Open Lands : Travels Through Russia's Once Forbidden Places

For the savvy reader, the book does provide a remarkable opportunity to read between the lines and compare new news with old history. The trap for the unwary reader is to take the author's second-hand descriptions of old Russian tragedies and past injustices as a blanket picture of present day. He lovingly describes the infrastructure conditions left over from an oppressive era; cracked buildings, ex gulag-prisoners' memories, hidden mass graves, cold trains, sheep's-head dinners, 1940-truck repairs, out-dated clothing, smuggling, mud, vodka, no bitumen, and so on.
All seems hopeless and the read can be a bit of a downer unless one slaps himself awake to realize that Russia is not starting from the bottom. It's not an apathetic, fly-blown, poverty stricken bog that can't feed itself. In reality, there is no-one starving, the trains are clean and do run on time. They have industry, science, medicine, atomic energy, universities, space travel, literature, art, agriculture, creative spirit, smiles and hope.
Otto von Bismark, the Prussian chancellor, once commented, "The Russians may take a long time to saddle their horses, but when they ride, they ride!"

I give the book three stars for reporting, with seeming relish, only the unsavory.There's an opportunity for the author to redeem his objectivity and do the trip again in present time for Volume Two. It would make a very interesting read. Except next time, interview the people who are remaking the country; shave, bathe and leave the back-pack at home.


Great read   October 18, 2003
 6 out of 6 found this review helpful

A former member of the US embassy staff in the old Soviet Union, Taplin is able to walk you through the booze fueled transistion from communism to democracy.

It's not a blow by blow historical read but a time stamp of someone who was there when these events happened and chronicles the reactions of the average Yuri on the street to the countries tectonics.

The title is a reference to the agreement (the Open Lands agreement) signed between the US and Russia that allowed each others citizens unimpeded access to the areas of the respective countries. When Nikita Kruschev came to America he was irate at not being allowed to visit LA. It was closed. With the new open lands agreement Taplin journeys to the previously unvisited (by Americans) towns of Russia.

A great job.


Worth a read - SLANTED, but worth a read   August 23, 2002
 11 out of 12 found this review helpful

A good effort, and most of it is interesting and entertaining. His description of the mood and conditions are quite accurate and illuminating.

Which is the rub - his bias gives the book a feel of one written at the height of the Reagan era, and not by a typical American travelling Russia in the 90s. An 'Information Officer' in the U.S. embassy, son of a spook... 'nuff ced. His description of Russian trains clearly show he's NEVER ridden on Amtrak, and his condemnation of 'soulless monumental Stalinist architecture' makes me wonder WHERE in Washington D.C. he was living.

The main annoyance with the book is his constant references to some mysterious pre-revolutionary golden age in Russia. Basically, he seems to feel that everything SINCE the Revolution was bad, and everything BEFORE automatically good (perhaps coming up with spin for the State Dept. has made it easy for him to ignore the pre-revolutionary 90% illiteracy, NO health care, serfdom, etc. - he doesn't seem to recall that the schoolkids he talks to wouldn't have BEEN schoolkids under old Nicky II).

As I said, a good read, but it has a definite Reagan-era feel to it. A good companion to Jeffrey Tayler's OUTSTANDING 'Siberian Dawn', or Colin Thubron's "Lost Heart of Asia', and 'In Siberia'.