@indigo The fun thing about Soviet publications is they always listed the print run statistics on the back page. If I recall correctly, there were something like half a million copies printed, which were likely distributed throughout Eastern Europe and the US (it was intended to attract Jewish settlers). So I'd say more than a few someones read it.
@indigo Most likely, but it was obscure--published in the Soviet Union in the 1930s when Stalin was pushing Birobidzhan as the Jewish Autonomous Region, a supposed homeland for the Jews.
@indigo As it turned out, it had a photo that I was able to use as an illustration, but as it was written entirely in Yiddish, that's about all I was able to get from it. :-)
@indigo I think my record was when I was writing my senior thesis at UC Santa Barbara in 2003. I checked out a book from the UC Library system (it was in cold storage at an off-site facility) that had last been checked out in 1965.
I'm guessing this book I checked out of the Los Angeles Public Library has been in the collection for a while. ?
Today I learned there's a soccer team in Houston called Dynamo. I wonder how many of its fans know that back in the Bad Old Days, teams named Dynamo were traditionally the teams tied to the KGB/Stasi/other local secret police.