Russia Starts Here: Real Lives in the Ruins of Empire - Shortlisted for the Pushkin House Prize 2025
Howard Amos
Feb 2025 ยท Bloomsbury Publishing
Ebook
320
Pages
About this ebook
SHORTLISTED FOR THE PUSHKIN HOUSE PRIZE 2025
SHORTLISTED FOR THE SALTIRES DEBUT NON-FICTION PRIZE 2025
SHORTLISTED FOR THE SHERBORNE PRIZE FOR TRAVEL WRITING 2026
'A different level of insight to anything I've read for a long time about Russia.' - Sophy Roberts, author of The Lost Pianos of Siberia
'Exquisitely observed.. Full of empathy, Amos refuses easy stereotypes.' - Tom Parfitt, author of High Caucasus
Returning to an overlooked region on the edge of Russia, Howard Amos sets out on a quest to understand the country he once called home.
On Russia's European borderlands, people live their lives among the ruins of successive empires. Pskov, an old Slavic land of forgotten stories and faded waysides, has weathered the tides of history. Once a thriving nexus of trade and cultural exchange, today it is one of the poorest and most rapidly depopulating places of this vast nation. To understand the darkness that has captured Russia, Howard Amos journeys through a landscape of small towns, re-wilding fields and dilapidated churches.
This is a lyrical portrait of Russia where it meets NATO and the EU โ a place of frontiers and boundaries that reveals unfamiliar and uncomfortable truths. In a country where history has been erased, manipulated and marginalised, the voices Howard Amos spotlights are a powerful antidote against forgetting.
From the last inhabitants of a dying village to the long-term residents of a psychiatric hospital and a museum curator fighting local opposition to chronicle Pskov's forgotten Jewish heritage, Howard Amos uncovers compelling stories that are shaped by violence, tragedy and loss. He also encounters some of the powerful men who have loomed over Pskov leaving a troubling legacy in their wake, from far-right politicians to Putin's personal priest.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE SALTIRES DEBUT NON-FICTION PRIZE 2025
SHORTLISTED FOR THE SHERBORNE PRIZE FOR TRAVEL WRITING 2026
'A different level of insight to anything I've read for a long time about Russia.' - Sophy Roberts, author of The Lost Pianos of Siberia
'Exquisitely observed.. Full of empathy, Amos refuses easy stereotypes.' - Tom Parfitt, author of High Caucasus
Returning to an overlooked region on the edge of Russia, Howard Amos sets out on a quest to understand the country he once called home.
On Russia's European borderlands, people live their lives among the ruins of successive empires. Pskov, an old Slavic land of forgotten stories and faded waysides, has weathered the tides of history. Once a thriving nexus of trade and cultural exchange, today it is one of the poorest and most rapidly depopulating places of this vast nation. To understand the darkness that has captured Russia, Howard Amos journeys through a landscape of small towns, re-wilding fields and dilapidated churches.
This is a lyrical portrait of Russia where it meets NATO and the EU โ a place of frontiers and boundaries that reveals unfamiliar and uncomfortable truths. In a country where history has been erased, manipulated and marginalised, the voices Howard Amos spotlights are a powerful antidote against forgetting.
From the last inhabitants of a dying village to the long-term residents of a psychiatric hospital and a museum curator fighting local opposition to chronicle Pskov's forgotten Jewish heritage, Howard Amos uncovers compelling stories that are shaped by violence, tragedy and loss. He also encounters some of the powerful men who have loomed over Pskov leaving a troubling legacy in their wake, from far-right politicians to Putin's personal priest.
About the author
Howard Amos is a writer and journalist, who has been published by outlets including The Guardian, Newsweek, Foreign Policy, The Associated Press and The New Republic. Raised in London, he spent a year living in Russia's Pskov Region before working for almost a decade as a correspondent in Moscow. He left Russia in the days after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and, based out of Armenia, did a year-long stint as editor-in-chief of The Moscow Times in exile. He now lives in Edinburgh.
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