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Black Earth: A Journey Through Russia After the Fall, by Andrew Meier
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"That Black Earth is an extraordinary work is, for anyone who has known Russia, beyond question."―George Kennan
"A compassionate glimpse into the extremes where the new Russia meets the old," writes Robert Legvold (Foreign Affairs) about Andrew Meier's enthralling new work. Journeying across a resurgent and reputedly free land, Meier has produced a virtuosic mix of nuanced history, lyric travelogue, and unflinching reportage. Throughout, Meier captures the country's present limbo―a land rich in potential but on the brink of staggering back into tyranny―in an account that is by turns heartrending and celebratory, comic and terrifying. A 2003 New York Public Library Book to Remember. "Black Earth is the best investigation of post-Soviet Russia since David Remnick's Resurrection. Andrew Meier is a truly penetrating eyewitness."―Robert Conquest, author of The Great Terror; "If President Bush were to read only the chapters regarding Chechnya in Meier's Black Earth, he would gain a priceless education about Putin's Russia."―Zbigniew Brzezinski "Even after the fall of Communism, most American reporting on Russia often goes no further than who's in and who's out in the Kremlin and the business oligarchy. Andrew Meier's Russia reaches far beyond . . . this Russia is one where, as Meier says, history has a hard time hiding. Readers could not easily find a livelier or more insightful guide."―Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold's Ghost and The Unquiet Ghost: Russians Remember Stalin "From the pointless war in Chechnya to the wild, exhilarating, and dispiriting East and the rise of Vladimir Putin, the former KGB officer―it's all here in great detail, written in the layers the story deserves, with insight, passion, and genuine affection."―Michael Specter, staff writer, The New Yorker; co-chief, The New York Times Moscow Bureau, 1995-98. "[Meier's] knowledge of the country and his abiding love for its people stands out on every page of this book....But it is his linguistic fluency, in particular, which enables Mr. Meier to dig so deeply into Russia's black earth."―The Economist "A wonderful travelogue that depicts the Russian people yet again trying to build a new life without really changing their old one."―William Taubman, The New York Times Book Review. 13 photographs.
- Sales Rank: #1133558 in Books
- Published on: 2005-01-17
- Released on: 2005-01-17
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.20" h x 1.00" w x 5.60" l, 1.18 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 516 pages
From Publishers Weekly
"How do you explain a state in decay?" the author of this engrossing, beautifully written book asks about a country where "the death of an ideology has displaced millions," a third of the households are poor, and epidemics of HIV, TB, suicide, drug abuse and alcoholism are rife. Meier, a Moscow correspondent for Time magazine from 1996 to 2001, attempted to answer the question by traveling to the four corners of Russia so he could report on the suffering of the people as they struggle to survive in the ruins of the Soviet experiment. He began in 2000 by going south to war-devastated Chechnya, particularly the town of Aldy, a district of Grozny, which earlier that year had endured the massacre of at least 60 of its citizens by Russian soldiers. He then traveled north, above the Arctic Circle, to the heavily polluted industrial city of Norilsk, originally a labor camp and now "a showcase for the ravages of unbridled capitalism," where descendants of the prisoners still mine for precious metals. Finally, he went west to St. Petersburg, "a den of thieves and compromised politicians" whose much-heralded revival is largely unrealized and where the people are still haunted by the assassination in 1998 of Galina Vasilievna Starovoitova, the country's leading liberal. After talking to scores of people-from survivors of the Aldy massacre to a harrowed Russian lieutenant colonel who runs the body-collection point closest to the Chechen battleground-Meier paints in this heartbreaking book a devastating picture of contemporary life in a country where, as one man put it, people have "lived like the lowest dogs for more than eighty years." Maps and photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Meier reported on Russia in the late 1990s for the newsweekly Time and ventured to the geographical limits of the gigantic country. His destinations frame the reflective reportage he offers here. His narrative contains a considerable amount of literary allusion, and in the case of Chekhov, he overtly retraces that writer's famed trip to the island of Sakhalin. What Meier encounters there, as well as in his voyage down the Yenisei River to the forbidding Arctic city of Norilsk ("a Pompeii of Stalinism"), is the legacy of the gulag. Meier spares no detail of the country's physical dilapidation and also probes the attitudes of Russians toward the tough conditions of their lives. Nostalgia for the communist system remains prominent, even among some victimized by it, a recurring paradox among the author's many insights about contemporary Russia. These emerge, too, in his chronicle of Chechnya (where he investigated a massacre) and in his accounts of mobsters and liberals in St. Petersburg. In Meier, Russophiles have a kindred spirit who mirrors their own fascination with the vast and troubled country. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
"A wonderful travelogue that depicts the Russian people yet again trying to build a new life without really changing their old one."
Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
The best travel-based book on contemporary Russian culture and politics I've read
By Michael C. Walker
There are small flaws I could find with this book if I chose to, but they're quite small and really don't matter: the author introduces so many various people in the book—especially in the chapter on Chechnya—that it's hard to keep straight who is who; the final chapter which is supposed to concern Moscow (as the other chapters have concerned specific places in Russia) really serves to tie up the whole book and speaks of the changes of the Putin years following the Yeltsin years but doesn't shed a whole lot of light on Moscow itself; the author goes into great detail to explain Russian history in some instances and in others, glosses over things even serious students of Russia might not know. But these really are small issues considering that this is possibly overall the finest travel-based nonfiction on Russia I've read in English. The author speaks fluent Russian and is a journalist for Time Magazine so he both knows how to communicate while exploring Russia and how to write about it.
The chapters on Norilsk and Saint Petersburg I felt were overall the best: The description of the river cruise to Norilsk was probably the best writing altogether in the book and is not to be missed, but most of the book really shines. The chapter on Chechnya is expectedly depressing and spends too much time and effort rehashing just how brutal the conflict there was—a valid point but not one that needs to be drilled in so constantly—and not quite enough time looking at the roots of the conflict and the aspects of various battles. It's clear the author wishes to command our attention to the violence, but once that's been done, he could have spent more effort on getting further into the nuances of the war because he does obviously have the understanding of the topic to do so. I also would have liked more description of place—especially in the case of Norilsk. He does this very well in speaking of the river cruise, but doesn't furnish Norilsk itself with the same benefit despite a stated desire to see its industrial landscape. The chapter on Saint Petersburg however contains both fine descriptions of the city and great exploration of the woes of contemporary Russian politics and corruption woven into the examination of the city itself. Very fine writing there and a great understanding of Russia at the early years of Putin's tenure.
Again, there are some flaws but overall it's five stars, maybe six if I could give it an extra one. I write mainly about Russia and the Balkans myself, I read fluent Russian, and I know what's going on in Russian politics and yet I learned plenty from this book. I also gained a lot of insight of how to construct narratives of place tied into explorations of politics from Meier's efforts here. If you want to understand Russia better, I can think of no better a place to start.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Good work!!
By Jorge I. Villanueva
Good job by Mr Meier.He takes us to places that we probably we dont read about and talks to people who knows what's going on in those places.I especially enjoyed the chapter that talks about Chenchenya and the difficulties in that part of Russia.I also liked his account and views about Vladimir Putin and the fact that sometimes he can be trusted to make things worked in Russia and sometimes he seems to take a step back.The only problem with Mr Meier is that he explains everything with,sometimes, way to many details.In other words, when he describes his journeys and interviews he tries to describe everything: the time of day, the clothes the person is wearing, the tea his drinking ,the color of his hair,ornamets in the house,the weather outside.This will cause that a situation that he is describing takes more than is needed.It took me a while to get used to his style of writing but at the end i was satisfied with his work because he answered a lot of questions that i had.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
Solid concept but uneven writing keeps it from greatness
By Ron V
For someone looking to understand post cold war Russia, or for someone just curious about that vast expanse of land called "Russia" on their map, Meier's Black Earth is an engaging and thought provoking guide.
The book chronicles his journey's through the "four corners" or Russia, Chechnya, Norilsk in Siberia, Vladivostok in the far East and St. Petersburg, while he uses Moscow as a sort of base from where his travels start. Meier highlights a Russia in decay, a Russia asking itself why it can't be great like Western countries, and a Russia mired in organized crimed and trafficking of all kinds. Thankfully while chronicling the miseries around him, Meier keeps the tone from getting too miserable by highlighting the few acts of kindness and generosity he comes across.
While the book is a travelogue of sorts, it has an undercurrent of trying to explain what created the atmosphere the allowed the slaughter of innocent civilians by Russian contract soldiers in the town of Aldy in Chechnya. Meier uses this event as a sort of way to frame Russia's ills and as a possible way to understand the country. As a result, while engaging, this aspect of the book doesn't gel with the Norilsk or Vladivostok sections of the books, making it seem like its two books combined as one.
To further compound issues, numerous anecdotes make keeping track of (already long and similar) Russian names hard, and acronyms are often introduced without being clearly defined. Ultimately, I had to abandon keeping track of individual people and instead just looked at their general experiences to understand Russia. Perhaps its telling that I don't feel it too greatly detracted from the book.
This is an engaging read, with great content, but the uneven writing keeps what could have been an amazing book just a good one. As an introduction to the new Russia this book gets the job done, but perhaps there are better ones out there.
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