Gosh. What to say about this experience reading Sarah Rainsford's account of her 20 odd years in Russia. Part diary, part political commentary, part social commentary, part historical snapshot. At times I had to completely pinch myself and remind myself that the recounts I was reading were from 2023, and not 1943. Ive read so many WW2 non fiction books just like this that I absolutely could not beleive the similarities in what I was reading and yet this was happening just last year. I can literally place myself and what i was doing on those days while horror was occurring just a 3 odd hour flight away.

This book is in equal parts enthralling and horrifying. I could not stop reading but equally I was so saddened by every new chapter I read.

Sarah Rainsford makes for a fantastic narrator. Being a BBC journalist based in Russia since 1992, you can feel her internal struggle with her love for the country she has called home for so long, and has spend her entire career reporting on and the truth of the horrors being commited today. Being banished from the country she has called home for so long for simply reporting on the truth of events occurring recently,just shows how desperate and restrictive a dictatorship Russia has become. Her experiences make her a fantastic, accountable, relatable and trustworthy narrator and I really felt for her having to abandon the country she loved and felt apart of for so long, and could feel the anguish in the shame of what Russia was doing also. I am pleased to read that she continues to be a correspondant in Ukraine and is able to continue to highlight the disgusting events unfolding from there. The chapters are well written, easy to follow and read and break the topics up nicely. They do flit around in time a bit ublike a linear diary narrative so I had to keep checking what the date of the entry was (before or after the Ukraine invasion in my head I suppose) but the historical entries give you a feel for the underlying issues that occurred in the run up to the invasion in 2022.

I learned SO much from this book, and for that I'm truly grateful. What ignorance I've been living in. So many names of influential people ive read about in here I've googled and learned so much more. Heroes who have fought the opression of Russia from long long ago who are being silenced now in some of the worst ways possible. In 2022 2023 and 2024. Not 1924. Its shocking. The bombing of schools, the poisoning of their own residents, the shooting in the back of the head of little old men who have done nothing but live in the wrong area.

In February 2022 I was having a baby. My life changed for better and I have spent the following 2 years living in 3 different countries but in total bliss. Not in total ignorance as I knew of the war happening in Ukraine, but im ashamed how little I'd really understood the absolute atrocities happening. I think we will all look back and be ashamed and disgusted that this happened in our lifetimes and wonder what we could have done differently. I am so thankful for this book. Thanks Sarah Rainsford for opening my eyes. And thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me this experience.

I'm pleased to see since this book was published in just the last 2 weeks, that many political prisoners mentioned herein have been released. I hope this is the start of the end.

A really timely book which explains how Russia got to where it is today, including the background to the Ukraine War and the Russian prisoner swaps. All through the medium of personal experience and a career spent learning and experiencing Russia. Sarah rainsford writes beautifully, and the way she intersperses her personal experiences with her journalism and political events is very engaging. A really good read.

This was such a harrowing and heartbreaking read. It's made up of a mixture of diary entries from Sarah's time in Russia as well as journalism, because of this it was a bit choppy in parts and the time lines flit back and forth. However this does not take away from the story and it is a vital and thought provoking book.

Goodbye to Russia is an honest and thought-provoking memoir from BBC journalist Sarah Rainsford, who found herself expelled from Russia in 2021 when she was classed an 'enemy of the state'.

Following the decline of freedom of speech from the early 2000s through to the ongoing war in Ukraine, Rainsford tells the stories of Russian dissidents who have dared to speak out against the state. Her interviewees have all been forced to make the difficult decision whether or not to speak up for what's right when doing so could mean imprisonment or death.

Mixing frontline journalism with candid diary entries, sometimes the jumbled chronology gets a bit confusing, but Rainsford succeeds in capturing the complexity of conflict - both personal and political, as well as all-out war.

Goodbye to Russia is a challenging and heartfelt read.

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley after reading about it. I remembered Sarah being expelled from Russia and wanted to read her story of it all. Sarah fell in love with Russia from her visits there as both a teenager and a student. Her knowledge of the language and the people gave her an insight to a country that so many of us will never visit and to read of her despair at how Putin turned the country backwards to a state where fear seems to rule is both interesting and frightening. Even more frightening for those who fighting against this, knowing what will happen to them.

How she goes from being a journalist travelling around the country to basically being classed as an enemy of the state is told here. Alongside the fear of what could happen to her as she reports on the suspicious deaths of Russians who become classed as enemies of the state and the imprisonment of two Americans who are classed as spies.

Rainsford moves to reporting from the Ukraine after her expulsion from Russia and speaks very movingly of some of the horrors inflicted on the Ukrainians by the people who are supposedly rescuing them from the west. But she also tells how apathy is setting in slowly amongst the Ukrainians and that some feel that they might be able to deal with Putin…..I think that they should read this book to realise that Putin marches to the beat of his own drum and that there would be no dealing with him.

A very interesting and important book written from the a journalist’s real love of a country and it’s people and also written from the despair of the doors being firmly closed again on freedoms hard won.

Sarah Rainsford obviously loves Russia. Her experience in the country ranges from her first visits as a teenager and student in the early 90s to her work there as a BBC foreign correspondent until her expulsion in 2021. Her knowledge of the language, years of living there and many friends alongside her journalistic access and years of reporting give her a huge amount of insight into the country over the entire period and it’s fascinating.

Goodbye to Russia manages to be both hugely informative and extremely readable. Rainsford uses extracts from her diaries and reports over the years, as well as interviews and conversations with Russians from all areas of life and it gives a very well balanced overview. She obviously loves the country and the people but after her expulsion in 2021, her reporting moves to Ukraine to cover the invasion and war and speak to ordinary Ukrainians and this very naturally affects her feeling and makes her much more ambivalent. There are so many complications from the close ties of many Ukrainians and Russians and the effects of constant propaganda and life under Putin on ordinary Russians, and Rainsford handles them all very sensitively.

A superb and important book on a fascinating subject.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy in return for an honest review.

I do not feel qualified to review the subject/topics, themes in this book or rather the full extent these have been covered in this book.
Sarah Rainsford is a BBC foreign correspondent who was expelled from Russia. She has extensive lived experience in Russia and other countries. Her knowledge of Russia and the region is immense. She truly loves Russia and its people and this book is her love letter to them. It is a challenging read. I wanted to give it my undivided attention, and I still struggled a bit due to the sensitive themes, and simply because reading the effects of corruption on people is thought-provoking.
Rainsford’s writing includes reporting, diary entries, anecdotes, discussions supported by scholarly resources.
Overall, I highly recommend this book, it is important, and is a much-needed, eye-opening accounting of the devastation happening in Ukraine and Russia, and the effects of Putin’s decisions/actions on everyone.
If you are a newbie to the topics, thanks to the clarity of the prose, you can still be informed by reading this book.
It will be one of my go-to-books when someone asks for recommendations on Russia and the current war in Ukraine.
This book is divided into different parts. The structure is more thematic than chronological. While I am sure this was the best structure, I found the flow a slightly disrupted at times.
Overall, 5/5.