I Love Russia
- Author Elena Kostyuchenko
- Narrator Tiana Yarik
- Publisher Random House
- Publish Date 30 November 2023
- Run Time 14 hours and 18 minutes
- Format Audio
- Genre Biography and non-fiction prose, History, Nationalism, Political abduction, imprisonment, ‘Disappearance’ and assassination, Political activism, Politics and government, Reportage, journalism or collected columns, Social and cultural history, Society and Social Sciences.
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What to expect
Brought to you by Penguin.
**WINNER OF THE PUSHKIN HOUSE BOOK PRIZE 2024**
To be a journalist is to tell the truth. Here is Russia as it really is.
Part memoir, part collection of Elena Kostyuchenko’s fearless reporting, I Love Russia introduces us to places we’ve never seen and to people who’ve been systematically, brutally erased from view by Putin’s regime. We enter secretive state-run facilities for disabled people, abandoned buildings haunted by suicide and violence, and a schoolyard marked by unacknowledged massacre. We meet village girls recruited into sex work, queer people in the outer provinces, and patients and doctors on a Ukrainian maternity ward.
The result is a singular, uncompromising, and profoundly humane portrait of a nation – and of an extraordinary woman who refuses to be silenced.
'Important ... this is the Russia we need to understand' TIMOTHY SNYDER
'A haunting book of rare courage' CLARISSA WARD
'Read this book' SVETLANA ALEXIVICH
'Shocking and moving ... [a] gritty insider's take on Russia' SUNDAY TIMES
'Reportage at its brave and luminous best' OBSERVER
'Deeply personal, beautifully written' IPAPER
*A SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023*
©2023 Elena Kostyuchenko (P)2023 Penguin Audio
Critics Review
Brilliant and immersive … reportage at its brave and luminous best
Fearless reporting… shocking and moving… This gritty insider’s take on Russia will prove more helpful than the welter of books by western experts when it comes to countering Putin’s disinformation
I Love Russia is full of rigorous journalistic detail, but is also deeply personal, beautifully written … real and intimate
Few have tried to examine the life of ordinary people in the world’s biggest country (by physical size) the way this one does … [Elena’s] style of brave, intimate reporting is likely to be a rarity in Russia for years to come
Elena Kostyuchenko is an important guide to the twenty-first century. The Russia she recounts here is the Russia we need to understand
Elena’s bravery and reportage are astonishing – the Russia we never see, every page another insight into life under Putin
A fascinating, frightening, compulsively readable chronicle of life in Putin’s Russia. As a girl, Elena Kostyuchenko wanted to believe in her country; as a journalist she has dedicated her life to exposing its darkness. Her prose is haunting, edgy, searing. Her stories are unforgettable, and deeply important
A haunting book of rare courage. Kostyuchenko’s searing reportage takes the reader under the skin of a Russia that few outsiders get to see. With spare, unfliching prose she lays bare the cynicism and corruption, but also the bravery and heart, of her beloved country
Not only does Kostyuchenko find her way into the very darkness, she goes for its blackest corners. . . . The good news that emerges is her talent. Read her. It’s worth it
Would you like to know where Putin comes from? What the Russians are like today? And why? Read this book. For years, the author has been keeping a diary of the soul of her people, with love and with hate. Scientists claim that there is no place in the body where the soul resides. So where is it then? The author goes to homes and schools, sits at weddings and celebrations, asking about love and hate, children and parents. We get to see the rise of the monster that now leaves its footprints in Kyiv, Bucha, and Irpin — and how it forces the whole world to fear the future
| Author | Elena Kostyuchenko |
|---|---|
| Narrator | Tiana Yarik |
| Duration | 14 hours and 18 minutes |
| Release Date | |
| ISBN | 9781529936315 |
| Format | Audiobook |
| Publisher | Random House |
| Genre | Biography and non-fiction prose, History, Nationalism, Political abduction, imprisonment, ‘Disappearance’ and assassination, Political activism, Politics and government, Reportage, journalism or collected columns, Social and cultural history, Society and Social Sciences |
| Availability | AU, GB, IE |
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