Oh, Russia, are you having fun yet? The butt of sanctions and scorn, slaughter and humiliation on the battlefield, your place in world standings can’t get much lower.
Of course, it’s unfair to hold your citizens to the same substandards as we do your maniacal leader, but that’s the way it works—until you shake him off like a bad case of lice. We’ll be here for you when that build-back-better time comes, you can count on it. Memories are short.
Artem Mozgovoy’s Spring In Siberia reminds us of the everyday casualties, the heartbreaking isolation and intolerance of the Russian system that Putin has built. In her Foreword review for the May/June 2023 issue, Erika Harlitz-Kern calls the book “a chilling coming-of-age story about everyday helplessness and being forced to adapt or founder when the merciless wheels of social change begin to turn,” and the following conversation makes it very clear that we must never look away.