Moscow days

the long version

Moscow Days is the wry, frank, and poignant personal account of life in the new Russia by writer and journalist Galina Dutkina. In the first book by a Russian to detail everyday life in the post-Soviet era, Dutkina describes Moscow's newly rich, newly poor, and those caught in between. She tells of struggling Russian youths, increasingly violent gang members, conniving beggars, the new Russian intelligentsia, mafiosos-turned-politicians, and ailing pensioners who cannot afford doctors. She shows us the food stores bare of Russian staples such as beef or fish but crammed with French bonbons. She speaks about the difficulties of raising children, and the plight of the modern Russian woman. Along the way she offers new insights into why her country finds itself in such a predicament.