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Rating: 
Summary: Detailed account of travels through a vast land
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Flower in the Crannied Wall
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Flower in the Crannied Wall
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: A trip through the Soviet Union
Review: Written by someone who somehow managed to drive a clunker with UK plates through the Iron Curtain between West and East Germany and all the way to Moscow. Thubron then motors all the way to present day Azerbaijan and St.Petersburg. It is a snapshot not of present day Russia but of 1980 Soviet Union. The faint glimmers of hope that these people held on to and their continual amazement at the fact the author would explain the West was afraid of them are an excellent historical reference. Told that we are the threat to the Soviet Union a lot of the people were both in awe and afraid of the author. The amazing fact that he camped his way around a closed country is a great read of how they perceived us as much as a straight travelogue. Well recommended
Rating:
Summary: A trip through the Soviet Union
Review: Written by someone who somehow managed to drive a clunker with UK plates through the Iron Curtain between West and East Germany and all the way to Moscow. Thubron then motors all the way to present day Azerbaijan and St.Petersburg. It is a snapshot not of present day Russia but of 1980 Soviet Union. The faint glimmers of hope that these people held on to and their continual amazement at the fact the author would explain the West was afraid of them are an excellent historical reference. Told that we are the threat to the Soviet Union a lot of the people were both in awe and afraid of the author. The amazing fact that he camped his way around a closed country is a great read of how they perceived us as much as a straight travelogue. Well recommended
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