Book Review-Apples are from Kazakhstan

I don't know about you, but books with cool covers pull me in. This one definitely pulled me in. It kind of looks like the Twilight cover!! Except it talks about Kazakhstan. Also, it was kind of a small book (I thought. I didn't look at the script size) and so I thought it would be a good read.

Then I open the cover and the summary talks about how Kazakhstan is a great hidden country and it has all these cool things that no one knows about. And on the back it says a quote from the UK's Daily Telegraph: "A fascinating read. . Extremely entertaining and informative. . .Hilarious."

*****SPOILER ALERT*****

THIS BOOK WAS NOT HILARIOUS!!

*****SPOILER OVER*****

I think that the author started writing this book and started telling funny stories about his time in the country that were entertaining, for sure. You know, the surly woman at the hotel counter who doesn't understand English. The badly translated menu that offers "Water Melons of Mother-in-law" and "Close your eyes and open your mouth" (I'm tastefully avoiding a sexual joke on that last one). Super funny for sure!! But that's NOT what this book is about. Not by a long shot.

This book is about the tragedy that IS Russia. What it did to it's own people, and what it did to this very VERY resource-rich country of Kazakhstan. It's about how the country has had to fight and claw and thrash just to be able to have it's people not freeze to death on the steppes. Yes, it's mostly about the people. The good Kazakh man and woman just living their lives. . . .amid hundreds of years of occupation, torture, socialism, backstabbing, tyranny . . .well, you get it.

I will agree that this book is 150% informative. . .INFORMING ME THAT RUSSIA WAS ONCE THE DEVIL NATION ITSELF! I don't know how anyone survived those years. And I mean, we are talking like less than 20 years ago. I remember seeing the wall fall. It's crazy the stuff that they had to go through before that. Having the police show up at your house and imprison you just because you are different. There is a horrible story about a boy and his father that moved from South Africa (Basically a "Little England" in Africa) because they were told that Russia was so great!! And Socialism is so great!! And we all share!! Isn't that great??

But when father and son got there, they made him wait like a YEAR to GET INTO the country because they didn't trust them thinking they were spies. You know, they advertise for people to come and then get all upset when people DO come. . .because who would want to come to Russia? And then they just show up at his house 2 years later and basically arrest the father for being an outsider and put him in a prison camp where he dies in 2 years. The son was told that he would never be anything because he wasn't really really Russian. AND THIS IS HOW THEY TREAT THE PEOPLE THEY JUST BEGGED TO BE THERE!! Baffling.

So let's talk about the horrible tragedies this book covers: Work camps where the number of dead is unknown? Check. Nuclear bomb tests and the horrible repercussions of that? Check. Freezing cold winters were people routinely lose limbs (not digits, but LIMBS)? Check. Shrinking bodies of water due to poor land management resulting in loss of life, vegetation and food supply? Check. Biggest stockpile of Nuclear weapons outside of USA, Russia and Ukraine? CHECK!

This book is harsh. It made me feel like I was back in college. And not the cool times, like when I was watching movies that whole semester in prep for going into the film department (consequently the ONLY semester I ever got a 4.0!). No, it reminds me of that crappy part of college when I never got asked out, and instead of going on a date on Friday night I went to the library and read a book about the tragedies in Kazakhstan. Yeah, those kinds of college memories.

But you should totally read it!! It was HILARIOUS!!!

P.S. There is some talk about apples coming from Kazakhstan, but I didn't really care. Mostly because I was trying to get the image of a Russian death camp out of my mind. SOCIALISM ROCKS!!