Afghan Tales: Stories from Russia's Vietnam

Oleg Yermakov’s collection of short stories about Soviet soldiers and their experience with the Soviet-Afghan centers around battles and armed conflicts but also incorporates the peripheral experiences of war as well. “Baptism” and “Unit N Carried Out Exercises” bring us the raw, dusty smell of combat. The feel and fears of war are clearly illustrated by these two shorts as we get mortars and shells and motorized tracked-vehicles. Yermakov is brilliant at descriptions. But, it is when he leaves the field of battle and touches the suburbs of war that he is most powerful. “Snow-Covered House” is a Van Gogh painting of sorts, the words a melting portrait, dripping words and colors of hope and longing. In this story a woman is show more preparing herself for her husbands return and we see her transform herself slowly from plain schoolteacher to vivacious lover, her home from lonely hovel to fetching castle all under the spell of her soldier’s imminent return. “A Springtime Walk” follows a young recruit, in his last days before being deployed, out and about in the woods and meadows with his girl. In the short “Mars and The Soldier” we get a moving P.O.W. story with a back and forth scene between his captivity and his father back home in Russia. In “Safe Return” and “The Yellow Mountain” Yermakov tackles the unpredictable challenges the soldiers faced either getting back home or, long after their war was over, reintegrating their minds and bodies into the civilian world. The most gorgeous piece of writing, however, is the least concerned with war. “The Belles” gives Yermakov’s descriptive powers an amazing display, weaving a dreamy landscape drawn from the feverish daydream of a deployed soldier. There is no combat here, but the difference between what is and what was is heated and fraught with tension. His nature descriptions alone make this one worth the read. show less

This book gripped a hold of me through the years. It was given to me prior to my first deployment to AFG by a dear friend. I expected a "Russian hell" type story, but fell into an understanding of the Russian military machine on its soldiers/conscripts, and the toll the conflict had taken on them.