meets also have much in common with those in America's Rust Belt or parts of Northern England - people who have been marginalised and forgotten. Through these encounters, Amos provides the reader with a unique window on the Russian psyche. He shows how the twin catastrophes of the Second World War and the collapse of the Soviet Union still loom large in the minds of modern Russians, why they distrust their European neighbours after centuries of invasion and aggression, and the intoxicating appeal of strong leadership amidst a spiralling cycle of rural abandonment, poverty and lack of opportunity. This is a vital depiction of life in this vast and mysterious nation.