebanon, West bank and the Gaza strip, says the following:

   "I like to better understand the Israeli massacres in the refugee camps."

   He/she also goes on to make several other specious statements including usage of the term "concentration camps."

   Daryoush's statement is a Big Lie masquerading as a review. I have serious reservations about his/her agenda, but setting that aside for a second, the deaths in the refugee camps (that I assume he refers to, related to the 1982 war in Lebanon) were not "Israeli massacres." They were carried out, by all credible accounts, by Lebanese militiamen arguably under Israel's influence. This is not to excuse the killings, nor even Sharon's alleged negligence or complicity, but even in the worst case terming them "Israeli massacres" is simply inaccurate.

   One has to wonder about the mindset of someone who would use such a term.

   The need to respond to such garbage is a sad commentary upon the state of discourse on Israel and our times generally.

   - Ezra in Minnesota




4. As a part of a Jewish community in Western Ukraine I am well aware of the problems the citizens of Ukraine are facing be they Ukrainians, Russians or Jews.
   
   I found this book worth of interest -- unfortunately it has too many minor factual and other mistakes that make it not applicable for the purposes I needed it for.
   
   The entire Ukrainian part should be reworked if the author ever plans to publish it again -- to make Ukrainians less bloodthirsty and a little bit closer to what they are in reality (if they were that bloodthirsty as the author portrays them to be how possibly could Jews have survived living side by side with Ukrainians for one thousand years?)
   A consultation with a specialist in Ukrainian history will be a must as well as a thorough fact-checking.
   Petliura was never a bandit. As a matter of fact he heavily prosecuted any demonstrations of anti-Semitism in the army he was in charge of. The guy who killed him just ate too much of Soviet propaganda.
   Besides, the author who meticulously mentions participation of Ukrainians in the Holocaust fails to mention that among Ukrainians there were a lot of those who risked their lives and lives of their families to rescue Jews.
   When talking about Babi Yar, he never mentions that exterminations were held there for 2 years -- and the Jews were killed there during the first week. After that it was prisoners of war, Ukrainian nationalists, Gypsies, gays and lesbians, and a lot of other people.
   
   If he wants to write the story of Jews in Ukraine he has to be better informed.
   What would be also nice is consistent spelling of names of the cities -- in compliance with Ukrainian tradition, not with Russian.
   
   Also the author could have better harnessed his anti-Ukrainian stance:
   for example, when he is writing about the Jewish memorial in Babi Yar he writes:
   [I am giving an exact quote]
   p.335
   Only in 1991, when the menorah memorial was erected [...] did the Ukrainian government dedicate and recognize the spot as the area where Jews were killed and buried.
   
   Just for reference: Ukraine regained its independence on August 24, 1991.
   It was not able to recognize it earlier officially because it did not have its own government.
   
   The last but not the least: the author fails to learn the difference between the Russian and the Soviet. When writing about history of the 20th century it is indeed a major difference.

5 comments about Leaving Earth: Space Stations, Rival Superpowers, and the Quest for Interplanetary Travel.

1. One of two aspects of Mr. Zimmerman's book that most reviewers seem to have missed is his recounting of the many errors, problems, and dilemmas, large and small, trivial and hazardous, that the cosmonauts encountered. Mysteriously missing antennae, fogged-over helmet visors, balky space ship hatches and no power are just some of the hardships that had to be surmounted.

   Another aspect of the book is the recounting of the many personality conflicts between the cosmonauts. Grueling work schedules, close quarters, and differing backgrounds of the cosmonauts drove wedges between the crew members. Oftentimes they would just stop speaking to each other. Other times, the crew member with the higher ranking would pull rank in the most inconsiderate manner.

   I found the examination of these weaknesses (structural and psychological) to be fascinating. They brought a human element to the book and made it a very interesting recounting. The same holds true for the examination of how politics, economics, and the fall of the Soviet government changed the Russian space program.

   I highly recommend this enjoyable and informative book




2. Every page of this interesting book is packed with details of the evolution of the Russian manned space program. It is very well researched and Robert Zimmerman does an excellent job describing the interaction between on-the-ground politics and space science. The stories of life, survival and endurance on the space stations is facinating. This book is a must read for anyone who is interested in the history of man's quest for conquering the many problems of surviving in the harsh space environment.



3. Robert Zimmerman, space historian and enthusiast, combines a love of technical issues with extensive background research in this account of the nine space stations flown so far by the Soviet Union (now Russia) and the United States. As the full title suggests, Zimmerman sees an important rarely stated purpose for the stations: learning how to maintain, operate, and work within vessels that closely resemble those that will first carry humans between the planets.
   
   This detailed historical account of space station development is a powerful demonstration of how people have learned critical skills for living in space through repeated failure of almost every imaginable variety.
   
   Today we remember Mir and Skylab, but the early Soviet Salyut stations were where much of the real learning happened. Fires, propellant leaks, repeated docking failures and failures in all sorts of science experiments (particularly attempts at plant growth) characterize much of the early history. Failures in crew relationships were at least as frequent - some crews (generally 2 men for the Salyuts) got along famously, but others quickly got on one another's nerves and bitterly endured through months of orbital isolation.
   
   Human failure is here too - the toothaches, infections and heart problems of normal life, and then also the worrying problem of loss of bone mass - up to 2 percent a month, in zero gravity. And political failure, which showed up in relationships with ground controllers who seemed to cease caring, in later years, about what were very serious problems in orbit.
   
   The first failures were docking problems, and sadly, the loss of three cosmonauts. Brezhnev gave the go-ahead to the Salyut program apparently to improve international public relations for the Soviet Union, and so missions were much more public than they had been in the past. Soyuz 10, the first mission to Salyut 1, failed in attempts to dock, and had to return. Soyuz 11, carrying a last-minute crew, successfully docked, and was met by the smell of burning insulation when they opened the hatch. At least half the equipment they'd been asked to work with didn't work
   as planned in zero gravity. The three men spent three weeks on the station, dealt with another electrical fire, broadcast to the world from orbit, and managed to magnify a few personality conflicts along the way. And then, in their descent module shortly after leaving the station, a pressure equalization valve opened, and, despite their best efforts, they were dead in minutes.
   
   The US Skylab came next, and it too started in failure - the last launch of a Saturn V rocket - during launch part of the meteor/heat shield was ripped away, destroying one solar panel and tangling another so it could not open, and exposing the workshop enclosure to direct sunlight, raising its temperature to as high as 130 degrees (F). Skylab's first crew, launched 10 days later, managed to fix essentially all the problems (except for the lost solar panel) through ingenuity and hard work.
   
   Follow-on crews learned a lot about living in space - but ironically, the science experiments approved did not include any of the plant-growth experiments the Soviets were so keen on - growing plants in zero gravity was not something US scientists were funded to study, despite the apparent usefulness for long-term living in space.
   
   The Soviet Salyut stations followed one after another; the first really successful one, as described by Zimmerman, being Salyut 6, launched in 1977. They had learned a lot from earlier failures and experiences, and now had a station that could sustain itself for long periods in orbit, with human assistance. Salyut 6 had a fire too - these early experiences with fires in space explain why the later fire on Mir was much more frightening to the American on board, than to the Russians. Salyut 7, which was still orbiting when Mir's first pieces launched in 1986, suffered a very severe propellant leak that nearly disabled the station; a later crew ripped open the outer shell of the station to get at the various bits of tubing they needed to test and replace, and managed to make the repairs needed over a series of space walks
   that amounted to more than all previous Soviet space walks combined.
   
   The Russians had learned how to deal with problems in space, how to fix them with their own ingenuity. Since Salyut 1 they have not lost a single person, not even had any severe injuries. There had certainly been some very close calls - the fire on Mir and the later collision of a Progress freighter with the station could have been very serious. But somehow they managed, through luck and ingenuity, to keep things working. As Zimmerman puts it, the station had proved that the technology for going to other planets was available, and buildable. "Provide human beings with the necessary tools and supplies and they can go anywhere."
   
   The Soviet space program had become, in the new Russia, independent and profit-oriented - driving hard bargains and keeping a technology edge. In the US, in contrast, things had become very rigid, bureaucratic, and "focusless". In Zimmerman's phrase, the two "ships passed in the night": America's efforts in space now resemble those of the early Soviet Union; astronauts have little freedom to do their own things, with everything prescribed down to the minute. No room for learning, or ingenuity among those who are actually experiencing spaceflight firsthand. Problems and risks are ignored or downplayed by the bureaucracy. Commonsense is thrown out the window. And tourists like Dennis Tito are seen as threats, not vindication.
   
   One of the strengths of Zimmerman's book is the focus on the people - but this also leads to many somewhat formulaic biographies of many cosmonauts and figures such as Boris Yeltsin. The psychological interactions among the different crews are certainly interesting, as are all the wonderful historical details Zimmerman has dug up. A great book for space history buffs, and anybody interested in the experiences of the first to practice what we'll need to do to travel between the planets.



4. Zimmerman's book is the detailed story of the first space stations. Anyone interested in manned spaceflight should
   read it. My criticisms would be of two sorts; First, he speculates too much about the politics behind the decisions. I especially object to the all too american right-wing bias in his judgements. Secondly, he fails to make connections with the concurrent unmanned space research. "Exploration" is not humans going places and doing sightseeing. Exploration is doing science and doing science is more about unmanned spaceflight.



5. This book was quite interesting and eye-opening in many ways. I have to agree with one of the back-cover reviews that many Americans, even ones very familiar with NASA and western space activities, don't know much about all that the Russians have been doing in space since the 1970's. At least that applied well to me.
   
   The overall focus is on space station research since the 1970's, which necessarily centers on the Soviets/Russians, esp. the Salyuts and Mir. The account is fascinating, detailing crew working relationships and personality conflicts, medical research on long-term zero-G flights, space greenhouses and biology experiments, and many, many instances where cosmonauts and ground controllers had to improvise repairs to keep things working. It's a survey account, and a good jumping-off point to get into this subject more deeply. The bibliography has some very good references here.
   
   I also enjoyed very much the author's focus on using space station research as a means towards preparation for interplanetary flight. That's an angle you don't hear much. (Though I don't believe he addressed the question: If you're studying bone less etc so much, then why don't you also study the possibility of artifical gravity through rotating stations?)
   
   There were a couple criticisms. Photographs would have been nice, and the diagrams could have been labelled better. The author tends to romanticize and not really express the gravity of some Russian near-catastrophes in space. He presents a fairly one-sided view of ISS, though his points are well taken about NASA's over-control and bureaucratic tendencies.
   
   Overall though, I enjoyed very much the spirit of the book. The focus was on using Space Station research to learn how to live and work in space and for possible missions of the future, rather than as a jobs program. The Russians are shown as being inventive and clever, conducting solid research and solving multiple problems with limited resources. There are some very nice passages about what it's like to experience space, especially seeing the universe when out on spacewalks. It gets one thinking about what might be accomplished in the years ahead, given a similar attitude.

5 comments about The Impossible Journey.

1. In this book Georgi and Marya start to search for their parents. They head to a train station where they buy train tickets with the money Marya earned from her paintings and other art work. The train takes them to Moscow and then they get on another train at the Trans-Siberian Railroad. On the train a man with two children tell them his name is Mr. Globov. His wife's name is Olga and his kids names are Nikolai and Yuri. Soon the man finds out that they are trying to find their parents and they don't have passports.. So the family takes them in and helps them by claiming them as their kids on their family passport. Once they get off the train they have to cross the Yenisey River. Once they pass the river Marya and Georgi go to a shop there Georgi gets a globe with a cottage and snow in it.They get a ride from a man with a boat. He says he will take them to a village but instead he takes them to his cottage. Finally his wife helps them excape. However, before they left the man tought Georgi how to fish and went on walks and discovered a lot of good creations. Meanwhile, everyday of the journey Marya put a twig in her pocket and later counted them up after they got to their destination.



2. In this book, Marya and Georgi are out on an exciting adventure. Their Parents were arrested after the assassination of the Russian president. On their long adventure they come across some wild animals and an Indian tribe. Will they find their Mama? Will they finds their Papa? Will they survive? Find out in The Impossible Journey. This book is great for the whole family. You will enjoy it.



3. This is the story of a young girl who drags her younger brother from St. Petersburg Russia to an outpost in Siberia in an attempt to reunite with their exiled mother; exiled by the secret police to this far-away place. First they journey by train, then by river, and finally by an even more unusual method. Their father, by the way, had been arrested by Soviet police officers and sent away as well, but his destination couldn't be determined by the children; whereas they were able to learn their mother's whereabouts. This book thus is a grand adventure story (written for young readers), but interesting on another level as well. For the book does provide a semblence of what life was like in the Soviet Russia, and provides a window into that society wherein people were arrested for no reason in the dead of night, seemingly at random, just to keep the citizens of the country passive & afraid. Moreover, the (limited) historical details presented herein are actually factual so those unfamilar with the events of this era will learn a few things. One character in the book helpfully explains a parable within this story of how a bear gets upstaged by a younger, quicker one. "When you make our leader look weak you put all of us in danger." Substitute these bears for the leader of Soviet Russia and the Communist Party chief at the time of the city of St. Petersburg (then called Leningrad) and you have the basis for this novel. A charismatic man by the name of Sergei Kirov was the city chief & the person who was apprehensive of this growing ever-more-popular person was dictator Josef Stalin. A character within the story herein classifies real-life Kirov as "our best hope," but it isn't to be as Kirov is gunned down in cold blood in 1934 (The world-famous Kirov Ballet company is named after this man, incidentially). Historians (in particular, Amy Knight & Robert Conquest) have persuasively shown how Stalin himself was behind this murder; to remove a potential rival in the making. Stalin then used this incident as an excuse to crack down on all potential Kirov sympathizers to consolidate his (Stalin's) own hold on power (since there weren't elections in Soviet Russia & a leader could only be forced out by those around him). "It's people like you," a politcal official thus tells an arrested citizen "who are responsible for Kirov's murder." And it was people like that who were arrested and sent off to God knows where---like the parents of the children of this story---traumatizing people far and wide across the Soviet Union so that leaders like Stalin who ran the country from Moscow could continue to do so as they liked. The Soviet Union/ USSR no longer exists, of course, but the legacy of Communist leaders such as Stalin still does linger over Russia even now as it tries to put the nightmare of Communism behind it. And this short entertaining book is a fine introduction to that era for young readers. (06Jun) Cheers!



4. Our family recently returned from an extended stay in Russia. My 11-year old has read all of the books in this series and loves the link to Russian history and the characters of the children in the books.



5. Gloria Whelan is a master of dealing with runaways and orphans. This book is no exception.
   
   A brother and a sister must travel to Siberia to find their mother after she is sent to a work camp following her husbands arrest. Both children attempt to deal with their emotions as they try to make it hundreds of miles from their home.
   
   The real question is, do they make it?

No comments about Doing Business And Investing in Russia (World Business, Investment and Government Library) (World Business, Investment and Government Library).