BOOK NOTE: Travelogue tells of Kyiv homecoming (05/25/97)

BOOK NOTE: Travelogue tells of Kyiv homecoming

JERSEY CITY, N.J. - On a trip to London in 1977, Tamara Miller saw a sign advertising the Soviet Intourist travel bureau and decided impulsively that she wanted to return to her native Kyiv. Almost 20 years later, she has written a short and easily readable travelogue, "Kyiv - The Homecoming," of her impulsive return home.

Though the book describes Soviet Ukraine in the 1970s, Ms. Miller intersperses the text with her childhood memories from the 1920s and 1930s, which reflect the complexity and tragedy of typical lives during those years. Ms. Miller recalls the Nazi German occupation of Ukraine, her youth as a Young Pioneer, the fate her Ukrainian relatives, and the mix of Ukrainian, Russian, Jewish cultures in Kyiv before World War II.

Among the most striking are her memories of the period of the Great Famine: "Going from Lavra Abbey, I passed many familiar places along our route ... (w)e passed a big marketplace under a glass dome known as Krytyi Rynok, which means 'covered marketplace.' There the farmers were permitted to sell what they raised on private lots ... I remembered that place well from my childhood. There my mother had sold my winter coat for a loaf of bread during the famine of 1932. When she came home and cut the loaf in half, we discovered that only the crust was made of wheat; the inside was filled with a mixture of bark and acorns."

Those who have traveled to Ukraine recently will notice the similarities that still can be found between the Soviet Ukraine of 1977 and of the independent Ukraine of 1997. Ms. Miller's style moves easily between the years, and her memories are fond, and poignant, and painful, and funny. The 80-page book is written in English, and can be ordered by sending $9.50 (includes shipping) to: Tamara Miller, 8192 Kimbrook Drive, Germantown, TN 38138-2412.

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