The Storks' Nest: Life and Love in the Russian Countryside | 
 enlarge | Author: Laura L. Williams
Creator: Igor Shpilenok
Publisher: Fulcrum Publishing
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
Buy New: $6.72
You Save: $10.23 (60%)
New (31) Used (11) from $5.94
Avg. Customer Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 177090
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5 x 1
ISBN: 1555916295
Dewey Decimal Number: 508.4725
EAN: 9781555916299
ASIN: 1555916295
Publication Date: March 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Ships daily.
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Book Description
Drawn to Russia to work on conserving its extensive wilderness, Laura Williams shares the story of her life-changing move to the countryside, where she works on a remote nature reserve and falls in love with its director, Igor Shpilenok. Together they explore the wilderness in the Bryansk Forest surrounding their village of Chukhrai, encountering the elusive black stork, apprehending poachers, and raising a moose. Through the long winter, they cope with hardships, which Laura learns are nothing compared to those the villagers have experienced in the past century. City born and bred as a typical American, in four seasons Laura creates a home with nature and her neighbors in remote, rural Russia.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 enchanting book July 23, 2008
The Stork's Nest gave me a wonderful glimpse into life in an isolated part of Russia. The viewpoint of the author provided a useful lens to better understand this part of Russia. I grew up on a farm in an isolated area of Colorado, so I could relate to the villagers' need for self-sufficiency. And, of course, the growing love between Igor and Laura kept my interest, too.
Love - very rarely does it happen with nothing else happening July 11, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Love - very rarely does it happen with nothing else happening, as romance novels wrongly lead people to believe. "The Stork's Nest: Life and Love in the Russian Countryside" is the story of Laura Lynne Williams, who made a trip to the hugely expansive wilderness of Russia where she sought to work for a nature reserve, but fell in love with a photographer called Igor. She soon began to call the Russian wilderness home. "The Stork's Nest: Life and Love in the Russian Countryside" is a charming story, highly recommended for any community library memoir collection.
A Simpler Yet Richer Side to Life July 6, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Laura Lynne Williams' book "The Stork's Nest: Life and Love in the Russian Countryside," is an inspiration! Every day I looked forward to reading it a little at a time to savor the author's experiences in Chukrai, Russia and getting a glimpse of a simpler yet richer side of life, where people and nature take precedence over things.
It is a love story that encompasses a passion for preserving the natural world, an immersion into the lifestyle and customs of the Russian people and of course, the romance between the author and her husband, Igor Shpilenok, himself an outstanding wildlife photographer and director of a protected nature reserve.
I highly recommend it to anyone interested improving the quality of their own lives!
 A Proper Time Machine May 21, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Some readers may already be familiar with Laura Williams via her articles in Russian Life magazine. For those readers, The Stork's Nest will just add depth and background to a setting that you are already familiar with - rural village life in Chukrai in Western Russia.
For the unintiated, this book is something of a time-machine, into a past that exists only rural Russia and a handful of other remote undeveloped places in the world. It is a romance and a love-story as well, told rather tenderly by Ms. Williams, where her husband Igor Shpilenok plays a woodsman Marshall Dillon, figuring in the all-capable-leading-man role.
This book reminded me of my childhood, partially spent in rural Vermont, and memories of deep mud on dirt roads in spring, family gardens, water cisterns, root-cellars, wash-boards and wringers, and other aspects of an older life, a life where domestic work is a daily task and necessity, a life almost forgotten in the United States.
I highly recommend this book to anyone with a romantic streak or an interest in Russia. It may even inspire you to pull out old family photo albums and remember the lives of your grandparents or great-grandparents.
 Strange Intermix Inside not Revealed Up Front April 7, 2008
1 out of 7 found this review helpful
I will try to write a fair & balance review because this is the 1st time we have returned an item to Amazon.com. Which was rather easy to do & we received our money back rather fast. Thank you.
We found out about the book by having a subscription to "Russian Life" magazine were a section from Laura L. Williams book was included. It was a very well written essay about an American woman that married a Russian man & created a farm near a game reserve in mid-Russia, south west of Moscow. We both thought it would be a good book to read because my wife was born north east of Moscow, but once we received the product, the book contain many references to a pseudo-Orthodox witch which both of us have experienced the negative effects of this kind of practice of intermixing white or black magic with Christian Orthodoxy. The witch would read into symbols by dropping objects into liquid & recite pseudo prayers which were more like incantations. Laura L. Williams listed these incantations as poems within the pages of her book which made it at times read like a book of spells. If reading incantations doesn't offend you, or if you can over look these sections, then you will find a good documentary to read.
I gave the review a "3" because many will not understand what I am writing about & its too bad that the book contain this subject matter.
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