Алла Байдакова - Америка в пяти измерениях

(Moscow: Publishing House «Grifon», 2013)

The book by a former ITAR-TASS correspondent and his wife is a reflection on the almost ten years they spent living and working in the US.

Over this period they visited 38 States of the Union learning things you can’t find in any tourist guidebooks.

They traveled across America from North to South and from West to East. They observed the land from the air and explored it underground covering all three its spatial dimensions.

The fourth dimension as dictated by physics was their time in America. And the fifth came from their personal impression of the US, both rational and emotional ties they developed with the land and its people.

That’s how the title on the cover was born.

As for what’s between the covers, it’s just a plain straightforward presentation of life in America as experienced by the authors. They describe what they saw – the wonders of nature and human ingenuity, the big cities and little towns, the roads between them and above all, the American people. Many of whom met a couple from Russia for the first time in their lives.

What the book does not talk about is international politics. That’s a road too often taken by others.

And one more thing deliberately set aside. Too often America has been portrayed in Russia through a critical lens. Vladimir and Alla tried to leave the lens at home as much as possible in their American travels, even if they didn’t always like everything they saw.

They invite you to share their experiences – in the hope you may find them useful in your own discovery of America.