Through Dark Days and White Nights: Four Decades Observing a Changing Russia. Naomi F. Collins

      Washington, DC

      Copyright © 2008 by Naomi F. Collins

      Published in eBook format by SCARITH/New Academia Publishing

      Converted by http://www.eBookIt.com

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system.

      ISBN-13: 978-0-9845-8326-3

      Printed in the United States of America

      Library of Congress Control Number 2007940796

      ISBN 978-0-9800814-0-4 paperback

      I dedicate Through Dark Days and White Nights to our wonderful sons Robert and Jonathan, who shared many of the ups and downs of these experiences; and to their children and future generations whose “todays” will be built on our “yesterdays.”

      Illustrations

       Figures 1-6

       Figures 7-10

       Figures 11-15

       Figures 16-19

      All photographs are from the author’s collection.

      Acknowledgments

      Without my husband Jim Collins, who generously supported my writing and who impelled my unexpected lifetime of journeys to and from the former Soviet Union, then Russia, I would not have had the opportunity to witness and report four decades of static and dramatic life in that compelling nation.

      And because of the encouragement of several friends, including Anne Garside, Janet Rabinowitch and Regina Foster, whose professional judgments I value deeply, my diaries and letters have become the basis of this book. Other friends and colleagues know who they are, and I am deeply grateful to them for championing this endeavor.

      Sensitive editing by Josephine Woll, and support from my publisher, Anna Lawton (New Academia Publishing), have helped polish the prose and realize the publication. Of course the book’s content and views are solely my own. Some names in the text have been changed to avoid intruding on the privacy of friends and colleagues.

      Foreword by Strobe Talbott

      Russia has come a long way from the Soviet era, but it is still a country as perplexing as it is important. In the decades I have spent visiting Russia as a journalist, diplomat, and policy analyst, I have come to appreciate books that provide useful insight into what has changed—and what hasn’t—in that giant country that straddles Europe and Asia, spanning eleven time zones. This book so qualifies. Through Dark Days and White Nights goes beyond an engaging memoir of life in Russia during an important period, from the 1960’s through the turn of the 21^st century: it captures a sense of Russia as a work-in-progress. Rather than a musty snapshot of an earlier era, or an account of a short stay, the book is more like a script for a documentary spanning four decades when an especially astute and literate observer watched Russia emerge from stagnation and enter a period of dramatic economic, social, and political change and, on many fronts, upheaval.

      Because of the scope of Naomi Collins’ experience with Russia, she is able to provide a sense of continuity in the development of a country whose daily life advanced from static to dramatic, yet retained enduring features that the author also discerns and describes with great skill and clarity. She recognizes how much of Russia’s past lives in its present, how long and dark a shadow the Soviet system casts over what

Скачать книгу