"I regard this book as a great journey, which it is. I have been on the staff of "Komsomolskaya Pravda" for fifteen years, flying, driving and walking across this earth of ours for all these years. This is the story of what I have seen, of what is dear to me, of things that have both amazed and surprised me. I have travelled abroad, but have gathered here all that I cherish most and can best be expressed in the words: My Native Land. No one will take it upon himself to enumerate everything these words stand for. Still, one can say that one's native land encompasses the memory of all the treasure of the past, the deeds and people of today, our land and everything that grows and breathes on it. The old, the new and the eternal; such is the symbolic key to the journey. You will read of Siberia, Georgia, the Ukraine, Lithuania, the Kamchatka Peninsula, the Uzbek Republic and the Central Regions of Russia. Their climatic zones differ widely, as do the people. They...