Moscow Days: Life and Hard Times in the New Russia [Hardcover]

Galina Dutkina (Author), Catherine Fitzpatrick (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1996

This text presents a humorous personal account of the monumental hurdles ordinary people face in Moscow every day - from skyrocketing prices to gang violence.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Moscow journalist Dutkina will elicit gasps with her observation that the "Evil Empire" was "a great empire that gave its inhabitants a sense of national pride." Yet, although she does not yearn for communism, neither does she countenance capitalism, which has plummeted 25% of Russians into poverty, with food costs consuming between 40% and 60% of family budgets. Imported luxury goods dominate the marketplace, and Russians are in a buying frenzy because, according to Dutkina, they fear the abundance could soon disappear. She depicts a nation of layabouts and shysters: "Half of Russia is selling, half is buying; nobody is producing." In Dutkina's scenario, lotteries, TV game shows and the stock market have enslaved the public with promises of easy riches. Prostitution and crime are expanding; so are religious cults. In summing up the new Russia, Dutkina quotes Tolstoy: "Everything had gone wrong in the Oblonsky household." The despairing economic picture she presents will be familiar to readers who follow Russian events, but, contrary to the dour Dutkina, it's no secret that the command economy was also inequitable.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Dutkina is an editor and translator at a Moscow publishing house who has kept her same, respectable job and stayed in Moscow throughout the past four years of drastic change, not trying to join the new entrepreneurs. She watches as inflation erodes her salary (until food can cost 40 to 60 percent of a household budget), worries for her child's safety with the rampant crime in the city, and laments that women's lot has not improved. The complete breakdown of the former social structure has left her bewildered and unsure of whom she should admire or of how to regard the newly successful businesspeople. Her only solution is to urge her compatriots to consider their children's futures. Her point of view differs greatly from that of a foreign journalist on a brief posting; larger collections might consider adding this.?Marcia L. Sprules, Council on Foreign Relations Lib., N.Y.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 238 pages
• Publisher: Kodansha Amer Inc; First Edition edition (January 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568360665
• ISBN-13: 978-1568360669
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,279,960 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Thanks to Ms. Dutkina for stalwart honesty, July 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Moscow Days: Life and Hard Times in the New Russia (Hardcover)

I empathize with her constant fear of the crimes of the many against ordinary citizens. It could not have been easy for Ms. Dutkina to be so open about the problems in Moscow these days and to write with such intelligent restraint that the book provides important albeit unpleasant information without demonizing the Russian people or becoming pedantic.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Through a Glass darkly, October 3, 2002

By 

"austin_ed" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Moscow Days: Life and Hard Times in the New Russia (Hardcover)

A fantastic eloquently written account of contemporary Moscow that also manages to convey the psyche of ordinary muscovites far more perceptively than anything that I have ever read. It's like being hit by a brick. Breathtaking and achingly painful in its delivery it makes incredible reading.

Living and working as an expat in Moscow it opened to me a completely different way of viewing Russia. Maybe I was blinkered, but I owe a great debt to the author for showing me what I should have been seeing with my eyes and ears every day of the week but filtered by my western upbringing refused to see and refused to hear.

I can't recommend this book highly enough (Catherine A. Fitzpatricks translation is exceptional).

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, alarming, important, November 29, 2000

By 

Michael K. McKeon - See all my reviews

This review is from: Moscow Days: Life and Hard Times in the New Russia (Hardcover)

We have heard of the crisis in Russia for many years; however, like most tragedies of great magnitude, this situation is difficult to truly imagine. "Moscow Days" provides tangible descriptions of the plight of everyday Russians to which the average western reader can relate. It brings the impact of the dissolution of the Soviet system, and the unleashing of unrestained "capitalism" down to a quotidian level. Reading this book provided me with a greater appreciation of the ramifications of the economic and political crisis confronting Russia as well as, paradoxically, an understanding of how people are surviving the midst of this castastrophe.

While the above probably makes this book sound like a depressing reading experience the author's sardonic wit, and often mordant humor, makes this a palatable learning experience. Dutkina leaves you with a tremendous amount of respect for the resiliance of the Russian people and their stoic response to an ever changing situation which they find themselves largely impotent to affect.

I found this book reminiscent of the Croatian author,Slavenka Drakulic's works "How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed" and "Balkan Days". While bright and witty, unfortunately Galina Dutkina does not have the literary prowess of Drakulic. Nevertheless, this is a worthwhile and important read, particularly in light of how ignorant the average American is of the devastation confronting the Russian people.