Goodbye to Russia

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.