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A hilarious memoir of teaching Russians to play cricket on the Trans Siberian Railway in the 1980s.
In the days before the internet and mobile phones, organising a trip from Gillingham in Kent to far flung Vladivostok was bound to be fraught with unexpected situations. Along the way ferry strikes, missing visas, drunken toasts, honey traps, suspicious Soviets and angry militiamen provided a backdrop to one of the great train journeys of the world and the first (and probably only) cricket games played at Soviet stations.
Kent cricketer, Arthur Phebey’s bat was wielded by Siberian sportsmen, a Murmansk sailor, Gorky Park revellers, the author and his kilted Scottish accomplice, as the forward defensive gave way to the slogging haymaker from Khabarovsk to Novosibirsk and beyond.
This book provides an insight into international train travel, casual sport and the mystique of the Brezhnev era Iron Curtain, through the eyes of two totally innocent, optimistic travellers who thought it a good idea to try and teach Russians cricket.
A hilarious memoir of teaching Russians to play cricket on the Trans Siberian Railway in the 1980s.
In the days before the internet and mobile phones, organising a trip from Gillingham in Kent to far flung Vladivostok was bound to be fraught with unexpected situations. Along the way ferry strikes, missing visas, drunken toasts, honey traps, suspicious Soviets and angry militiamen provided a backdrop to one of the great train journeys of the world and the first (and probably only) cricket games played at Soviet stations.
Kent cricketer, Arthur Phebey’s bat was wielded by Siberian sportsmen, a Murmansk sailor, Gorky Park revellers, the author and his kilted Scottish accomplice, as the forward defensive gave way to the slogging haymaker from Khabarovsk to Novosibirsk and beyond.
This book provides an insight into international train travel, casual sport and the mystique of the Brezhnev era Iron Curtain, through the eyes of two totally innocent, optimistic travellers who thought it a good idea to try and teach Russians cricket.