Lost Cosmonaut: Observations of an Anti-Tourist

by Daniel Kalder

Daniel Kalder belongs to a unique group: the anti-tourists. Sworn to uphold the mysterious tenets of The Shymkent Declarations, the anti-tourist seeks out the dark, lost zones of our planet, eschewing comfort, embracing hunger and hallucinations, and always traveling at the wrong time of year. In Lost Cosmonaut, Kalder visits locations that most of us don't even know exist -- Tatarstan, Kalmykia, Mari El, and Udmurtia. He loves these places because no one else does, because everyone else passes them by.

A tale of adventure, conversation, boredom, and observation -- occasionally enhanced by an overactive imagination -- Kalder reveals a world of hidden cities, lost rites, mail-order brides, machine guns, mutants, and cold, cold emptiness. In the desert wastelands of Kalmykia, he stumbles upon New Vasyuki, the only city in the world dedicated to chess. 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 searches for Mikhail Kalashnikov, inventor of the AK-47, and inadvertently becomes a TV star. An unorthodox mix of extraordinary stories woven together with fascinating history, peculiar places, and even stranger people, Lost Cosmonaut is poetic and profane, hilarious and yet oddly heartwarming, bizarre and even educational. In short, it's the perfect guide to the most alien planet in our cosmos: Earth.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, Russia, History, Memoir, Academic, Cultural

288 pages, Paperback

First published August 29, 2006

Reviews

[Rosamund · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely interesting journey through Europe's minority cultures which have been absorbed into Russia - for example, Kalmykia, the only European republic with Buddhism as an official religion. This only makes my hunger to somehow go to Russia bigger. The author has the type of humour that Britain is meant to be famous for, yet no British person seems to have - black humour, that is - and that pretty much makes you feel as if you are right there in the "Chess City" or in "Mig Mag", the Udmurtian counterpart of McDonalds.

[Tyler Kann · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is very easy to read which is nice. The idea is also interesting: exploring the places that are completely unique to this world and don’t ever get media attention.

However the idea falls flat when you realize he is sort of just using this as a way to hate on the cultures and lives of these people/places. Instead of finding the beauty in these places (which you can look up online and they definitely have beauty), he constantly refers to them as “shitholes”,”nothingness”,etc.. That is the main issue with the book, the author includes way too much of his two cents in the book. While he does have very interesting stories, the book is polluted with his “”sense of humor””. There are numerous boob and blowjob jokes completely shoehorned in, only for the purpose of making the joke. He uses a lot of misogynistic and homophobic language, and tends to just be creepy towards woman in general. He spends a lot of time talking about how he hates talking to freaks and how he hates tourists that berates the locals. However, in all his conversations it definitely comes off (even with him writing and embellishing it) that he is the awkward one , and often seems like he is causing grief to locals. He spends numerous sections talking about his ideas for movies (all of which seem like soft core porn). There are many other examples of stuff like this in the book.
Overall, his writing decisions definitely make the book far worse than it could be. Had he cut all that out and kept it like 30 pages shorter, I would probably give it 5 stars. With that said, excluding all that, it is a very interesting topic about exploring new and alien lands.

[pintereska · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moje pierwsze zetknięcie się z gatunkiem reportażu, odbyło się za sprawą człowieka, który nie przypomina typowych reporterów, pisarzy czy dziennikarzy. Bardziej człowieka, który z nudów urządza sobie wakacje o jakich nikt, by nie śnił, gdyż scenerie dobrane przez autora są raczej z koszmaru. Ale ten klimat odpowiada autorowi, chce nas też swoją miłością do nicości zarazić. Czy mu się to udało? Ja nie jestem przekonany, ale podróż po republikach Tatarstanu, Mari Eł czy Udmurcji upłynęło dość miło i nawet się nie dłużyła.
Wnikliwe obserwacje autora są przerywane strumieniem wewnętrznego monologu, Kalder zadaje sobie pytanie o kondycję człowieka - w tych zapomnianych przez świat zakątkach Rosji, widać jednostki ogołocone z masek. Bez perspektyw na wyrwanie się, nie znających ciepła luksusów, wszystko to dołuje, ale niekiedy bije od rozmówców Kaldera tak niewyobrażalna szczerość, że diabeł podsuwa myśl o anarchizacji własnej egzystencji i odrzuceniu dóbr globalizacji i późnego kapitalizmu na rzecz zacieśnionych relacji społecznych, iście mistycznych obrzędów, ale też ciężkiego chleba egzystencji. Autor jest bezkompromisowy i nie sili się, by go polubiono - może dlatego jest tak wiarygodny we wszystkim, co piszę i choć niekiedy napawa obrzydzeniem albo przynajmniej jego słowa przyczyniają się do uniesienia przeze mnie brwi, to jest to jedna z autentyczniejszych postaci, jakie ostatnio przyszło mi „poznać”. Jak do Rosji - to tylko z Danielem Kalderem.

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

The premise of this book is a very good one. The execution however leaves rather a lot to be desired. At times Kalder's book is interesting and insightful, but all too often it lapses into hammy, self-indulgent, pseudo-intellectual twaddle (think GCSE philosophy) and gratuitous schoolboy comments about sex and genitalia. I was particularly disappointed by the homophobic slurs in the first section which are completely unnecessary. I think if the author had focused more on the people and places in question rather than himself and his own ~alternativeness~ (he finds it necessary to prove how kooky and different he is every two pages or so) the book would have worked much better. If you can get past these flaws, the book is worth a read.

[🐴 🍖]

for somebody who grew up obsessed with the world atlas & who is currently getting into tv series the thick of it, a travelogue by a profane scotsman visiting tatarstan and udmurtia shoulda been my fav book ever; instead this was merely good. at issue is kalder's reluctance to actively do stuff / talk to ppl, leaving any reportage up to happenstance and even then sometimes spurning opportunities -- i coulda screamed when he got invited to go to the nightclub & declined. unsurprisingly the standout section is where he actually bestirs himself to chat up the pagan priest in mari-el. as an introvert i can empathize, but cmon bruh

[Marina · Rating 2 out of 5]

When describing his visit to the Republic of Mari El, Kalder writes about not wanting to visit villages during his travels because he hates it '[...] when wealthy Westerners harass peasants in villages in search of some bogus authenticity. To me that kind of tourism is based on nostalgia and a belief that there is some kind of essential truth and beauty in the poverty of foreign lands.' To summarize my entire take on this book: he perpetrates the same harassement on city dwellers, and attempts to find the same truth and beauty in the desolation of foreign cities.

It is, nonetheless, a beautifully written book.

[International Cat Lady · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to be able to give this book 5 stars. The topic (travelling through desolate corners of the former Soviet Union) is one which is near and dear to my heart - just check out desolationtravel.com and you'll see what I mean! I was sooooo excited to discover that such a book existed and eagerly awaited its arrival at my doorstep. Unfortunately, I found the book both underwhelming and annoying. Had it not been about a topic which I love, I probably would've only given it two stars. For one thing, the author's writing is mediocre. For another, he mentions cocks and blowjobs way too often, and seemingly for no reason other than to be able to say cock and/or bj. He mentions men's gentalia almost as much as Saffia Farr mentioned her boobs and with even less point. It just seemed crass. I'm not prudish, but I much prefer something witty (like when the stuttering Felix Steadiman in Rates of Exchange accidentally offers someone "a nice cock" because his stutter prevents him from uttering "cocktail") to Kalder's frequent and trashy references.

[Maureen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Even though this book is easy to read, because it is written in a casual style, I can't recommend it, because it is literally about nothing. I might also just dislike it, simply because I don't like life and travel writing in general, but I have some more founded critiques of this book as well. The author claims he wants to discover 'nothingness', so it's no surprise there that the book is about nothing, but he also claims to be an 'anti-tourist' and very strongly critiques tourists, while he more than once still clearly behaves as one and doesn't even recognize it. He also makes very unnecessary comments about things such as private body parts, with no justification for referencing to them at all.

[Hank Stuever · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great concept; some of these travel pieces are much more interesting than the others, but I liked the voice and the sensibility.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very funny book about some of the obcurer parts of the Russian Federation - its humour is very British - I can't help liking the fact the author, a misanthropic traveller who doesn't like travelling or meeting people he doesn'tknow. What a relief after all those precious travel writers with this special note books and pens who supposedly are roughing it but always have some fabulous linen shirt to slip into and some Trumpers cologne to dab on whenever they need to attend a party given by some countess or marchesa (usually a descendent of some Renaissance brute who did exquisitely awful things to a brother which secured the inheritance but earned him a place in the remotest circle of Dante's hell) but who never talk about carrying luggage or how they managed to wash or iron that linen shirt.

The only problem is that I read this book nearly two years ago but I am writing the review in 2022 in the midst of Russia's war on Ukraine and honestly Putin's Russia doesn't seem so funny now. It wasn't funny back then, and I am embarrassed at how I could overlook that. Does this mean it isn't a good book - no, I'm with Oscar Wilde that books are either well or badly written, and this book is well written - but I can't quite ignore my unease.

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Daniel Kalder's brashly funny Lost Cosmonaut explores some (there are lots) of the obscure republics of Soviet Europe: Tatarstan, Kalmykia, Mari El, and Udmurtia. The surface of Kalder's narrative is "disrespectful" and politically incorrect, which some readers might dislike, but I feel that one level deeper he actually conveys an existential empathy with his destinations that is, as he aptly puts it, "anti-touristic":

The anti-tourist does not visit places that are in any way desirable...The anti-tourist seeks locked doors and demolished buildings...The anti-tourist travels at the wrong time of year...The anti-tourist is interested only in hidden histories, in delightful obscurities, in bad art...The anti-tourist values disorientation over enlightenment.

And of disorientation, Kalder provides a-plenty.

[Sean Kottke · Rating 4 out of 5]

A more accurate subtitle would be "Observations of an Anti-Tourist in Russia," as the obscure nations documented (Kalmykia, Udurtia, Mari El, and Tatarstan) are all post-Soviet republics in various stages of autonomy. I had been hoping for a more global lens, but this was a satisfying enough account of the philosophy of anti-tourism in action to inspire my own thinking about possible travel writing (see the tenets of this philosophy on the author's webpage: http://www.danielkalder.com/antitouri...). Finding myself attracted to urban exploration outside of the tourist zones in this most recent vacation (and avoiding the beach as much as my traveling companions would permit), I'm quite taken with Kalder's dedication to finding wonderment in the uncomfortable, the mundane, and the indifferent.

[sarote · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a shame that such a potentially fascinating book was written by such an insufferable edgelord. He’s condescending, lazy, obsessed with how “different” he is from normal tourists, and seemingly unable to hold a conversation. He has no discernible interest in or liking for other humans, who he always assumes the worst of, describing them as aliens, freaks or bores. Then throw in a healthy dose of misogyny, racism, ableism and homophobia, far too many gratuitous references to sex, and some banal and self-centred philosophising about the void. It’s like spending time with a sexually frustrated teenage boy who’s recently discovered Nietzsche. Two stars because the part of the world he’s writing about is genuinely interesting and isn’t covered by many travel books, and because despite all the above he does manage to have a couple of entertaining encounters.

[Constance · Rating 4 out of 5]

finished whilst isolating from having covid lol SO people who know me are aware i have a strange passion for post-Soviet states and their culture, history, people etc... this book is EXACTLY what I mean when I say I’m so curious about Russia!! I’m shocked this book has such few reviews! Youtuber Bald and Bankrupt advised to read it. You dive into the lives of Russian societies which have been given ethnic republics, but are completely abandoned by Moscow. The « anti-tourism » the author speaks of is basically going to places that would seem boring, but you gotta embrace it, it’s the whole point of discovering life in ethnic republics which are so unknown to us.

[Mark Andrew Hamilton · Rating 2 out of 5]

'Lost Cosmonaut' is precisely the type of book that I love – travelogues of strange places very few people visit. Unfortunately, Kalder's writing isn't particularly engaging, and as a queer man, I find the distinctly homophobic sections in his book particularly troubling. Minus those, I would certainly rate this higher (and considering those, I also want to rate it even lower), but as one of the few places you can even read about these rarely-mentioned or recognizable places, 'Lost Cosmonaut' is a disappointing missed opportunity.

[Olech Ostoja · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mr Kalder has bravely visited the shithole areas of a fallen empire. The reader gets a detailed description of the places, where never happens anything worth of mentioning. I am an ex subject of this realm and it makes me shiver to think I could go, where the author simply wandered to. I extremely admire the alien attitude of an explorer of lands, that have zero significance in the world. The lecture is a bit depressing, but hey, it's Russia, what would you expect?

[Taras · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally a travel book with a believable narrator. Guy goes to crappy places to appreciate how good he has it..honest, fantastic :)

Daniel tries to cover crappy locales in gonzo style. Mostly pulls it off.

[Dale Sanford · Rating 2 out of 5]

Amazing concept, decent execution. Stories and photos from the travels, as well as blurbs of history, all are thoroughly interesting, while moments when the author delves into his personal life and non-travel-related exploits are far less interesting.

[Shatterlings]

Nope, the homophobia is too awful for me to finish this, it’s not big and it’s not funny.

[Brian Kavanagh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Would really give a 3.5 star. Great book, very informative, witty. Wish the author would talk with the locals more.

[Will Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting read about the more unusual European russian regions.
Most of it is very interesting, but with several trashy bits which takes away from the book somewhat.

[Sherry · Rating 3 out of 5]

The idea for this book sparked my interest, but overall, reading it did not. There were some amusing anecdotes, but I felt it lacked some continuity. On the bright side, it had a conclusive ending.

[Alex Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bleak, funny, and a little odd at times.

[Leonie · Rating 4 out of 5]

18 OCT 2024. As instructed by the author, I stepped away from Lost Cosmonaut after reading the first section. Rather than abandoning it for 18 months, I simply read another book (Amy Liptrot's The Outrun) and am going to return to it tonight. A compromise!

29 OCT 2024. I read the other three sections straight through, as I'm bad at picking books up again after a long lay off. (I never did finish The Two Towers!) Finding out about lesser known republics and races who have been lassoed and drawn into the great Russian whole was fascinating. The author occasionally exaggerated the end to a section with something completely outrageous, sometimes without saying that was what he'd done, livened up proceedings suitably. Would very much like to read his other book about Russian travels at some stage.

[Josephus FromPlacitas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three and three-quarters stars. The promise of this travelogue was greater than the final product for me.

I guess I've become spoiled by The eXile where incredible writers and stuntmen of misery like Mark Ames, Yasha Levine, Jake Rudnitsky and so many others make modern-day Russia sound like a simultaneous Babylon, Shangri-La and Warsaw Ghetto. Ironically enough, Kalder ends up quoting a passage from The eXile's Death Porn column on the last page of his book, inadvertently showing readers just what they've missed out on if they haven't gone to the website of Moscow's Only Alternative.

[By the way, The eXile is apparently in desperate trouble with the Russian government and is facing financial extinction. If you've got a few bucks, head over to their site and show 'em as much love as you can. There's absolutely nothing like it in the English language, and I really doubt it will ever be replaced if it goes away.]

Kalder started out slowly for me, the tour of Tatarstan was pretty uncompelling. There's almost something twee and overly precious about his "anti-tourist" stance, it's almost like a high school goth bragging about how much he likes the dark and morose part of life unlike all those callow jocks who bully him around. See, they're really the weak ones, they can't face the grim mortality that surrounds us all.

That goth kid boast doesn't get much better when he seeks out a museum full of babies in jars and obsessively takes photos of ugly meaningless things like ladders bolted to blank walls, titling the series "The Secret History of the World #15,053." Art student pretension, anybody?

I find any obsession with purity suspect, even when it's an ironic purity, one that deliberately seeks bad food and bad hotels. In the final pages of his section on Udmurtia, the book's final pages, Kalder expresses gratitude to a local bureaucrat named Andrei who kept him from meeting any august local personages by giving him a completely banal set of contacts. "Andrei had kept me obscure," he writes on page 265, "he had kept me lost. He had kept me pure. For that I thank him." Hmmph. How monk-like and bloodless that sounds.

I did enjoy the "moral" of the story a little bit, it was nicely humbling. "You may or may not be Scottish, but regardless of who you are, you certainly don't matter very much. You might kid yourself you do, but you don't. The universe is huge and you are a speck of dust. Furthermore, soon you'll be dead. A few years after that you'll be forgotten and no one will know you were ever here. All your struggling, your striving, gone--puff--like a fart in a sock. Not that it's anything to get upset about. Personally, I think it's something of a relief."

Granted, that quote suffers just as much from High School Goth Kid-itis as any other in the book, but it was a nice slapdown after the nearly past 10 years I've been trying to pursue something of a public existence and get some public recognition. It's healthy to get an existentialist dose of doomsaying. And it's almost freeing to think, "I'm a nobody, a doughy white kid from Placitas, New Mexico, but there's literally a world out there of nobodies from nowheres. I'm not entirely alone." In Mari-El and all over the mundane planet there are druid priests collecting their local press clippings obsessively; it's a planet full of weirdos trying to make their own little cable access show.

On a different note, I know it's completely unfair to hold a book accountable for a pull-quote the publisher slapped on the cover without considering the author's feelings about it, that the author usually has absolutely no say in the matter. It's unfair to do that, but here I go anyway. There's a cover quote saying, "Like Bill Bryson with Tourettes." I don't know Bill Bryson, but I do know foul-mouthed writing, and this was far from it. Again, the touchstone here for foul-mouthed and (far more importantly) foul-minded writing is The eXile or The Buffalo Beast. Lost Cosmonaut doesn't come close to competing. When compared with those publications, Kalder's work is merely quirky.

At any rate, I did not dislike this book, in spite of my griping. The Kazan section wasn't that great a read, but it picked up once he got to Kalmykia and the Mari-El stuff was really, really interesting. Even the Udmurtia section worked, in spite of the purist rhapsodizing over the mundanity Kalder strives to preserve in his anti-tourist travels. I just wish the book had been what I dreamed it would be when I picked it up rather than what it was when I read it.

[Andrew Blinkinsop · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Не так ли и ты, Русь, что бойкая необгонимая тройка, несёшься? … Русь, куда ж несёшься ты? дай ответ. Не дает ответа.”*

Sitting on a slow, rumbling train from Moscow to Izhevsk, the capital of the Republic of Udmurtia, Daniel Kalder seeks an answer to Gogol’s question with seemingly passive, unfiltered observations of the frozen landscape that creeps steadily past the windows of his wagon. He notices crumbling factory infrastructure, empty train cars, bizarre abandoned construction equipment, two old men crouched around a fire. He knows where the troika is racing: “through a wasteland full of junk and poor people.”

This contrarian, nihilistic lens through which Kalder experiences the ride out to Izhevsk holds through the entirety of his book, which documents four such journeys to the forgotten decaying corners of European Russia, all remarkably similar in their banality. Kalder’s take on the Russian provinces is, without a doubt, not as free from an intentional narrative as his philosophy of anti-tourism seems to proscribe. Kalder is an awkward soul in search of a particular aesthetic of ugliness and meaninglessness to justify his broader nihilism; naturally, he sees in these cities exactly what he’s looking for.

But while his interpretation of these places can smack of arrogance and schadenfreude in his unrelenting negativity towards his subject, the book overall reads as a refreshing and much-needed subversion of the tired tropes of first-world travel writing. Rejecting such mindless platitudes as “travel broadens the mind” and “the beauty of cultural diversity,” Kalder offers a bleakly realistic alternative to the privileged, blog-ready voyeurism of worldly Western travelers. And Russia, a country where anything besides bleak realism is ridiculed as naive at best and dangerous at worst, is the perfect subject for Kalder’s take-down of the genre.

Kalder’s Russia is populated by an array of common folk, diverse in their habits and singular in their lack of interest in him or his observational project. His conversations with locals are plagued by misunderstandings and his own cringe-worthy social ineptitude. He is self-admittedly a bad interviewer, which comes through time and again in dialogues that trail off into prolonged silences and conversational dead-ends. The narrative is fractured, constantly interrupted by Kalder’s irreverent fantasies and outright fabrications, as well as some well-researched history, itself subversive in its focus on the conquered and unremarkable peoples of the globe.

The broken structure of the narrative gives the book a momentum and readability that balances the intentional monotony of the observations themselves. And Kalder’s strange and sort of fucked-up personality manages to draw the comic out of the decay and inanity of his surroundings. Just as fun as learning about the places he describes is getting to know the narrator himself, and the highlights of the book are without a doubt the mini-existential crises Kalder experiences that leave him huddled in cramped, tackily-wallpapered hotel rooms, wracked with misgivings about the direction of his book that blossom into consuming doubts about the meaninglessness of life as a whole.

In the end, the brutal honesty, both in Kalder’s internal monologues and in his physical and cultural observations, is what makes the effort so intriguing. Kalder exposes the banality of both the cushy Euro-centric “personal discovery” and the poverty-seeking, feel-good liberal humanitarian types of Western traveling. In the end, the world Kalder reveals is bigger, stranger, more predictable, and far less meaningful than we’d like to believe.

* "Russia, are you not speeding along like a fiery and matchless troika? Russia, where are you flying? Answer me. There is no answer."
- Nikolai Gogol, Dead Souls

[Pau · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had great expectations about this book. In fact, the initial Shymkent Declarations were a good source of inspiration while developing Justraveling.com and I fully support the author's travel style. Unfortunately, those declarations are the only truly compelling part of the book. The author defines himself "the Brian Eno of the world of travel"... well, the result is surely not a masterpiece, but it's still interesting and worth reading.

[Christopher · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really looking forward to reading Daniel Kalder's LOST COSMONAUT, where the Scottish author travels to four little-known parts of Russia seeking out places precisely for a their lack of tourist appeal. As a linguist studying minority languages of Russia, I have been to some of the places Kalder describes and found them enchanting. I hoped that his book might show people the considerable challenges minority populations face in contemporary Russia. And as a passionate traveler who wants to see as much as possible before it all changes, I thought that Kalder's "anti-tourist" perspective would be agreeable. Unfortunately, I found the book very disappointing, and often downright infuriating.

In the first part of the book Kalder tells of his 2001 visit to Kazan, capital of the Russian republic of Tatarstan. While the author does do a good job of informing the reader of some little-known aspects of Tatar history and culture, his claim that this is a weird and obscure republic rings false. Kazan has long been one of the most heavily-touristed parts of Russia, with tour buses full of Germans and Japanese pulling up daily in front of its Kremlin. And though the author adopts a tone of being scared of going to far-away Tatarstan, in an aside he mentions a long residence in Almaty, the capital of Kazakhstan, so surely he was really used to seeing remote areas.

Things just get worse in the following chapters, where Kalder calls the locals by various insults. LOST COSMONAUT is not a travelogue which will better inform you about some delightful places that you might not otherwise hear of. Rather, it's a book of humour that tries to make you laugh at the expense of the good local people who don't deserve such mockey. A blurb on the cover of one printing calls him "Bill Bryson with Tourette's" and, indeed, Kalder has the same lack of respect for the locals that one finds in Bryson's work.

Furthermore, there is outright fiction in the book. Kalder warns one in the beginning that the "anti-tourist" likes lies just as much as truth. But if someone is buying a book on the premise that it gives a report of remote parts of Russia, one wants to read the truth instead of Kalder's inventions (a banner warning away the "white man" in Kazan, a Mari fellow snorting cocaine).

And the author totally squanders the opportunity to alert the West to the disturbing treatment of minorities in Putin's Russia. I cannot recommend Kalder's book, except if someone is already on their way to one of these places and wants to know at least some information about them, however untrustworthy. A better understanding of political and social issues in Mari El and Udmurtia can be had from Taagapera's THE FINNO-UGRIC REPUBLICS AND THE RUSSIAN STATE.

[Brani Spolsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

W ciekawych, raczej mniej znanych miejscach był.

[Babak Fakhamzadeh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although the book rides high on the current popular wave of gonzo journalism, I might have found my guru. From the inside front cover: The anti-tourist does not visit places that are in any way desirable. The anti-tourist eschews comfort. The anti-tourist embraces hunger and hallucinations and shit hotels... The anti-tourist loves truth, but is also partial to lies. Especially his own.
And a few more gems from "The Shymkent Declaration": The anti tourist believes beauty is in the street. The anti-tourist seeks locked doors and demolished buildings. 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...: all the places which, ordinarily, people choose to avoid.

Kalder writes about four European independent and obscure republics inside Russia: Kalmykia (recently in the news for the ultimate chess match), Turkestan, Udmurtia and Mari El. All of different ethnic composition with different religions (including Buddhist and animist) and all slowly slipping away into drab nothingness. The quality of the author's penmanship grows significantly during the course of the book and, on a few occasions conjures up the most hilarious absurdist scenes, while at no point could I lose the smile on my face.
Kalder is also extremely refreshing in that he's unpretentious, doesn't try to seek a deeper insight and in fact pursues obscurity, drabness, sadness with the sole objective of observing, not for entertainment, but for the sense of discovery, never judgemental.

Four fantastic little travelogues written up in bite sized, always enjoyable and sometimes hilarious little packages. Kalder's closing words on the loss of individuality (although he doesn't use that word) in a global society are food for thought. In the end, everyone's life is insignificant. However, for 'us', through television, advertisements and whatnot, we feel that our insignificant lives mean something because we recognise our lives, ourselves, in those ads, on television and, because of that, put meaning into our lives.
For many people in these out of the way Russian republics, with a lack of foreign investment, little advertisement and very little hope, not even those reflections are available, their lives being as pointless as ours, but with a greater realisation that they are.