2 comments about Moscow City Map by ITMB (International Travel City Maps: Moscow).

1. The map is great! Finally, I can place where hotels, historic sites, etc. are from the Kremlin - and especially place my compass points into a perspective.
   
   It would have been nice to have a bit more detail on where river boats dock, etc. However, the tips are concise and to the point.



2. The map was pretty good for most of our sightseeing, but apparently there were some inaccuracies in location for several places,one being the Pushkin Museum. Also, most of the locations are written in transliteration (western alphabet) but all locations in subway are written in Greek letters and have no relationship or recognition to our alphabet. JW

5 comments about The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine.

1. The black earth
   Was sown with bones
   And watered with blood
   For a harvest of sorrow
   On the land of Rus.
   - _The Armament of Igor_.
   
   _The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivizaton and the Terror-Famine_, first published in 1986, by historian Robert Conquest is an excellent accounting of the horrors of the Soviet state unleashed upon the Russian peasantry by the Soviet Communist Party between 1929 and 1933. Robert Conquest is a British historian who early on joined the Communist Party and fought in World War II; however, after seeing firsthand the horrors of Soviet communism he became an anti-communist. In this book a detailed accounting of the more than 14.5 million deaths (more than the total number of deaths from all countries involved in World War I) that resulted directly from policies sanctioned by the Soviet Communist Party is detailed. Such policies as dekulakization, collectivization, and the "terror-famine" in the Ukraine had drastic consequences for those living under this oppressive and horrendous regime. Further, many Western intellectuals turned a blind eye to these atrocities because of their support for this horrendous and ungodly ideology. Even today many continue to deny such crimes occurred among the communists, while at the same time a repeated accounting is made of Nazi and fascist crimes. For those who believe that Soviet communism was a just and noble endeavor, a book like this is certainly sobering. Through painstaking research, Robert Conquest unveils the horrors behind Soviet communism.
   
   Conquest begins by noting the importance of Ukrainian nationalism, feared by the Soviets, and comparing the atrocities of communism to those of the other totalitarian ideologies of the twentieth century, Nazism and fascism. To begin with, the Soviets long regarded the peasants as backwards and reactionary, clinging to their traditions and religion, and thus "counter-revolutionary" and a threat to human progress. Such hatred for the peasant goes all the way back to Karl Marx, the founding father of Soviet communism. Lenin also denigrated the peasant as a threat to the creation of the Soviet state. Conquest traces the development of Ukrainian nationalism as it contrasted with Leninism and Soviet communism. For example, as Engels commented, "Now you ask me whether I have no sympathy whatever for the small Slav peoples, and remnants of peoples . . . In fact, I have damned little sympathy for them." During the years 1917 - 21, the revolution broke out sponsored by the Bolsheviks. At the same time the peasant war and famine broke out. Repeated famines were common in the history of the Soviet regime, showing the utter failure of the Soviet economic system to provide food for its people. Such famine was so bad at times that many Russians even had to resort to cannibalism in their efforts to stay alive. Further, during this time and following, the Soviet state began a series of purges against "counter-revolutionaries", those who stood in the way, the religious, and those who did not sufficiently truckle to the powers that be. The NKVD and secret police were formed to rid the state of dissenters. The League of Militant Godless, a band of militant atheists, formed which sought to purge the state of religious and ransacked the Orthodox churches. At the same time, purges were made of kulaks (and suspected kulaks), largely middle-class peasants who could afford to hire labor or lenders. Frequently the individuals accused of being kulaks were very poor, and hardly the rich exploiters they were portrayed to be. Indeed, the accusations and railings of individuals such as Josef Stalin against the kulak bear an eerie resemblance to those of Hitler. At the same time, the free peasantry was abolished and the land was laid to waste. So inefficient were the Soviet agricultural methods that millions starved. In particular, children faced a horrific fate under the Soviet regime and frequently starved or were left to die as orphans. All the while massive purges continued and the state officially denied any problems existed (afterall the Soviet state was supposed to be a utopia). Conquest sums up the death toll as follows:
   
   Peasant dead: 1930 - 37 11 million
   Arrested in this period dying in camps later 3.5 million
   TOTAL 14.5 million.
   
   The record of the West in responding to these atrocities was equally horrendous, particularly among intellectuals who frequently harbored communist sympathies. In particular, individuals such as Sidney and Beatrice Webb and Walter Duranty denied such occurrences. Further, the reports of such individuals (which could be likely classified as nothing more than official propaganda for the Soviet state) were accorded places of prominence among leading Western sources. However, others did catch on to the evils of the Soviet regime and began speaking out against it as well as providing aid. Following this, Conquest attempts to assign responsibilities for such atrocities. Certainly, we cannot forget these horrors and a full accounting must be made, even and especially if such an accounting happens to undermine one of our most favored ideologies. Conquest ends by discussing the aftermath of such terror and the Soviet Union up to the present time. This book was written before the fall of the USSR.
   
   This book is to be highly recommended for those who want to know the truth about Soviet Communism. The official Soviet line denied such atrocities occurred under their regime. The twentieth century is likely to be remembered as an era of totalitarian regimes, and the Soviet Union remains one of the worst such regimes ever known to man. Nevertheless, there exist those who continue to deny that such things ever occurred because of their support for such an ideology. Indeed, Conquest himself has been much vilified by a largely pro-Communist Left that refuses to face up to its own atrocities while at the same time preaching constantly about the horrors of "right wing fascism". That is why a proper accounting such as that made in this book is all the more important.



2. A careful reading refutes the preposterous claims that Conquest invented this genocide out of his anti-Communist convictions, or that he relied on the testimonies of Nazi-collaborating Ukrainians. In actuality, the fact of Ukrainians perishing in a famine, and by the millions, can be verified indirectly from Soviet sources (p.7), and directly from both local and foreign Communists of the time, who justified this act. (p. 261, 304).
   
   The unintentionality of the famine can be refuted by noting such things as well-fed local Soviet-Communist officials (p. 3, 230), as well as the amounts of food that were locally stored, wasted, or exported. (e. g. p. 235). Blame-the-victim tactics, such as those that insinuate that the Ukrainians brought the famine upon themselves by destroying livestock and crops, collapse once it becomes obvious that the Soviets systematically searched Ukrainian farmsteads for even small amounts of hidden feedstuffs, ruthlessly confiscated them (p. 229, 234), and punished these Ukrainians for the crime of attempting to avoid starvation. (p. 226).
   
   Certain Judeocentrists have tried to minimize this genocide by claiming that, whereas Jews were murdered for being Jews by the Nazis, the Ukrainians perished not as Ukrainians, but as opponents of the Soviet collective-farm system. Tell that to the victims! As it turns out, Ukrainians WERE targeted as Ukrainians, as proved by the draconian Soviet repression of Ukrainian culture and political life (p. 266, 271-272). Conquest even finds parallels with the later Soviet efforts to destroy the Poles: "The first assault on the Ukrainian intelligentsia preceded the general attack on the peasantry...The `decapitation' of the nation by removing its spokesmen was indeed essential--as was later evidently the motive for Katyn, and for the selective deportations from the Baltic states in 1940." (p. 219). The gullibility of westerners accepting Stalin's denials of the Ukrainian famine, based in part on stage-managed visits, could only have emboldened his future deceptions of the same. (p. 314).
   
   By way of historical context, the 1861 tsarist emancipation of the serfs had given them only part of the land they had previously worked, and required prolonged payments to own. However, peasant disorders dropped from 3,579 in 1859-1863 to 136 in 1878-1882. (p. 15).
   
   In 1880, Leontiev commented that "Socialism is the feudalism of the future". (p. 164). Pasternak, in his DOKTOR ZHIVAGO, noted that peasants found the new revolutionary super-state much more oppressive than the old tsarist state. (p. 52). Ironically, "A class struggle of sorts did indeed emerge in the villages--between the collectivized peasantry and the `New Class' of bureaucrats and administrators." (p. 341).
   
   In focusing on the Soviet system up to the 1980's Conquest concludes: "All of the symptoms we noted in the 1930's remain--apathy due to lack of incentive, `leadership' by incompetents, huge bureaucratic overheads, intensive intrusion by ignorant and distant central planners." (p. 341). Considering the increasing drift of many nations (e. g., the USA) to ever more socialistic economies, this is a sobering warning!



3. The author, who wrote many of Thatcher's (worst) speeches, admits that this book is based on hearsay and rumour not on proper research. So his figures are ridiculous exaggerations. Far too many writers on the subject have relied not on the archives, but on Conquest's estimates.
   However, a proper historian, Richard Evans, Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University, has explained how Conquest reached his figures. He writes: "Robert Conquest's The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror Famine (New York, 1986) argues that the `dekulakization' of the early 1930s led to the deaths of 6,500,000 people. But this estimate is arrived at by extremely dubious methods, ranging from reliance on hearsay evidence through double counting to the consistent employment of the highest possible figures in estimates made by other historians." The true figure for the 1930s is about 300,000 deaths.
   Another decent historian, Professor R. W. Davies, wrote, "The archival data are entirely incompatible with such very high figures, which continue to be cited as firm fact in both the Russian and the Western media." (Soviet history in the Yeltsin era, Macmillan, 1997, page 172.)
   So it's high time that Conquest's book was thrown into the dustbin of history.
   Read Douglas Tottle's book, "Fraud, famine and fascism" instead, for an exposure of the US/British propaganda campaign against the Soviet Union.



4. Highly acclaimed, The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine is a British historian's detailed, documented account of the horrific events in Soviet Ukraine in 1929-1932 during Stalin's reign wherein millions perished by means of man-made starvation.
   
   Awards and honors of British historian Robert Conquest include: the Jefferson Lectureship, the highest honor the federal government bestows for achievement in the humanities (1993); the Alexis de Tocqueville Award (1992); the Richard Weaver Award for Scholarly Letters (1999); the Fondazione Liberal Career Award (2004); the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2005); and the Ukraine Presidential Medal of Honor (2006). The Ukraine Presidential Medal of Yaroslav Mudryi, named for the Kyivan prince known as a lawgiver and patron of the church and the arts (early 1000s), was given in recognition of Dr. Conquest's path-breaking scholarship on the Ukrainian famine 1932-1933 in Harvest of Sorrow (1986). The Medal is the highest honor bestowed by Ukraine.
   
   
   By 2006, Dr. Conquest had authored twenty-one books on Soviet history, politics, and international affairs, including the classic, The Great Terror, which has been translated into twenty languages, and the acclaimed Harvest of Sorrow (Oxford University Press, 1986). His field of expertise is Russian and world politics and history. His many professional affiliations include former research associate of Harvard University's Ukrainian Research Institute. This is but a brief outline of Robert Conquest's curriculum vitae; that his credentials are distinguished, formidable, and impressive goes without saying.
   
   The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine was sponsored by Harvard University Ukrainian Research Institute and the Ukrainian National Association. Among many others, the major research and discussion contributions of American historian, James Mace, PhD, Harvard University, are specifically acknowledged. Various resources in Europe and in America were utilized; special acknowledgement is made to the Hoover Institution's Library and Archives.
   
   The purpose of Harvest of Sorrow is to raise public awareness of the events which took place within living memory, and which involved millions of people and millions of deaths.
   
   Three reasons are stated for the lack of public awareness of the Ukrainian famine (known in Ukrainian as Holodomor). First, the terminology doesn't resonate with the same connotation--the word `peasant' doesn't have the same meaning to an American or Briton as it does to the Ukrainian or Russian. Second, Ukraine wasn't an independent nation at the time of writing of The Harvest of Sorrow; on maps, Ukraine appeared as part of the Russian Empire or the Soviet Union. And, third and most importantly, the concealment of facts by Stalin and the Soviet authorities ensured that the world was kept uninformed or confused.
   
   The events chronicled in Harvest of Sorrow cover the period 1929-1932 (about the same length of time as that of the First World War). "Though confined to a single state, the number dying in Stalin's war against the peasants was higher than the total deaths for all countries in World War I."
   
   Evidence cited in Harvest of Sorrow is from a variety of confirmatory sources so that no serious doubts should remain about any aspect of the period. Types of evidence referenced include: Soviet scholars, the Soviet press, confidential documents that have reached the West (`Smolensk Archives' at Harvard), the testimony of former Party activists (including General Petro Grigorenko and Dr. Lev Kopelev), foreign correspondents, foreign citizens, and first-hand reports of survivors. "For a long time testimony which was both honest and true was doubted or denounced--by Soviet spokesmen, of course, but also by many in the West who for various reasons were not ready to face the appalling facts." The sheer amount of evidence is enormous, and the material is confirmatory.
   
   Following the Preface and Introduction are three Parts, the Epilogue, which includes Notes, Selected Bibliography, and Index.
   
   In the Preface, we're told that Ukrainian spellings of Ukrainian place and personal names were used, with the exception of Kiev (Kyiv), Kharkov (Kharkiv) and Odessa (Odesa). Additionally, Dr. Conquest used "the Ukraine" rather than "Ukraine." He acknowledged that at the time, a number of Ukrainians found the reference to "the Ukraine" derogatory; however, he used the phrase since at the time of writing, it was used by Western scholars, translations from prominent Ukrainian writers used the phrase (because of their imperfect knowledge of English), and by Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. Note: Ukraine gained independence in 1991. The website reads Embassy of Ukraine (not Embassy of the Ukraine); the government officially calls the country "Ukraine" (one word) and not "the Ukraine."
   
   The Introduction states, in part, that a historian's duty is to discover and register what actually happened--to put the facts beyond doubt and in their context. And, that is precisely what Dr. Conquest accomplishes.
   
   The Contents include: Preface; Introduction; Part I: The Protagonists: Party, Peasants and Nation; Part II: To Crush the Peasantry; Part III: The Terror-Famine; Epilogue: Notes (pgs. 348-394), Selected Bibliography (pgs. 394-398), and Index (pg. 398-412).
   
   Eleven archival photos evidence some of the very many atrocities. Background material is extensive, documented, detailed, and very informative.
   
   A horrendous chapter from Ukraine's history is exposed and documented. `A quarter of the rural population, men, women, and children, lay dead or dying, the rest in various stages of debilitation with no strength to bury their families or neighbors.' History that needs to be made known is presented in engrossing format with voluminous evidence. Deserving acclaim; deserving to be on library shelves, both personal and public, worldwide! A riveting read--definitely five stars, plus!
   
   Addendum: In spite of the efforts of some to deny the Ukrainian Holodomor, Kyiv Post, in its November 17, 2008 issue, reported: "Representatives of around 40 countries will come to Ukraine to participate in events dedicated to the memory of the 75th Anniversary of the Holodomor Famine in 1932-1933," including: the Presidents of Macedonia, Estonia, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, and also Bosnia and Herzegovina; Parliamentary Delegations from Moldova, France, Argentina, Brazil, Hungary, Spain, Croatia, Finland, and Liechtenstein; and, a Delegation from UNESCO, the European parliament, the OSCE, and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.



5. Me am good member of party. Me no like book. It say bad to starve 8 million people to death. Socialism above bourgeouise idea of morality. We liquidate who ever we want and Liberal useful idiots always defend. Besides kulaks bring it on themselves. If only they gave us all of their food in 1930 then we not take it from them in 1931 then no famine in 1932! famine be in 1930 then. This am important.
   
   Also talking about famine really fasthist plot. Anyone who not like communism fasthist and anti-semite. Cell leader tell me this last week so I repeat it here. Stop talking about famine! Vast right-wing conspiracy. Bush is hitler. Stalin great builder of mankind. Lenin god. Marx bigger god. Only bad stupid people not like. Me am not stupid.
   
   Conquest am bad. He write for Thatcher!! Look at his last name. Conquest!! Me write Putin now. When communism come back, we remember. Party never forget.

No comments about Russia Wall Map (tubed).

4 comments about The Penguin Historical Atlas of Russia (Hist Atlas).

1. The Penguin Historical Atlases are a great resource for those that are new to countries or perhaps are somewhat younger readers. In John Channon's version of Russian history, you'll find a concise, colorful and informative collection of articles spanning Russia's origins, the Tatars and establishment of imperial rule, through the Revolution, reforms and restructuring of the 20th Century. In a way it resembles something of a compilation of articles from a good illustrated encyclopedia.

   The appeal of the volume is in it's size, illustrations and charts- I think of it as a kind of annotated "table of contents" to Russian history. It's a great resource to get the basic synopsis of a period, person or event that you can then take to a larger volume for greater detail. If you are looking for a great coffee table book or in depth Russian history, this isn't it.

   As a neophyte to all things Russian, I found this to be the attractive appetizer that inspired me to really delve into Russian history and affairs.

   While visiting a friend a few years ago in Siberia, he was struck by the readability, illustrations and usefulness of my copy-- yes, I brought it with me... He loved it so much, that I just had to leave it with him when I left. I now have purchased my second copy.

   It's a great little introduction to Russia.




2. I have been teaching the history of Russia at Cornel University for many years and have never found a completely satistfactory hisitorical atlas. Channon's work is defintely the best available. The maps are in color and deal with most of the main issues. A notable omission is a map showing the climatic zones which moulded the life of the Russian people.



3. As a long time student of history, I've been delighted by the relatively recent growth in popularity of the Historical Atlas. Studying the cultures of ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt and China or Medieval England, France and Germany and others is much easier for me when I've got plenty of date sensitive maps to refer to, giving geographical context to ebb and flow of events over time.
   
   But I guess I've been spoiled when studying works about these other cultures, where there seems to be plenty of information about what went on in the distant past. It seems we can uncover the nick-name of the king's dentist when we're studying ancient Egypt. But I'm increasingly frustrated when it comes to my efforts to study the more distant portions of Russia's past, and this book, I must admit, was no exception. While providing excellent coverage of the more recent/modern chapters of Russia's past, this book, like every other history of Russia I've been able to find, seems to suggest that we just don't know much about the early stages of Russian history.
   
   I'm glad to have the few maps on Early Russia that this book provides. They do add some helpful map based context to other works I've read, and that's always appreciated. But the more I study Russia, the more I'm convinced that if you're a historian or archaeologist and want to pursue a field where there's still a LOT of history to be uncovered ... try Russia on for size. The challenge will be considerable ... but so's the opportunity.



4. Being interested in the historical expansion of Russia across Asia, I had high hopes for this book, since it was produced by the same publisher that gave us the excellent historical atlases of Europe and North America. However, unlike Colin McEvedy's invaluable works, I think this book was unfocused, convoluted and sloppy.
   
   Where McEvedy's works were the epitome of conciseness, and could cover a half century's worth of continental-wide geopolitical change in a single page, this purported historical_atlas_of Russian history is crammed full of photos, cartoons, paintings and page after page of unnecessary text. Rejecting the brilliant simplicity of McEvedy's books, whose method was to generally show a snapshot of the political map in a single year, with accompanying text explaining the changes since the previous map, this book often shows hundreds of years worth of overlapping border changes on a single map, with different colored arrows- representing military campaigns- snaking their way through the resulting mishmash. The effect is often utter confusion.
   
   Certain important subjects are given short shrift while comparatively insignificant areas receive inordinate attention. Russian expansion into Asia is dealt with by a single very, very bad map, and while the maps dealing with the expansion into the Caucuses and "the Stans" are ok, the explanatory text is unsatisfactorily cursory. Conversely, we are given much information on the location of various factories and industries within Russia, as well as maps of Moscow and the Sevastopol battlefield. The layout of the book is chronologically deranged as well. Can anyone explain to me why you would have a map of 1930s Europe, then have an entire chapter dealing with the history of the 20th century USSR until its dissolution, and_then_throw in a mere 2 maps on WWII? Similarly, why would you have a page with a map on the breakup of the USSR, and_then_finish the book with a chapter on Khrushchev's agricultural policies?? It just doesn't make sense.
   
   You can learn from this book. It has some good maps and some good information. However, "some" is he operative word. Too much dross and too little editing spoiled what could have been a very useful work.

2 comments about Caucasus: Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia Map.

1. Just returned from extensive visit to the country of Georgia and am pleased to report that this map was an excellent tool for familiarization and planning, as well as being an immense help getting around while there. I also had a larger scale map of Georgia alone, but this map proved more useful since it shows more of the small villages and uses the same Latin spellings as the Georgians do (major cities are also labeled in Georgian).



2. This map is a stunning value and a real beauty. The description truly does not do it justice: in addition to the nations listed in the title (and well defined borders for the breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia), the map features much of Turkey's Black Sea coast (down to Lake Van), Russia from Novorossiysk to the Caspian Sea (including contentious provinces like Dagestan and Chechnya), and the north-western tip of Iran.

2 comments about Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment.

1. All too often people think of the Enlightenment as a group of smart people thinking about why we are so wonderful. The flip side of Enlightenment thinking is that to make Europeans seem so wonderful, the Philosophes described themselves against an Other, who possessed all the undesirable traits not accepted by the "Enlightened" people. Wolff shows how the Philosophes, with limited actual knowledge of Eastern Europe, used the civilizations east of Germany to show the benefits of living in the West. During the Enlightenment the language used to describe Eastern Europe ascribed barbaric qualities to the people and offered little faith that the people could ever "evolve" as Western Europeans had. Wolff uses maps and traveler's accounts to show the influence the philosphes had on perceptions of Eastern Europe. It is rather disconcerting to note that many of these same perceptions persist today.



2. This is a book everybody interested in Eastern Europe should read. I pretty much liked the approach of the author and his general idea of revealing the historical sources of information that led to the present image of the Balkans. All the basic patterns, the prejudices, everything that makes you think what you think nowadays about the Balkans, Central Europe and Russia.
   
   It's obvious that Wolff is well travelled and has went through numerous sources. This book's strong side is the unique approach to analyzing texts written by travellers during the Enlightenment and showing their sometimes shockingly naive conclusions. It's not only educational and academic, but also fun to read. Recommended.

1 comments about Frommer's Moscow Day by Day (Frommer's Day by Day - Pocket).

1. Like the suggested walks with maps and compact format makes it easy to stick in your pocket

1 comments about Russia - Culture Smart!: the essential guide to customs & culture.

1. I just ordered this book on Amazon, since I will be going on exchange in Russia for half a year and wanted a glimpse into the Russian culture and customs. This was a very good book, and it didn't take long to finish it. It had a lot of very useful information that you have to know if you are going to go for dinner at a russian home or you want to understand for example why Russians don't smile in the street. This understanding will be good so you wont at first glimpse think that Russians are rude and unfriendly. Definitely recommend it as an invaluable book to read before going to Russia (also recommend culture shock Russia, but this was a quicker read)

5 comments about Frommer's Moscow and St. Petersburg (Frommer's Complete).

1. I think the guide is useful and concise, very much to the point and touches on many interesting and relevant topics. I've lived in Russia most of my life, so far, and I think the guide more than does it justice.



2. Many of the main attractions in St. Petersburgh and Moscow are museums and the like.
   
   Museums in both cities tend to be closed at least one day during the week. It is different days for different museums.
   
   There were a significant amount of attractions (probably about 1/3) in both cities where the book had incorrect days. So we'd show up on a day it was supposed to be open, and they were closed. Or the hours were wrong. Or the book would say that they had english tours and they did not.
   
   I was extremely disappointed at such a major oversight.



3. This guide reads like a draft.... I don't think it was ever tested with a live tourist.
   
   The Book format has the same information being partially repeated, with confusing cross references. In particular chapter "Suggested Moscow Itineraries" described the exact same places as chapter "Exploring Moscow", and the former chapter constantly referred to the latter chapter for details (WITHOUT page number!) which is annoying.
   
   Addresses given are vague and often inaccurate: that is a big problem in Moscow where addresses (even aside from the problem with Cyrillic) are highly confusing to westerners: as a result I sometimes got very lost.
   
   For example, the Kremlin tourist entrance was specified differently more than once, which is a big problem as the Kremlin is huge (e.g. p3 "The tourist entrance is on the north side ... at the Borovitsky Gates". p 117 has a map that doesn't show Borovitsky Gate. It shows the visitor's Entrance at Kufaya Towers on the west side. The latter was correct, the former in error).
   
   The location of internet cafe "Time Online" was unclear. (p.73 "... on the bottom floor of the the Okhotny Ryad shopping Center near the Kremlin
   (1 Maneshnaya Ploshchad" was very misleading because it was not mentioned the whole shopping center is underground and huge. I never found it after looking for 90 minutes)



4. This is a very useful guide to planning a trip to these two cities and finding your way around when you are there.



5. The reason we got the newest edition of this book was so that we can look up restaurants and clubs to visit, and three times, we used the reviews in this guidebook to eat in one of the recommended places. One such place was in Moscow - we found the exact address, but it was a travel agency and there were no signs of that place ever being a restaurant. The other two places were in St. Petersburg, one was even a starred review. We did find one place, "beer exchange", but it was such a sad place that the blurb about it in this book was more like a deceptive ad than an unbiased review. We finally stopped trying, so who knows how many more places recommended in this guidebook aren't really there.
   Also, the street names in the book are all in english only, but the street names in Russia are mostly in Cyrillic.

1 comments about Russia (Country Guide).

1. So you have already seen the present (Moscow) and former (St. Petersburg) capital, and now you would like to see the "real Russia", or you have an airplane conference to attend in Kazan, or you have adopted a child from Murmansk, or you are meeting a prospective bride from Magadan (don't laugh--whenever I answer questions from people who are traveling to regions outside of Moscow/St. Petersburg, 80% are going for adoption or marriage!). There are almost no current guidebooks to regions such as Perm, Novosibirsk, Irkutsk, Volgograd, Crimea, Minsk, and the Far East. The 'Lonely Planet Russia and Ukraine' has the largest area coverage of any guide currently published in English.
   
   It is also ideal for those taking a river cruise between Moscow and St. Petersburg.
   
   The coverage of the famed Trans-Siberian route is ok, although I think the 'Trans-Siberian Handbook' and 'Siberian Bam Guide : Rail, Rivers & Road' do a better job for those particular regions.
   
   The Moscow/St. Petersburg sections are ok as well, although anyone spending more than a few days in each of those cities should look into guides that cover only those cities.
   
   Restaurant, hotel and travel information are good, although could use more details. The history sections are adequate considering the scope of the book. Also, the twice-yearly updates at Lonely Planet's web site, although lacking in breadth and depth, provide some more timely information than what appears in the book.
   
   Marc David Miller, Discovering Russia, New York