cover image Travels with a Hungry Bear: A Journey to the Russian Heartland

Travels with a Hungry Bear: A Journey to the Russian Heartland

Mark Kramer. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH), $24.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-395-42670-8

Kramer (Three Farms), a professor of journalism and Amer.ican studies at Boston University, takes the unusual approach of probing the character of the Russians by studying their agricultural practices. Sent to the U.S.S.R. in 1987 by the New York Times to investigate ""why a nation whose farms stretched from Norway to Korea across eleven time zones suffered nearly empty food shops,"" he returned again every year through 1993, visiting collective farms and interviewing bureaucrats, as well as common laborers. His incisive commentary helps to explain the failure of the command economy to provide for even the most basic needs. With biting humor--in one instance, two self-congratulatory party hacks are likened to tubas tuning up--he points out the absurdities of the five-year plans dictated from Moscow and concludes that, despite many willing reformers in the country, ""keeping down the Ivanovs was to the Soviet regime what keeping up with the Joneses was in America."" Although general readers may find more information here than they need, those interested in how Russia got into its present mess will be greatly rewarded by this impressive reportage. (Apr.)