Research Catalog

Title

Sovietistan : travels in Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan / Erika Fatland ; translated from the Norwegian by Kari Dickson.

Author

Fatland, Erika, 1983-

Publication

London : Maclehose Press/Quercus, 2019.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

Dickson, Kari

Description

477 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : color illustrations, maps, color portraits; 24 cm

Summary

Erika Fatland takes the reader on a journey that is unknown to even the most seasoned globetrotter. The five former Soviet Republics' Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan all became independent when the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991. How have these countries developed since then? In the Kyrgyzstani villages Erika Fatland meets victims of the widely known tradition of bride snatching; she visits the huge and desolate Polygon in Kazakhstan where the Soviet Union tested explosions of nuclear bombs; she meets Chinese shrimp gatherers on the banks of the dried out Aral Sea and she witnesses the fall of a dictator. She travels incognito through Turkmenistan, a country that is closed to journalists. She meets exhausted human rights activists in Kazakhstan, survivors from the massacre in Osh in 2010, German Menonites that found paradise on the Kyrgyzstani plains 200 years ago. During her travels, she observes how ancient customs clash with gas production and she witnesses the underlying conflicts between ethnic Russians and the majority in a country that is slowly building its future in Nationalist colours. In these countries, that used to be the furthest border of the Soviet Union, life follows another pace of time. Amidst the treasures of Samarkand and the bleakness of Soviet architecture, Erika Fatland moves with her openness towards the people and the landscapes around her.

Uniform Title

Sovjetistan. English

Alternative Title

Sovjetistan.

Subject

• Fatland, Erika, 1983- > Travel > Asia, Central
• Travel writing
• Travel
• Asia, Central > Description and travel
• Central Asia

Genre/Form

Travel writing.

Note

• First published in the Norwegian language as "Sovjetistan" by Kagge Forlag, Oslo, in 2014--Title page verso.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 475-477).

Language (note)

• Translated from the Norwegian.

Awards (note)

• Winner of the Norwegian Prize for Non-fiction.

Contents

Turkmenistan -- Kazakhstan -- Tajikistan -- Kyrgyzstan -- Uzbekistan.

Call Number

JFE 19-10742

ISBN

• 9780857057761
• 0857057766
• 9780857057778
• 0857057774
• 9780857057754 (canceled/invalid)

OCLC

1117767397

Author

Fatland, Erika, 1983- author.

Title

Sovietistan : travels in Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan / Erika Fatland ; translated from the Norwegian by Kari Dickson.

Publisher

London : Maclehose Press/Quercus, 2019.

Type of Content

text

still image

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 475-477).

Language

Translated from the Norwegian.

Awards

Winner of the Norwegian Prize for Non-fiction.

Added Author

Dickson, Kari, translator.

Other Form:

Ebook version : 9780857057754

Research Call Number

JFE 19-10742