Journey Into Russia

While titled Journey into Russia, this book is, in reality about the USSR. Van der Post gets to all the counties now independent from Russia - Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan & Turkmenistan.
Published in 1964, the journey presumably took place in the few years prior.

Realistically, this should have been a fantastic book. An almost unprecedented access to these places, at that time, van der Post benefited from that brief period where relations between the USSR and America had thawed, and he was extended privileged access which was never repeated under Soviet rule. However, I really battled with this. If found it hard to read, it was dry and at times felt written to justify preconceived ideas - stories or conversations that help show the viewpoint. The narrative felt over-wordy and dense, and for me it was a struggle to carry on reading at times.

Some of the difficulty, I think, is that the author isn't able to get the reader very close to the individual people. He mentioned this in his preface - for their own interests the personal details of many people he talks with are not disclosed. This applies also to guides and interpreters, who accompany him on his whole journey.

Perhaps for me this was not a good time to read this, where maybe my concentration levels and ability to stick at this a bit more are not available. It may be a book I return to have another go at in the future.

For me 2.5 stars, rounding up to 3.