Have you ever been trapped in a crowd, a hysterical crowd,terrified of the future? Imagine being a young Jewish woman doctor in Stalinist former Soviet Union during the Second War - and each decision might be fatal. Fear, terror, and blind hatred rule the day - and everyone wants the young doctor to perform miracles when God seemed silent and remote.

This fascinating autobiography, written with a sharp sense of life's ironies and injustices, conveys the wisdom that comes from being a true survivor. Compassion and knowledge can sometimes save a life - or mean nothing except dying with a conscience. (It's worth juxaposing the Machevillian logic of Rich on that silly island TV show where ethics were jettisonned for money with the heroism of the partisans of WWII.) Ruzena also illuminates the brutality come so easily to so many individuals in the name of so abstract ideology like fascism or communism.

Perhaps Oprah could interview Ruzena so television viewers can see how a true hero behaves in a crisis! This inspirational story of a woman's survival, sacrifice, and success (living and enjoying life in the California) combats the easy cynicism that seems so pervasive today. We should never, Ruzena shows, underestimate what a smart woman can do - especially in a crisis!

Cattle Car To Kazakhstan: A Woman Doctor's Triumph Of Courage In World War II is the story of a young woman in her twenties, married to a dynamic lawyer, a leader in the Zionist movement, whose world was torn apart in September 1939 when her home town of Przemysl, Poland (bisected by the River San) is occupied by the German army on one side, and the Russian army on the other. Ruzena's husband is arrested by the Soviet Secret Police because of his political activities, leaving her alone and six months pregnant. After her baby is born three months later, the NKVD (Soviet secrete police) arrest her, put her into a cattle car packed with other women and children, and ship her off to the a primitive Kirghiz village on the wild steppes of Kazakhstan, south of Siberia. Cattle Car To Kazakhstan is a vivid account of Ruzena Berler's deportation and the years she spent in the wild steppes and, later, in the Czech Legion. She and her companions worked hard to simply survive. A lot of women and children didn't. Ruzena later served as a doctor in an immense agricultural complex, battled a devastating typhus epidemic, was pursued in winter by wolves, used a high-wheeled cart through muddy floods of sudden springtime snowmelts, fought (and became an officer) with the Czech Legion in what is now Kazakhstan against the Germans, and worked in the field hospital day and night with little sleep. During all of this, she took care of her child. After the war, Ruzena learned that her family died in Auschwitz, and that her husband had been executed by the Soviet Secret Police. The war being over, she left newly liberated Prague as Czechoslovakia was becoming Communist, moving to Southern California, remarrying, raising her daughter Olga and having sons. Cattle Car To Kazakhstan is an astonishing, candid, revealing autobiography, the story of a woman's successful struggle to survive overwhelming odds for herself and her daughter in times of war, oppression, violence and despair.

Contemporary Kazakhs: Cultural And Social Perspectives is a superb ethnological survey of the Kazaks of Kazakstan with articles reflecting the contemporary life of rural and urban Kazaks. This meticulous collection revolves around the them of how the Kazak way of life has evolved and changed since achieving political independence. The contributors include Ingvar Svanberg (The Kazak Nation); Karen Odgaard and Jens Simonsen (The New Kazak Elite); Cynthia Ann Werner (The Dynamics of Feasting and Gift Exchange in Rural Kazakstan); Hilda C. Eitzen (Nawri'z in Kazakstan: Scenarios for Managing Diversity); and Peter Finke (The Kazaks of Western Mongolia). Enhanced with a bibliography and index, Contemporary Kazakhs is a work of highly recommended scholarship for students of international and ethnography studies in general, and Kazakstan in particular.

None of the eight tales in this splendid book, first published by Moscow's Raduga in 1986, are Russian. They are all from Central Asia, the former Republics now at the center of the news. In these lands, the people obviously derive much of their entertainment from stories, and these examples twist and turn through 189 pages of fine, magical, and strangely familiar adventures.

From Uzbekistan, readers are treated to Three Brothers, a story retold by Sergei Palastrov in which the father of Tonguch-batyr (21), Ortancha-batyr (18) and Kenjdja-batyr (16) passed some wisdom to his boys. "I am not rich," he told them as he grew old, "and what you inherit after me will not last long."

Still, since he raised them in good health, as strong warriors with nothing to fear, he asked them to be honest (so they'd live without qualms), not to brag (so they'd never be ashamed), and not to be lazy (so they'd be happy). "For the rest," he told them, "it's your own lookout." He sent them off on three horses with food for a week to seek their fortunes.

They rode off together the next morning, and that evening divided the night into three watches. On the first watch, Tonguch heard a noise and drew his sword. Moments later, a lion emerged from the brush, and he slew it and returned to the camp with a small trophy from his prey. Ortancha-batyr's watch came second and Kendja-batyr's third.

The next night, on Ortancha-batyr's watch, Azhdar-sultan, King of the Snakes, emerged from the thicket and he slew him, just as his brother did the lion. He too returned to the camp with an easily concealed piece of his prey, as if nothing had happened.

The third night, the fire went out and Kendja-batyr left his brothers to thwart a band of robbers who intended to steal from the Shah. Before morning he returned to his brothers as if nothing happened, with a whole set of trophies.

The next morning, when the brothers came to the town, the Shah asked all strangers to come at once to his palace. The plot takes many detours and includes a tale within a tale. The illustrations by Uzbek artist Javlon Umarbekov are as lavish as the story, in which the young men followed their father's advice and became quite happy.

The next two tales hail from Kirghiz.

In Which was Biggest (retold by Mikhail Bulatov), readers again meet three brothers, who decided to live separate and apart. But they had only one bull between them, and failing to see how they could divide it, they set off to consult a wise man. The bull was so huge that, although one traveled by its head, one by its side and the last behind it with a stick, they traveled leagues apart. The tale grows quite fanciful, including an eagle larger than the bull, forty doctors who set sail in a man's eye, and a fox so large it was too big to be skinned on both sides. It also includes a riddle, which readers must solve.

Clever Ashik (retold by Dmitri Brudnyi) is the tale of a boy orphaned when he was small and taken in as a shepherd by a wealthy bei. The boy saved a frog, who blessed him in thanks with the gift of a magic pebble. To appease a neighboring khan, the boy solved a riddle (very like one in a Jewish folk tale called The Three Riddles) and outwitted him several times more, for which he was paid with a stay in the dungeon. How he got out is quite fantastic. But there the tale does not end. Ashik encountered still more adventures, in which he employed the devices of a fine Baba Yaga tale I know. This story, too, ends happily.

From Tajikistan come two tales--The Greedy Kazi and The Padishah's Daughter and the Young Slave--illustrated by Vladimir Serebrovsky, the chief artist at the Dushanbe's Aini Opera and Ballet Theater. The second tells of a young woman too haughty to consider any of the suitors who courted her. Despairing that he would never find a husband for her, the Padishah journeyed to other towns seeking a wise man to advise him. At last an old man who wrote fortunes on pebbles told him his daughter would marry a slave. Enraged, the Padishah ordered his slave beheaded. How the slave escaped him is all magic and delight.

The book closes with two Turkmen jewels, Yarty-Gulok and A Mountain of Gems, and a Kazakh tale, A bought Dream, handsomely illustrated by Kazakh artist Mendibai Alin.

I have read many folk tales, and many collections, and this one (despite its outdated title) is rich indeed. Alyssa A. Lappen

We first checked this out from our local library and had to have a copy of our own. The book was classified as "Junior", but it is an excellent overview for adults also.

This book is excellent reading for "armchair enthusiasts", serious mountaineers, or anyone in between. Before reading this book I did not even know who Anatoli was. Now, I see him as one of the true great mountaineers. I really related to his feelings for the mountains, and I share many of his philosophies regarding climbing. Reaching the summit is not success; to be successful, you must make it safely down. Even if Mallory and Irvine reached the summit of Everest, they didn't achieve success by living to tell about it.
As a mountaineer and author myself, I was very pleased how easy I could relate to Anatoli's feelings and philosophies about the sport of mountaineering. On page 123 he states that he treated the mountains "like cathedrals where worship gives you strength and strips off the scale of ordinary life." He also told a different version of the accounts of the disastrous climbing month in May 1996 on Mt. Everest, which catapulted high altitude mountaineering to the front pages of newspapers around the world. I still view Reinhold Messner as the best mountaineer of all time, but had Anatoli lived longer he would have surely closed the gap.

TJ Burr
Mountaineer/Author
"Rocky Mountain Adventure Collection"

Anatoli Boukreev was one of the most remarkable mountaineers in history. This book gives the reader great insight into Boukreev's thoughts, as well as the Soviet culture. Having read many other books, the similarities between Soviet athletes, chess masters and intellectuals is stunning. Anatoli Boukreev hints at the pressure placed upon him and others prior to the fall of his government. "Above the Clouds" has excellent narratives about climbing, but it is much more than that. His writings about the Everest tragedy are striking.

This is a terrific book by one of the most famous and least-understood mountain climbers of our time. Boukreev was known to only a small group of mountaineering insiders before the publication of Krakauer's Into Thin Air and then Boukreev's own bestseller The Climb. Here, he reveals himself to be a thoughtful, poetic yet tough-minded, and extremely intelligent writer. This book not only covers adventures on Everest, Mt. McKinley, K2, Annapurna, and elsewhere, but also reveals little known and fascinating details about Russia and Kazakhstan and the USSR climbing culture in which Boukreev was raised. Anyone interested in climbing will love this book. (It has terrific photos too, most of them taken by Boukreev from the tops of the peaks he scaled.)

This book is extremely comprehensive and should be read early in the process. Through no fault of the author's, some material is out of date because the Russian Laws have changed since the book was written (i.e. two trips are now required). Outside of that, my wife and I found the book to be the best resource we could have possibly found. It contains helpful information and lists of questions to ask medical professionals, children's home directors, and adoption agency guides. The best thing about the book is that the material is broken down into simple sections and is presented in an easy to understand manner. I don't have enough room to write all the good things about this book, but it should be required reading for anyone considering adopting from Russia or other countries.

My husband and I are begining our adoption journey and have just signed with an agency. I found that this book contained much more practical, usable information than I have read elsewhere. They even tell you how to fill out all of the forms, when to call the INS, and what types of payments different government agencies will accept in different states. It also includes reviews of hotels in Moscow and how they are toward adoptive parents. This book has prepared me for much more than I expected. A 5 star must read if you are adopting or plan to adopt from Russia.

This is the perfect book for anyone just getting started in adopting from Russia, Ukraine or Kasakstan. John Maclean gives a wonderful overview of the process, a good description of what a dossier consists of, and an idea how various regions do things differently. It brought together in one place all the information I had been seeking on the internet. It answered all my questions, and brought up issues I hadn't even been aware of. Highly recommend it!

Nazpary's remarkable book surveys the appalling effects of a real counter-revolution. Since 1990, Kazakh workers' rights to jobs, wages, welfare, free education, pensions and savings, have all been ripped away. Their access to cheap housing, electricity, gas, phones, transport, health care, childcare, sport, arts, libraries, have all gone. In the 1980s and 1990s, active NATO and IMF interventions enforced capitalism in Kazakhstan, grabbing oil, gas and metals for firms like Shell and British Gas. 15% of foreign investment is British, 23% South Korean, 29% US. Theft of public property through privatisation has closed factories and destroyed jobs: engineering and agricultural outputs both halved between 1995 and 1998.

This is what happens when the working class lets go of its controls over society, its party and trade unions.

As a young Kazakh woman said, "Before, in the Soviet time, there were moral limits and the authorities looked after them. There were high moral standards ... People were truthful. They were brought up in a good way. But today people have become like savage animals. They behave according to the law of the jungle."

Now violent and corrupt mafiosi, newly freed, traffic in drugs and sex, and become the new rich, while for the workers, there is only loss, insecurity, growing ethnic and gender tensions and huge growths in poverty and migration. Capital goes global; workers are ghettoised. The workers rightly see all these evils as resulting from the infliction of capitalism. Nazpary notes the very strong 'Soviet patriotism' among the mass of the people, while the new rich view the Soviet era only as tyranny. He details the networking of family and friends in the scrabble for scarce goods, but as he notes, "tragically and paradoxically, networking as a response to the chaos perpetuates it."

In the FSU as whole, an estimated 4.7 million more people have died since 1990 as a direct result of the counter-revolution. As world capitalism, unrestrained by the USSR's existence, grows more brutal and corrupt, Kazakhstan is just one instance of problems common to workers across the world.

Kazakhstan's workers need to make a new revolution.

A Hiker's Guide to Almaty is a comprehensive review of some very interesting (and likely spectacular!) hikes in the Tien Shen mountains in the vicinity of Almaty, Kazakhstan.

The main shortcoming of the book is that it contains too few maps (two of poor quality) and will likely have to be supplemented by additional more detailed maps before one could actually make the hikes. Having said that, the author has provided excellent reviews of the hikes (likely from extensive personal experience) and includes information about interesting sights, local history, flora and fauna and safety considerations. The introduction to the book is especially informative for those wishing to travel to the area. The translation from the Russian does not generally affect comprehension although you will notice some strangely worded sections.

I do intend to use this book, in an upcoming trip to Kazakhstan, and it will certainly be a useful and practical addition to the intelligence I will carry with me. After the trip, I'll be better able to evaluate the book's accuracy.

Overall, a nice BASIC overview of Kazakstan, and its history and culture. Good description and lots of nice pictures. The main weakness is not enough depth regarding its geography, major cities and their demographics. For example, the map leaves off the city of Petropavlosk, etc.