SHORTLISTED FOR THE PUSHKIN HOUSE PRIZE 2025 SHORTLISTED FOR THE SALTIRES DEBUT NON-FICTION
PRIZE 2025 'A different level of insight to anything I've read for a long time about
Russia.' - Sophy Roberts author of The Lost Pianos of Siberia ' Exquisitely observed.. Full
of empathy Amos refuses easy stereotypes. ' - Tom Parfitt author of High Caucasus
Returning to an overlooked region on the edge of Russia Howard Amos sets out on a quest to
understand the country he once called home. On Russia's European borderlands people live
their lives among the ruins of successive empires. Pskov an old Slavic land of forgotten
stories and faded waysides has weathered the tides of history. Once a thriving nexus of trade
and cultural exchange today it is one of the poorest and most rapidly depopulating places of
this vast nation. To understand the darkness that has captured Russia Howard Amos journeys
through a landscape of small towns re-wilding fields and dilapidated churches. This is a
lyrical portrait of Russia where it meets NATO and the EU - a place of frontiers and boundaries
that reveals unfamiliar and uncomfortable truths. In a country where history has been erased
manipulated and marginalised the voices Howard Amos spotlights are a powerful antidote against
forgetting. From the last inhabitants of a dying village to the long-term residents of a
psychiatric hospital and a museum curator fighting local opposition to chronicle Pskov's
forgotten Jewish heritage Howard Amos uncovers compelling stories that are shaped by violence
tragedy and loss. He also encounters some of the powerful men who have loomed over Pskov
leaving a troubling legacy in their wake from far-right politicians to Putin's personal
priest.
