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The Gentleman From Finland: Adventures On The Trans-siberian Express | 
 enlarge | Author: Robert M. Goldstein
Publisher: Rivendell Publishing Northwest
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy New: $8.75
You Save: $6.20 (41%)
Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 968295
Media: Paperback
Pages: 230
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.2 x 0.6
ISBN: 0976328801
Dewey Decimal Number: 915.70485
EAN: 9780976328803
ASIN: 0976328801
Publication Date: April 15, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: LOC106
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Two days aboard what he believes is the Trans-Siberian Express, the author discovers he s on the wrong train. It is 1987, and he is traveling in the Soviet Union, holding a train ticket that mistakenly identifies him as a Finn. In fact, he is a short, dark-skinned Mexican-American-Russian-Jew, who speaks only enough Russian to proclaim that he is Bob, the tourist from America. As the trip unfolds, what begins as the fulfillment of a childhood dream becomes a journey with a cast of characters worthy of a Russian novel. A grim old woman takes his only pair of shoes. Smugglers stash contraband booze under his bunk, then ply him with alcohol and delicacies. A beautiful Russian woman rescues the author from disaster in one city, only to mysteriously reappear in another, fueling his growing paranoia that she is a KGB agent. Throughout the story, Goldstein interjects historical anecdotes, as well as his own family s past in czarist Russia. The Gentleman from Finland is a sometimes hilarious, sometimes poignant story of the misadventures of a traveler who discovers that a journey on the world s longest rail line is much more than just a big train ride.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
 The inadvertent intruder June 22, 2007
Ronald Lovell (Gleneden Beach, Oregon)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Before Robert Goldstein set out on his 1987 journey on the Trans-Siberian Express, he had traveled in China and Tibet and all over Europe. Nothing prepared him for the surreal world that was the Soviet Union in those waning years of Communist rule, however. From the moment he arrived in the country, the mistaken idea that he was from Finland followed him the entire time he was there, along with fears that the mistake might get him into trouble with the KGB. He blends that and a series of adventures and encounters with memorable people into an interesting and often funny account of a trip many of us have probably longed to take but have not had the courage to do so. A great book for either the armchair or would-be passenger on this mysterious train.
The Gentleman From Finland June 22, 2007
Judith Bunnell (Washington D.C.)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
What a fun and invigorating book! I read it on a train ride and was laughing out loud! (It made my seat mate move). I loved the humor and the crazy characters that the author encountered and felt like I knew them all at the end of this travelogue. I have passed the book on to two different people who are avid travelers or readers...I do not know who has it now, which is a VERY good sign. Read this book this summer!
 An appalling travelogue February 19, 2007
Christopher Culver
0 out of 15 found this review helpful
As an ardent traveler who prefers the Trans-Siberian Railway for getting between Europe and Asia, I picked up Robert M. Goldstein's travelogue THE GENTLEMAN FROM FINLAND to see his take on this thrilling route. Goldstein traveled between Moscow and Khabarovsk in 1987, during the early days of glasnost and perestroika and the relatively last days of the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, the book was not published until 2005. People who browse through Amazon tend to revolt against one-star reviews, but hear me out as I make my case that this is an extremely disappointing book.
The reader easily sympathizes with the beginning chapters of the book, as Goldstein finds he has a chance of overcoming the bureacratic challenges and taking the train ride that has enthralled him since reading National Geographic as a child. However, once he actually arrives in Russia, he shows himself to be such a childish and insensitive tourist that the reader quickly begins to despise him. He has trouble communicating, mumbling things from a phrasebook and absurdly throwing in "glasnost" all the time. He tries to look like a poor, helpless foreigner in a crazy land, but one notices that he had plenty of time to learn a little basic conversational Russia before his arrival, but chose not to do so. He's even unwilling to appreciate the people he meets on the route. The cook in the restaurant car is a "troll", a group of Asian military officers are "munchkins". A blurb by one Nancy Pearl on the back of the book claims that Goldstein's travelogue will appeal to lovers of Bill Bryson's books. Sure, Goldstein has the same habit of puerile deprecation of people and customs just because they are different. And while Goldstein suggests that he is an experienced traveler, having even been to Israel and the West Bank before, he seems to become exasperated at the most trifling unplanned circumstances.
The book isn't even much use for learning about the Trans-Siberian Railway. For his first leg of the journey, from Moscow to Novosibisk, Goldstein mistakenly takes a different, local train, not the Rossiya train of the Trans-Siberian. The journey has changed in many respects since Goldstein's in 1987, and it is unfortunate that he made no attempt to show how it was by the time the book appeared in 2005. It's as if the manuscript was written in the late 1980s, sat in a drawer because something this awful couldn't easily find a publisher, and was put out with no changes nearly two decades later.
If you want to read about the Trans-Siberian Railway, Lonely Planet's travel guide gives the best overall view of the route as it is now, with some historical details thrown in. I very much suggest avoiding THE GENTLEMAN FROM FINLAND.
 In Search of Baby Lenin October 12, 2006
WILLIAM H FULLER (SPEARFISH, SD USA)
3 out of 7 found this review helpful
Just what is this book? THE GENTLEMAN FROM FINLAND is a travelogue of sorts, but not at all in a traditional sense. Its nature is suggested by the author's own statement in the final chapter that "[t]he best travel, I could now confirm, was a process of ordeals, endured at the time and embellished later in the comfort of familiar surroundings." While the story surely has its origins in a real-life adventure endured by our narrator, its telling is just as surely enhanced and enlivened by the raconteur's embellishments.
The first half of the book, more or less, introduces us to a narrator who is part Walter Mitty and part Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau of the Surete. Portrayed as delightfully clueless, Goldstein nevertheless arrives at the right place at more or less the right time, the bewildering vagaries of international travel, time zones, bureaucracies, and the tail end of the Cold War notwithstanding. The author has a marvelous ability to portray himself as a truly ludicrous yet ingratiating figure who laughs at himself freely and has us laughing along with him as he, armed with an American passport, a Soviet visa issued in Finland, and a Russian language phrase book of stilted, archaic expressions, makes his way across two continents on the Trans-Siberian Express.
Somewhere about mid-way, though, the tone of the book changes noticeably. Goldstein is haunted by a vague knowledge of ancestors who had migrated from Russia, and he is gripped by an unquenchable thirst to learn of his ethnic roots. He begins to interpret his experiences in terms of those far-removed ancestors, and the light, humorous tone of his early misadventures is supplanted by an almost somber quest--Dare one call it a spiritual quest?--to find his identity. His interpretation of faces as being those of his father and of his maternal forebears as well as his feeling of almost-recognition of the Siberian landscape become practically surrealistic. In this, the reader is reminded of the final chapter of Maya Angelou's ALL GOD'S CHILDREN NEED TRAVELING SHOES when Angelou is mistaken by Ewe tribal women for one of their own departed members, thus establishing, in her mind at least, her own African heritage.
Goldstein's book is squarely about human relationships, some very amusing and others very sober and infused with a strong sense of history and ancestry. Regardless of its sub-title, THE GENTLEMAN FROM FINLAND has little to do with the Trans-Siberian Railway, and rail fans will find little in it of interest, aside from several graphic descriptions of the privations endured by train travelers in Russia. However, those who find fascination in the exploration of human nature when it finds itself far beyond its comfort zone should greatly enjoy this book. I wish only that Goldstein had maintained the delightfully humorous hyperbole with which he began the adventure; yet, as one who is himself fascinated with the generations fading rapidly from sight into the impenetrable curtains of the past, I can also appreciate the quest that consumes the author in the latter chapters. The complete change of tone, however, does weaken the coherence of the book and suggests that those who enjoy the first half may find the second half somewhat disappointing or vice versa.
These considerations notwithstanding, the book is still well worth the few hours required to enjoy it, and I have no qualms about recommending it as pleasurable reading. I do wonder, however, whether Goldstein ever found the "Baby Lenin" he was advised to search for!
A memorable snapshot of one man's encounter with a nation August 6, 2005
Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
Set in 1987, The Gentleman from Finland: Adventures on the Trans-Siberian Express is a memoir chronicling mishaps that escalate almost into the realm of the bizarre. The author, a short, swarthy Mexican-American-Russian-Jew, boards what he believes to be the Trans-Siberian Express yet discovers two days later that he is on the wrong train, traversing the Soviet Union with a voucher that mistakenly identifies him as a Finn. He speaks almost no Russian, and is lost amid a strange land - an old woman steals his shoes, smugglers stash contraband under his bunk, and a beautiful woman rescues him from disaster yet mysteriously keeps reappearing, leading him to fear that she is with the KGB. Sometimes wryly humorous, other times fraught with tension, The Gentleman from Finland is a truly unique travelogue offering a memorable snapshot of one man's encounter with a nation.
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