000			03528nam a22003737a 4500
008			160929b xxu||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
020			_a9780374247720
037			_cPurchased _nPrism Books,Kochi
041			_aEnglish
082			_a947.43 _bGAR/PU
100			_aGarrels,Anne
245			_aPUTIN COUNTRY _bA Journey into the Real Russia
250			_a1
260			_aNew York _bFarrar,Straus and Giroux _c2016/01/01
300			_g228
500			_aMore than twenty years ago, the NPR correspondent Anne Garrels first visited Chelyabinsk, a gritty military-industrial center a thousand miles east of Moscow. The longtime home of the Soviet nuclear program, the Chelyabinsk region contained beautiful lakes, shuttered factories, mysterious closed cities, and some of the most polluted places on earth. Garrels’s goal was to chart the aftershocks of the U.S.S.R.’s collapse by traveling to Russia’s heartland. Returning again and again, Garrels found that the area’s new freedoms and opportunities were exciting but also traumatic. As the economic collapse of the early 1990s abated, the city of Chelyabinsk became richer and more cosmopolitan, even as official corruption and intolerance for minorities grew more entrenched. Sushi restaurants proliferated; so did shakedowns. In the neighboring countryside, villages crumbled into the ground. Far from the glitz of Moscow, the people of Chelyabinsk were working out their country’s destiny, person by person. In Putin Country, Garrels crafts an intimate portrait of Middle Russia. We meet upwardly mobile professionals, impassioned activists who champion the rights of orphans and disabled children, and ostentatious mafiosi. We discover surprising subcultures, such as a vibrant underground gay community and a circle of determined Protestant evangelicals. And we watch doctors and teachers trying to cope with inescapable payoffs and institutionalized negligence. As Vladimir Putin tightens his grip on power and war in Ukraine leads to Western sanctions and a lower standard of living, the local population mingles belligerent nationalism with a deep ambivalence about their country’s direction. Through it all, Garrels sympathetically charts an ongoing identity crisis. In the aftermath of the Soviet Union, what is Russia? What kind of pride and cohesion can it offer? Drawing on close friendships sustained over many years, Garrels explains why Putin commands the loyalty of so many Russians, even those who decry the abuses of power they regularly encounter. Correcting the misconceptions of Putin’s supporters and critics alike, Garrels’s portrait of Russia’s silent majority is both essential and engaging reading at a time when cold war tensions are resurgent.
650			_aHistory
650			_aHistory of Soviet Union
650			_aCheliabinsk(Russia)-Description and travel
650			_aGarrels, Anne-1951-Travel-Russia(Federation)-Cheliabinsk
650			_aPutin, Vladimir, Vladimirovich, 1952-Influence
650			_aCheliabinsk(Russia)-Social conditions
650			_aCheliabinsk(Russia)-Social life and customs.
650			_aCheliabinsk(Russia)-Biography
650			_aInterviews-Russia(Federation)-Cheliabinsk
650			_aPolitical culture-Russia(Federation)-Cheliabinsk(Russia)
650			_aSubculture-Russia(Federation)-Cheliabinsk(Russia)
650			_aPutin, Vladimir Vladimirovich, 1952-
650			_aGarrels, Anne, 1951-
942			_cLEN
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942			_2ddc
942			_2ddc
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