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Out
Now!
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fantasists and scientists,
Astralists and Tolkeinists,
Eurocrats
and bureaucrats, hopeful oligarchs, hopeless biznismyen,
muggers, conmen, mafia
and (extra)ordinary Russians in a world turned inside out.
some photos
illustrations
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published
by
Nicholas Brealey |
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 listen
to excerpts
read the first chapter
listen
to interview on Loose Ends BBC Radio 4 Saturday 3 May
Other
radio
Buy
a signed copy for charity
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The
Soviet Union has disappeared along with people’s citizenship,
currency, jobs, salaries, pensions, politics. Oligarchs pillage the
nation's wealth. Will Russia become a liberal democracy? Will it plunge
into chaos? These are fascinating times and John Mole wants to be part
of it.
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Sometimes
sinister, often hilarious and always fascinating, a Russian
feast from caviar to samovar
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But
what can he do? Inspiration
strikes - British fast food! He gets technical
advice from Jackets of Brixton, money from the British taxpayer,
and a partnership with the Russian Farmers' Union. And then,
just as it takes off - the summons. Breakfast with the mafia |
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a
traveller who likes to get his hands as well as his boots
dirty
a journey under the
(potato) skin of the New Russia |
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Hired
as a rabotnik, a worker, entitled to a week in a sanatorium
every year, he tries to corner the market in business names and
pizza cheese. He is taken for a corpse's son, a Red Square
demonstrator and a vampire's victim. He tries to merge into his
surroundings, too literally sometimes, but nothing that a
hose-down and a change of clothes doesn't put right.
Meanwhile
Russians
try to sell him fireworks, seashells, tungsten, the scrapings of baby
reindeer horn. And advanced biotechnology, using bacteria to purify the
air in submarines...
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