Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1988. — 227 p. — (Impressions of the USSR) — ISBN 5-01-000478-XWhat you will find in the pages ahead is an account in words and pictures of what I have seen, heard and felt during several trips to the Soviet Union. Each visit marked my acceptance of an invitation extended by the Union of Soviet Writers. The first came through Freedomways, a splendid New York-based quarterly publication. Now, thirteen years later, I know how deeply I have been enriched by those collective experiences. Still it would be dishonest of me not to admit that I made my first trip with mixed feelings of a healthy curiosity and a less than healthy apprehension. As one who since childhood has always yearned to see foreign lands I wanted to see the much talked about U.S.S.R. Why, then, was I at all hesitant? The reason is simple. Like many of my countrymen I too for many years have been systematically programed by our news media to regard the Soviet Union as a rather dreadful place. From most of what I had seen, heard, and read through our news media the Soviet people languished under the control of a sternly repressive leadership. Even today the U.S.S.R. is cryptically described in America as a territory “behind the iron curtain”.ContentsPrefaceMoscowUzbekistanKazakhstanTurkmeniaTajikistanKirghiziaGeorgiaAzerbaijanArmeniaLatviaAfterword