SOVIETISTAN

'A Journey Through Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan', the book was shortlisted for the Edward Stanford/Lonely Planet Debut Travel Writer of the Year in 2020. Erika Fatland takes us on a journey that is unknown even to the most seasoned globetrotter. With an acute journalistic eye and an openness towards people and landscapes, she observes how five former Soviet Republics, once the USSR's furthest border, became independent in 1991. How have these countries developed since then? In the Kyrgyzstani villages, Erika 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 Mennonites who 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. Amidst the treasures of Samarkand and the bleakness of Soviet architecture, Erika provides a rare and unforgettable travelogue. Published 2019, 480 pages in paperback which includes history but also social, economic, political and environmental facts. Armchair travel at its best. Eight pages of rather grainy photos.