Afghanistan: A Russian Soldier's Story

In 1984 Tamarov, then 19, was drafted into the Soviet Army and posted to Afghanistan where he spent 20 months in a minesweeper outfit. Despite heavy operational responsibilities and danger, he managed to take artful photographs which capture the stark landscape, friendly and unfriendly Afghans and the men of his platoon in action and in repose.

Photographs depicting the haunted faces of both soldiers and civilians, the country's rugged yet beautiful mountain terrain, and the banality of daily life between missions are interspersed with Tamarov's unsentimental but passionate prose, in which he reveals his growing disorientation and takes to task his government for a campaign that has been widely dubbed "the Soviet Vietnam".

Returning home uninjured in 1986, the author subsequently traveled to the United States, met with Vietnam vets and paid his respects at the Wall on the Mall in Washington, D.C., sharing with his new acquaintances "something which others cannot understand." More than a photographic essay, Afghanistan offerns an stunningly personal view of combat that is rarely seen by most.

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• The Soviet-Afghan War: How a Superpower Fought and Lost
• The Hidden War: A Russian Journalist's Account of the Soviet War in Afghanistan
• A History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to its Legacy
• Ali and Nino: A Love Story: Movie Tie-In
• Zinky Boys: Soviet Voices from the Afghanistan War
• Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan 1979-89
• The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War
• The Soviet-Afghan War 1979-89 (Essential Histories)