Not Russian
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A gripping, illuminating novel about recent Russian aggressions and the humans caught in the crossfire.
One evening in 2015, the journalist Pavel Vladimirovich and his wife Tatyana are at home when the news breaks that there has been a terrorist attack. Over a hundred people have been taken hostage in the Church of the Epiphany in the village of Nikolskoye near Moscow. As they watch, on the TV screen appears the face of one of the terrorists: Vadim Petrovich Seryegin, an old friend of Pavel’s.
The friendship between the two men evolved through periods of conflict, war, peace, emigration, and isolation. Pavel may be one of Vadim’s only friends, and when others realize this, he is asked to negotiate with Vadim.
The Church is horrifyingly silent when Pavel enters. Vadim welcomes Pavel but refuses to capitulate. As the stakes get higher and higher, Vadim’s story including his connection to the wars in Chechnya and the Ukraine is revealed and it becomes clear that the first meeting between the two men was not all it first seemed to be to Pavel.
Back in the church, Pavel learns that the terrorists have one and only one demand, and that it concerns the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The sardonic and incisive English-language debut from Russian journalist and novelist Shevelev imagines a massive hostage situation in a church outside Moscow. In 2015, disenchanted newspaper journalist Pavel Volodin, whose present concerns involve whether he and his wife should install a TV in the kitchen ("Obviously, it would be better to throw the television off the balcony considering what's on it," Pavel narrates), is called into action when the terrorist occupying the church and holding 100 people hostage demands to speak to him. The terrorist is Vadik Seryegin, whom Pavel met in 1998 during negotiations between Russia and Chechnya. He also helped bring Vadik, a Russian prisoner of war, back to Russia—winning a little celebrity for himself in the process. In between Pavel's series of trips to the church to speak with Vadik during the crisis, Shevelev traces the effects /of Putin's political decisions on the country and on the two men's lives (Vadik's disaffection with Russian politics and Pavel's increasing cynicism) and gradually fleshes out Vadik's sole demand, which is for Putin to apologize for all the wars. While the frequent references to contemporary Russian figures will be lost on casual readers, Shevelev does a great job distilling recent history into a tragic human drama. This is worth a look.
