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Product Description
'As the world has become smaller so its wonders have diminished. There is nothing amazing about the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China or the Pyramids of Egypt. They are as banal and familiar as the face of a Cornflakes packet. The true unknown frontiers lie elsewhere. The duty of the traveller, of the voyager, is to open up new zones of experience. In our over explored world these must of necessity be wastelands, black holes, and grim urban blackspots: all the places which, ordinarily, people choose to avoid. THE ONLY TRUE VOYAGERS, THEREFORE, ARE ANTI-TOURISTS.' Lost Cosmonaut documents Daniel Kalder's travels in the bizarre and mysterious worlds of Russia's ethnic republics. Obsessed with a quest he never fully understands, Kalder boldly goes where no man has gone before: in the deserts of Kalmykia, he stumbles upon a city dedicated to chess and a forgotten tribe of Mongols; in Mari El, home to Europe's last pagan nation, he meets the Chief Druid and participates in an ancient rite; while in the bleak industrial badlands of Udmurtia, Kalder looks for Mikhail Kalashnikov, inventor of the AK47, and accidentally becomes a TV star. Profane yet wise, utterly honest and yet full of lies, Lost Cosmonaut is an eye-opening, blackly comic tour of the most alien plant in our cosmos: Earth.
About the Author
Daniel Kalder was born in Dunfermline and lives in Moscow. Lost Cosmonaut is his first book.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
30 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Making great the bad places,
By
This review is from: Lost Cosmonaut (Paperback)
Did you know there was a Buddhist republic in Europe? And a desert for that matter? Or a pagan republic? Russia stretches from Eastern Europe to Alaska and contains many semi-autonomous republics - they have their own presidents, their own TV stations, their own heroes and legends and, of course, their own corruption, brutality, and cities dedicated to chess. They just don't have tourists.Kalder sets out as an 'anti-tourist' visiting these undesirable places and casting a realistic eye over them and their prospects; yet the same eye also contains a deep empathy towards these people and their invisible countries. Kalder's black humour carries the book from history to personal encounter (or non-encounter) with ease, and his revelations broaden out the view well beyond four republics you've never heard of. Kalder states at the beginning that 'travel rarely broadens the mind', and travel books even more rarely do so. But this one does, brilliantly.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Nowhere Man,
By
This review is from: Lost Cosmonaut (Paperback)
File under "eccentric travel". Kalder, an expatriot Scot living in Russia, decides to visit a few of the more out-of-the-way European Russian Republics, and finds well, not a lot really apart from a lot of empty steppe, crumbling concrete apartment blocks, bad hotels and the remnants of some of the more obscure Asiatic races to have wandered into Europe over the centuries.
Kalder describes himself as an "anti-tourist", in search of the opposite of the kind of thing that would normally attract visitors; scenery, history, good food, weather etc., and he certainly finds it in these out of the way places. By the end of the book he wasn't really sure why he'd made these journeys, and neither was I, but he's done us all a service in locating those exotic destinations that you really don't want go to, and it's an entertaining read.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
I actually liked it.... quite a bit!,
By
This review is from: Lost Cosmonaut (Paperback)
I read some of the negative (1 and 2 star) reviews before I bought this, as a friend of mine suggested they can tell you much more about a book than the glowing 5 star reviews. He was spot on. The only thing is, the negative reviews of this book, very nearly put me off. But, as I managed to find a cheap, 2nd hand copy, I decided to risk it, and I was pleasantly surprised by what I found.
I found a guy, who doesn't want to go to the Republics, just for the sake of laughing at or mocking these people, he wants to see what makes them tick. Base level travelling. Maybe it's like 'base jumping' or something. The book's not perfect, but it made me want to read more, and for me, that's very good. I didn't know about a couple of these republics, shame on historian me. But then again, the Russians really did get around during the Soviet period. So much territory to cover. It's a fairly easy read, but with substance; heart. Something for those of you who aren't just interested in pretty pictures or coffee table books from Travel Writers. This guy's also lived in Moscow for quite a few years, which frankly scares me more than these Republics. My own dream is to go to Kamchatka; I saw a guy pulling a huge fish out of a stream on TV, with his bare hands. That I want to see. Love it or hate it. Kalder has his own style. He's flippant at times, but not as shallow as some reviewers would paint him. He has more soul that most snap happy travellers you see around these days. He gets himself 'in' there. As drab as the reality may be - yes, sometimes it really is just drab. But it's real.
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