Black Earth City

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"It is September 1991, and the dismantling of the Soviet Union is underway. Apparatchiks are looting state assets, war is breaking out on Russia's southern borders and the shops that winter will be empty. In the provincial city of Voronezh, people live much as they always did - comforted now and again by a tumbleful of vodka. Yet as the year progresses, a sense of light-headedness - part exhilaration, part fear - pervades." "Black Earth City is a record of this year. Here is Yakov, blowing half-a-million roubles on a taxi to visit a girl in Minsk; Lola, who sleeps with her fellow students for a share of their dinner; Viktor, with his brutal memories of military service, and Lyuba, dancing in the forest where Stalin's victims lie buried." "Here too is the author's story, and Mitya's. Their love affair begins in a mood of wild optimism. Anything, it seems, is possible. Until in spring the snow thaws, and reveals the black earth beneath."--BOOK JACKET