I finished reading a fantastic book (The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia) that was recommended to me by my co-worker. An exciting, thrilling eye-opener for a Soviet person, about what was called "The Great Game", a power struggle on the frontiers of Central Asia, between Victorian Britain and Tsarist Russia.
Below is a review I wrote on goodreads.com
This book was a recommendation from my co-worker, which ended up being a fantastic introductory but very thorough and fact-filled thrilling story. The truth that was not presented in such an unbiased and open way in history classes of Soviet schools, the schools that I happened to graduate from.
It is definitely hard to be totally unbiased, but Peter Hopkins takes reader through the timeline presenting both sides of the story as much as possible; and in the very last paragraphs of the book he confirms it by siding with neither Russian nor British Empire.
The comic cartoon on the picture below is iconic in illustrating the "The Great Game".
Political cartoon depicting the Afghan Emir Sher Ali with his "friends" Russia & Britain (1878).