Midnight in Siberia: A Train Journey into the Heart of Russia, by David Greene
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Midnight in Siberia: A Train Journey into the Heart of Russia, by David Greene
PDF Ebook Midnight in Siberia: A Train Journey into the Heart of Russia, by David Greene
Travels with NPR host David Greene along the Trans-Siberian Railroad capture an overlooked, idiosyncratic Russia in the age of Putin.
Far away from the trendy cafés, designer boutiques, and political protests and crackdowns in Moscow, the real Russia exists.
Midnight in Siberia chronicles David Greene’s journey on the Trans-Siberian Railway, a 6,000-mile cross-country trip from Moscow to the Pacific port of Vladivostok. In quadruple-bunked cabins and stopover towns sprinkled across the country’s snowy landscape, Greene speaks with ordinary Russians about how their lives have changed in the post-Soviet years.
These travels offer a glimpse of the new Russia―a nation that boasts open elections and newfound prosperity but continues to endure oppression, corruption, a dwindling population, and stark inequality.
We follow Greene as he finds opportunity and hardship embodied in his fellow train travelers and in conversations with residents of towns throughout Siberia.
We meet Nadezhda, an entrepreneur who runs a small hotel in Ishim, fighting through corrupt layers of bureaucracy every day. Greene spends a joyous evening with a group of babushkas who made international headlines as runners-up at the Eurovision singing competition. They sing Beatles covers, alongside their traditional songs, finding that music and companionship can heal wounds from the past. In Novosibirsk, Greene has tea with Alexei, who runs the carpet company his mother began after the Soviet collapse and has mixed feelings about a government in which his family has done quite well. And in Chelyabinsk, a hunt for space debris after a meteorite landing leads Greene to a young man orphaned as a teenager, forced into military service, and now figuring out if any of his dreams are possible.
Midnight in Siberia is a lively travel narrative filled with humor, adventure, and insight. It opens a window onto that country’s complicated relationship with democracy and offers a rare look into the soul of twenty-first-century Russia.
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Midnight in Siberia: A Train Journey into the Heart of Russia, by David Greene - Amazon Sales Rank: #85377 in Books
- Published on: 2015-10-05
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.20" h x .90" w x 5.60" l, 1.00 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 352 pages
Midnight in Siberia: A Train Journey into the Heart of Russia, by David Greene Review “[An] epic journey by rail.” (Andrew McCarthy - New York Times Book Review)“In this picaresque story of adventure, David Greene reaches beyond Putin’s Kremlin across Siberia to show us Russian life in the Raw―the gritty stoicism, surprising warmth and generosity, black humor, and resilience of the narod, the average people. A storyteller with a human touch, Greene finds Russians tested by tragedy and war as he joins them in their cramped apartments, jammed trains, and gulping beer and pickled horse sausage in their steam baths, facing an uncertain future with an unexpected streak of inner wildness. His Russians are stolidly patriotic and, even now, drawn mostly to strong leaders, resigned to tough justice and preferring stability and harsh rule to the chaotic uncertainties of democracy, their personal lives ‘full of poetry, pain, and laughter.’” (Hedrick Smith, author of The Russians and Who Stole the American Dream)“Greene is a great storyteller, and what a story he has to tell. A fascinating and thought-provoking journey deep into Russia’s physical vastness and soul. Greene’s landscape is inhabited by a cast of characters that light up both and would have made Anton Chekhov proud. A first-rate tale that puts you aboard the Trans-Siberian Railroad on the journey of a lifetime.” (Aaron David Miller, distinguished scholar, Wilson Center, and author of The End of Greatness: Why America Can’t Have (and Doesn’t Want) Another Great President)“Beautifully written… The sharply observed vignettes, combined with the moving, elegiac quality of the prose make it a hard book to put down. David Greene’s travels provide insights and context for some of the more dramatic recent events in Russia that will appeal to both the casual traveler and the seasoned observer.” (Fiona Hill, coauthor of Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin and director of the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution)“Complex… thought-provoking.” (Publishers Weekly)“Describe[s] the Russia of the vast interior…. An impressionistic book, a book about people along the way.” (Bruce Ramsey - Seattle Times)
About the Author David Greene is cohost of NPR’s Morning Edition. He is NPR’s former Moscow bureau chief and has spent more than a decade covering politics and events from the White House and abroad. He lives in Washington, DC, with his wife, Rose, a restaurant owner and fellow traveler.
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Most helpful customer reviews
31 of 32 people found the following review helpful. A journey into my own heart, as well... By LA OK, first let me admit to biases: I am a life-long NPR junkie (check). I have always loved listening to David Greene's reportage (check, check). I was thoroughly surprised and delighted to learn he'd just released a new book (check, check, check).Now to business. I really enjoyed listening to his interview on NPR discussing the book, and I just knew it was something I had to buy. I ended up getting the Audible audiobook so I could listen at home, on walks, and at the gym.For me, there was a deeply personal connection to the thrust of the book. My mother was Russian, displaced by WWII. She and my father met in Germany after the war and eventually my mother gave up her own Motherland to make the U.S. her new home.I suspected I would find out something about my mother, who only talked in "certain" ways about her childhood and life in the Ukraine, in somewhat general and guarded terms. The stories were colorful and engaging enough, but it always seemed something was missing. I always wondered why that was. Russians are masters are storytelling, a trait which my mother passed along to me; and then there's that Russian love affair with ice cream (not mentioned in the book).Perhaps more than anything, I had to figure out why my mother exhibited what my siblings and I referred to as a martyr complex. After listening to the book, I realize it wasn't martyrdom at all, but rather another national characteristic of the Russian temperament which has been shaped and formed by political upheaval and the ability to survive against the odds.In a way, I wish I could thank Mr. Greene for his insights. My mother died several years ago, and so many of these questions that had lingered remained unanswered until Midnight was released.After many years of Cold War politics and heroic effort, my mother was finally able to locate her youngest sister who worked in one of the awful coal mines Greene describes. My aunt died at a young age of black lung disease, a fate she shared with others.The book is a perfect blend of the political and personal. I have two cousins in Russia, and have often thought about taking the train to visit them. But having listened to the book, I realize what an arduous task this would be for someone who no longer speaks the language (Mom diligently gave us kids Russian lessons at home when we were young; but she was discouraged from doing this by people who said we'd speak English with a Russian accent. Even outside of Russia, politics reared its ugly head and intruded in family life.). But the sheer power, pull and romance of such a visit is not far from my waking thoughts.Even for those without any family connections, the book is worth the 7 hours to absorb. Greene paints a warm and loving picture, even with the cultural traps and secret police dogging his heels, that makes us appreciate a culture so different from our own. The book debunks many of the American stereotypes even as it makes us understand what a knife-edge Russians walk every day.
19 of 20 people found the following review helpful. Spot On! By D. Beck For someone who has traveled the same route during the same time period and who has talked to similar people, David Greene's book is spot on. Conflicted is the word that I use to describe the people throughout Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Republics, and, of course, Russia itself. So many, as Greene implies, would gladly rid themselves of the uncertainty inherent in a Capitalist system and return to Soviet times and yes, even if that means another Stalin, sans his brutal repressive tactics.Greene notes how out of touch Moscow is the farther east one travels. He cites the paper mill on the shores of Lake Baikal that has been polluting the largest clear water lake in the world for the past forty years. He could also have mentioned how the historic privately owned wooden houses in nearby Irkutsk are in shambles because Moscow won't allow their residents to repair them because of their heritage value but at the same time is doing nothing to fix them.The trains run on Moscow time, Greene notes, and this can cause confusion. Oh, how true this is as I managed to miss my train in Yekaterinburg because of the three-hour time difference. In some ways, although Greene doesn't say this but probably would agree, "Moscow time" is an apt metaphor for Russia. As large as Russia is, Moscow is Russia and Russia is Moscow. I agree with another reviewer, the only thing Greene's book lacks is more.
23 of 28 people found the following review helpful. Disappointing By LZ000 Unless you have an inordinate desire to read everything you can about Siberia, you probably don't want to read this book. All too obvious is the fact that this is the author's first book. While he heaps thanks to his editor for all of her help and guidance (to find a voice, for instance), I kept wondering what the first draft looked like if this was the much improved version. The voice David Greene found is naive, judgmental, and superficial. The structure of the book--each named after a person he meets along his way on the Trans-Siberian Railway--is formulaic. The dialogue s insipid, description generic (except when he is describing people's clothing), and the pace is tedious. The cliches are particularly annoying.As a long-time teacher of college writing, I had many students who could write circles around Greene. Granted, Norton Publishers came to him after Greene did an NPR series on a previous Trans-Siberian train trip and pitched the book to him. However, they could have found a much more interesting person and writer to pen this book. David Suchet's observations and intelligence while riding the Orient Express is a case in point. He would have given us a much more interesting ride.
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