A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka: A Memoir Paperback – October 13, 2015

Outstanding book that has helped me to understand others. Highly recommended.

Until I read this book I knew nothing about the persecution of Jews in the USSR. This interesting book opened my eyes.This book recounts the story of the Golinkin family's struggle to leave the Ukraine in the late 1980's. It wasn't as easy as making a flight reservation and leaving. The family had to navigate through a nightmare jungle of bureaucracy just to get permission to leave. Lev as a young child was relentlessly bullied and his sister was blocked from going to medical school. The parents had jobs they loved and were respected. They knew, however, that they needed to leave for the sake of their children. Quite a sacrifice and one that added to the author's guilt.For me, most of this book was a page turner. The last section where Lev Golinkin, the author, is focused on his inner turmoil was a little difficult to get through, but I understand why it was there. Things weren't all dandy psychologically for Lev as he became an adult. He had inner turmoil to overcome and it's good to know that he made it. I think he could have been a wonderful doctor had he chosen that direction.One very petty annoying thing about this book is that a quote on the bottom right front cover of this book states that it's "hilarious". There is nothing close to hilarious about this book. There are a couple of amusing moments, but that's it for levity. That's not the first time I have seen that word on a serious book. I guess publishers think a book has to be funny to sell.

Beautifully written and compelling story of emigration from Ukraine to the USA as well as a coming of age autobiography . Just a fabulous read

I can't recommend Lev Golinkin's memoir highly enough. It's a beautifully told story, one that carries extra resonance these days with a new generation of refugees making their way across Europe.The book starts taking readers through Golinkin's family's brutal upbringing in Kharkov, Ukraine. Belittled, berated and objectified with hatred, Golinkin's family has its Jewishness almost literally beaten out of them. As Golinkin writes:"The reminders of being a zhid still came, at school and in the yard, but over time something else began to creep up on me, in addition to the fear. I considered the bullies lucky: they only had to see me once in a while; I had to live with myself every day. I envied them."By the time they left -- along with tens of thousands of other Soviet Jews during a brief window of Glasnost-produced loosening -- it wasn't religious freedom that Golinkin and family sought:"What my family and many families like mine desired was peace of mind, not a synagogue. We wanted freedom, the freedom to live our lives without trembling, and naturally we, like our innumerable predecessors, cast our gaze across the Atlantic."This skillfully produced and assembled work has four main parts: the family's life in Kharkov; their journey to America (could be a movie in itself -- indeed, its indelible images are seared into Golinkin's mind's eye for the next two decades); Lev's upbringing in America (I loved his passages about Boston College to whom he seems truly indebted and grateful); and a subsequent trip made back through Europe 17 years after his seminal initial passage. It's that last part that gets to the emotional core of the book: he goes back and tracks down all the people that played a part in making that trip a reality and thanks them. It's a beautiful thing.

Golinkin is a very engaging writer. However, he is using his talent to distort the reality of the Soviet Kharkov and paint it in excessively grim colors in order to appeal to American readers. According to him, everybody was a Jew hater in the Soviet Union. I grew up in the same city in about the same epoch, and I never heard the word "zhyd" used in my family or in my surroundings. A Jewish family lived a few houses down the street, they were our friends; everybody in town respected them, and when they decided to emigrate, people organized a goodbye party for them. I had various Jewish friends, and I never knew of episodes of open hatred against them. I am sure - and I know that discrimination was frequent and severe. But let's not exaggerate creating monsters out of all Russians and Ukrainians of the non-Jewish background. People did refer to the "Jewish" (not "Zhyd") Easter", but without the malice the writer assigns to them. And can he really remember all the details of his life in Kharkov since he left the country at the age of 9? I never heard anybody at my school discussing how Jewish people looked, much less can I imagine it happening in the first grade. I was sad that the topic of ethnic discrimination was manipulated in such a way for the sake of popularity, to hurt the image of my city.

An excellent story of living without freedom. Lev Golinkin tells a story many of us are so blind too. He opens your eyes to what many people need to see and here. People that walk for weeks and months with nothing but the clothes on there back to have a life without fear. Like Liv’s mother her dream to come to the United States of America was simply to no longer living in fear of what the government can and will to do you. This is a must read. I wish him well with his life forward.

The author really brought his experiences to life - his life in Russia, his harrowing escape and his adjustment to life in the U.S. He also explained the difficult relationships that can develop between refugees and those that want to help them. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the experience of immigration, of being a refugee or one who tries to help refugees, in what it is like to grow up as an outsider, in overcoming trauma and reconnecting with a difficult past, and in the overall experience of Soviet Jewry.

Lev Golonkin’s memoir is a touching portrayal of his metamorphosis from Ukrainian/ Russian waif to self-aware American adult. The story is at times sad but affecting.

An easy and lovely read. I very much enjoyed how the author managed to synthesize his perspectives as both an adult and a child. Gave me good insight into the story of a friend of mine who was an immigrant from Russia.

Product provided and delivered exactly as promised.

A wonderful deep yet joyful insight to our world and how small gestures change a lot. Thanks for sharing with us all.