I Love Russia

Brilliant and immersive … reportage at its brave and luminous best * Luke Harding, Observer *Fearless reporting… shocking and moving… This gritty insider’s take on Russia will prove more helpful than the welter of books by western experts when it comes to countering Putin’s disinformation * Sunday Times, Book of the Week *I Love Russia is full of rigorous journalistic detail, but is also deeply personal, beautifully written … real and intimate * Rob Hastings, I Paper *Few have tried to examine the life of ordinary people in the world’s biggest country (by physical size) the way this one does … [Elena’s] style of brave, intimate reporting is likely to be a rarity in Russia for years to come * New York Times *Elena Kostyuchenko is an important guide to the twenty-first century. The Russia she recounts here is the Russia we need to understand * Timothy Snyder *Elena’s bravery and reportage are astonishing - the Russia we never see, every page another insight into life under Putin * Christina Lamb, author of Our Bodies, Their Battlefields *A fascinating, frightening, compulsively readable chronicle of life in Putin’s Russia. As a girl, Elena Kostyuchenko wanted to believe in her country; as a journalist she has dedicated her life to exposing its darkness. Her prose is haunting, edgy, searing. Her stories are unforgettable, and deeply important * Carol Off, author of All We Leave Behind *A haunting book of rare courage. Kostyuchenko’s searing reportage takes the reader under the skin of a Russia that few outsiders get to see. With spare, unfliching prose she lays bare the cynicism and corruption, but also the bravery and heart, of her beloved country * Clarissa Ward, author of On All Fronts *Not only does Kostyuchenko find her way into the very darkness, she goes for its blackest corners… . The good news that emerges is her talent. Read her. It’s worth it * Dmitry Muratov, editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize *Would you like to know where Putin comes from? What the Russians are like today? And why? Read this book. For years, the author has been keeping a diary of the soul of her people, with love and with hate. Scientists claim that there is no place in the body where the soul resides. So where is it then? The author goes to homes and schools, sits at weddings and celebrations, asking about love and hate, children and parents. We get to see the rise of the monster that now leaves its footprints in Kyiv, Bucha, and Irpin — and how it forces the whole world to fear the future * Svetlana Alexievich, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and author of Second-hand Time *

Elena Kostyuchenko (Author)

Elena Kostyuchenko was born in Yaroslavl, Russia, in 1987. She began working as a journalist when she was fourteen and spent seventeen years reporting for Novaya Gazeta, Russia’s last major independent newspaper. In March 2022 she crossed into Ukraine to cover the horrors committed in Russia’s name; Novaya Gazeta was shut down in the spring of 2022 in response to her reporting. Returning home now would likely mean prosecution and up to fifteen years in prison. She is also the author of two books published in Russian, Unwanted on Probation and We Have to Live Here, and is the recipient of the European Press Prize, the Free Media Award, and the Paul Klebnikov Prize.

Ilona Chavasse (Translator)

Ilona Chavasse was born in Belarus and, together with her family, emigrated to the United States in 1989. She has translated three novels by Yuri Rytkheu, including most recently When the Whales Leave, Aleksandr Skorobogatov’s Russian Gothic, and Galina Scherbakova’s short stories for the Dedalus anthology Slav Sisters, as well as The Village at the Edge of Noon by Darya Bobyleva. She lives in London.

Bela Shayevich (Translator)

Bela Shayevich is a Soviet American writer and translator. She is best known for her translation of 2015 Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich’s Secondhand Time, for which she was awarded the TA First Translation Prize. Her other translations include Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We and Vsevolod Nekrasov’s I Live I See, which she cotranslated with Ainsley Morse. Her writing has appeared in n+1, Jewish Currents, and Harper’s Magazine.