JOURNEY INTO KAZAKHSTAN
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JOURNEY INTO KAZAKHSTAN
- Journey into Kazakhstan (University Press of America, MD, USA, March 2001). In the first several years after independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Kazakhstan, the second largest of the former 15 Soviet Republics, stretching across 3,500 kilometers, experienced a serious economic and social downturn. In Journey into Kazakhstan, the author travels to different regions - the Aral Sea, the Caspian region, the vast central steppe lands, the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Polygon, Karaganda, built by Stalin labour camp prisoners, ravaged industrial towns like Shymkent and Kentau, and collapsing state farms. Through on-the-spot reporting the author provides a witness account of an interim period -- between the collapse of one system and the building of a new order in subsequent years.
