Recently, Shimun Vrochek wrote a book about his Soviet childhood. Since his childhood and mine happened during the same years (he was born on November 1, 1976, and I was born three months later, on January 28, 1977), I was very curious to see how someone from my “generation” experienced it, but in a different part of the Soviet Union. He was born in Kungur, in the Urals, and grew up in Nizhnevartovsk, while I spent my entire childhood in Minsk.
I even had the same school uniform as the one he wears in the photo, though it wasn’t so easy to find in Minsk—my father brought it from Moscow.
The book originated from notes that Shimun wrote in his blog (at least some of which could be read individually). Eventually, those notes were compiled into this book. That’s why it isn’t a sequential narrative but rather a collection of short memories about various things, with no clear structure or connection between chapters. Sometimes, this approach works very well (just think of The Un-Chekhovian Intelligentsia or The Life of Remarkable People and Animals by Boris Akunin).
Even though there was a great distance between me and the author, many of the feelings and experiences resonate, making the book truly transport me back to my childhood. Like Shimun, I believed I was living in the best country in the world, where everything was wonderful, and a bright communist future lay ahead—a future of fairness, with no poverty, and so on.
For bringing me back to those years, I am truly grateful to the author.
At the same time, I must say that the book as a whole feels uneven. Not all the stories are about the author’s own childhood—sometimes they are his grandfather’s stories, often embellished or with humorous twists (though I agree these stories are indeed part of the author’s childhood). I also felt that at times the author gets a bit carried away: he starts telling one story, then a random episode pops up, and suddenly, as they say, “he goes off on a tangent”—the original point is forgotten, and it turns into a ramble.
In some other “stories,” there might not even be much of a story at all, just a small collection of facts about someone from that time.
Additionally, the blog-like origins of the book sometimes play a bad trick. Within the same book, the same stories are repeated. The author tells one thing, then briefly mentions another story in passing—a story you’ve already read earlier in the same book, but presented in more detail as a separate full chapter. I get that it wasn’t written all at once, but that’s exactly what editing and planning are for—to avoid such self-repetitions. (I recently discovered I had written about the same song twice on my blog—these things happen.)
Unfortunately, as a grammar pedant, I get very bothered by mistakes in other people’s texts (let alone my own). This book seems to lack proper editing—it’s self-published, after all. As a result, there’s a lot of excess, outright errors, and at times the language isn’t the best.
All these are flaws that dampen the overall impression because, without them, the book could have been better.
It’s worth discussing the different editions of the book. As of now, the book has only been released in electronic format (though the author is negotiating a print edition). While the versions don’t differ in terms of text, they do vary graphically. I purchased both the Litmarket and Litres editions, so I can compare them.
The books have different covers, and the Litres version lacks the majority of illustrations and photographs. This makes the Litres edition significantly less appealing.
For example, take the chapter about actress Pola Raksa, who played Marusia Ogonyok in the series Four Tankmen and a Dog (a series we jokingly called Three Poles, a Georgian, and a Dog during my childhood). The Litmarket version includes many photos of the actress in different roles and looks. In the Litres version, there’s only plain text. Even if you’ve seen Four Tankmen and a Dog before, names alone are unlikely to jog your memory without illustrations. And as for how different Pola looked in these roles—you’re left to imagine it yourself.
Another example is the chapter about board games. Without photos of game boards or figurines, it’s hard to understand what the author is describing (unless you have an incredible imagination and some background knowledge about games).
I understand that copyright laws may prevent simply pulling photos from the internet and including them in a book. However, for a book like this, the lack of illustrations makes it far less informative and engaging.
In conclusion, I’d say I mostly enjoyed the book, but my impressions were marred by repetitive content, a lack of clear structure, and those moments where the author “went off on a tangent.” That said, the concept is wonderful because the country we were born in hasn’t existed for 30 years, and today’s generations can’t possibly understand what it was like back then. It was a completely different reality, with different dreams, joys, and challenges. But it was a happy childhood.
My rating: 3.5/5
