Sovjetistan in Around the World in 80 Books

Dec 25, 2020 Tony rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, travelogues

As someone who's always had a certain level of interest in the southern republics of the former Soviet Union, including the Caucasus and Central Asia, but hasn't been keeping up with events, I was excited to dive into this new book by a Norweigan journalist. I've had friends who've worked in the so-called "Stans" and read a bunch of Peter Hopkirk's histories, but that's about the extent of my background knowledge. Fatland is fluent in Russian and with 450+ pages between the covers, I was expecti As someone who's always had a certain level of interest in the southern republics of the former Soviet Union, including the Caucasus and Central Asia, but hasn't been keeping up with events, I was excited to dive into this new book by a Norweigan journalist. I've had friends who've worked in the so-called "Stans" and read a bunch of Peter Hopkirk's histories, but that's about the extent of my background knowledge. Fatland is fluent in Russian and with 450+ pages between the covers, I was expecting to get a pretty comprehensive view of the five modern nation-states.

The book is divided into a section on each country, with chapters in each moving from story to story as she moves through each place. Along with visiting the sterile capitals filled with showpiece public buildings, she visits both ends of the disappearing Aral Sea, the majestic Pamir mountains, plenty of ancient ruins, an amazing museum of modern Soviet art in the middle of nowhere, and Soviet nuclear testing sites. She dutifully reports on tourist staples such as Kyrgyz eagle masters, traditional Uzbek silk-making, Turkmen horse shows, Kazakh "kokpar" (aka "buzkahi") matches, and so forth. On a more personal level, she gets invited to various weddings, chit chats with every driver, and spends a fair amount of time talking to women, which reveals the extent to which ordinary citizens are trapped in their circumstances, ranging from poisoned landscapes with no jobs to the still widely-practiced "wife-stealing" (aka kidnapping and rape) of young women in Kyrgyz culture.

The writing is very smooth, and Fatland is a nicely measured raconteur of her travels. There are many situations she finds herself in that I'm sure other travel writers would have amplified and milked for unnecessary extra drama and sensation. Her approach is to mix Central Asia's history (from ancient to modern), with the Soviet-era experiences of each country, and then the contemporary social, economic, ecological, and political situations. Quite a lot of time is spent outlining the pathways to power of each country's leader.

However, this also highlights the book's one major flaw, which is that it's based on a visit (or possibly two visits, it's not clear) that Fatland made sometime around 2013-14. The book is rife with footnotes providing updates to the main text, which gets awkward. A far better approach would have been a preface explaining the genesis and timing of her trips, and then writing any geopolitical updates into the body of the text. Without that, one is left with the impression that the publisher is trying to paper-over the 6-7 year gap between her travels and the book being published. Nonetheless, for anyone with an interest in the region, this is definitely well worth reading -- just understand that it's slightly dated in some specific aspects. ...more

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Mar 11, 2022 Yiga rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

My favorite kind of travelogue style book — packed with interesting facts about a region that deeply interested me and balanced with the personal perspective/experiences of the author, without overwhelming it in the mundane.

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