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3.86 AVERAGE
3.86 AVERAGE
thecoffeeshopkidblog.wordpress.com/2020/03/14/anne-garrels-and-the-real-russia/
Based on Anne Garrels' decades of experience reporting on Chelyabinsk, one of the old Soviet industrial cities east of the Ural Mountains, 'Putin Country' explores the Russia that the west rarely gets to see. A closed city until after the fall of the Soviet Union, Chelyabinsk has been a blank spot on the map for most Americans, many of whom are more familiar with Russia's western cities such as Saint Petersburg and Moscow.
The book itself is composed as an extended series of profiles that focus on all aspects of Russian society as experienced in Chelyabinsk. We meet pediatricians that were paid $10 a week in the early nineties, a forensics specialist turned funeral home proprietor, a family of human rights activists that live in one of Russia's still closed off nuclear research sites, and farmers trying to eke a living out of Russia's short growing season.
It immediately becomes clear that the break-up of the Soviet Union and the subsequent political fallout was far more turbulent for Chelyabinsk and its residents than Westerners understand. This turbulence, and the disordered and impoverished nineties to which it gave birth, are what make Chelyabinsk 'Putin's country,' even as it seems that reforming Chelyabinsk's institutions or rooting out its corruption is far from Putin's mind.
What I enjoy most about Anne Garrels' writing in this book is that it is so focused on giving an in-depth portrait of a particular place and time in Russia, instead of trying to encapsulate the immensity of the country as other journalists attempt to do. The result is a poignant and nuanced examination that is well worth reading.
The book itself is composed as an extended series of profiles that focus on all aspects of Russian society as experienced in Chelyabinsk. We meet pediatricians that were paid $10 a week in the early nineties, a forensics specialist turned funeral home proprietor, a family of human rights activists that live in one of Russia's still closed off nuclear research sites, and farmers trying to eke a living out of Russia's short growing season.
It immediately becomes clear that the break-up of the Soviet Union and the subsequent political fallout was far more turbulent for Chelyabinsk and its residents than Westerners understand. This turbulence, and the disordered and impoverished nineties to which it gave birth, are what make Chelyabinsk 'Putin's country,' even as it seems that reforming Chelyabinsk's institutions or rooting out its corruption is far from Putin's mind.
What I enjoy most about Anne Garrels' writing in this book is that it is so focused on giving an in-depth portrait of a particular place and time in Russia, instead of trying to encapsulate the immensity of the country as other journalists attempt to do. The result is a poignant and nuanced examination that is well worth reading.
informative
reflective
medium-paced
A sort of analog to the many conversations with Trump voters that were published between 2016 and 2022. This is very well done and provides a useful window into typical Russian life and thought.
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Five stars, hands down.
Anne Garrels is an incredible writer. She manages to find the truth while demonstrating empathy, which she should be applauded for. Her novel Putin Country: A Journey into the Real Russia provides readers with an honest rendering of Russia as it rises from the ashes and attempts to reassume its spot among the world powers.
Anne Garrels is an incredible writer. She manages to find the truth while demonstrating empathy, which she should be applauded for. Her novel Putin Country: A Journey into the Real Russia provides readers with an honest rendering of Russia as it rises from the ashes and attempts to reassume its spot among the world powers.
Is Chelyabinsk, an industrial town of 1.1 million, the real Russia? Judging by the title, the author sure seems to think so. Located in the Russian "heartland", Chelyabinsk is known as the "gateway to Siberia" and is a mere 150 kilometers north of the Kazakhstan border. It is, in just about every sense of the word, located in the middle of nowhere - unless that is, you're Russian, in which case you'll recognize Chelyabinsk as having, well, something.
The thing about Chelyabinsk is that, to an outsider, there is absolutely nothing to distinguish it from any of the hundreds of other former Soviet cities spread across the former U.S.S.R. It certainly looks the same. Just google image the place. Would you want to live there? Not unless you're trying to pay penance for something. Stalin's ghost likely still roams the streets at night.
During World War II Chelyabinsk was known around Russia for producing tanks that were used in the war effort, leading the city to be dubbed "Tankograd." Now it's known for producing zinc (2% of the world's zinc comes from Chelyabinsk, 60% of Russia's) and ... pasta. Yes, apparently Chelyabinsk is the Italy of Russia, producing the majority of the country's pasta as well as being one of the top 5 pasta producers in the world. Ah, molto gusto!
It probably won't surprise you then that the city once known for producing the country's tanks in the "Great Patriotic War" and now known for producing zinc has fallen on hard times. It's the Russian Detroit. But really. The people there sound much like so those you'd talk to in the American Midwest. White, working class, struggling to make ends meet and equal parts angry/disillusioned with the government. Families in Chelyabinsk are forced to get by on less while pining for better days (in this case, Soviet times). As is the case in much of Russia, the men have turned increasingly to alcohol, the women to a state of placid indifference, and the young to anything that might help them escape.
Unlike the American Heartland where unemployed, struggling workers would be quick to blame the Government, in Chelyabinsk (again being used as a microcosm of greater Russia) President Putin remains popular. He is seemingly living the dream of every politician - credited for the good things but never blamed for the bad.
The villain, to the average resident of Chelyabinsk, is America. American encroachment via NATO is seen as a grave threat. It's darkly funny to hear people who are living on little, in areas with insanely unhealthy levels of radioactivity, daily worrying about being shaken down for bribes by the police and corrupt government officials, blaming America for their woes. It's part of the larger mystery of Russia, how readily the citizenry absorbs the government propaganda.
"Putin's Country: A Journey into the Real Russia" is clearly not interested in the thoughts of Moscovites or the denizens of St. Petersburg. They're richer and not as close to the pulse of the real Russia. Much like a book about America wouldn't be right focusing solely on New York. The problem I had with "Putin's Country" though, is that while at times it can be fascinating to listen to the residents of this once proud Soviet city talk about how everything has now gone to hell, it is little more than that - repeated over and over in interview after interview.
As a result, the only thought the book leaves you with is that Chelyabinsk sucks. If it really is the "real Russia" then Russia is clearly a country withering from within.
The thing about Chelyabinsk is that, to an outsider, there is absolutely nothing to distinguish it from any of the hundreds of other former Soviet cities spread across the former U.S.S.R. It certainly looks the same. Just google image the place. Would you want to live there? Not unless you're trying to pay penance for something. Stalin's ghost likely still roams the streets at night.
During World War II Chelyabinsk was known around Russia for producing tanks that were used in the war effort, leading the city to be dubbed "Tankograd." Now it's known for producing zinc (2% of the world's zinc comes from Chelyabinsk, 60% of Russia's) and ... pasta. Yes, apparently Chelyabinsk is the Italy of Russia, producing the majority of the country's pasta as well as being one of the top 5 pasta producers in the world. Ah, molto gusto!
It probably won't surprise you then that the city once known for producing the country's tanks in the "Great Patriotic War" and now known for producing zinc has fallen on hard times. It's the Russian Detroit. But really. The people there sound much like so those you'd talk to in the American Midwest. White, working class, struggling to make ends meet and equal parts angry/disillusioned with the government. Families in Chelyabinsk are forced to get by on less while pining for better days (in this case, Soviet times). As is the case in much of Russia, the men have turned increasingly to alcohol, the women to a state of placid indifference, and the young to anything that might help them escape.
Unlike the American Heartland where unemployed, struggling workers would be quick to blame the Government, in Chelyabinsk (again being used as a microcosm of greater Russia) President Putin remains popular. He is seemingly living the dream of every politician - credited for the good things but never blamed for the bad.
The villain, to the average resident of Chelyabinsk, is America. American encroachment via NATO is seen as a grave threat. It's darkly funny to hear people who are living on little, in areas with insanely unhealthy levels of radioactivity, daily worrying about being shaken down for bribes by the police and corrupt government officials, blaming America for their woes. It's part of the larger mystery of Russia, how readily the citizenry absorbs the government propaganda.
"Putin's Country: A Journey into the Real Russia" is clearly not interested in the thoughts of Moscovites or the denizens of St. Petersburg. They're richer and not as close to the pulse of the real Russia. Much like a book about America wouldn't be right focusing solely on New York. The problem I had with "Putin's Country" though, is that while at times it can be fascinating to listen to the residents of this once proud Soviet city talk about how everything has now gone to hell, it is little more than that - repeated over and over in interview after interview.
As a result, the only thought the book leaves you with is that Chelyabinsk sucks. If it really is the "real Russia" then Russia is clearly a country withering from within.
Fantastic and illuminating look at Russia from the point of view of an NPR journalist who lived there on and off for decades and spoke with the local people from all walks of life. Worth the read!
Most people would agree that to look only at New York City or Washington, DC is to see the United States through a peculiar lens. You get a distorted image at best. By a similar token, many would also say that the political and cultural elites in the US have been doing just this and it is what paved the way for a non-establishment candidate, especially one who expressed the right populist and nationalist positions, to become a viable presidential candidate.
This, of course, in no way confined to how foreigners view the US: we all take this mental shortcut: Germany through Berlin and Munich, Egypt through Cairo, or Russia through Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Putin Country seeks to widen the lens through which we peer into the former Soviet Union. It takes us to a rusty, downtrodden land far from Moscow and distant indeed from St. Petersburg. The city of Chelyabinsk’s stands, in many ways, for Detroit or Memphis—and its one million souls are beset by many of the same ills: economic irrelevance, epidemic drug addiction, and the judgments of their more cosmopolitan fellows in the political and cultural capitals.
While I while I do not see any one slice of the United States as being more ‘American’ than any other, I do see where someone is coming from when they make such a claim about Detroit or Memphis or similar places. Certainly, by virtue of not being on the coasts, they have held on to aspects of their cultures that would have mutated under the constant and intimate contact with other communities experienced in the New Yorks of the world.
To be clear, I’m not making any judgments here: not about cultural mixing and melding and appropriation (which is more or less uncontrollable in any event) nor about whether one culture is superior to another. I am saying though, that the high-profile cities one typically views their host nations through are often quite different from the less travelled (at least by foreigners) places of those nations.
Chelyabinsk certainly falls into this latter category.
Just as a foreigner’s first trip into the US interior opens one’s eyes to its cultural variety so does a journey into Middle Russia, even if only by book. As you meet the people of Chelyabinsk and their land and learn their collective history, you cannot help but see a harsher reflection of post-industrial—some would say the real—America.
To make Chelyabinsk, take Detroit and add a history of nuclear waste dumping and general environmental devastation, deep-seated corruption, a couple decades of national humiliation, and a grossly mismanaged ‘transition’ to capitalism. As you travel through these travails, page by page, your sympathy for its people grows. You wonder that anyone still lives there, let along tries to make it a better place. And yet they do: just as Americans in Detroit do.
The situation is simultaneously so similar and so much worse, that if a bumbling real estate tycoon can make it with Middle American, you feel no surprise that a more skilled and cutthroat version enjoys sweeping popularity here.
In the eyes of many Middle Americans, the establishments of both parties have failed them over and over for decades. So, when they were given an alternative, even an obviously flawed one, they took it. In the words of a conservative friend, “What else can we do? Who else are we going to vote for?” Gorbachev and Yeltsin, as different as they were, both failed the Chelyabinskites of Russia so when a skillful, capable strong man who spoke to their complaints came along, they jumped at the chance to put him in office.
The final tragedy here then is that the Detroiters and the Chelyabinskites are still being failed. Trump embarrasses America and horrifies much of the rest of the world while being so mired in scandal he lacks the political capital to push his agenda. At the same time, while Putin has managed to prop up his popularity through pride-inducing military action, the plight of Russians remains little changed.
Like all analogies, Middle Russia as Middle American has obvious limits. Nevertheless even if Putin Country wasn’t as well written as it is, I would still tell you to read it for this experience of learning not just about a wider Russia, but of finding the echoes of a wider America in it.
This, of course, in no way confined to how foreigners view the US: we all take this mental shortcut: Germany through Berlin and Munich, Egypt through Cairo, or Russia through Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Putin Country seeks to widen the lens through which we peer into the former Soviet Union. It takes us to a rusty, downtrodden land far from Moscow and distant indeed from St. Petersburg. The city of Chelyabinsk’s stands, in many ways, for Detroit or Memphis—and its one million souls are beset by many of the same ills: economic irrelevance, epidemic drug addiction, and the judgments of their more cosmopolitan fellows in the political and cultural capitals.
While I while I do not see any one slice of the United States as being more ‘American’ than any other, I do see where someone is coming from when they make such a claim about Detroit or Memphis or similar places. Certainly, by virtue of not being on the coasts, they have held on to aspects of their cultures that would have mutated under the constant and intimate contact with other communities experienced in the New Yorks of the world.
To be clear, I’m not making any judgments here: not about cultural mixing and melding and appropriation (which is more or less uncontrollable in any event) nor about whether one culture is superior to another. I am saying though, that the high-profile cities one typically views their host nations through are often quite different from the less travelled (at least by foreigners) places of those nations.
Chelyabinsk certainly falls into this latter category.
Just as a foreigner’s first trip into the US interior opens one’s eyes to its cultural variety so does a journey into Middle Russia, even if only by book. As you meet the people of Chelyabinsk and their land and learn their collective history, you cannot help but see a harsher reflection of post-industrial—some would say the real—America.
To make Chelyabinsk, take Detroit and add a history of nuclear waste dumping and general environmental devastation, deep-seated corruption, a couple decades of national humiliation, and a grossly mismanaged ‘transition’ to capitalism. As you travel through these travails, page by page, your sympathy for its people grows. You wonder that anyone still lives there, let along tries to make it a better place. And yet they do: just as Americans in Detroit do.
The situation is simultaneously so similar and so much worse, that if a bumbling real estate tycoon can make it with Middle American, you feel no surprise that a more skilled and cutthroat version enjoys sweeping popularity here.
In the eyes of many Middle Americans, the establishments of both parties have failed them over and over for decades. So, when they were given an alternative, even an obviously flawed one, they took it. In the words of a conservative friend, “What else can we do? Who else are we going to vote for?” Gorbachev and Yeltsin, as different as they were, both failed the Chelyabinskites of Russia so when a skillful, capable strong man who spoke to their complaints came along, they jumped at the chance to put him in office.
The final tragedy here then is that the Detroiters and the Chelyabinskites are still being failed. Trump embarrasses America and horrifies much of the rest of the world while being so mired in scandal he lacks the political capital to push his agenda. At the same time, while Putin has managed to prop up his popularity through pride-inducing military action, the plight of Russians remains little changed.
Like all analogies, Middle Russia as Middle American has obvious limits. Nevertheless even if Putin Country wasn’t as well written as it is, I would still tell you to read it for this experience of learning not just about a wider Russia, but of finding the echoes of a wider America in it.
This was a fine book. Eh. It had some interesting information but Garrels's voice (I listened to the audiobook) and Garrels's voice fell flat. I feel like if you took a more literary journalist with the same facts, a faaar better book could've been made. Just wish DFW was alive to take up that task.
A book that I kinda regret putting so many hours into. Learned a lot though. 7/10.
A book that I kinda regret putting so many hours into. Learned a lot though. 7/10.