Sign-In
Cart
Bears in the Caviar
Paperback
General EuropeRussian HistoryWorld War II
Publisher Price: $22.00
ISBN13: 9781880100363
Publisher: Russian Information Services, Inc.
Published: Sep 1 2015
Pages: 310
Weight: 0.78
Height: 0.70 Width: 5.25 Depth: 8.00
Language: English
Bears in the Caviar is a hilarious and insightful memoir by a diplomat who was present at the creation of US-Soviet relations. Charles Thayer headed off to Russia in 1933, calculating that if he could just learn Russian and be on the spot when the US and USSR established relations, he could make himself indispensable and start a career in the foreign service. Remarkably, he pulled it of.
This was but the first in a string of daring moves that kept Thayer in the thick of all things Russian for the next two decades. Architect of the infamous party that Mikhail Bulgakov used to imagine his famous ball scene in Master and Margarita, Senior Polo Instructor to the Red Army, translator to ambassadors, sparring partner for Vyshinsky, drinking partner of Budyonny, nemesis of the KGB, and, oh yes, Third Secretary in the Foreign Service, Charles Thayer was a boundlessly resourceful, creative and fun-loving public servant. In this memoir (out of print for half a century), he offers an unparalleled look behind the scenes of diplomatic life in Russia (and Germany, Iran and Afghanistan) before and during World War II.
For anyone with even a passing interest in US-Russian history, this is a priceless memoir to read and savor.
Includes a special biographical introduction by Ambassador Avis Bohlen, a professional foreign service officer and the author's niece, about Thayer's incredible life and career, including his run in with McCarthy's witch hunt.
Also in
Russian History
Dangerous Games: Faces, Incidents, and Casualties of the Cold War
Baron, Scott
Wise, James E.
Hardcover
Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster
Higginbotham, Adam
Paperback
The CIA Book Club: The Secret Mission to Win the Cold War with Forbidden Literature
English, Charlie
Hardcover
Tunnel 29: The True Story of an Extraordinary Escape Beneath the Berlin Wall
Merriman, Helena
Paperback
The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr I.
Paperback
Beginner's Russian with Interactive Online Workbook, 2nd Edition
Miller, Frank J.
Kagan, Olga E.
Kudyma, Anna S.
Paperback
Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice
Browder, Bill
Paperback
The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 2]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr I.
Paperback
The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 3]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr I.
Paperback
The Dark Side of the Earth: Russia's Short-Lived Victory Over Totalitarianism
Zygar, Mikhail
Hardcover
Welcome to the Orthodox Church: An Introduction to Eastern Christianity
Mathewes-Green, Frederica
Paperback
The Forbidden Garden: The Botanists of Besieged Leningrad and Their Impossible Choice
Parkin, Simon
Paperback
To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause (Pulitzer Prize Winner): The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement
Nathans, Benjamin
Paperback
Our Dear Friends in Moscow: The Inside Story of a Broken Generation
Borogan, Irina
Soldatov, Andrei
Hardcover
The Illegals: Russia's Most Audacious Spies and Their Century-Long Mission to Infiltrate the West
Walker, Shaun
Paperback
The Illegals: Russia's Most Audacious Spies and Their Century-Long Mission to Infiltrate the West
Walker, Shaun
Hardcover
Stalin's Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva
Sullivan, Rosemary
Paperback
The Other Great Game: The Opening of Korea and the Birth of Modern East Asia
Jager, Sheila Miyoshi
Paperback
Freezing Order: A True Story of Money Laundering, Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin's Wrath
Browder, Bill
Paperback
The Future Is History (National Book Award Winner): How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia
Gessen, Masha
Paperback
Three Days in Moscow: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of the Soviet Empire
Baier, Bret
Whitney, Catherine
Paperback
The Return of Russia: From Yeltsin to Putin, the Story of a Vengeful Kremlin
Rodgers, James
Hardcover
Three Days in Moscow: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of the Soviet Empire (Large Print Edition)
Whitney, Catherine
Baier, Bret
Paperback
To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause (Pulitzer Prize Winner): The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement
Nathans, Benjamin
Hardcover
The Moscow Playbook: How Russia Used, Abused, and Transformed Sports in the Hunt for Power
Berglund, Bruce
Hardcover
When They Come for Us, We'll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry
Beckerman, Gal
Paperback
The Red Atlas: How the Soviet Union Secretly Mapped the World
Davies, John
Kent, Alexander J.
Hardcover
Putin's Sledgehammer: The Wagner Group and Russia's Collapse Into Mercenary Chaos
Rondeaux, Candace
Hardcover
The Lighthouse of Stalingrad: The Hidden Truth at the Heart of the Greatest Battle of World War II
MacGregor, Iain
Paperback
One Hell of a Gamble: Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958-1964
Fursenko, Aleksandr
Naftali, Timothy
Paperback
The Gambler Wife: A True Story of Love, Risk, and the Woman Who Saved Dostoyevsky
Kaufman, Andrew D.
Paperback
Lost Splendor: The Amazing Memoirs of the Man Who Killed Rasputin
Youssouppoff, Prince Felix
Paperback
Red Horizons: The True Story of Nicolae and Elena Ceausescus' Crimes, Lifestyle, and Corruption
Pacepa, Ion Mihai
Paperback
Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters
Brown, Kate
Paperback
Tatiana Romanov, Daughter of the Last Tsar: Diaries and Letters, 1913-1918
Nicholson, Nicholas B. a.
Azar, Helen
Hardcover
What's Cooking in the Kremlin: From Rasputin to Putin, How Russia Built an Empire with a Knife and Fork
Szablowski, Witold
Paperback
Dancing in Petersburg: The Memoirs of Kschessinska - Prima Ballerina of the Russian Imperial Theatre, and Mistress of the future Tsar Nicholas II
Kschessinska, Mathilde
Paperback
The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin (Large Print Edition)
Gessen, Masha
Paperback
First Person: An Astonishingly Frank Self-Portrait by Russia's President Vladimir Putin
Gevorkyan, Nataliya
Timakova, Natalya
Putin, Vladimir
Paperback
Replaying the Second World War: Soviet Parallels and Inspirations for Russian Atrocities in the Russo-Ukrainian War, 2014-25
Drachewych, Oleksa
Paperback
Once Upon a Time in Russia: The Rise of the Oligarchs--A True Story of Ambition, Wealth, Betrayal, and Murder
Mezrich, Ben
Paperback
Island of the Blue Foxes: Disaster and Triumph on the World's Greatest Scientific Expedition
Bown, Stephen R.
Hardcover
Comradely Greetings: The Prison Letters of Nadya and Slavoj
Zizek, Slavoj
Tololonnikova, Nadezhda
Paperback
Russian Literary Journals, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy in St. Petersburg, 1877
Mayhew, Linda M.
Paperback
The Romanov Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra
Rappaport, Helen
Paperback
Soviet Propaganda on American Screens: An Amkino Pictures Filmography, 1926-1940
Pitts, Michael R.
Paperback
My Chernobyl: The Human Story of a Scientist and the Nuclear Power Plant Catastrophe
Borovoi, Alexander a.
Paperback
Armored Forces of Russia and the Soviet Union: Tanks and Armored Vehicles (an Illustrated Guide, 1919-2025)
Schunkow, Victor
Hardcover
Mennonites in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union: Through Much Tribulation
Friesen, Leonard G.
Paperback
SIMO HÄYHÄ, The White Death: The incredible true story of the deadliest sniper ever
Larsen, Andrea
Paperback
Ester and Ruzya: How My Grandmothers Survived Hitler's War and Stalin's Peace
Gessen, Masha
Paperback
Hardship to Homeland: Pacific Northwest Volga Germans (Revised, Expanded)
Trafzer, Clifford E.
Scheuerman, Richard D.
Paperback