In recent years, a concentrated and, most likely, an orchestrated effort has been made in the Soviet Union to familiarise great numbers of readers with the contemporary Middle East. This is, of course, in addition to the specialised studies that have been published. Numerous travel accounts have been appearing regularly in popular weeklies and monthlies,' accompanied by large colour photographs. Moreover, there has been a marked increase in the number of travel accounts published in book form during the last dozen years. These include quite a few translations into Russian. One example is Pyeryevali, nyeftyeprovodi, piramidi (Passes, pipelines, pyramids), translated from the German of Konrad Schmidt and Alfred Paszkowiak, (Moscow, Nauka Press for the Institute of Oriental Studies in the USSR Academy of Sciences, 1972, 264 pp.); it describes a voyage to the Maghrib and Egypt. Another is Pyernyevyernutiy polumyesyats (Turned-over crescent), an abbreviated translation from the Czech of M. Zikmund and I. Ganzelka, (Leningrad, Dyetskaya Lityeratura Press, 1965, 272 pp.), which is an account of a trip through Turkey and Lebanon. Incidentally, the latter is part of a series of attractively bound and illustrated travel accounts for the young. Most of the travel accounts, however, were originally written in Russian. Some are designed to inform the readers of Russian achievements in past generations.2 Such a study has been written by the late B.M. Dantsig, entitled R usskiye putyeshyestvyenniki na Blidznyem Vostoke (Russian travellers in the Near East), (Moscow, Misl' Press, 1965; 272 pp.3). Arranged chronologically and illustrated by maps, the book focuses on Russian travels in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and stops just prior to the 1917 Revolution. A large majority of the travellers visited the Ottoman Empire, with a fair number showing special interest in a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and other Holy Places. A few describe the Caucasus, Iran and other areas contiguous to Ottoman rule. Dantsig summarises most of the hundreds of memoirs he has examined and excerpts some of them. Even from such a cursory treatment, one gets the definite impression that this mass of material (some of which appeared in French or German, but most in Russian) includes important sources for research into Ottoman history political, diplomatic, military, economic and social. While Dantsig's book is a general survey of the subject, and an excellent introduction to it as well, other works concentrate more specifically, by area or person, on pre-Soviet Russian travel. Three examples will suffice. The first is entitled Russkiye putyeshyestvyenniki i issledovatyeli o Kirgizakh (Russian travellers and scientists on the Kirghizes), (Frunze, Ilim Press for the Institute of History in the Kirghiz Academy of Sciences, 1973; 220 pp.). It is edited by B.V. Lunin and comprises chapters written by Kirghiz scholars on the eighteenth and nineteenth century Russian travel accounts about Kirghizia and the political economic and social history of the Kirghizes. A particularly interesting chapter concerns the Kirghiz cultural traditions that emerge from the Russian accounts. Here is a good example of how these sources can be used for intelligent and intelligible historical research. Another work is Bukhara i Afganistan v nachalye 80-kh godov XIX vyeka (Bukhara and Afghanistan in the beginning of the 1880's), (Moscow, Nauka Press, 1974; 144 pp.). Prepared by a board of editors, this is an edition of the journals kept by Captain G.A. Aryendaryenko, a Turkistani officer, during a Russian mission to Bukhara. A keen observer, with some knowledge of the contemporary dialects, Aryendaryenko sent in detailed reports of local conditions. The editors have footnoted these reports throughout and added a glossary of terms and ethnic names, as well as separate indexes of persons and places.