Product Description

Drafted into the Soviet Army in April 1984 and sent at the age of 19 to serve in Afghanistan as a minesweeper, Vladislav Tamarov turned in secret to the pen and the camera to chronicle his 621 days of war. Photographs depicting the haunted faces of both soldiers and civilians, the country's mountainous terrain, and the banality of daily life are interspersed with Tamarov's unsentimental but passionate prose.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #68790 in Books
• Published on: 2005-04-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

Customer Reviews

A memoir you will NEVER forget!
Here is a riveting memoir by Vladislav Tamarov. In 1984 men were drafted into the Soviet Army at the age of eighteen. There was no choice. Unless you were in college or disabled, you served. Many men broke their legs to avoid serving. Others, the more wealthy, bribed their way out. Vlad was in college two years when the law changed and he was off to boot camp. Training the men needed, they never received. Training the men did NOT need, they got. (For example, lots of time was spent learning to parachute, even though it was a well known fact that no one used parachutes in Afghanistan.)

Vlad was born January 12, 1965. His "Date of Military Service Application" was April 26, 1984. This memoir really began when an officer walked up to Vlad at a distribution center and asked, "Do you want to serve in the commandos, the Blue Berets?" Vlad kept a tiny calendar where he crossed off his six hundred and twenty-one days, one-at-a-time. Vlad kept detailed records of each mission he participated in. He had his own little code, shown in this memoir. Two hundred and seventeen of those days were spent on combat missions. In addition to Vlad's coded diary, he secretly took many photographs. This book has dozens of the pictures littered throughout, and makes a powerful impact on those who read it.

***** Vlad, a minesweeper, portrays the horrors of war in vivid details. The reader can almost hear the explosions nearby and smell the fear of being shot at. Once you have read THIS book, you will never forget it! *****

Reviewed by Detra Fitch.

A Poignant Account of a Fruitless War
This book is many things, part autobiography, part war journal, and part photojournalism. All its components are equally interesting and poignant. The reader is introduced to a young, naive lad from St Petersburg (Leningrad at that time) who is thrust suddenly from the safe and familiar confines of home to the strange and surreal landscape of war-torn Afghanistan. It is a universal story, told many times in many other accounts, on too many occasions. In all wars, innocence is lost, young soldiers age way too suddenly; one's fundamental way of looking upon the world is inalterably changed.

What distinguishes this book for me particularly is the masterful way Tamarov combines words and photography. Both have a timeless quality to them. The black and white images appear as if they could have been taken in any decade from the 1920's to the present. Most are of Tamarov's Russian compatriots, his fellow soldiers, appearing for the most part drained and curiously detached, as if they had all willed themselves elsewhere, anywhere but the hell they presently occupied. Afghanistan itself is depicted as if in a permanent time warp, eternally unalterable, no matter how many foreign hoards pass through its domain. The accompanying text could also have been written in any decade, describing the soldier's lot at Verdun, at Normandy, and perhaps most especially at Khe Sahn.

Tamarov makes many relevant parallels between the Russian experience in Afghanistan and America's in Vietnam. What is especially tragic is the reception the young soldiers of both wars experienced when they returned home. Unlike the conquering heroes of previous wars, welcomed back with parades and accolades, these young men were met with indifference and even resentment when they got back. Tamarov's account of his meetings with Vietnam vets and their subsequent bonding is one of the really uplifting, yet emotionally charged aspects of the book. The passage in which he recounts visiting the Vietnam War memorial in Washington, DC, is particularly effective.

Vladislav Tamarov, former minesweeper in one of the century's most fruitless and futile military excursions, has rendered an eyewitness account that is extremely relevant at this juncture in world history. Conflicts persist. Politicians continue their saber rattling, whether in Pakistan-India, China-Taiwan, Iraq-US, North Korea-US, Afghanistan, Chechnya. Perhaps it's once again time to consider what war actually does to the young people we send into battle, before we so cavalierly decide to do so again.

BK

Tamarov presents a moving picture
It is intellectually refreshing to read accounts of war by an author who
actually knows what he's talking about. In "Afghanistan: A Russian Soldier's
Story," the author is Vladislav Tamarov, who, at the age of 19, was sent as a young
recruit of the Russian army to fight in Afghanistan. This book is a reflection and a
commentary on that war, a war which not only changed him but had definite
political effects on his entire nation.
But this book is not meant to be viewed as a scholarly tome on the philosophy of
wars; instead, it is one young man's personal treatise on "what it was like to be
mounting a military mission on foreign soil, a mission that, for his nation, turned
out to be quite a failure. What the ingredients were of that failure are still being
debated internationally, but the personal musings on this young man are far from
clinical in its citings. Tamarov transcends the clinical and presents a startling and
poignant perspective on the entire project. It's almost as if Audie Murphy had
written (and photographed) his own days in World War II, it is that gripping.
"Afghanistan: A Russian Soldier's Story" personalizes these young soldiers (often
illustrated by the author's own photography). It is, as Faulkner would say, "full of
sound and fury." Alas, it signifies something, however, to extend the Faulknerian
metaphor, and that something is a combination of pathos, incredulity, shock,
amazement--the whole gamut of startling and revealing emotions. Tamarov's story
reveals the fears, the lack of comprehension of such a mission, the consternation he
feels toward the whole picture of this Soviet move into Afghanistan. As a young
soldier, Tamarov was not privy to the higher political, social, economic, and
religious aspects of his country's undertaking, of course, as few citizens really are.
However, Tamarov was astute enough to keep a private diary and to have a camera
at the ready and when the time came, his views on the whole affair have been
revealed. He, of course, is not alone in these feelings, and his book seems to speak
for Everyman. War is not good, it's not kind, and its aftermath is oftentimes
beyond redemption. But "That is war," he writes. "We didn't invent it but having
been in a war we understand the meaning of the word." And amongst the pages of
this compelling read, Tamarov presents a definition that is at once disturbing and
yet so to the point. War is hell and he shows us circles that even Dante didn't
consider!
"Afghanistan: A Russian Soldier's Story" is a must read for hawks and doves
alike. And while no new theories are advanced (and the author doesn't pretend to
offer any), this depiction of one of civilization's evils is worth the read. One book
and one reader can't stop war, but in his own way, Tamarov has taken his own
"small step for mankind." And it's a start.