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Snow, concrete, the KGB: that's the cliché of the Soviet Union. But its collapse in 1991 sparked a story at once messier and more compelling than any stereotype. Thirty-five years on, Moscow may brim with champagne bars and blacked-out Mercedes - but what became of the other fourteen states that emerged from its ashes?
In the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Joe Luc Barnes crossed the former USSR to find out, from the gleaming towers of Azerbaijan to the former gulags of Kazakhstan, tech-hungry Estonia to the minarets of Uzbekistan. Along the way, he finds epic mountains, cobblestoned old towns and storied Silk Road cities - not to mention Georgian wine, Armenian brandy and vodka in industrial supply.
Travelling thousands of miles by rattling platzkart train, hitchhiking, and riding in the white cars mandated by Turkmenistan's dictator, he gathers a chorus of voices: nomads in mountain yurts, TikTok-fuelled activists, small-town taxi drivers and many who still look uneasily over their shoulder for the secret police.
They might have said goodbye to the USSR but can they ever say farewell to Russia? By turns hilarious, angry and heart-stopping, this a deeply human, darkly comic portrait of a region the West still misunderstands - and a warning of what happens when empires break but the habits of empire refuse to die.
If you loved The Silk Roads, Nothing to Envy or The Places in Between, and have a soft spot for Bill Bryson, clear space on your shelf: this is the book for you.
