Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania – Lonely Planet

Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania – Lonely Planet – is a travel guide about the Baltic States. I wanted to visit them and this book was available at the local library, so I borrowed it. What a mess this book is. Each country is covered by another author: one Italian, one unknown, and one russian. Of course the russian stands out, making sure all the expectations are met. Why, with 3 authors, the team at Lonely Planet couldn’t find a native of the Baltic states is beyond me.

Why I am not recommending this book:
1. The format is bad. There are so many instances when you start reading something on page x and the continuation of the text is on page x+3 because in between there is something else.

2. Two of the authors are so biased that it got to the point of being annoying and what they were talking about irrelevant:
– in Narva, Estonia, the Italian wrote so much about how many russian restaurants are and about a russian church. Narva is a small city and visitors of Estonia are unlikely to spend there more than a day.
– the russian was going on and on about how many russian-speakers are in a Latvian city and another city and a village and another village. How is this relevant to an English-speaking audience is puzzling.

3. There are very few mentions of public transport between cities.
It was funny that the russian focuses on the acceptable levels of alcohol in their blood and that all passengers need to wear a seatbelt. The other 2 authors focused on the speed limits. The russian being as cliché as possible.

4. There are more details about russian restaurants than vegan and vegetarian combined. There are very few mentions of traditional local cuisine, which I imagine visitors would like to know and try if they visit these countries.

5. All 3 countries have a long and interesting history, why the Italian and the russian kept banging about the soviet history, despite the Italian mentioning that Estonians area not happy to be called “post-soviet”, was another puzzle. These 2 guys maybe want to see the horrible soviet architecture, but from the comfort of a civilised country, hence they are avoiding russia. With hundreds of years of history, the 20th century occupation is only a part of it.

The russian even blabbed about the Nazis and their local collaborators many times. He, conveniently, mentions rather unclearly that: “from 1940 to 1991, Latvia was occupied by the soviets and Nazi Germans.” Latvia was occupied by the soviets in 1940, when the soviets were allied with the Nazis. The local collaborators might have joined, in part, because they wanted to free their country from the soviets. He also ignores that in 1991 the soviets had to drive out of Latvia and that people died in 1991 to gain their independence from the soviet union.

The Italian, besides travel, he says that he is interested in history, such as collective memory, place, and identity. It’s a shame he completely missed the opportunity of understanding oppression and totalitarianism while visiting Estonia.

The good part:
Lithuania was nicely done and I would have loved the book if all was like that! Anna had a balanced approach to history and made a good case of visiting Lithuania. She wrote about the soviet era with respect towards the victims, she also wrote about the Nazi atrocities with equal respect towards the victims. That is, also, a small part of the whole story and she wrote a lot about the other aspects of Lithuanian culture and history. I couldn’t give more stars because Lithuania was 1 of 3 countries looked at and the book is about all 3.

Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania – Lonely Planet

Details about the picture: –
My rating: 1/5 Stars
Would I recommend it: NO!!
Published by:
Year it was published: 2024 (10th edition)
Format: Paperback
Genre(s): Travel guide
Pages: 360

About the author: Anna Kaminski is a trilingual travel writer who’s conducted travel guidebook research across six continents over nearly 15 years. Many of her books are on Latin America, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, Eastern Europe, and the Arctic. She describes herself as: “Equally comfortable in the jungles of remote destinations and in big cities, I’m a versatile writer and incorrigible foodie. I specialise in sustainable travel, train travel, trekking destinations, budget travel and food-centric travel. My interests and passions include indigenous culture and indigenous art, contemporary art, road trips in remote regions (Dempster Hwy, Carretera Austral, Australia’s Longest Shortcut), hiking, drone photography, scuba diving, and live rock gigs.”

Angelo Zinna is a writer based in Florence, Italy. He is the author of ten Lonely Planet guidebooks. Angelo lived and travelled across three continents, covering destinations in Italy, the Caucasus, and the Baltic region.

leonid ragozin is a russian “liberal” who lives in Latvia and acts as he is pro-Ukrainian, but who in fact wants Ukraine to surrender. A quick look over his twitter posts makes that clear. I knew of him, so I was surprised he was the author of the chapter on Latvia.
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