Russia Books

This study of the mysterious Siberian people was very engrossing - I enjoyed it very much. Recently, I read a great book that I thought would be of interest to those that also enjoyed this book - Tent Life in Siberia: An Incredible Account of Siberian Adventure, Travel, and Survival by George Kennan.

Only three native populations in the world today have been virtually whipped out, driven from their homelands and yet they remain, remnants and testaments to a different world. These are the American Indian, the Aborigine of Australia and the Natives of Siberia. This essential work tells the stories of the tribes and the peoples of Siberia `from their view'. The Siberian natives, from the Buryat to the Khant are a diverse people from many walks of life and of different races. Many of these people were disastrously affected by the coming of Communism and the upheavals of Stalin and industrialization. Yet they remain in pockets in some of the harshest landscape in the world. This is a wonderful book that sheds light on these fascinating people.

Seth J. Frantzman

This is a most fascinating book. When one hears the word Siberia, what usually comes to mind is "gulags" and "ice." But, author, Anna Reid, in The Shaman's coat reveals the real face of Siberia, its surviving native peoples. Anna Reid's description of this vast and thinnly populated region had me unable to put this book down. It is a great place to start if you want to go beyond the usual stereotypes about Siberia. But, this book is more than a historical and anthropoligical study, it is a study on how the worst of a dominating culture can aggresively and even passively destroy a competing or primative culture. Russian domination of Siberia was hard enough on Siberia's native peoples, but once Russiafication was driven by marxist ideology it was deadly. It basically left stone age and ancient peoples empty. Peace for these people, here in the 21st century, is usually found in a full vodka bottle. My only negative about the book is that the author, Anna Reid, feels the answer lies in Russia and the native population of Siberia adopting PC western attitudes. My only question here would be, why trade one form of social dysfunction for another? Maybe, this is just a British trait, a kind of motherly post-colonialism. The author hails from the UK. But, I suspect materialistic feminism would not serve the Buryat, Tuvans, Chukchis or any of the other Siberian natives any better than marxism. And to be fair, the author's suggestion is only found in the afterword of the book. Overall this is a great read.

The long and cold journey across the tough, far-flung landscapes of Siberia is most likely one I'll never attempt myself, so I have to thank the author of this highly interesting book for doing so in my stead and generously taking me along in spirit. Chapter by chapter the author treks ever eastwards, starting in Saint Petersburg in European Russia and ending up on the frozen shoreline of the Bering Strait right across from the American continent, encountering an intriguing range of folks along the way. The book is part travelogue and part history; on the one hand, the author deftly describes each region and the people she meets and interviews there in vivid detail. On the other, the convoluted, complex, and often sad tale of the many various Siberian indigenous peoples' vicissitudes under Russian expansion and annexation and Soviet Communist assimilation, abuse, and persecution is related anecdotally from a number of perspectives, when at all possible from the point of view of the Siberians themselves. But by no means is this the same story again and again. Each ethnicity has its own distinct and particular culture and historical experience, so that generalizing is clearly impossible. Nor is this a simple tale of conquest and loss, for the valiant attempts on the part of many Siberians to navigate their situation with dignity and agency really comes through.

Still, loss is a big part of the picture. Presumably the author started out considering the relative vigor of shamanism--native Siberian religiosity--as a barometer of indigenous cultural autonomy and independence. In most cases, though, depopulation through disease and war coupled with the aggressively anti-religious Marxist ideology of Communism especially but not only under Stalin has all but made of shamanism a thing of the past, to say nothing of decimating a once flourishing Buryat Siberian Buddhism into utter oblivion. What few shamans we do happen to meet in today's Russia, er, Siberia are, for all their sincerity and hard work, pale imitations cobbling together a few minor genuine practices they happen to remember with some New Age fluff and some Buddhist and Christian Orthodox chunks all sort of smoothed over with some creative fudging. Given everything they've had to face over the decades, though, this is of course an impressive and inspiring accomplishment on their part. But anyone who, say, reads Mircea Eliade's studies in shamanism and hopes to hop over to Siberia to see what he's talking about firsthand is going to be in for an initial let-down.

As a book this is a fine introduction for the interested generalist. The tone is sensitive and perceptively astute without being preachy or browbeating. It does not intend to be exhaustive in a scholarly fashion but it is carefully researched and sufficiently detailed to paint a fascinatingly multifarious picture of this vast tract of land and its many peoples--where most of will never go and whom most of us will never meet, except within the pages of this fine, eminently readable book.

Somebody read this book at a Christmas party were I was invited a few years ago and it made that Christmas gathering very meaningful. I could not remember the entire title to buy it but with the amazon search I was able to track it down! I am so excited, I'm geting ready to order so I can add it to my Christmas family reading collection.

Shoemaker Martin wins my 2nd Annual "best book read this year for the first time award." This little children's adaptation of a story by Leo Tolstoy blows away all the other books I read for the first time this year. There is no book that I have reviewed this year that I recommend more highly.

This is the story of Martin. Martin is a Russian man who spends his days mending shoes and his nights in the pleasurable reading of the Bible. One night, after reading how a rich man invited Jesus to stay at his house, Martin wishes that he could invite Jesus to his house and wonders what he would do if Jesus actually showed up.

The rest of the book is the story of what happens when Jesus comes. It is a story told with wonderfully spare language. Mrs. Watts' beautiful illustrations add to the warm feeling of this wintery tale.

There are few things I have ever reviewed that I recommend more than Shoemaker Martin--get this book!

I loved this book because it is one of the few children's books that has real feeling. It underscores the true principal of Christianity in a way that children are able to understand. I bought this book for a little girl who became so attached to the book, she carried it around with her everywhere, and even slept with it, she loved it so much. I highly recommend this book for any child.

Martin the shoemaker reads the scripture passage about an "unimportant" woman washing Jesus' feet while he was at dinner at an "important" person's house. Martin wonders how he would welcome the Lord if he came to Martin's house. That night Martin wakes up to see Jesus standing in the room and saying "tomorrow I am coming." Martin thinks its just a dream. The next morning Martin encounters several people that are in need in one way or another. That night Martin hears a voice that says something like - see, I did come just as I said I would. I was the woman that needed clothing and the man whom you fed and the boy to whom you were kind... etc. So, the message of this book is: Whatsoever you do to the least of my brother, that you do unto me.

This is a wonderful book. I've used it often in Sunday school and vacation bible school classes. I highly recommend it.

This book is so informative. You get many different Shostakovich experts talking about what information exists out there. Incredibly informative about Shostakovich, but also about what information is reliable if you would like to do further research.
I highly, highly recommend this book, before all other Shostakovich materials out there.

I could not possibly agree more strongly with Mr. Katz, the other reviewer. The Washington Post review cannot be let stand as it misunderstands the problem and demonstrates more than ever our need for this book. It is a sad truth that every book of falsehood published needs probably five or ten books of truth to correct.

Plus, and alone worth the price of the volume, there is included one of Richard Taruskin's invaluable essays on Shostakovich demonstrating once more his astonishing vision and learning with respect to Russian music.

I write only to second the first two reviews and bring the debate up to date. When 'Testimony' first appeared in 1979, the naive political attack of the then Soviet union obscured the more profound criticism of those who knew Shostakovich well - namely, their incredulity that a personality as complex and secretive as Shostakovich was would ever have revealed himself to such a degree to a comparative stranger. Volkov did not help his cause by refusing to disclose the bulk of the transcript for many years.

But when he finally he did so, it turned out that his practical reasons for keeping the ms. to himself were correct - for inspection revealed such obvious indications that Shostakovich had by no means endorsed the book as to end the controversy and Volkov's reputation with it. This analysis is detailed in the Shostakovich Casebook, and also in the Bard Festival handbook. The material is not at all dry, but quite interesting to people wondering how working historials and biographers actually do business.

It is worth noting, however, that even the harshest critics acknowledge the enormous service 'Testimony' performed to Shostakovich, in presenting the West with a different image of the man than simply genius-cum-party-hack. It caused many people (myself, for example) to take a look at a musical accomplishment that was prodigious by any standard. The revitalized interest in DDS's chamber music, songs, and what were once considered his minor works, has led to a massive and long overdue appreciation of a towering musical genius. Volkov is owed a debt of gratitude for that that no one denies.

I've never posted a review before, but I can't allow the above "editorial review" to go unanswered. I don't understand how, after reading Laurel Fay's article in this book, there could possibly be a sliver of doubt in anybody's mind that Testimony is a massive fraud.


While I agree that the view of Dmitri Shostakovich as a loyal communist is naive and simplistic, the view espoused by Testimony is at least as much so. The veracity of the portrait of Shostakovich presented in Testimony is, at least, open to questions. The authenticity of the book itself has been demolished by Laurel Fay's excellent detective work. There can no longer be any doubt that what Shostakovich affixed his signature to was a collection of previously published writings. The departure from these earlier texts comes, in every single case, immediately following the end of the page which has been signed. There could not be any clearer evidence that the authentification of the book was carried out under false pretenses.


Mr. Page draws attention to the agressive tone and the sometimes-monotonous focus of A Shostakovich Casebook. Publishing this kind of jeremiad wouldn't be necessary if Western journalists didn't persist in their stubborn refusal to acknowledge that Testimony, whatever its merits may be, was written by Solomon Volkov without the help of Dmitri Shostakovich.


--Jonah I. Katz

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

It was hard to put this book down once I started it. Although the women portrayed faced a living hell all around them, the authors elicit the courage and determination each women had to continue the daily existence in the camps. And that is what is so powerful; the daily horrors which become the backdrop for extermination are also part of the reason that each was able to define for herself a path through death.

This book is novel in its approach and subject matter. Women in the Holocaust, and their triumphs, courage, and resourcefullness has been ignored before now. The stories are personal and engaging. I would put it in the top-ten must reads of Holocaust literature.

This book was a difficult endeavor, as one never wants to face the potential raw ugliness of mankind. However, the voices of these women are invaluable in helping the world to remember a time which must never be forgotten.

As a young woman (34 years old) and a mother of three (which qualifies me as a caregiver, I guess), my heart went out to these brave women, struggling to impart some small measure of kindness or at least relief of suffering to their fellow prisoners. Women and children are seemingly the most vulnerable when society engages in chaos, but the women caregivers chronicled in this book were apparently among the most intrepid of all. I believe they gathered strength from the acts of focusing on giving aid to others in the most desperate of circumstances. Anyone who is interested in what the human spirit can endure, and indeed, overcome, should read this book.

Kudos to Dr. Diane Plotkin for her thorough research into the lives of the women featured in this book. Her attention to detail helps transport us to the various camps where we experience dehumanization and deprivation. Through it all, however, it is interesting to see the various ways these women nurtured and tried to protect one another. This is a "must-read" book because it clearly illustrates the general differences in the ways men and women coped with, and adapted to, life in the concentration camps.

Profusely illustrated (albeit in B&W) and quite detailed without being overwhelming. Though it could use another editing pass, overall it's indispensable for anyone with an interest in modern tank design and development. Some of the variants in this book haven't been heard of in the West, even by the well-informed.

This book is must to have for anyone deeply interested from Soviet tank design and development after ww2. It is very comprehensive study and carefully researched, average reader can't point any mistake in the text.
Book includes all major russian tank projects in well-written text which includes many technical factors without being boring.
There are many photos showing the rare tank designs which never accomplished to go to production and line pictures which are quite clear. Also book includes very up-to-date innovations in russian tanks design, with active anti-atgm devices etc. There are many tables which show exact information of tanks and their guns, penetrations and ammunitions. There are very good appendixes representing soviet "obiekt"-codes for each tank/design bureau and also evolution chart of russian tanks and descriptions from all the major tank development factorys and research institutes.
Even if there is five star rating ( book this good can not be given much lower rating than 5 stars) i found that there are some things that i didn't like. First, this book is printed to paper which is not so good ( it reminds of home inkjet paper) and the pictures are not very clearly reproduced. This is book which is expensive anyway, so it could have been made all-colour or at least printed for better paper.
Some parts of the text are identically same from Zalogas earlier "Soviet Tanks and Combat Vehicles: 1946 To the Present"-book from 80's. Also Zalogas Osprey booklets include much the same text from word to word than these two books. Altough Zaloga is very highly dignified author it is quite a dissapointing to see same text passages in many different book, like copy-pasted.

Well these couple of things are easily forgotten since book is written so well. This is definitely must-to-have book for any interested from good and well-researched, authoritative book of recent and modern tank developments of Soviet Union and Russia.
Very recommendable!

The book gives a detailed history and specifications of ALL soviet armor types. You can really appreciate this reference, as I have not seen one this detailed when compared to other books. It does have some shortcomings. There is almost no color photographs in the entire book. I am not sure why the publisher chose this route, as color photos of most of these tanks are in abundance and easily obtainable. Black and white photos (even some drawings) do not convey the scale or manufacturing quality (or lack of) of these machines. The other problem I have is there is almost no history of the tank in combat. There are a few passing references, but I am disappointed that more information was not given on how these machines performed in battle.

Simply put, this book is a must-have resource for anyone interested in the subject of Soviet/Russian armor and artillery. It is the most up-to-date and comprehensive reference book of its type published to-date; definately required reading.

The short story has always taken a secondary position in my reading preference, behind the novel. It's not that I don't like the short story; it's just that I can't read them continuously, story after story. Turgenev's A Sportsman's Notebook is an exception. In it, there is a sense of continuity--the stories are written in the first person by a "Sportsman", presumably Turgenev himself as he travels throughout the Russian countryside on various bird-hunting expeditions.
It would be wrong, however, to call this a book about hunting. There is actually very little writing about hunting, and even less written about the shooting of the birds. Instead, the sketches are about the Sportsman's encounters with a variety of people throughout the province. True to life, the Sportsman most frequently encounters Peasants. Common only in their shared bond of servitude to the landed class, as a group the peasants are as diverse in their ways as one would expect to find in real life; young and old, wise and stupid, wealthy and dirtpoor. The Landowners we meet are often shockingly cruel to their peasants--beating them, treating them as less than human, or being clueless about them.

Turgenev's short stories work for me on a number of different levels. In a sense they are anthropological; they are socially, and perhaps even politically motivated; they are often symbolic. Perhaps most of all, they are stories well told.

Like other great writers, Turgenev sucks us into his world. To use Chekhov as a comparison: in Chekhov, the world is presented as if throught the eyes of a fly, or as if a camera were watching an encounter between individuals. Turgeneve is slightly different. Here we get a view of the read world through the eyes of the narrator. The world -- the feudalistic Russian countryside. The narrator -- an educated and cultured, landed gentleman; schooled in the scientific and european manner.

Perhaps this book should be compared to Uncle Toms Cabin; it is said that AlexanderII was influenced by Sportman's Notebook when he emancipated the surfs.


The only complaint I have about this book is that it lacks what could be helpful editorial information. For instance, when there is anything in French, no translation is given.

Anyone who has read literature knows the best and most noteworthy volumes. This is not necessarily because the work is 'well written' or conveys ideas easily to the reader, or because someone else says it's good. Good literature is the work that has a completely positive effect upon the reader. I have been reading serious literature for several years now, and A Sportsman's Notebook is quite possibly the most wonderful literary work I have yet encountered. If I'm feeling down, I crack it open, and by the time I'm done reading I feel better. If I'm feeling good, it makes me feel that much better. Turgenev's words ring true in this volume -- to me it's as sweet as candy.

This book has some of the best short fiction ever written. Hemingway said, "Tolstoy wrote the best books, BUT TURGENEV WAS THE GREATEST WRITER." And then he went on to praise the short story "A Rattle of Wheels" above all other Turgenev stories. So if Hemingway thought Turgenev the greatest writer, and "Rattle of Wheels" the greatest story he wrote, then he certainly thought "Rattle of Wheels" the greatest short story ever written (aside from his own works, of course, egomaniac that he was). And "Rattle of Wheels" is in this collection. I personally prefer "The Singers". Read this collection. You won't regret it.

This fine gem of a book typifies the sort of volume that one must be able to extract from the water-logged valise when the steamer has gone down and one finds oneself stranded on the proverbial desert island. After 30 years of rather serious reading, I still tend to think that Turgenev is one of the finest authors ever to put ink to paper. A Sportsman's Notebook is a wonderful place to start an exploration of Russian literature. Now, if I can just find my tramp steamer tickets.

Today in 2006, at first glance it is not obvious why militant leftists should read about Leon Trotsky's fight in the 1920's not only to save and extend the gains of the Russian Revolution but to vindicate his revolutionary honor against the attempts by Stalin and others to diminish his role in it. Fair enough. However, aside from the need to set the historical record straight as a matter of elementary political hygiene (which is a worthy endeavor in itself) a close reading of this work will demonstrate to militants leftists the need to fight for their own politics despite attempts by forces inside and outside the ostensibly socialist movement to call those politics into question. Although the last serious ideological fight against the bogie of "Trotskyism" occurred in the 1960's and 70's ( granted a long time ago) when various international Maoist and guerilla warfare tendencies went to the Stalinist stockpile that does not eliminate a resurgence of such falsification if revolutionary socialist struggle comes back on the agenda. This writer notes that every time ostensibly socialist tendencies want to denigrate currents to their left they take their arguments from the stockpile of falsifications that Trotsky fought to correct here.

The attempts to discredit the revolutionary role and political leadership of Trotsky went through various stages depending on the various alignments in the Russian Communist Party in the 1920's (and by extension in the Communist International as well when it became an adjunct to Soviet foreign policy rather than a vehicle for international revolutionary strategy). The issues, however, remained fairly constant; Trotsky's alleged Menshevism (he stood outside of the Bolshevik Party until 1917); his `underestimation of the peasantry' (a particularly charged issue in a peasant-dominated country like Russia); his theory of permanent revolution which put the socialist revolution on the immediate agenda both for Russian and later, by extension, internationally; his flair for administrative solutions to Soviet economic problems, for example, on the militarization of labor during the late stages of war communism and his later dispute with Lenin on the role of trade unions in the Soviet state; and, not unimportantly, his willingness to step on some very big toes to get tasks done i.e. his ardent , if prickly, personality.

These issues mingled together in the various disputes first as Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev (known as the triumvirate) tried to keep Trotsky from leadership after Lenin's death by attempting to drive an unbridgeable chasm between Lenin's policies and his. Then as Zinoviev and Kamenev went into opposition (and for a time joining Trotsky) Stalin and Bukharin did the same. Later, the victorious Stalinist faction put all these previous factional lineups in the shade by their rewriting of the history of the revolution to exclude Trotsky. The final efforts culminated in the charges against Trotsky (in absentia) during the frame-up Moscow Trials of the late 1930's. Underlying all these efforts was the attempt to eliminate Trotsky's role as leader of the October Revolution and the Red Army and ultimately to build up Stalin's slight role in them. And when it counted, in the 1920's, these efforts were unfortunately successful.

Trotsky, as an individual revolutionary trying to defend his revolutionary honor, faced the same problem then as the various left oppositions which he led in the Russian Bolshevik Party faced. That is the ability of the Stalin-dominated bureaucracy to set the terms and tone of the debate in the struggle for power by the weight of sheer numbers and by control of the state media and propaganda apparatus. Given the vast disproportion of forces Trotsky, in the end, was not able to fully vindicate himself before the party and Russian public opinion. But, as this book demonstrates, he did leave those who wanted to learn a record. Unfortunately, before the demise of the Soviet Union in 1990-91 Trotsky was still not vindicated before revolutionary history. The best the latter day Stalinists under Gorbachev could come up with is that he was a dangerous "ultra-left" visionary- a global class warrior. No, definitely not a man to their bureaucratic liking. Trotsky may still wait his vindication before history. He is, however, in no need of a certificate of revolutionary good conduct by his political opponents, this writer or the reader.

More than the lies.

What is important here is more than the unmaking of the lies that Stalin and the bureaucrats used to defeat Trotsky and smother the true defenders of the Russian revolution. What is at stake here is the issue of power. In this book Trotsky recounts the practical and the programmatic steps that led the Bolshevik party to seize power, defends the practical process that the revolution organized itself, defends the practical work that the Bolshevik party and the peasants and workers of Russia defeated the intervention by imperialism and the reactionary armies that sought to defeat the revolution. In this book, Trotsky recounts the truth about the struggle that he and Lenin began against Stalin and other bureaucrats. In this book Trotsky recounts the genuine Bolshevik response to the 1924 general strike in Great Britain and the disasterous slaughter of the Chinese Communists and Workers by Chaing Kai Shek in 1927.

The falsifications were not just about which picture Trotsky appeared with Lenin in, but about the bureaucracy's retreat from Bolshevism in regard to revolutions around the world and in regard to its campaign against the freedom of discussion and debate in the party and working class indepedent mass action that Lenin's power had been based on.

The social crisis that is deepening across our planet is going to revive these questions, not as history but as practical life and death questions of survival for billions of workers, peasants, and youth. We will need these books, not only to know our history, but to know the way tTo fight for our future.

Written in the midst of the cut-and-thrust (literally) of the early years of the Russian revolution, this book has a kind of thrilling rawness. Trotsky describes how, during the civil war against rich peasants, tsarist forces and their foreign backers, army commanders in Stalin's circle would be encouraged to disobey orders, troup transfers would be messed up and the revolution imperilled. Starkly, urgently, you see the contest between a course that could win freedom, and a mediocre, narrow-minded, petty road to failure. Over and over Trotsky gives proof that he and Lenin acted as one: Lenin gave Trotsky a blank sheet of paper, for example, with his signature at the bottom -- so that Trotsky could give any order he wished and automatically give it Lenin's seal of approval. But in order to win supremacy for his clique, in order for his own personal priviledge to be secured, Stalin had to utterly obscure and totally rewrite the truth of the most powerful rebellion in human history. And so he set about the task of separating Lenin from Trotsky in the public mind, and identifying Lenin with Stalin as the real revolution. Includes verbatim renditions of key meetings at the very dawn of the revolution -- with speeches on how and whether to aim for power bouncing back and forth. Gives you a feel for Stalin's shabby role right from the outset, and makes for pretty exciting reading. And makes you wonder -- if you had been there, what would you have said?

This is an excellent book for those who have heard the various lies put forth about Trotsky by Stalinists and their ilk. It corrects the history of the Russian Revolution, tossing out the fumbling falsifications brought by it's second leader, Joseph Stalin. Trotsky's commentary is quite informative and intelligent, and it gives insight into why the "comrades" of the Soviet Party against Trotsky behaved in the matter in which they did. Great book for those who want the truth; Stalinists won't like it.

First, in the interest of full disclosure, the author of the book is one of my business partners -- a business that has nothing to do with the subject matter of this book. I would like to believe the author and I have the sort of relationship that allows me to be honest about what I think of his book. I must however momentarily stop and think about the wisdom of that belief. The author is considerably more senior than I am in our firm, and he commands substantial respect from his fellow senior partners. The influence he has on the portion of my career that has not yet occurred is not lost on me. I'm certain he appreciates honesty, but perhaps he may not appreciate such public honesty -- on the internet which is both very public and very permanent.

At this point, I've no doubt led you to believe that I found the book factually inaccurate, uninteresting, or simply poorly written. I must admit that I was in fact hoping that would be the case, but alas, it is not. Some background and context appears in order. I've known the author, as my business partner, for a number of years, but did not know he was the author of a book. I learned of this accomplishment while we, as part of a small group, were touring the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis Maryland. While being told about various ships and the commanders who took them into battle, I casually inquired of the author whether he knew much about maritime history. With perfect fluidity and timing, and while maintaining his gaze in a direction other than mine, he casually remarked that he had written a book on the subject. When I further inquired how he found the time and energy for this type of endeavor, he replied simply that "I don't golf." This short exchange motivated me to get my hands on the book so that I could identify and point out what I hoped was its many shortfalls.

Well, that's the context; here's my review. First, for those who care about data, I was quite simply amazed at the depth of research in the book. I cannot vouch for accuracy of the data, but knowing the author quite well, I would find it hard to believe he would pen his name on a book that didn't undergo considerable review and rigorous critique. This book is the perfect gift for the loved one in your life who desires facts about tonnage, displacement, or the exact placement of the mast on a particular ship that no longer exists. I must confess that I find this type of data, and the people who find it interesting, to be rather uninteresting. There is a time and place for learning these facts, but -- to use the words of my favorite living writer, Joseph Epstein -- that time and place is reserved for some knotty pine bench in hell.

Moving along to the quality of the writing, I must unfortunately confess I found the book very interesting -- in fact a proverbial page-turner. It is, and I do hate saying this, extremely well written. The fact that the aforementioned data and facts are weaved into such a well-written story makes the writing remarkable. The author captured my interest from the start, and held my occasionally morbid curiosity, throughout the book. Being a linear reader who does not look ahead to the end of a book, I was surprised and disappointed when I came upon the end of the story with considerable pages remaining in the book. The remainder of the book being reserved for those who desire even more data and further evidence that the author had in fact derived all that data from scholarly sources.

Overall and on a very serious note, the real story in this book is unfortunately that there is sadly no shortage of mind-bending evil in this world. As a child of holocaust survivors, I tend to avoid books and movies on that particular subject and era. This aversion is due in part to my father telling me that words and pictures cannot come close to depicting the horror he experienced, but is mostly due to the anger it generates in me. The evil and resulting horrors described in this book are less personal, but do not invoke less anger. Stones that witnessed the atrocities do in fact cry, and the ships that played such a huge role in the evil have indeed left wakes. It is important to understand this evil and learn from it -- especially today, as we learn to make sense of a world that has to some degree lost both its mind and humanity. The author has done an excellent job applying his well-known wit and keen articulation to create a factual story that enables us to learn from our past so we can better deal with our present to create an improved future for the children we will leave behind. Well done Mr. Bollinger.

This is a well researched book, relatively short with extensive appendix material on individual ships. It provides compelling evidence the US was duped into supporting the convict labor camps in Siberia. It isn't able to answer the question of whether of not people in the US knew this was happening, but some of the circumstantial evidence is, to say the least, intriguing. The only downside is that the author takes a scholary tone to the work which understates the dramatic elements of the story. But overall a fascinating tale, and very well documented.

I'm the author. I appreciate Raymond W. Jensen's kind remarks and his positive review of my book. A few mistakes crept into his review regarding the loss of the ship Indigirka in 1939. Let me correct them, just to keep the record straight: Indigirka was sold to the Soviets in early 1938 (not 1930) and it was returning from Kolyma, not traveling to it, when it ran aground.

Thanks again for the review, Mr. Jensen.

P.S.: Amazon forces me to rate my own book in order to post this. Therefore, please disregard my review of "5" as hopelessly biased.

As an undergraduate in a modern Russian literature course, I read "Kolyma Streetcar" which was about an incident that ocurred on one of the "slave ships" which is documented in this book. As gruesome and disgusting as that account was, I had no idea that it was only the tip of the iceberg.

For example, in "Stalin's Slave Ships," it is documented that:
1. The "Indigirka," a ship carrying around 1000 slaves to the icy domain of Kolyma, capsized off the Japanes coast, around 1939. Approximately 750 prisoners drowned. Many could have been saved, had the crew not been so hesitant to expose a big secret to the Japanese rescuers. Incidentally, the Indigirka was built in Manitowoc, Wisconsin and was sold to the Soviets in 1930.
2. Many "lend-lease" ships lent to the Soviets by the US during WW2 (but never returned) were used as slave ships. Yes, US tax money helped finance the Soviet gulag system.
3. On one occasion, a riot broke out amongst the prisoners in the crowded hold on a slave ship. The guards quelled the riot using seawater-which in the Sea of Okhotsk at the time was at or below freezing. The ship arrived at its destination, Magadan, with a giant ice cube in its cargo hold, dead prisoners trapped within.
4. To relieve themselves while on these ships, prisoners had to use barrels, which often toppled over on the high seas. Many had to sleep on the floor.
5. While at port in Seattle, a slave ship was undergoing repairs for use in "lend-lease" shipments of supplies from the US to the Soviet Union, again, courtesy of the US taxpayer. Workers complained of foul odors coming from the hold of the ship. Of course, they did not know what these odors were from.
6. One source tells of a contingent of US prisoners of war, from World War 2, who were being sent to gulag labor camps. A cleaning woman in a camp risked her life (and ultimately lost it) by getting names of American POWs written down, to smuggle out of the country. The document was not discovered until recently, and it turns out that some of the badly mis-spelled names matched known US POWs.
7. Once at their destination, prisoners could expect a slow and cold death. One account documents a "procession of phantoms," "not human," heading for a boat in Magadan. Many were without noses, arms, legs. They were said to be taken out to sea and drowned. When temperatures go down to 50 below and prisoners are given inadequate shelter and clothing, severe frostbite takes its toll.
8. One account (from Solzhenitsyn) claims that several starving prisoners came across specimens of ancient creatures frozen in the permafrost, creatures like never before seen. What did the prisoners do? They "promptly ate them."
9. Some recent accounts tell of mass graves, tourguides even offering skulls and bones as souvenirs.

Bollinger offers some very solid research in this book. There is no exaggeration of figures, and whenever questionable accounts are given, they are labeled as such. I hate to use the old cliche, "this ought to be required reading in schools" but it ought to be. Perhaps you will agree with me.

R.T. Stevens has done an absolutely wonderful job of this fictional novel of the Imperial Family! The main characters are John Kirby, a British officer, and Grand Duchess Olga Nicolaevna, the eldest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna. The Summer Day Is Done is such a charming book and so difficult to put down - it makes you want to smile, and yet at the same time, so tragic that it is quite easy to find yourself in tears. The portrayal of the Imperial Family in this book, I find, is much better than a lot of other books on the family (fiction or non-fiction).

Overall, The Summer Day Is Done is definitely worth a read and one to treasure for a lifetime.

The Summer Day is Done is one of three superb books I have read in my lifetime. It moved me to tears, an unusual response from me while reading. I read it over twenty years ago and only two other books since then have touched me so deeply: The Clan of the Cavebear, and The Time Traveler's Wife. There are "must-reads" that I purchase and enjoy, such as the Harry Potter books and James Patterson books. But this book has stayed with me for a lifetime.

This is my favourite book ever! The love between Grand Duchess Olga and Mr. Kirby is very sweet and touching, even though it is a very unlikely match. I also loved the Imperial Family because they were all so united and loving. The end is very sad though, because we know that the Romanovs were murdered in 1918. But still, the love continues in the heart, even though Olga's life ended so early and tragically. But overall, this book is excellent and I recommend it for EVERYONE.

This is a historical novel. Granted. But it is much more.
The author, Robert Tyler Stevens, grasps the heart of what REAL Russian people are about, as well as the classic British persona with its keen, clever humour.
But there is more afoot in this novel. Stevens gives the reader a highly believable peek into the very english-speaking and english-living lives of the Nicholas Romanov family--even though they were technically Russian. The children: Olga, Tatiana, Marie, Anastasia and Aleksey all make the reader laugh and cry with equal intensity. This is a huge work with very very reslistic glimpses of a wonderful family, who were totally devoted to themselves and to Russia. Utterly Superb!

Survived To Tell is the autobiography of Edward Keonjian who is the great-grandson of a Russian serf, and was once brought to the brink of death in a German slave labor camp in World War II. Rescued from a mass grave by a lone woman, Keonjian survived, eventually emigrated to American in 1947 with his wife and young son, and went on to become a pioneer of microelectronics. An amazing personal tale of struggle, perseverance, desperate times and the quest to make a good life for oneself, Survived To Tell is a remarkable story from beginning to end.

This is a short, easy to read autobiography of a man who went through a lot of suffering in the first part of his life. This book is a personal account of the horrors of war in Leningrad and the horrors of communism. This is also an uplifting story of a middle aged man coming to America with no English skills and having a tremendous success. The first part of the book describes his life as a slave, the second part is about his life as a free man.

An absorbing account of life in the Soviet Union, pre-WW ll, and during the incredible siege of Leningrad, for those, who, like the author, did not share the privileges and powers of membership in "The Party". Keonjian's subsequent life and career experiences as a scientist in the U.S., and his tales of meetings and friendships with an astonishing array of notables in various fields thoughout the world make delightful reading. In short, the heartwarming story of a remarkable individual whose life's path ran the gamut from incredible suffering and deprivation to international recognition for his contributions to our modern technological society

This book brings a tear to my eye as it depicts what some of our family have been through.

Unfortunately our dear cousin has passed away, so this book is a beautiful memory of all the wonderful stories he once told.