Among the Russians

This is an excellent travelogue. Thubron is a vivid writer who paints memorable portrait of the people and places that he explores. The only knock on this book is that it is becoming dated. Originally published in 1983 it tells more about who the Russians used to be, rather than who they are. Still worth a read though.

If this gives any indication of enjoying a book : I read it in two gulps / just could not put it down ! This writer is just captivating . I ESPECIALLY was charmed by the poignant descriptions of peoples' faces .. A MUST READ especially , if you are curious to understand the puzzling dichotomy of repression and, too authentic warmth and hunger for beauty that comprises this fascinating country, Russia.. Spaceba!

Colin Thubron's _Among the Russians_ (1983) offers a compelling picture of the Soviet Union in 1980, at the moment of its serious, irrevocable decline. Thubron examines day-to-day life in Western Russia, Estonia, Belarus ("White Russia"), Ukraine, and Georgia, near the end of Leonid Brezhnev's premiership. He finds despair and cynicism, as well as an unshakeable sense of humor about life under communist rule. Thubron's work is a travel narrative, an account of a car trip that he took alone in 1980 that was planned and approved by the Intotourist, the Soviet tourism board. Traveling as a "building company director," Thubron meets many people along the way. He talks with Russian and eastern bloc tourists at the campsites where he spends the night, locals in cities and towns, and dissidents whose addresses he has received from associates in Great Britain. Thubron also describes run-ins with police officials who are shocked to see a foreigner traveling alone by car in a British car. The first question he is asked while registering for his first overnight campsite stay is "Are you a group?," which Thubron describes as a "quintessential Russian question." Intermingled with his descriptions of the landscape and important historical sites, Thubron recounts various escapades, stories of people offering to buy his clothes (especially his jeans), of the advances lonely women who see him as a way to escape to the West (or to have an escape for a day), of many vodka guzzling evenings, of officious Intourist tourist guides, and of the talk of dissidents who seem unconcerned that their homes are bugged. Thubron offers his own insights about lesser known sites, like the Josef Stalin museum in Gori, Georgia, Stalin's hometown. In an exciting passage near the end of the work, Thubron describes how security personel in two white Volgas tail him all the way to the Romanian border. Throughout, Thubron expresses a Western sensibility and skepticism about the Soviet Union. His narrative mixes a blend of awe for the accomplishments of the Russian people and horror for what the Russians have endured and suffered. In fact, the book begins with an admission of his long-held fears about Russia, dating back to grade school when he first viewed in awe maps of the Soviet Union stretching across the globe. Thubron's prose style is both poetic and urbane (with an impressive vocabulary); he recounts many unforgettable episodes. The book ends where it begins with Thubron marveling at the vastness of Russia, an impression that the reader will remember, too.

As an interested reader of the Soviet Union and Russian culture, I picked this book up two years after I read In Siberia. I was amazed at the amount of detail the author poured into his journeys across the Soviet Union. He was able to visit the Russian citizens, homesteads of famous icons of years back (Tolstoy among them) and see cathedrals we can only see in pictures. His writing style and demeanor may strike readers as distant and unattached but he went over there to observe and he did not observe this place through rose-colored lenses-he showed us what Russia was really like in 1980. If you strictly want to read about Russia, you may be disappointed when you read the material towards the end which is about Georgia and Armenia, but my ignorance of those former republics were replaced with notions that they might be more beautiful and more interesting than all of Western Russia. The whole way through you will be captivated, appalled and intrigued with his journey. This is a must-read for anyone interested in Russian culture.

Ride around with Thubron in the last years of the crumbling Soviet Union. He takes you into the apartment buildings to find some of the most interesting -- and heartening -- testaments to human color ever encountered in travel writing. There are some truly jaw-dropping observations made by our driver as he stumbles upon people who are dealing with oppression in ways that "westerners" have never had to imagine.Through the vodka, through the endlessly repeating housing blocs, Thubron takes us to a deeper, more personal understanding of life under the Soviets. On the way, he introduces us to individuals (yes, strong individuals) that are not easy to forget.