“An inestimable Soviet doctor and irrepressible jester tells tales of his tiny Russian village in the 1960s. Sometimes hysterical, often moving, always a remarkable and highly entertaining insider’s look at rural life under the old Soviet regime, they are a sobering exposé of the terrible inadequacies of its much-lauded socialist medical system.”
“In this memoir, a pediatrician describes his work in a Moldovan village; Vladimir A. Tsesis's stories are darkly funny and reveal much about the poverty, drunkenness, political corruption, anti-Semitism, and fundamental absurdity of rural life in the Soviet 1960s. ”
— Deborah A. Field, author of Private Life and Communist Morality in Khrushchev’s Russia
“To understand the confusing reality of Russia today, it helps to recall the 'bad-old-days' of the late, unlamented Soviet Union. This warm, touching and occasionally hilarious book can assist those recollections.”
— Michael Medved, nationally syndicated radio show host
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