Russian Lessons

A profound and revelatory memoir from one of our foremost food writers about finding beauty and humanity in a country besieged by difficulty and oppression.

When Darra Goldstein told her grandmother that she wanted to go to the Soviet Union—to learn about Russian literature, art, and food—she was startled by her distressed response.

“Why would you work so hard to go back to this place that we did everything we could to escape?”

Over the next five decades, as Goldstein experienced firsthand the cruelty of Soviet life, learned more about her family’s past in the Pale of Settlement, and saw the idea of Russia being weaponized in the devastating war against Ukraine, she came to understand her grandmother's sorrow. But she also came to recognize the innate beauty of the land and the resolve of ordinary people.

In a memoir that braids together piercing cultural criticism, dazzling food writing, and luminous readings of the work of dissident artists with whom she became close, Goldstein adds warmth, depth, and great sensitivity to the question of what it means to love a deeply difficult place.

Russian Lessons is the story of a life spent in deep engagement with the enigma of Russia, told through literature, art, history, and food. It traces the impact of Russian oppression on the lives of writers, artists, and intellectuals, including Bertram D. and Ella Wolfe, Viktor Sosnora, and Nikolai Zabolotsky. It is also an impassioned defense of the good that persists even in the face of government repression and brutality.