Down the Volga: 2a Journey Through Mother Russia in a Time of Troubles

I read this book while traveling in Russia in 2003. The book covers the changes occuring almost fifteen years prior, when the Soviet Union first experienced the pangs of perestroika. The author envelopes this political time around a journey among friends in an ill-begotten retired Russian navy ship. At all times, the author's trip is threatened by Russia's almost complete lack of amenities for tourism and by frequent document checkers. I found that this echoed my journey, even today: Russia still does not have the kind of facilities for travel that might be found in a place like Guatemala or the Czech Republic, and it operates on a system of negotiated justice. I value the ability of this book to quicky distill a sense of Russian history in a short and breezy tone. This will not replace reading Pushkin and some of the great tomes on the history of the Tsars. It will put some context into how people got by in the era of the Soviet Union. I really enjoyed his explanation of "blat," the Russian term for the currency of favor granting. The choice of the Volga as a subject for a journey into the consciousness of Russia is also appropriate. The author, although a Canadian, explains that the Volga serves to Russia as does the Mississippi in the United States. It is the heartland river that carries freight, serving industry up and down its banks. If fast changes take place in St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Kiev, then they may not reach the burgs of Samara, Kazan, and Volgograd. In my brief trip, I would offer my opinion that even now the evidence of change in Russia has only occurred in its cosmopolitan cities. The Russian countryside remains an ananchronism. I didn't see roads, cars, or even many advertisements to suggest that life in villages linked very much with the outside world. A subtext in this book is a frequent discussion of where and how the Soviet abuse of the environment can be witnessed in Russia. The author explains how the Soviets have turned the Volga into a series of linked pools through dams. One benefit of this plan is that the Volga, which formally swelled many miles during the rainy season, now no longer threatens to flood cities along its path intermittently. Some of the cities on his journey have actually been built almost seven miles inland from the current banks of the river. In Volgograd, formerly known as Stalingrad, the author speaks with a group of industrial workers who want to put air quality on the agenda of bargaining issues. In the upper Volga, the author comes across a group of vacationing ex-firefighters from Chernobyl. In Samara, the author lists the ways that the Lada plant has made the city wretched. This is a worthy book for educating those new to Russia about its historical context. It will bring across a lot to the reader in a quickly understood manner.