Armand’s Reviews > Russia: Broken Idols, Solemn Dreams: A Provocative Look at the Russian People > Status Update

The day I arrived in Yakutsk with my colleague Peter Osnos of The Washington Post, it was 46 below. When our plane landed, the door was frozen solidly shut, and it took about half an hour for a powerful hot-air blower- standard equipment at Siberian airports- to break the icy seal. Stepping outside was like stepping onto another planet, for at those low temperatures nothing seems quite normal. The air burns...

picked up a Russian joke from the book I'm currently reading that summarizes the Soviet situation in the 70's.... Stalin, Khruschev, and Brezhnev are on a train when it stops. The train seems to be stalled. In a fit of rage, Stalin orders the train's crew to be taken out and shot. They are killed. Still the train doesn't move. Khruschev decides to posthumously exonerate the train's crew. Still, the train doesn't star