Akchurin is a Tatar, born in Tashkent, but was for many years a Muscovite who in mid-1990 journeyed by car from Moscow to central Russia, then down to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and over to Azerbaijan. Akchurin, worldly wise and with a strong sense of the history of the areas he visits, experiences what no outsider can and reports his adventures with insights that no outsider has. For the Westerner who has traveled in the former Soviet Union as a guest of Intourist, his tale contains a rawness and violence that will shock.