I read “Physics For Fun” by the same author (translated to Kannada, my native tongue) in highschool. Terrific book. I would read it all the time, would open a random page and read a few articles.
This was at a time when India-Russia friendly relations were at their peak so in order to carry out cultural exchange Indian government funded translating a ton of Russian books to local languages here. Sadly the initiative seems to be dead as I don’t find such books anymore.
I read much of the book, too, but translated to Bengali, in High School. I borrowed it from my Chemistry teacher who was in his late-sixties then.
My father had some excellently produced Russian fairy tales translated to English.
It was printed in Russia, by Raduga Publication.
Such books with thick pages, full color images, and custom fonts didn’t exist back then (1970s) in India. They were prized possessions.
Now there are volunteer efforts to digitize such books for nostalgia reasons [0][1].
And due to USSR-India cultural exchanges people of those generations were exposed to Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Pushkin, Gogol, Solzhenitsyn, and many more. Many sexagenarians still seem to quote from them!
I read the same book, also in Kannada. It was bought by my father when he was in high school. Of all the science books I have read, this one was more engaging and had a bigger impact on me growing up.
My father said he used to buy lot of soviet translations because they were cheap but the content was of high quality. Even after 30 years, when I picked them up, they were clearly distinct, including the Art, print quality and binding.
This was at a time when India-Russia friendly relations were at their peak so in order to carry out cultural exchange Indian government funded translating a ton of Russian books to local languages here. Sadly the initiative seems to be dead as I don’t find such books anymore.