Lost Cosmonaut

May 22, 2006
When Halder tells a passenger on a train to Kazan, the capital of the Russian republic of Tatarstan, that he and his friends are just tourists, she's convinced he's either stupid or lying. After all, who would willingly visit what turns out to be "a fairly sleepy provincial Russian city distinguished by a big mosque" and a McDonald's? But Halder, a Scottish writer living in the former Soviet Union, is fascinated by the rundown "pseudo-countries" we never hear about in the news, believing them to be symbolic of all humanity. His "appetite for black holes" eventually leads to further travels in Kalmykia, Mari El and Udmurtia. Unfortunately, while his rhetorical enthusiasm remains strong throughout, a certain repetitiveness creeps in. Halder wanders around the depressingly grim surroundings, cobbles together whatever cultural facts he can find online and has mostly frustrating encounters with the locals ("I don't much like talking to people"). And while his real-life misadventures, like a visit to a sacred pagan grove with a high priest he meets through a mail-order bride distributor, are outlandish enough, he still engages in distracting fabrications and daydreams. Halder's refusal to set himself up as an international expert is admirable, but his depiction of the remote republics of a "shadow Europe" remains uneven. B&w photos throughout.

August 1, 2006
Adhering to an "anti-tourist" manifesto that demands the pursuit of the obscure and the bizarre, as well as an acceptance of hardships, Scottish-born Kalder reports on his travels through Eastern European republics little known and rarely visited by outsiders, for example, Tatarstan, Kalmykia, Mari El, and Udmurtia. Kalder lingers over cultural oddities such as Peter the Great's collection of embalmed dead babies, and does an extensive job of interlinking his detailed observations of each place to the larger world. In fact, so focused is he on miniscule facts, they overrun the narrative. Still, Kalder's adventures are daring and make for exciting reading, and he is witty and outspoken enough to raise eyebrows. Yet for all the can-you-believe-it? descriptions and hip commentary, the "why" is missing, the traveler's analysis that enriches the best of travel writing. But even this lack of dimension doesn't keep Kalder's tales of anti-tourist wanderings from being cool, wry, lively, and fun.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)