see the backup going to kazan on the volga, and especially right here. the railway lines cannot handle the load. hoover anticipated this. he worried about this. the central drama is how against all odds, and after that nearly disastrous jam up of corn trains west of the volga, in 1922 the lifesaving corn and wheat seed begins arriving in the villages. and it is the nick of time. the way they get from the railheads to the villages surprises some people. this is a photograph i used on the cover of my book. these are camels. you can see down there. this is the volga river. it is frozen. one of the advantages to the russian winter, right? people are surprised in this story -- i was when i first began to research this story -- how many camels were appearing in various places. there were striking images throughout the archives of horse caravans, camel caravans, mixed caravans, oxen. camels, though, survived longer than the horses. horses died in large numbers. camels proved to be a hardier sort, and they were heavily populated in central asia, and also at that