The story of a young woman's heady encounter with Russia - and a society in collapse. In 1991, Charlotte Hobson went to study for a year in the provincial town of Voronezh. She captures the lives of her young contemporaries as the Soviet Union breaks up around them: Viktor, and his brutal memories of military service; Lola who sleeps with her fellow students for a share of their dinner; Yakov, blowing a million roubles of the Salvation Army's money on a taxi to Minsk to see a girl. Here too is the author's story and Mitya's. Their love affair begins in a mood of wild optimism. Anything, it seems, is possible. Until in spring the snow thaws, and reveals the black earth beneath.
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The city in question is Voronezh, the time 1991. Charlotte Hobson went to live there as a language student, soon finding herself in the position of being a witness to momentous events as the Soviet Union crumbled. This account of her year there is sharply and readably written, seamlessly combining autobiography with reportage - and the tale of a love affair with the portrait of a society in crisis. Hobson is particularly revealing and convincing in portraying the situation of post-communist Russians of her own generation (she was born in 1970), through accounts of her friendships with a varied group of students. Vitali Vitaliev, himself no mean commentator on post-Soviet Russia, has praised the book highly - and it's easy to see why. It really does rise above the usual run of my-year-out-in-an-exotic place memoirs. It's a serious and accomplished travel book of real interest.
About the Author
Charlotte Hobson was born in 1970. She studied Russian at Edinburgh University and was awarded an MA by the School of Slavonic Studies in London. An extract from Black Earth City appeared in Granta 64: Russia. Charlotte Hobson lives in Cornwall.
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