num_pages: 224
description: In September 1991, the Soviet Union is collapsing and people conquer uncertainty, hunger, and negative-twenty degree temperatures by drinking too much vodka and reveling in their new-found sexual freedom. Charlotte Hobson is our irresistible guide to this tumultuous time. We meet Yakov, who blows half-a-million rubles on a taxi to see a girl in Minsk; Lola, who sleeps with her peers for a share of their dinner; Viktor, who struggles to forget his brutal memories of military service; and Mitya, Hobson’s wild and optimistic lover, whose gradual disillusion and dissolution mirror his country’s lurch from euphoria to despair.
language: English
title: Black Earth City: When Russia Ran Wild
titlecomplete: Black Earth City: When Russia Ran Wild (And So Did We)
genres: Autobiography, History, Travel, Russia, Biography Memoir, Biography, Memoir, Nonfiction
ratings_count: 216
awards: awardedAt: 1009872000000
name: Somerset Maugham Award, awardedAt: 978336000000
name: Duff Cooper Prize
publisher: Picador