Profiles of Uzbekistan (105 pp.), Kazakhstan (110 pp.), Tajikistan (104 pp.), Kyrgyzstan (91 pp.), and Azerbaijan (119 pp.) are available for $30 or £15 each from the International Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity
The Post-Soviet Handbook, A Guide to Grassroots Organizations and Internet Resources in the Newly Independent States, by
M. Holt Ruffin, Joan McCarter, and Richard Upjohn. Seattle:
University of Washington Press, 1996. 416 pp. $19.95, plus $4.00
shipping.
"Like mushrooms after rain," as Pravda put it, thousands of
Soviet citizens seized Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost initiative in the
late 1980s by holding public meetings and demonstrations, publishing
newspapers that were unflinchingly critical of political leadership,
and instituting social services to groups such as the disabled whose
needs had been ignored for decades. In short, they began to
establish civil society from the ground up. The Post-Soviet Handbook
documents the enormous variety of grassroots initiatives which have
emerged in the former Soviet Union over the past ten years.
Entries range from the Research Center for Human Rights to Christian
Solidarity International to the Orthodox Kosma/Damian Charity. The Handbook
provides extensive contact information for hundreds of independent
associations, including e-mail addresses, and describes their principal
programs and activities. In addition, a special section
introduces the abundance of Internet resources related to the former
Soviet Union, from electronic mailing lists to World Wide Web and
Gopher sites, as well as utilities for moving from Latin characters to
Cyrillic and vice-versa. The authors work for the Center for
Civil Society International, a Seattle-based nonprofit group supporting
collaborative activities between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union.
Contact:
William Miller's Beliefs and Practices of Christians, a highly regarded explanation of the Gospel for Muslims, is available in Russian, Bulgarian, Turkish, Azeri, Kazakh, Uzbek, and Uighur. Contact:
Written permission is required for reprinting or electronic distribution of any portion of the East-West Church & Ministry Report.
© 1996 Institute for East-West Christian Studies
ISSN 1069-5664