Black Earth: A Journey through Russia after the Fall by Andrew Meier (Fellow, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, USA)
Post-Soviet Russia remains a country in limbo, a land of vast potential struggling with an unfinished past. Journeying to Russia's five corners - Moscow, Chechnya, Norilsk, Sakhalin and St. Petersburg - Andrew Meier presents a history of contemporary Russia. In Moscow and St. Petersburg Meier explores Russia's unbridles market and often lethal politics. From Chechnya, where he investigates the worst single-day massacre of, civilians to Norilsk, the world's northernmost city, he uncovers a common theme: the need to find meaning amid the Soviet ruins.