In Search of Peter

New Delhi. 17 August: Book Collectors are a very persistent lot. They can wait for decades to get just one book. A single copy of an out-of-print, thus rare book. I myself have waited for nearly two decades to get “Peter the Great” written by Alexei Tolstoy.

Buratino.
(c) pphbooks.net

It was the winter of 2001 when I was first introduced to Alexei Tolstoy. I was a kid and we were visiting Allahabad, when I purchased “The Golden Key, or the
adventures of Buratino”, a Russian equivalent of Pinocchio. The copy I got was in Hindi, and was a Soviet Print, published from Moscow. Later in 2004, I received another Hindi translation of A. Tolstoy’s “Engineer Garin’s Death Ray”, from “People’s Publishing House (PPH) Delhi. It was translated as “चार दिन की चाँदनी” (Chaar Din Ki

Garin's Ray.
(c) biblio.com

Chandni, Four Days of Moonlight). It was a sci-fi fiction about Engineer Garin, who had discovered Laser Light. A year later in 2005, I purchased four volumes (out of six) of A.Tolstoy’ Collected Works from PPH Delhi. Each book cost me Rupees 45/- back then. The first three volumes (Sisters, 1918, Bleak Morning) offered  fictionalised account of

Ordeal Trilogy.
(c) sprzedajemy.pl

Russian Civil War. These were very beautiful novels collectively also known as “The Roads to Calvary”, and also known as "The Ordeal Trilogy". The Volume 4 and 5 were not available at PPH, and were about Emperor Peter the Great. 

PPH, Connaught Place.
(c) JustDial

Those days, I used to spend an entire Saturday afternoon of any given month at PPH office in Jhandewalan, New Delhi. A few months later, One fine Saturday afternoon in 2005, going through the shelves of PPH, I discovered two green coloured volumes of Peter. They were also published by Raduga Publishers, Moscow. At that time I was getting them both for Rs. 90/-. But unfortunately that day I was out of budget and had spent all my pocket-money (Rs. 200/- only) on other Soviet books. So I asked Bookseller Uncle at PPH to reserve two volumes of Peter for me and I would purchase them the next month. They probably had reserved it for another month. But unfortunately I was able to visit them two months later. By then Peter had vanished off the shelves.

Later, In 2008 a visiting Professor of Mass Communication told me that he had this Peter the Great, back home in his collection. He promised to give its scanned copy to me but plans were never materialised. In 2019 also, one seller from a far flung corner also told me that he has it for sale. But unfortunately he was not able to find it at the last moment, and I was deprived of this book at that time also.

Peter The Great.
(c) Pallav.

In November 2021, I was desperately searching for
this book on Internet, when I was able to find the phone numbers of PPH Patna. The next morning I called them and Sir on the other end of the line had confirmed that he has the two volume set of “Peter the Great” in stock, and he happily sold it to me. Finally after a wait of 16 years I was finally re-united with Alexei Tolstoy’s “Peter the Great”. I recall that this was how Andy and Kavik were reunited in Walt Morey’s 1968 novel.