"Putin's Russia" by Anna Politkovskaya

Date: 20 February 2010 20:01:49

I find that I struggle with typical "airport reading" - I know when you're on holiday often you just want to chill out with something mindless, but I get a bit cross with mindless (usual contents of this blog notwithstanding!). When I'm browsing the bookshop at the airport, I'm always drawn to the doom-laden conspiracy theory we're-all-going-to-die-the-world's-going-to-hell-in-a-handcart type thing (I have previously reviewed John Pilger's "The New Rulers of the World" here, which I'm pretty sure was also an airport bookshop purchase). So I bought 2 this time, and was in my element reading them on holiday :) "Putin's Russia" was written by the investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was assassinated a couple of years after it was written. It is a thoroughly depressing overview of the corruption inherent throughout the Russian system, illustrated through accounts of different events and ordinary people - former soldiers, bereaved parents, the Moscow Theatre siege, the second Chechen war, amongst others. She exposed the rampant corruption in the judicial system, armed forces and police as well as in politics, and as I read it I couldn't help musing that the people behind her killing will probably never be found, as there were so many people just in this book who would obviously love to have her out of the way. It left me with admiration for a woman whose life was cut tragically short, and for those who go against the flow and continue the work she did exposing abuses in Russia. It also left me admiring many of my colleagues who work and research in Russia - to be honest I found it so depressing and worrying I have absolutely no desire to do any work or travel there myself. Highly recommended, but probably not a beach book, to be honest.