Alaska has a different relationship with Russia than any other American state. It’s a geographic, historical, and even emotional connection. After all, as Sara Palin put it, we can see Russia from our backyards. As you might imagine, the political border between northwestern Alaska and northeastern Russia, is one that was largely disregarded by the indigenous peoples on both sides of the Bering Strait until the Cold War got far enough along to enforce the border and separate families. The Iron Curtain was something that dropped down in Eastern Europe. Alaska and the Russian Far East were divided by the Ice Curtain, and when it began to melt sister-city ties were established that were truer siblings than many such international relationships. Exchanges happened as well, including with my hometown.

The exchange visits were more than a swap of people: they were exchanges of material goods, mostly in the form of gifts. I remember collecting bubble gum for some sort of international care package when I was in second grade, because we understood that Soviet children were deprived of this ubiquitous American luxury. In high school, when I took my first international trip to Magadan, each American student carried one piece of luggage, and one box of printer paper for the school we would visit. I returned with VHS tapes that would not play, but visitors who stayed with us brought jewelry (lots of mineral wealth in the RFE), brightly colored scarves, watches, and children’s books if they knew their hosts had children.

On my most recent trip home, my mom and I did the rounds of the bookstores. One of the shops had a file box full of Soviet children’s books from an estate sale. The owner hadn’t had time to sort through them yet — he wasn’t proficient in Cyrillic — but he let me sift through them. I pulled out everything that looked like it had anything to do with the RFE or the North, plus Kornei Chukovsky, and happily paid him for a dozen books.

I can’t imagine anywhere else that I could have acquired these books. You cannot imagine how upset I was for the two days that the airline misplaced the piece of luggage they were in. But I have them now, and I want to read them, and translate them, and use them as reference material, and share how cool the illustrations are—

I’m a sucker for children’s books already, so a stack of children’s books in the language I spent almost a decade studying, about the region I’m currently researching and writing about is about equivalent to a red panda sitting in my lap and eating applesauce, as far as I’m concerned. I LUUURRV these books right now.

• Прогулка с лосями [Progulka s losyami] Walking with moose. Author: Elena Ivanovna Surova. Artists: I. Dunayeva Izdatel’stvo “Detskaya Literatura” Publisher “Children’s Literature”. For preschoolers. A print run of 300,000 in 1975 (on the colophon), title page copyright 1976. Cost, 17 kopecks.
• Саварка [Savarka] (a name)  – Author, Vladimir Stepanenko. Artists: N. Stroganova, M. Aleskeev. Izdatel’stvo “Sovetskaya Rossiya” Publisher “Soviet Russia”. For young school children. A print run of 150,000 in 1976. Cost, 38 kopecks.
• Серебряное копытце: Уральские сказы [Serebryanoe kopittse: Ural’skie skazy] Silver Hoof: Ural stories. Author Pavel Petrovich Bazhov. Artists: M. Uspenskoi. Izdatel’stvo “Detskaya Literatura” Publisher “Children’s Literature”. For the beginning schoolchild. A print run of 1,800,000 in 1976. Cost, 9 kopecks.
• На Командорах [Na Komandorakh] On the Commander Islands. Author: Gennady Snegirev. Artist: M. Miturich. Izdatel’stvo “Malish”. Publisher “Little One”. For older preschoolers. A print run of 350,000 in 1975. Cost, 16 kopecks.
• Таю принесёт солнце [Tayu prinesyot solntse] Tayu brings the sun. Author: Ivan Inokent’evich Egorov. Retold from Yakut/Sakha by Anatolii Chlenov. Artist: Kh. Safiullina. Izdatel’stvo “Detskaya Literatura” Publisher “Children’s Literature”. A print run of 300,000 in 1975. Cost, 17 kopecks.
• Повелитель ветров [Povelitel’ vetrov] Lord of the Winds. Author: Yuri Sergeevich Ritkheu. Artist: D.A. Bryukhanova. Magadanskoie knizhnoe zdatel’stvo Magadan book publishing. For preschoolers. 3rd edition. A print run of 100,000 in 1974. Cost, 26 kopecks.
• Повелитель ветров [Povelitel’ vetrov] Lord of the Winds. Author: Yuri Sergeevich Ritkheu. Artist: V. Yudin. Izdatel’stvo “Malish”. Publisher “Little One”. For preschoolers. Print run 150,000 in 1976. Cost, 24 kopecks.
• Про оленей [Pro olenei] About reindeer. Author: Gennady Snegirev. Artist: M. Miturich. Izdatel’stvo “Detskaya Literatura” Publisher “Children’s Literature”. A print run of 450,000 in 1972. Cost, 22 kopecks.
• Моя Камчатка [Moya Kamchatka] My Kamchatka. Author: Vladimir Rudol’fovich Frents. Artist: ?. Izdatel’stvo “Khudozhnik RSFSR”, Publisher “Artist RSFSR”. A print run of 900,000 in 1970. Cost, 35 kopecks.

They are all lovely in their own ways, but I’m most excited about Повелитель ветров [Povelitel’ vetrov] Lord of the Winds. You’ll notice I got two copies. The different artists have quite different styles, which is interesting to me. The really interesting part is that last winter I got a new book called The Chukchi Bible, by one Yuri Rytkheu. You can read his Wikipedia article as well as I can, but I am looking forward to reading both and seeing what there is between a very early, pro-Soviet work for children, and a post-Soviet adult work by the same indigenous author.