{"product_id":"communist-daze","title":"Communist Daze","description":"\u003cp\u003eWelcome to Gradieshti, a Soviet village awash in gray buildings and ramshackle fences, home to a large, collective farm and to the most oddball and endearing cast of characters possible. For three years in the 1960s, Vladimir Tsesis—inestimable Soviet doctor and irrepressible jester—was stationed in a village where racing tractor drivers tossed vodka bottles to each other for sport; where farmers and townspeople secretly mocked and tried to endure the Communist way of life; where milk for children, running water, and adequate electricity were rare; where the world's smallest, motley parade became the country's longest; and where one compulsively amorous Communist Party leader met a memorable, chilling fate. From a frantic pursuit of calcium-deprived, lunatic Socialist chickens to a father begging on his knees to Soviet officials to obtain antibiotic for his dying child, Vladimir's tales of Gradieshti are unforgettable. 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n","brand":"Vladimir A. Tsesis","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53614901297532,"sku":"9780253025869","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0251\/4980\/0541\/files\/9780253025869_e0216192-b53a-4b9c-98b3-d63ed55dff85.jpg?v=1726132534","url":"https:\/\/combined-academic.myshopify.com\/products\/communist-daze","provider":"Combined Academic Publishers - Mare Nostrum Group","version":"1.0","type":"link"}