by Masha Gessen
First published 2018
Masha Gessen stands in the frozen landscape of Medvezhyegorsk in the Arctic, where mass executions once took place. Now the sites lie forgotten, buried under Putin's campaign to rebrand Soviet history as glorious triumph. The Russian-American journalist has made her career opposing Putin's authoritarian grip on Russia. She teams up with photographer Michael Friedman for a journey across Siberia. Together they document how Putin's government systematically erases evidence of Soviet terror. The uranium mines of Kolyma in the Far East disappear from official memory. Perm 36, Russia's sole gulag museum, transforms into a shrine celebrating secret police heroism. Gessen witnesses a nation forgetting its own suffering. Her investigation reveals how authoritarian leaders reshape the past to serve the present. The book captures Russia's alarming slide away from historical truth toward manufactured glory.
Genres: history, political-science, non-fiction, 21st-century, journalism, activism
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: investigative-journalism, social-commentary
Setting: Arctic, Kolyma, Medvezhyegorsk, Perm 36, Siberia
Period: Putin Era
176 pages · Hardcover · Columbia Global Reports