- Paperback: 368 pages
- Publisher: Scribner (4 May 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0684818108
- ISBN-13: 978-0684818108
- Product Dimensions: 23 x 15.2 x 3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,739,213 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
The miseries of life under Communism were such that most intelligent people took to drink--not just to the odd social glass, but to mad obsessive drinking of the sort that leads less to hangovers than to falling asleep on frozen streets. Exiled journalist Vitaliev, no stranger to the bottle himself, took on the task of finding whether alcoholic consumption had continued at Soviet levels in the newly capitalist former Soviet bloc. A purist in his pursuit of plainest of plain vodkas, he gallantly consumes Czech beer and Bulgarian wine and meditates extensively on the mentalities that go with different sorts of drinking--he is equally and entertainingly rude about lager louts and wine bores. The book is also a farewell to alcohol--Vitaliev, already suffering from a stomach ulcer, decided after all this that perhaps drinking was simply a bad idea. And, as he journeys around Central and Eastern Europe, people in bars tell him stories--it is perhaps above all in these casually told and not wholly relevant funny stories that he puts together most convincingly his picture of a world that has got out from under an oppressive system without really knowing what comes next. --Roz Kaveney
Product Description
A look at the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe, whose countries are the heaviest drinkers in the world. Vitaliev, a former drinker now teatotaler, attempts to find out why this has not changed with the collapse of communism and the wider availability of books, a free press, travel etc. He examines the peoples' struggles and defiance.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Travel without tears,
By Mr. P. I. Robbins "Russkie" (near Baldock, North Hertfordshire, England) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Borders Up!: Eastern Europe Through the Bottom of a Glass (Paperback)
"Travel without tears". A master travel writer - not only interesting but witty! He makes you want to visit the places yourself. A very amusing book.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Travel without tears,
By Mr. P. I. Robbins "Russkie" (near Baldock, North Hertfordshire, England) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Borders Up!: Eastern Europe Through the Bottom of a Glass (Hardcover)
A master travel writer - not only interesting but witty!
He makes you want to visit the places yourself. A very amusing book.
4.0 out of 5 stars
His ulcer must knack.,
By
This review is from: Borders Up!: Eastern Europe Through the Bottom of a Glass (Hardcover)
This book makes me thirsty. It makes me want to taste wines, and to slam neat vodkas and talk politics. Vitaliev's experiences with the wretched Australians are amusing. I always wanted to go to the Oktoberfest, so when I get round to it I'll get heavy on the avoision of these beings. Yes, avoision is a word. As in tax avoision. Vague memories come back of the Clive James show, although can't quite remember what Vitali said, but remember James squishing his face up and getting a real kick out of the name of his Moscow correspondent, only just managing to say it without imploding.
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