Lost Cosmonaut: Observations of an Anti-Tourist [Paperback]

Daniel Kalder (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 29, 2006

Daniel Kalder belongs to a unique group: the anti-tourists. Sworn to uphold the mysterious tenets of The Shymkent Declarations, the anti-tourist seeks out the dark, lost zones of our planet, eschewing comfort, embracing hunger and hallucinations, and always traveling at the wrong time of year. In Lost Cosmonaut, Kalder visits locations that most of us don't even know exist -- Tatarstan, Kalmykia, Mari El, and Udmurtia. He loves these places because no one else does, because everyone else passes them by.

A tale of adventure, conversation, boredom, and observation -- occasionally enhanced by an overactive imagination -- Kalder reveals a world of hidden cities, lost rites, mail-order brides, machine guns, mutants, and cold, cold emptiness. In the desert wastelands of Kalmykia, he stumbles upon New Vasyuki, the only city in the world dedicated to chess. In Mari El, home to Europe's last pagan nation, he meets the chief Druid and participates in an ancient rite; while in the bleak industrial badlands of Udmurtia, Kalder searches for Mikhail Kalashnikov, inventor of the AK-47, and inadvertently becomes a TV star. An unorthodox mix of extraordinary stories woven together with fascinating history, peculiar places, and even stranger people, Lost Cosmonaut is poetic and profane, hilarious and yet oddly heartwarming, bizarre and even educational. In short, it's the perfect guide to the most alien planet in our cosmos: Earth.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

When Kalder tells a passenger on a train to Kazan, the capital of the Russian republic of Tatarstan, that he and his friends are just tourists, she's convinced he's either stupid or lying. After all, who would willingly visit what turns out to be "a fairly sleepy provincial Russian city distinguished by a big mosque" and a McDonald's? But Kalder, a Scottish writer living in the former Soviet Union, is fascinated by the rundown "pseudo-countries" we never hear about in the news, believing them to be symbolic of all humanity. His "appetite for black holes" eventually leads to further travels in Kalmykia, Mari El and Udmurtia. Unfortunately, while his rhetorical enthusiasm remains strong throughout, a certain repetitiveness creeps in. Kalder wanders around the depressingly grim surroundings, cobbles together whatever cultural facts he can find online and has mostly frustrating encounters with the locals ("I don't much like talking to people"). And while his real-life misadventures, like a visit to a sacred pagan grove with a high priest he meets through a mail-order bride distributor, are outlandish enough, he still engages in distracting fabrications and daydreams. Kalder's refusal to set himself up as an international expert is admirable, but his depiction of the remote republics of a "shadow Europe" remains uneven. B&w photos throughout. (Aug.)
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From Booklist

Adhering to an "anti-tourist" manifesto that demands the pursuit of the obscure and the bizarre, as well as an acceptance of hardships, Scottish-born Kalder reports on his travels through Eastern European republics little known and rarely visited by outsiders, for example, Tatarstan, Kalmykia, Mari El, and Udmurtia. Kalder lingers over cultural oddities such as Peter the Great's collection of embalmed dead babies, and does an extensive job of interlinking his detailed observations of each place to the larger world. In fact, so focused is he on miniscule facts, they overrun the narrative. Still, Kalder's adventures are daring and make for exciting reading, and he is witty and outspoken enough to raise eyebrows. Yet for all the can-you-believe-it? descriptions and hip commentary, the "why" is missing, the traveler's analysis that enriches the best of travel writing. But even this lack of dimension doesn't keep Kalder's tales of anti-tourist wanderings from being cool, wry, lively, and fun. Mark Eleveld
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Scribner; Original edition (August 29, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743289943
• ISBN-13: 978-0743289948
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #813,277 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Making great the bad places, August 19, 2006

By 

D. Humphries "dhumphd" (Sendai, Japan) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Lost Cosmonaut: Observations of an Anti-Tourist (Paperback)

Did you know there was a Buddhist republic in Europe? And a desert for that matter? Or a pagan republic? Russia stretches from Eastern Europe to Alaska and contains many semi-autonomous republics - they have their own presidents, their own TV stations, their own heroes and legends and, of course, their own corruption, brutality, and cities dedicated to chess. They just don't have tourists.
Kalder sets out as an 'anti-tourist' visiting these undesirable places and casting a realistic eye over them and their prospects; yet the same eye also contains a deep empathy towards these people and their invisible countries. Kalder's black humour carries the book from history to personal encounter (or non-encounter) with ease, and his revelations broaden out the view well beyond four republics you've never heard of.

Kalder states at the beginning that 'travel rarely broadens the mind', and travel books even more rarely do so. But this one does, brilliantly.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An awesome meandering journey of nothing and everything, April 6, 2008

By 

Joseph "josephcn" (SAN ANTONIO, TX, United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Lost Cosmonaut: Observations of an Anti-Tourist (Paperback)

This book was an excellent read for those who enjoy imagining yourself appearing on the other side of the world with little or no money. It takes the reader on a visual and personal narrative of exploring obscure regions of Russia. Starting with a more well known region it trails down to the Russified plains of things that used to be. If you enjoy non-fiction reads like Hot House or other honest journeys into abandoned places you will enjoy this book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An irreverent dash through lands that time nearly forgot, July 20, 2008

By 

Jacqueline Elizabeth Teti - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lost Cosmonaut: Observations of an Anti-Tourist (Paperback)

Kalder's 'Lost Cosmonaut' veers between serious and flippant in its treatment of four semi-autonomous Russian republics. He covers Muslims and Stalinists in Tatarstan, pagans and wedding agencies in Mari-El, exiled Buddhists, chess and Chuck Norris in Kalmykia, the Kalashinakov and his own unwillingness to become an 'expert' in Udmurtia. Kalder treats everything with a dry, black Scottish humor, occasionally accompanied by an outburst of entertaining obscenities, but at no point does he patronize the locals with either a scientific chin-stroking wonder or a National Geographic photographic sensibility. Deliberately distanced from the people he meets, the narrative is ironic enough to carry off occasional (and obvious) outrageous lies, like hallucinations in the Russian steppe. Kalder describes life in these republics as a combination of chance, boredom, cold obstruction, hope and self-creation, and the book reads like that itself. If you just want a laugh, it works, if you want to know about these people and places, it works, but if you want something more, it excels.