Midnight in Siberia: A Train Journey into the Heart of Russia

In 2013, after several years serving as NPR’s Moscow bureau chief, Greene traveled 6,000 miles of the Trans-Siberian Railway in a quixotic attempt to understand the Russian soul. As Green journeyed across the Siberian landscape, he made frequent stops to interview ordinary Russians in a variety of situations to capture the everyday realities of post-Soviet Russia. The result is chronicled in this travelogue that reads like a series of episodic radio pieces in the NPR style, a collage of Green’s interviews and insights from scholars about Russian history that attempts to answer a few difficult questions: what do the Russians want? Why do they tolerate a corrupt and restrictive government? And, as the Arab Spring erupts in the Middle East, how close is Russia to (another) revolution? What Greene finds is complex and frequently contradictory but all the more thought-provoking: a small business owner who believes Russia must be patient and slowly “develop” towards democracy, a taxi driver who wishes for socialism, an anti-Putin activist who believes Russia needs an autocrat like Stalin (but more benign). Despite the poverty and repression he frequently encounters, Greene remains optimistic throughout his travels, and he reproduces the source of this conviction in this collection of vignettes. (Oct.)