Black Earth: A Journey through Russia After the Fall

This book is a wonderful description of Russia's more remote areas. The author has an obvious talent for drawing people out and getting them to tell their stories. Unfortunately the book doesn't ring true as a complete survey of the modern Russian experience. The author is obviously a journalist, pushing himself toward the extremes, trying to find the story. He fails to mention that in the less remote areas of Russia there are much more pleasant places and happier people. Its incompleteness aside, this book really is a well written and fascinating book about places that most of us will never see.

The world had so much hope when the Soviet Union fell. We all waited for the emergence of a great new democracy. Instead, the ugly reality was the rise of the oligarchs and the Russian Mafia, the bitter, bloody wars along ethnic lines, the corruption and injustice. Meier describes all this at a human level: Stories of dispossessed Chechen villagers, gulag survivors, oil workers in Sakhalin, victims of Petrograd's gangsters. What's happening in Russia is far worse than we imagined.

He writes as an insider, a participant in the Russian way of life, able to move through cultural, political and administrative obstacles to reach the powerful, the formerly powerful, the disinherited, the downtrodden, the rebels, the survivors. He brings us their words, ringing of truth, because no one ever could invent their stories: The massacres of villagers in a pointless war no one wants, The environmental disasters of the extraction industries, The assassination of democratic leaders by gangsters protecting their turf, abetted by the government. These tales provoke outrage.

Offsetting the dreary facts, Meier's writing draws the reader on: Deft characterizations of the people he meets, evocative descriptions of places, insightful historical contexts. Russia's despair is disheartening; Meier's prose is beautiful.

Moreover, the people we meet have vitality and intelligence. They cope within their system, struggle to keep evil at bay and work to improve their lives. The system is rotten; the people are inspiring. They are the hope of Russia.

Black Earth is an informative look at a great country as it struggles to undo the damage of 80 years of Communism. Highly recommended.

Brave, well-informed, empathetic are words I use to describe this author and yet he himself is almost invisible. One can sense his empathy for all those he meets -- even those he doesn't like very much. He draws no conclusions; he draws only the picture of life in Russia as it is and as it reels from the impact of 80 years of over-regulation and under-governance. And the only hope he offers is the innate strong character of Russian people that has allowed them to survive these many centuries.

Don't read this book unless you are prepared to be moved to prayer for them.

Andrew Meier spent much of the past decade in Russia, and is as familiar as any Western writer with the goings on in that tragic land. In "Black Earth," Meier follows the tradition of the best travel writers, journeying beyond Moscow for a first hand account of the country itself. His travels take him to Chechnya, Norilsk, Sakahlin Island and St. Petersburg. In each place he documents what he sees and what has gone wrong as Russia attempts to awake from its Soviet nightmare.

"Black Earth" is, perhaps, best thought of as a follow up to writer David Remnick's twin classics "Lennin's Tomb" and Resurrection," which covered Russian life in the first half of the 1990s. Meier paints with broad rhetorical strokes, weaving in elements of history, literature and statistics with his observations. Though a bit long winded at times, "Black Earth" is vital reading for anyone interested in modern Russia.

I read this book while I was on vacation in Russia and the Ukraine. I thought it was quite good, although I thought the section on Chechnya rambled slightly.

As far as this book being an example of too much bad news, my response is this is Russia, for God's sake. There is no shortage of bad news there. How could you write an upbeat book about Chechnya, the history of the Gulag, Sakhalin Island (the section about that actually does have some "good" news), or the mafia state that has emerged in post-Soviet Russia?

Face it. You can't. As for this book's merits, all I can say is that reading it made me far more informed about current affairs in Russia (something my Russia tour guides remarked about frequently).

If you want "cheerful," don't read books about countries with these kinds of problems.