1 comments about To a Distant Island.

1. In 1890, Anton Chekhov traveled across Russia to the island of Sakhalin to visit a prison colony there and write a book about what he found. The trip was so arduous as to be almost suicidal, and no-one has ever clearly understood why Chekhov desired such a journey.

   James McConkey's To a Distant Island is partially a chronicle of Chekhov's journey, but there is much more to the book than that. McConkey uses Chekhov's letters, the book he wrote when he returned, and various biographies to weave a speculative narrative. There are many gaps in the documentary evidence, and McConkey fills these gaps in with fictional scenes and suppositions, adding color and depth where previously there have only been shadows. He links moments in the journey to Chekhov's own stories and plays with tremendous insight -- indeed, McConkey's odd book offers some of the best literary criticism of Chekhov written in English.

   Additionally, the book is a sort of memoir. McConkey first discovered Chekhov's Sakhalin letters while traveling in Florence and fleeing depression and discontent with his life, a confluence of psychology and situation which allowed him to be particularly empathetic to Chekhov's journey. At first, his discussion of himself within the book seemed anachronistic and intrusive, but I came to enjoy and even relish the memoiristic elements of To a Distant Island as much as I did the material about Chekhov.

   I don't know of another book like To a Distant Island. It is lyrical, surprising, informative, and deeply affecting. Chekhov comes alive far more in this slim volume than in all the hundreds of pages of Donald Rayfield's exhaustive recent biography. This book could serve as a fine introduction to Chekhov's life and works, it could be tremendously fascinating to people who are already familiar with Chekhov, and I expect it would even prove to be a rewarding read for lovers of literature in general who have no particular interest in Chekhov. At the very least, if you appreciate fine writing, you will appreciate this book.

2 comments about Put Your Best Foot Forward Russia: A Fearless Guide to International Communication & Behavior (Put Your Best Foot Forward Bk. 4).

1. Although this book discusses many important aspects of Russian culture, I felt that it focused a bit too much on bussines. Many of us, like myself, would be visiting Russia not for bussines, rather as tourists. However, some of her remarks did offer some excelent advice about greeting people, eating, and Russian manners. Most topics though seemed a bit too glazed over. I wished that the author would have further discussed many points in her book. Overall, it's a good book to start with. Read it and you will find a taste of what Russian manners are like. Although I would strongly recomend doing further research. Try to find a book that is more current. This book was first published in 1995, many aspects of Russian culture have changed since then.



2. My wife and I read this book and wish we had found it before our two trips to Russia. The book is a quick (75 pages) and easy read; full of useful information without any fluff.

   The only odd thing was advertizing, but it is easy to ignore.

5 comments about Beyond Siberia: Two Years in a Forgotten Place.

1. As I read these other reviews I'm curious if they were reading the same book that I read. I gave it 2 stars only because I have read worse books. That is not to say that the information in the book is not interesting, or heartfelt, but I just feel poorly written. Dirlam repeats herself in many useless issues, such as the numerous times that she metions the reavealing dress of the russian girls. The book is also a bit scattered, it did not flow well. I would recomend against purchasing this book, rather for an excellent book on siberia read Colin Thurbron's "In Siberia" it will delight and amaze you.



2. "Beyond Siberia:Two Years in a Forgotten Place" is a vivid account of an American's experience of living and working in a remote section of Russia. Dirlam's manages to convey objective and insightful views of the people she learned to respect and learn from. It's an especially useful read for anyone planning to work in the Peace Corps, but for those readers like myself, it is one great learning experience that is lacking in many books about Russia. Highly recommended.



3. 'Beyond Siberia'', Sharon Dirlam's account of her two-year sojourn as a Peace Corps teacher brings an unfamiliar part of Russia to life. I found the structure and writing most engaging! While offering a chronological account of hers and her husband's experiences in Birobidjan, Dirlam includes many fascinating details about the life and culture they encountered. 'Zhag za Zhagem' ['step by step', page 54 and later], we see the philosophical and often humorous responses of their Russian friends to the difficult conditions of their daily lives. Dirlam's experience as a travel writer comes through in her vivid observations and pithy reflections.
   
   This book offers a wonderful and varied cast of characters, succinctly telling anecdotes, valuable insights, and some interesting (and not always obvious) contrasts between Russian ways and those of the US. A particularly telling sequence in this regard is the story of Dirlam's return home midway through her tenure in Birobidjan--on Fourth of July.
   
   When I finished this book, I felt like I'd been given a privileged angle of vision on an intriguing part of the world and its inhabitants, the Russian 'Jewish Autonomous Region' as it was once called. Highly recommended to teachers, Peace Corps volunteers, armchair travellers, and anyone with a curiosity about a little-known part of Russia.



4. I enjoyed this book and am grateful for Sharon Dirlam making the effort to write it. Ultimately, though, I found the experience a little hollow. The book is a hybrid of a personal accounting of time and a series of reports on people, places and situations encountered. While some of the anecdotes may border on the banal, it does leave the reader with the sense of sharing the day to day rhythm of life in Birobidjan. However, occasional bursts of color do brighten the prose where the author appears to have taken some inspiration from an event or observation - and these make the book worthwhile.
   
   The disappointing part about the book, though, was that it left me without much of a sense of where Sharon starts her journey, what she and her husband were looking for, or whether they found it. The book screams for answers on these point; the reader is gently picked up at the start and gently let down at the end, but there is little attempt to answer "why?" The author appears to lack a willingness to be vulnerable, choosing instead to make the experience more of a polite conversation with the reader; perhaps unconsciously reinforcing the position stated several times in the book that only those who have been through this experience first hand can really appreciate the anecdotes.



5. I didn't that's for sure. Intrigued, I ordered this book from Amazon.
   
   Sharon Dirlam's report of the two years she and her husband, John McCafferty, spent in Russia's far east is interesting and informative. The time is during the 1990s, so it may be a bit outdated. The personal ways of the Russians I'm sure are not. The book is very much like a long letter assembled from a daily diary. Ms Dirlam is extremely observant, generous and fair. It is a good sample of writing by a Peace Corps volunteer.
   
   The book is a self published low budget production, lacking in photographs except for those on the cover. The binding is poor and my copy began to disintegrate by the time I got to page 20.
   
   I don't think it is appropriate for spouses of authors to write 5 star reviews of their wives books though. It indicates a lack of objectivity and smells of desperation.
   
   The book is worth reading for content and perspective, but most assuredly is not a 5 star production.

5 comments about Ukrainian Phrasebook (Lonely Planet).

1. I bought this to give to a friend. However, at work I was working with some Ukrainian ladies who didn't speak English. I brought this in, and it was very useful.



2. This pocket guide to Ukrainian was indispensible to me during my two week visit to this country. I carried it with me everywhere I went and consulted it almost constantly. In all that time it was always helpful and accurate. The only time it let me down was in drawing a distinction between a wild rabbit and a domestic one. Each word is given in the Ukrainian Cyrillic spelling and then in a phonetic transliteration with accented syllables in bold. Each section has an introductory piece that gives general background information. Useful phrases and sentences followed by a list of major relevant words complete each section. The end of the book has an English-Ukrainian vocabulary. A Ukrainian-English vocabulary would also have been useful, but would have repeated the vocabularies in each section. I can't recommend this book highly enough. Truly invaluable to the clueless traveler.



3. My trip to Ukraine wouldn't have been the same without this wonderful little book. And Ukrainians were flattered that a foreigner tried speaking Ukrainian to them instead of Russian. It contains the phrases you need and easy to understand pronounciation guide. It really helped break the language barrier and I made new friends in a new country. The entire Lonely Planet series is the best among travel guides, and I've travelled a lot using various guides.



4. This little book is terrific for anyone interested in the Ukrainian language. It has very good explanations of the alphabet and grammatical rules of Ukrainian. It also teaches MANY useful phrases and words for the traveler, and it gives phonetic pronunciations of every word and phrase (as well as the actual Cyrillic spelling).
   I have a close friend in Ukraine who has told me that my pronunciation of the Ukrainian words (as they appear in this book) are perfect.
   However, be certain of your purpose for using this book. If you want to learn to speak the Ukrainian language somewhat fluently, it will take a lot more than this book (but this book is an excellent starting point).
   If you are simply planning to travel to one of the major Ukrainian cities (Kiev, Odessa, etc.) in the near future, you would probably be better off with the Russian version of this book instead of Ukrainian. Everybody in the major cities still speaks Russian as their primary language. Most of them understand Ukrainian, but Russian is still the first language for most people. I understand that this is slowly changing (universities, etc. are changing EVERYTHING over to Ukrainian). And if you plan to visit a small town in Ukraine, many of them speak ONLY Ukrainian. My suggestion is to get both the Ukrainian and the Russian versions, so you will be able to communicate clearly no matter where you are.



5. I visited Kiev were they really only speak Russian. They do speak Ukranian but only in the area that is furthest away from the Russian border. Other than that the book was very good and I really enjoyed the tidbits of information in the book.

4 comments about The Rough Guide To St. Petersburg 5 (Rough Guide Travel Guides).

1. This book is a must if you are traveling to St. Petersburg. It has tons of great info and is definately worth the $20 some bucks it cost.



2. While in St Petersburg for several months I stocked up on three guidebooks. The Rough Guide was an excellent way to get to know the city. The amount of information is so dense that it actually becomes a drawback at times. I used the Rough Guide in conjuction with the Lonely Planet guide to St Pete. Together they were a great combination.

   If you want one book that will fill you in on the background of St Pete's and delves in depth into its subject matter this is the guide for you. Or, if you are going on an extended stay- as I was- I can recommend this guide.

   If you're going on a shorter trip you may try the very good (and shorter) Lonely Planet guide.




3. This book was basically the only guidebook that I used for my two week trip to St. Petersburg. It was extremely up-to-date, with only one restaurant we tried out of business (and a friend had eaten there a week before, so it was a recent development), and provided great descriptions for all of the places that we visited, with many details and interesting tidbits. It has a chapter each for the Hermitage and the Russian Museum, with descriptions of what could be found in each room, which greatly assisted in deciding where to devote our time and then to navigate these huge museums. We even found some wonderful, cheap restaurants in the book that our friends living in St. Petersburg had not found. By the end of our trip, we were all speaking of this book in reverential tones and I would highly recommend this book to anyone as their primary guide to St. Petersburg.
   
   The book has a language section, with the cyrillic aphabet, a pronunciation guide, common words and phrases, and terms for foods. This was extremely useful for learning to read cyrillic and to get around. However, I would recommend getting a separate phrase book or dictionary, as even though many of the basics were covered, the language section is just too short to contain everything you're likely going to need to communicate.



4. This book gives ou a nice overview of the region, and incredible specific tips for visiting St. Petersburg.

1 comments about Meteorite Hunter: The Search for Siberian Meteorite Craters.

1. I am surprised to see that no one has reviewed this book until now; it's been out for about two years and the title is certainly intriguing. Anyway, this book contains a nearly homogeneous mixture of essentially two seemingly unrelated subjects: (i) traveling within Russia and (ii) information on meteorites. The first is presented as a travelogue; it includes all sorts of little details on travel problems encountered in Russia (political and otherwise), food eaten, people encountered, etc. Interspersed with this, in each chapter, is fascinating information on meteorites, i.e., their origins, types, composition, behavior upon entering the earth's atmosphere and upon impacting the ground, etc. Each chapter addresses a specific meteorite site that was visited by the author, with the exception of the last chapter which is about comets and asteroids that are out in space and that may or may not pose a threat to life (or some of it) on earth. The book is well written and should be of interest to those planning to travel within Russia, as well as those interested in meteorites; and, of course, those interested in both. I gave the book four stars instead of five because, to me, the two subject areas, which may be worth five stars each, detract from each other. For me, the parts about meteorites per se, were great (five stars); but I found the travel information rather cumbersome - hence an overall four stars.

No comments about Geography of the USSR.

2 comments about St. Petersburg: Russia's Window to the Future, The First Three Centuries.

1. I lived in St. Petersburg for seven years, and of all the books I have read about the City and Russia, this is the most fascinating and thorough. Arthur George is very smart; well educated in many areas: culture, history, law, politics, and philosophy; and has an excellent research colleague in Elena George. Because I lived there, I especially appreciate his historical descriptions of the city, often followed by subsequent and current names of places. I highly recommend this book for anyone who has visited the city, either once or frequently; and it would be a brilliant introduction to anyone planning to go to St. Petersburg for any reason. I definitely appreciate his placing of St. Petersburg into the history of Russia, and his hope that the current Russian Federation administration under Vladimir V. Putin--coming as it does largely from St. Petersburg--will lead Russia away from the two horrible eras dominated by Moscow. My only disappointment is that the book finally ended, although for anyone who has ever visited St. Petersburg there is hope that they will return and be part of its history again.



2. I was born and lived in St.Petersburg for 23 years. I am and will always be in love with this strikingly beautiful, cultural capital of Russia. Arthur George's book is the best book about St.Petersburg I have ever read. The author shows a thorough knowledge of the Russian history, literature and politics, the history of the city and the most famous St.Petersburgers: writers and poets, musicians and artists, politicians.

   Thank you, Arthur and Elena George. Vivat, St.Petersburg!!

2 comments about Kosmos: A Portrait of the Russian Space Age.

1. Having been a Soviet/Russian space enthusiast since childhood, I was naturally excited to learn that Princeton Architectural Press was publishing a photonovel entitled "KOSMOS - A Portrait of the Russian Space Age". This is a finely bound collection of 100 photographs taken by renowned photographer, Adam Bartos between June 1995 and April 1999 at the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

   With great anticipation I opened the book, eager to see new images of Russian space hardware and launch sites. What I found between the covers was much, much more than I expected.

   With his keen photographic skills, Adam Bartos is not only able to take us into areas of the cosmodrome rarely seen by western observers, but into the hearts and souls of some of the key personalities which helped to shape the current climate of what was once the worlds greatest space industry. Through the eyes of the photographer you see rooms well worn with age now silent and barren, and faces whose stares echo ghost of the former Soviet Union. Image after image paints a portrait of contrast between the glorious aspirations of the Soviet future past and the dismal realities of the present day russian space program.

   Enhancing this somber collection of images is an essay written by Svetlana Boym, Professor of Slavic Languages at Harvard University, which poignantly illustrates the mood of the Russian people as radical political change made way to new realities.

   I highly recommend this book, not only to all Russian space enthusiast but also to anyone who has even the slightest interest in the changing climate of the Russian people and how it has affected their once dear space program.




2. As one involved with NASA in the heady days of years past, I had heard talk that Princeton Architectural Press planned to bring out a book of Adam Bartos' photographs of the Baikonur Cosmodrome, and I have been looking forward to Kosmos for some time.

   Kosmos is a sad and poignant portrait--but, alas, an accurate one--of the decline of one of the great technological programs of human history. I don't believe that those who weren't alive at the time can appreciate the reaction of this nation to the launch of Sputnik and the other achievements of the Soviet space program nor can those outside of NASA appreciate the enthusiasm--and gravity--that characterized our efforts to catch the Soviets in the space race.

   Frankly, the faded glory shines through in many of the photographs, and, in the eyes of those caught in the photographs, one still sees glimpses of the spirit, albeit wounded, that drove their space program to its glories. However, in the post-Cold War era, pathos will be the most common reaction of the reader.

   The accompanying essay by Svetlana Boym of Harvard University, unlike those gratuitous essays in many photographic books, contributes to the Kosmos and brings some important insights to the reader unfamiliar with the Soviet program. It is beatifully written and is commended to the readers for their edification.

   All in all, after much anticipation, Kosmos exceeded my expectations and stirred a wave of memories. Congratulations to PAP for their achievement!

No comments about Travels In Russia, The Krimea, The Caucasus And Georgia (Russia observed).