Eastward to Tartary
Every now and then I’ll read a blog post describing a book that seems like it would be interesting, so I add it my Amazon.com wishlist; thus, it’s not so much a “wish to own” list as a “wish I could read someday” list. Well, wonder of wonders, somebody actually bought me one from the list: Eastward to Tartary.
Now I can’t for the life of me remember why I put this book on the list, but a free book is a free book, and I must have thought it was worth a look at some point. Turned out I enjoyed it quite a bit, in spite of the dismal conclusion I drew from it; namely, the world is a basket case and we’re all doomed. Still, it had some entertaining moments.
For example:
Polls conducted by the Center for the Study of Democracy in Sofia and the Lambrakis Organization in Athens, under the aegis of the Helsinki Commission, found that among Albanians, 86 percent hated Greeks, 58 percent hated Macedonians, and 47 percent hated Bulgarians; among Bulgarians, 23 percent hated Turks and 51 percent hated Gypsies; among Greeks, 38 percent hated all Slavs, 55 percent hated Gypsies, 62 percent hated all Moslems, and 75 percent hated Albanians.
And also:
A diplomat [in Turkey] told me: “The Turks are pro-Israel because they can use the Jewish lobby in America as a silver bullet against the Greek and Armenian lobbies, which deny them high-tech military equipment from the U.S. If that sounds convoluted, welcome to Byzantium.”
