Customer Reviews

Among the Russians

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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.

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.

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.

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

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!

This is a good account of traveling through Russia in recent times. For a similar travel narrative try Tent Life in Siberia: An Incredible Account of Siberian Adventure, Travel, and Survival - minus 120 years and a vehicle, but with the engaging addition of battling against the brutality of the Siberian climate.

As a cultural anthropologist who was been living and working in St. Petersburg, Russia for several years I can recommend this book for only what it is now. This is a travel narrative written over a period of weeks by one person, who did not speak Russian, in a tightly regulated tourist industry. Firstly, most people would agree that not speaking a language of a culture seriously inhibits your ability to assess what is actually happening and why. Secondly, at the time this was originally written, the Soviet Union, nor anyone else thought that it was in decline (1980 was also the year that the Olympics were held in Russia and an year after the invasion of Afghanistan)and seeing it as such is only because of hindsight.

Thuborn's travel is from the in-tourist perspective, several other Western travelers who visited for conferences and business trips might explain something completely different. I know one such American photographer, Demarest Peterson, who traveled to Russia in the 1950's who was virtually uninhibited by the tourist guides from the in-tourist department, and was even able to take pictures of worshipers in a Russian Orthodox church during this time!

Consider the alternative, imagine a Russian who was able to visit the US, under false pretenses, at about the same time, alone, poor in English and by car (if this would ever have been allowed). Would they be allowed to travel independently? Probably not. Would they be monitored by governmental officials? Probably yes. Would they be requested to join an official tour group to "give them a better traveling experience" (to keep an eye on them)? Yes, most certainly. Would their documents have been examined? Yes. Seeing it from the other side may help to explain the experiences that Thuborn had. Very few traveled to Russia from the West during this time which may help to explain the enigma of Russia more than one persons two week journal.

I can recommend this book from only this perspective, as a historical narrative, and not as something to be considered for 2010. Russia has changed greatly in the last 10 years alone and it resembles nothing of the Soviet Union in 1980. If taken as a guide this book, now, will only heighten one's sense of cultural shock. And when you return, write of your own experiences, they are sorely needed.

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.

I wondered, when ordering "Among the Russians", whether the fact that it had been written a quarter of a century ago, about a world that had apparently disappeared, would detract from the impact of the journey. I need not have worried as it has the immediacy of a trip completed yesterday.
The book perhaps - and understandably so - does not quite have the fine polish of the recent "Shadow of the Silk Road", my first experience of Thubron, but is none the less beautifully written and absolutely fascinating. The combination of the unorthodox travel arrangements for the time (a car), the poetic and precise (I checked Google Images while reading "Shadow of the Silk Road"!) descriptions of places, the intimate and thoughtful portraits of people and, particularly impressive, the provision of a detailed historical context, make for a compelling read. Extra thrills, including a dramatic conclusion to the book, were thoughtfully provided by the KGB.
With all this it might seem unnecessarily querulous to ask for more. But in both these books we are left with a feeling that the author has, perhaps unconsciously, fenced off a part of his personality and his activities. In this age of "letting it all hang out" we are sometimes left with unanswered questions, sometimes on simple practical matters.
On the one hand, a voyage, especially a solitary one, involves constant and often stressful interaction between the traveler and his surroundings. We do see a lot of this but are often left trying to imagine details. On the other, it is often marked by long periods of silence when the traveler, a long way from home, will reflect on his life, loves, beliefs and hopes. Aside from a few memorable incidents, we do not see very much of this.
A writer is fully entitled to reveal, or to hide, as much as himself as he chooses. But a bit more of Colin Thubron, the man, would give his travel books an additional vital dimension. Perhaps - after reading "In Siberia" - I should try his novels!

I should preface my review by making it clear that I am not generally a fan of hyper-descriptive, verbose writers in the vein of Hemingway. That said/understood, I found Among the Russians to be so long-winded and detail oriented (in terms of describing places, buildings, forests, etc) that it was difficult to get a sense of the people. He interjects tales of his human interactions sparingly and a bit chaotically, so it isn't the type of book that I enjoy. A balance of description, history, and on-the-ground human interaction is key in making a book like this readable and entertaining. His style misses this by quite a bit. That said, it is an interesting account of 1980's Soviet Russia. It is what it is, but it's definitely not my favorite.