An American in Leningrad

By Logan Robinson

Book Overview

The author recalls his experiences in Russia as an exchange student studying Russian law.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393301672
• ISBN13: 9780393301670
• Release Date: January 1984
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.8" x 0.6" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Hilarious memoir

Hilarious memoir by a Harvard JD. I wonder whether the other reviewer actually read the book - I have been laughing out loud. The author is insightful, obviously intelligent and easy to relate to. He talks of the bureaucracy and the system as he saw it, but in such a way that the whole system is discernible through the local interactions and observations. For example, he describes the system of creating a "scientific plan" for the academic year, which must include all trips made outside of Leningrad, interviews and other excursions--and he explains how Soviet citizens had learned how to inflate the costs they put in their plans (get a large budget) and minimize their promised output: because the following year's plan would be based on the current year. So, no Soviet citizen worked at his full capacity--to do so would be to invite disaster. Although the author was only a student and did not run a factory, he could see this (well known by Sovietologists) pattern at work. Although it was the late 1970s when he went there, it was truly still the Soviet system--and because he was in Leningrad not Moscow, it was not a show put on for the foreigner, his experience was much like the experience of lucky young people from across the USSR who made it into a top Leningrad university.