decembrist incredible dedication trailblazer

books:

Warbird Recovery: The Hunt for a Rare WWII Plane in Siberia, Russia

19 reviews
Gordon R Page

iUniverse, Inc., 2005

Don't try this yourself
This is a great read. Gordon's adventures in Russia fall into the category of "someday we'll laugh about this". By sheer coincidence, I was traveling in Russia in 1993 just a few months before Gordon's first visit. Alas, I was cheated; I experienced no bedbugs, no shakedowns, no raw cod liver, no KGB tails, no self-promoting hookers, no rotgut vodka, no cold showers. I guess I was lucky to be ...

The Other Side of Russia: A Slice of Life in Siberia and the Russian Far East

13 reviews
Sharon Hudgins

Texas A&M University Press, 2004

The Far Side
The Other Side of Russia is part travel narrative, part social history, part memoir, part food writing. All these parts come together to make a terrific book. Sharon Hudgins and her husband Tom spent a year and a half in post-Soviet Siberia teaching business management for the University of Maryland's overseas program. As peripatetic ex-patriates, they were familiar with unfamiliarity. But ...

A symphony of whales

5 reviews
Steve Schuch

American Printing House for the Blind, 2000

This is almost too good a book for kids....
Heard about this book on NPR and bought it for nephew cos I liked the idea and the story. What wasn't clearly told was just how incredibly rich Peter Sylvada's illustrations are... all oil paintings... they capture the beauty and harsh environment of Alaska, as well as slices of life from a native Alaskan village. Even southern dwellers can see some of why those who love it do so. The ...

Man Is Wolf to Man: Surviving the Gulag

33 reviews
Janusz Bardach, Kathleen Gleeson

University of California Press, 1998

An unbelievably bleak tale of survival in the Gulag
Janusz Bardach, who became a plastic surgeon in Iowa City, Iowa in 1972, recounts his experiences in the Gulag in this bleak tale of survival reminiscent of Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago. A secular Jewish man and supporter of Stalin and communism living in Poland In 1939, he and his family fear their future as Germany's military forces are set up along the border. He is eventually ...

Eye of the Whale : Epic Passage from Baja to Siberia

8 reviews
Dick Russell

Simon & Schuster, 2001

An excellent chronicle and tribute to the Gray Whale
Dick Russell has produced an amazing chronicle of the life of the California Gray whale. This is a book that is not only important today but will hold a place of value and respect hundreds of years into the future. Sadly this book may most likely survive the species itself. I have spent over two decades studying and working to protect the Gray whale and I've lead four major conservation ...

The Ice Curtain

4 reviews
Robin White

Delacorte Press, 2002

Excellent Russian thriller
In 1999 Irkutsk, Siberia, Siberian Delegate Arkady Volsky persuades his friend, former geologist Gregori Nowek to accompany him to Moscow. Arkady plans to demand that the Chairman of the State Diamond Committee Petrov pays the Mirny miners for their work. In Moscow, Gregori is late for the meeting in which Petrov tells Gregori he has not sold any diamonds recently due to a feud with the western ...

Trans-Siberian Handbook: Includes Rail Route Guide and 25 City Guides (Trailblazer Guides)

16 reviews
Bryn Thomas

Trailblazer Publications, 2004

Preferable to the Lonely Planet guide. Indeed, one of the best travel guides I've ever encountered
For passengers on traveling on all or most of the Trans-Siberian Railway and visiting the cities along it, there are only two English-language travel guides. The Lonely Planet guide appeared in 2003 with a second edition in 2006, while Bryn Thomas updates his guide almost yearly and in 2007 it reached its seventh edition. I'm a two-time veteran of the Trans-Siberian, using the 1st edition of the ...

Escape Via Siberia: A Jewish Child's Odyssey of Survival

7 reviews
Dorit Bader Whiteman

Holmes & Meier Publishers, 1999

KEPT ME UP ALL NIGHT!
I bought this book after talking to Dorit Whiteman at her book signing at the Holocaust Museum and seeing her engrossing presentation at a library. She is an utterly charming and thoroughly knowledgeable individual! Her book expertly weaves together history with the true story of a how a resourceful, clever boy repeatedly gave the slip to German and Russian forces. I stayed up all night ...

Blood Red Square

5 reviews
Pat Mullan

LBF Books, 2005

action-packed thriller
In 1961 in Leopoldville, the Congo, the American Kearns and the Russian Zhukov ask the mercenary major with the Anglo-Irish accent if all is ready. He tells them that the VIP will meet with Mobutu before flying on to see Tshombe in Ndola; he will not make it there. They give him 50% of his fee. Three days later UN Secretariat Dag Hammarskjöld and his retinue die in a place crash on his way ...

Warbird Recovery: The Hunt for a Rare World War II Plane in Siberia, Russia

16 reviews
Gordon R Page

iUniverse Star, 2007

Warbird Recovery....Buy it!
When Gordon sent me the book, I was excited to dig into it, but life is busy, and I didn't get a chance to read it right away. I am sorry I delayed reading it as it is an excellent story. I couldn't put it down once started. Gordon's undying passion and perseverance in the recovery of these WWII relics is impressive. I thought that I have had some pretty crazy adventures moving aircraft around ...

Olga's Story

3 reviews
Stephanie Williams

Viking, 2005

An engrossing narrative of the 20th Century in turmoil
The machinations of war and revolution come alive as the threads of one family's life are interwoven throughout the history of two World Wars, the Bolshevik Revolution and the rise of Communism. This book was especially poignant for me: my grandmother too was born in Russia. White Russian or Red, ordinary people were capriciously affected by the power struggle. Coincidentally,I read the ...

Shanar: Dedication Ritual of a Buryat Shaman in Siberia

3 reviews
Virlana Tkacz, Sayan Zhambalov, ...

Parabola Books, 2002

Wonderful
In an era of neo-Shamanism and cold-hearted anthropology, it is very nice to see an increase in books where the authors are both practitioners and scientists. Shanar is quite impressive. The ritual appears authentic, the photographs are remarkable, and the text is quite intriguing. If you're the type who wants to have Shamanism presented in a non-threatening, non-cultural, ...

One Hundred Siberian Postcards

4 reviews
Richard Wirick

Telegram Books, 2007

Exquisitely moving and beautiful
An adoptive father myself, I found Rick Wirick's book absolutely stunning. You really get to see the strangeness--from both sides (adoptive family and adopted child)--of transnational adoption. The book very sensitively deals with the politics of uprooting a child from her native culture, but it does so in its chosen form: lyrical, elliptical "postcards" sent with some urgency to the global ...

Tent Life in Siberia: An Incredible Account of Siberian Adventure, Travel, and Survival

4 reviews
George Kennan

Skyhorse Publishing, 2007

Amazing story
This book is the fascinating travel journal of George Kennan(1845-1924) who was employed by the Russo-American Telegraph company to explore Eastern Siberia in 1865. Leaving from San Francisco in July 1865 Mr. Kennan and three other men set out for Petropavlovski in Kamchatka. From there they began a march to the northwest, meeting the Sea of Okhotsk and then detouring West for a while until ...

The Princess of Siberia: The Story of Maria Volkonsky and the Decembrist Exiles

3 reviews
Christine Sutherland

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1984

A fascinating book on the Decembrist uprising and exile
An extraordinary, well researched book about the life of 24 year old Princess Maria Volkonsky nee Raevsky who followed her husband Prince Sergei Volkonsky who was banished by the Tsar after the Decembrist uprising into exile in Siberia. The Decembrists were a group of intellectual Russian Aristocrats who wanted to banish serfdom. It was called the 'First Russian Revolution' . I wonder what would ...

Longbows in the Far North: An Archer's Adventures in Alaska and Siberia

4 reviews
E. Donnall Thomas

Stackpole Books, 2007

Traditional Bowhunting at its finest.
As a traditional bowhunter, I found Dr. Thomas' stories to be not only informative but delightfully entertaining. He brings out not only the adventure of the hunt but the ethics of the sport. He has taken us to places that few will be able to go and made us see them through the eyes of a hunter and naturalist. He shows us that it is the hunt that matters, not the harvest. His ethical ...

The Book of Kin (The Ringing Cedars Series, Book 6)

2 reviews
Vladimir Megre

Ringing Cedars Press, 2007

Another gem
This book for me sits with 1 and 4 as best-in-series. Much of the information here will take time to digest, perhaps several years but when it does I am sure it will be revered by many as a key piece of transformative literature. The 'live' book of life is a good example. It highlights how Mankind has managed to shrink the wonder of life into 26 letter shapes, these tiny things I am now tapping ...

The Shaman's Coat: A Native History of Siberia

4 reviews
Anna Reid

Walker & Company, 2003

Trans-Siberian Armchair Express
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 ...

Exiled to Siberia

3 reviews
Klaus Hergt

Crescent Lake Publishing, 2000

Brings dark times and events vividly to life
Exiled To Siberia: A Polish Child's WWII Journey is the engaging biography of a ten-year-old Polish boy deported by the Soviets at the outbreak of World War II. From Henryk Birecki's childhood in a Polish village to his ultimate integration into American society after the war, the reader is treated to a candid and informative story of the hardships and cruelties brought about by the forcible ...

Shallow Grave in Siberia

3 reviews
Michael Krupa

Minerva Press, 1995

Captivating Story of one Polish Man's Escape From Siberia and Trek to Freedom
Highly recommended story of personal struggle and survival! What starts out as one Polish man's journey to find his calling in pre-war Poland, turns into a survival story of epic proportions when in 1939 the Germans and the Soviets invade. Michael Krupa tells you his amazing and true story of life for a Polish soldier on the run in WWII. He escapes the Germans only to be captured by the ...

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