I find it odd that you typified the Soviet administration of Central Asia as "disastrous". I lived in Kyrgyzstan in 2002. Anyone there that was old enough to remember spoke well of the Soviet Union. The Kyrygz experience, and memory, of the time is rather different. So different that statues of Lenin are still in place, as is the bust of the director of the KGB from the 1950's.

I do know a lot of bad things happened in other parts of Central Asia, and likely bad things happened in Kyrgystan. But, the people I talked to missed the prosperity and justice they remembered from Soviet times.

From my own experience I remember walking with a friend who was local. She explained that when she was a child the pavement was uncracked and the police were honest. We passed an abandoned building that looked rather nice. Surprised, I asked what it was. "That was, how do you say, that was the Soviet boy scouts." (Young Pioneers) "No more boys scouts?" She gave me a look, "No more Soviet Union."

Experiences vary, but the Kyrgyz I talked to the Soviet administration was golden age.

Also read the Baburnama, the auto-biography of Babur who conquered Afghanistan and India 500 years ago. He established the Moghul Empire. Babur was a descendant of Tamerlane, or Timur the Lame, so they were known as Timurids. He was a first rate ass-kicker.

I love this series, please keep it coming!

Also, for a different perspective on Central Asia, there's a great new Central Asian music CD series available from Smithsonian Folkways. I caught some of the artists on a tour this Spring and they were really out-there!

I have to agree--I LOVE this series about discovering the world through books. It's excellent.

I was a former Peace Corps Volunteer in Kazakhstan for over a year, and while I won't go into detail about my experiences there (the good, the bad, and the weird), I will say that there is a great deal of misunderstanding about this former Soviet universe that I urge anyone who just read the above article to explore.

As for the average person's feelings about the Soviet Union, mentioned below, it is as varied and mixed as the people who experienced it. I sat in a kitchen, in tiny village outside Karaganda, and after a few shots, asked my Kazakh hostess if she remembered the Soviet national anthem, she replied with a lit up face and a Russian "Coneshna" (of course!) And her voice began to hum the starting notes of that haunting tune. Her brother in law, suddenly when hearing it, waved his hand, clearly upset, and said "We'll hear no more of that." Two people who had lived in the same community for much of their lives, two very different experiences.

When I left for the former Soviet Union, I thought I knew something about it. When I left it. I realized, I really knew nothing.

Those books mentioned are very much exploring a very different world.

Babur, the first of the Moghul emperors of India, describes his earlier years adventuring in what is now Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, in what has been described as the first Islamic memoir. Thackston's great recent translation of this work, The Baburnama, provides a vivid background to the present scene, replete with personalities and places.

2 more excellent books about this area are:

1. "So Many Enemies, So Little Time: An American Woman in All the Wrong Places" by Elinor Burkett. This book recounts Ms. Burkett's facinating year spent teaching journalism in Bishtek. She also recounts her travels to Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan as well as Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Russia and China with a swing through Souteast Asia for good measure!

"The Lost Heart of Asia" by Colin Thubron. One of my favorite travel writers, Mr. Thubron speaks fluent Russian and recounts his extensive travels in this area.