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Russians, February 2014
Hardcover / e-Book
The People behind the Power
Twelve
February 2014
On Sale: February 18, 2014
218 pages ISBN: 1455509647 EAN: 9781455509645 Kindle: B0092XN8L4 Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction
From former NPR Moscow correspondent Gregory Feifer comes
an incisive portrait that draws on vivid personal stories to
portray the forces that have shaped the Russian character
for centuries-and continue to do so today.
RUSSIANS explores the seeming paradoxes of life in
Russia by unraveling the nature of its people: what is it in
their history, their desires, and their conception of
themselves that makes them baffling to the West? Using the
insights of his decade as a journalist in Russia, Feifer
corrects pervasive misconceptions by showing that much of
what appears inexplicable about the country is logical when
seen from the inside. He gets to the heart of why the
world's leading energy producer continues to exasperate many
in the international community. And he makes clear why
President Vladimir Putin remains popular even as the gap
widens between the super-rich and the great majority of
poor.
Traversing the world's largest country from
the violent North Caucasus to Arctic Siberia, Feifer
conducted hundreds of intimate conversations about
everything from sex and vodka to Russia's complex
relationship with the world. From fabulously wealthy
oligarchs to the destitute elderly babushki who beg in
Moscow's streets, he tells the story of a society bursting
with vitality under a leadership rooted in tradition and
often on the edge of collapse despite its authoritarian
power.
Feifer also draws on formative experiences in
Russia's past and illustrative workings of its culture to
shed much-needed light on the purposely hidden functioning
of its society before, during, and after communism. Woven
throughout is an intimate, first-person account of his
family history, from his Russian mother's coming of age
among Moscow's bohemian artistic elite to his American
father's harrowing vodka-fueled run-ins with the
KGB.
What emerges is a rare portrait of a unique
land of extremes whose forbidding geography, merciless
climate, and crushing corruption has nevertheless produced
some of the world's greatest art and some of its most
remarkable scientific advances. RUSSIANS is an
expertly observed, gripping profile of a people who will
continue challenging the West for the foreseeable future.
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