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Smashed in the USSR: Fear, Loathing and Vodka on the Steppes
For forty years Ivan Petrov careered, stumbled, staggered and rampaged all over the vast Soviet empire. Homeless (an illegal condition in the communist utopia), in and out of prison camps, almost always drunk, and with a gift for hilariously sending up the tragic absurdities of Soviet life, Ivan was a real-life Svejk. This is his unforgettable story, as told to Caroline Walton just before his death.
256 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 27, 2016
When I picked up this book I only knew what the cover told me. The memoirs of a homeless alcoholic living in the Soviet Union at a time in history where both homelessness and alcoholism were illegal. The story of a man who from his very early days struggled with his identity and did not desire to lead his life as society wanted him to. The book is filled with pure insanity and drinking stories unlike most I've encountered. The people he comes across and the moments they share go from devastating to touching. Worst of all is his realisation that he doesn't want more from life. He wants to drink and not have to make money to live. That is what he tells us anyway, but his despair rears its ugly head throughout the book. I'd be hard pressed to find someone who enjoys drinking nail polish, dandruff shampoo or perfume for its alcohol content.
His many sentences served at different camps, treatment centers and prisons are vividly described in horrific detail and the books gives a very personal view of the Soviet Union from the 1940s up until the end of the Cold War.
This is not only a sad or depressing read. The many inventive, caring and somewhat crazy characters that Ivan meets add humor and warmth to the tale. We meet the man who creates records out of X-rays and the beggar who only does it to make the people around him better. This is a great book, told by a man who was hell-bent on his own destruction.
His many sentences served at different camps, treatment centers and prisons are vividly described in horrific detail and the books gives a very personal view of the Soviet Union from the 1940s up until the end of the Cold War.
This is not only a sad or depressing read. The many inventive, caring and somewhat crazy characters that Ivan meets add humor and warmth to the tale. We meet the man who creates records out of X-rays and the beggar who only does it to make the people around him better. This is a great book, told by a man who was hell-bent on his own destruction.
December 31, 2021
This is probably a kind of depressing tale but it’s told by such a charming rogue that it doesn’t seem so terrible. I enjoyed my time with Ivan and his stories made me chuckle in places.
November 19, 2015
Ivan Petrov was a drunkard. And a tramp. As well as a sailor, a beggar, a criminal, a night watchman, an absent father, a failed husband and an alkashi (street drinker) who travelled all over the USSR in his decades of living in a dysfunctional society that didn't just tolerate drunkenness but actively caused and encouraged it.
His story, told from childhood onwards in a meandering style that often makes it hard to keep track of things like the passage of time and which sometimes seems just a little too far-fetched, works both as the raw autobiography of an unusual man and as a damning social history of the society he clung to the frayed edges of.
Petrov (not his real name) died in London after seeking asylum in the 1990s and it's almost a miracle he lasted long enough to do that and, over the course of a couple of years, detail his experiences to Caroline Walton. He (just about) survives Soviet healthcare, numerous drying-out camps, labour camps, prison, a mental institution and travels that take him everywhere from Latvia to Siberia to Turkmenistan to Georgia and of course, outrageous amounts of alcohol and things that have alcohol in them.
An intelligent, thoughtful man, Petrov's descent into ruinous alcoholism isn't presented as some tragic tale. It's simply how things were for him and countless anonymous, dirt-poor Russians, Georgians and plenty more who died prematurely in police cells, labour camps or out in the open.
A darker story than journalist and humourist Vitali Vitaliev's 1999 book on Eastern European and Russian drinking culture, 'Borders Up!', but a great companion piece to it, Petrov's tale has plenty of amusing anecdotes and endlessly fascinating little details on how Soviet society twisted itself into a rusting, clanking caricature of it's original intentions.
His story, told from childhood onwards in a meandering style that often makes it hard to keep track of things like the passage of time and which sometimes seems just a little too far-fetched, works both as the raw autobiography of an unusual man and as a damning social history of the society he clung to the frayed edges of.
Petrov (not his real name) died in London after seeking asylum in the 1990s and it's almost a miracle he lasted long enough to do that and, over the course of a couple of years, detail his experiences to Caroline Walton. He (just about) survives Soviet healthcare, numerous drying-out camps, labour camps, prison, a mental institution and travels that take him everywhere from Latvia to Siberia to Turkmenistan to Georgia and of course, outrageous amounts of alcohol and things that have alcohol in them.
An intelligent, thoughtful man, Petrov's descent into ruinous alcoholism isn't presented as some tragic tale. It's simply how things were for him and countless anonymous, dirt-poor Russians, Georgians and plenty more who died prematurely in police cells, labour camps or out in the open.
A darker story than journalist and humourist Vitali Vitaliev's 1999 book on Eastern European and Russian drinking culture, 'Borders Up!', but a great companion piece to it, Petrov's tale has plenty of amusing anecdotes and endlessly fascinating little details on how Soviet society twisted itself into a rusting, clanking caricature of it's original intentions.
October 3, 2019
One of the most interesting and readable books I have read in a long time.. in a similar way that Solzhenitsyn lifted the veil of gulag life, Petrov spins his tales and insights of life as a vagabond for nearly 50 years in Soviet Russia. He takes you on a journey like no other, with gut wrenching tales of addiction, prison life and failure as a father and husband only to bring you back up with a sense of a life full of adventure and camaraderie. It’s bleak, but Brutally honest.. I’m glad this story was told.
August 15, 2016
A truly astonishing book. Ivan, a hobo and alcoholic, recounts his (real-life!) story and travels, from 1940s Soviet Russia to 1990s London via Russia, Georgia, Central Asia, and many, many camps. He befriended an English lady in London, herself a Russian aficionado, and decided that his story needed to be told - and here it is. It almost reads like fiction, so wild and colourful his travels are. Camps, prisons, trains, roads, remote forests, faceless cities and militia, drunken poets and cannibals, philosophers and intellectual convicts... It's all there. But beyond that, this is a really moving book, where inhumane conditions go hand in hand with incredible generosity, and where self-awareness never quite leaves any of the characters, resulting in some very poignant observations or behaviour. Some scenes made me gasp, some made me laugh out loud, some others made me feel incredibly sad, whether tragic or just very touching. The love for Russia and its culture/literature that runs so deeply in all the characters left me in awe. But most of all... I'm happy that I could read Ivan's story. He was a great man!
July 16, 2014
Starkly sad and interesting. The truth of how it was.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews