Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #106162 in Books
• Published on: 2007-02-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Synopsis
Documents Daniel Kalder's travels in the bizarre and mysterious worlds of Russia's ethnic republics.

Customer Reviews

Deliberately lazy
I have nothing against a casual style of writing, in fact travel writing often works better when you can identify with the person. But here Daniel Kalder seems to be deliberately trying to annoy people with his attitude. For example, in the chapter on Kalmykia (which by the way, having been there, is nothing like he describes) he starts to translate a Russian poem but instead of doing the whole thing writes the word "something" so often that the poem is incomprehensible. He then defends this by saying he "couldn't be bothered" to get his dictionary. This is obviously either supposed to be funny or endearing, as I can't believe that throughout the several years it must have taken him to research and write this book, and then find some fool to publish it, he had no time to get a dictionary out. The section where he imagines that his friend gets his brains blown out by a Russian policeman was needlessly shocking and entirely gratuitous.

I've not been to any of the other three places he talks about, but after reading the section on Kalmykia and finding it so completely misrepresented I have little faith in what he writes about the others.

So, instead of buying this self-absorbed and entirely pointless book, I have two alternative recommendations:
1. Go to Kalmykia. It is lovely. The people are friendly, there's never any rain and the capital city is green and pleasantly litter-free.
2. If you want a book about interesting places that is funny (and actually bothers to be well-researched too) then have a look at the work of Dixe Wills instead. He's like a Douglas Adams of quirky travel writing.

Great book!
I really enjoyed this book! There is something poetic in Kalder's writing that I haven't encountered before. Highly recommended!

Making great the bad places
Did you know there was a Buddhist republic in Europe? And a desert for that matter? Or a pagan republic? Russia stretches from Eastern Europe to Alaska and contains many semi-autonomous republics - they have their own presidents, their own TV stations, their own heroes and legends and, of course, their own corruption, brutality, and cities dedicated to chess. They just don't have tourists.
Kalder sets out as an 'anti-tourist' visiting these undesirable places and casting a realistic eye over them and their prospects; yet the same eye also contains a deep empathy towards these people and their invisible countries. Kalder's black humour carries the book from history to personal encounter (or non-encounter) with ease, and his revelations broaden out the view well beyond four republics you've never heard of.

Kalder states at the beginning that 'travel rarely broadens the mind', and travel books even more rarely do so. But this one does, brilliantly.