"Black Earth: Russia after the Fall" by Andrew Meier

Date: 29 August 2010 19:01:54

This is a book I finished a while ago, but now I'm in procrastinatory mood it's time to review it :) Journalist Andrew Meier, for some time the Time magazine Moscow correspondent, writes in depth accounts from all corners of Russia. As well as Moscow and Petersburg, there are chapters on Chechnya, Norilsk (in the Siberian Arctic - home of a notorious former gulag), and Sakhalin (the large island off the east coast, above Japan). I loved this book - it's everything I was hoping the Jonathan Dimbleby book I reviewed here would be but wasn't. The difference I think is that Meier had lived in Russia for several years, understood and spoke the language fluently and understood the people and the way of life much better. I agreed absolutely with one of the reviews which described it as "the best sort of love letter; mournful, obsessive and exquisitely readable". It certainly wasn't a laugh a minute - quite the contrary, particularly the chapter on Chechnya - but it really is beautifully written, and is as insightful as some of the best academic work I've read on Russia.