Turn Left at Lenin’s Statue is my first travel book. It’s the story of a journey through Central Asia, past frontiers and across seasons; a journey whose aim was to understand this region, to go beyond the (scarce) headlines and, well, Borat. It is the culmination of a number of years of travel and it’s both a happy and sombre read, uplifting and concerning often at the same time.
Turn Left is available on Amazon (you can click here for the .co.uk version; for the .com side see the button on the right banner) as both a Kindle eBook and a paperback; the Kindle will be on a discounted offer for a week starting today. But if you’d like to know what you’re getting into, if you’d like a little sample – a test drive, if you will – before you commit, well you can download the PDF of Chapter 1 simply by clicking the link below:
In it you’ll read about two cities in Kazakhstan, as well as the story of the man who put them on the map. More – including football in Uzbekistan, the World Nomad Games in Kyrgyzstan, the death and rebirth of the Aral Sea and the dystopian reality of Xinjiang – is in the remaining chapters of Turn Left.
I really enjoyed your book Fabricio. Your vibrant descriptions brought me along on your journey. Maggie
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Thank you Maggie!!!
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Wonderful book… an insightful, descriptive, and witty journey through a little-visited part of the world. I’ve read it thoroughly and if you’re reading this comment then you should too!
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Thanks Rich, this really means a lot. And you read it REALLY thoroughly.
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Your book is a real treasure, Fabrizio. My favorite passage is the one about the Aral Sea. You really pass along the joy of wanderlust. How are sales going?
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Thank you Julie. It’s never going to be the next Eat Pray Love but it’s sort of sticking to my target of selling 500 copies within a year…
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Awesome!
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I’ve been slowly reading your book for a couple of weeks now (my reading time is just a few pages each night) and finding it absolutely fascinating! Some places and experiences you describe are indeed sombre (the lake and village at Aralsk sound so bleak) and then there’s Bukkara! It sounds amazing and I’d love to explore that city. I’m into the chapter called Kyrchyn Jailoo and just about to start reading about the World Nomad Games – would so love to attend *that8 one day.
Alison
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Thanks Alison! 🙂 Sadly the WNG have been completely hijacked by Turkey. The World Ethnosport federation is headed by one of sultan Erdogan’s sons (the one who got into a bit of a brouhaha for bribery before daddy swept everything under the carpet) and they are now planning to do an edition in Turkey and another in Azerbaijan. But, Kokboru is played in Cholpon-Ata on independence day (31 August of memory serves me right)…
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I think I’ll save Chapter 1 for when I finally get a copy of the book for myself. I have a feeling that I should anticipate a sudden urge to go to Central Asia (particularly Uzbekistan) after reading it. To me, this part of the world has always been so intriguing and somewhat mysterious, just because I don’t know a lot of people who have been there.
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Here’s to hoping you can get there, Bama! 🙂
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You’ve opened up a whole new world to me Fabrizio. I’m one of those people whose first thought was Borat when I heard the name Kazakstan. I particularly enjoyed the chapters about the World Nomad Games and your crazy journey to Kashgar and the fascinating/disturbing tales from that city. How many times did you travel to Central Asia? What time frame?
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Hi Caroline, glad I was able to do that and thank you for having given it a chance. My first trip to Central Asia was in November ‘16, my last was the past summer (well 2019). I did, if memory serves me right, six trips there, spending overall 4-5 months in total. Loved all of them.
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PS: thanks to you I was able to correct one of my friends about the new name of the capital of Kazakhstan.
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Yeah I hate it too…
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