Russia Starts Here

SHORTLISTED FOR THE PUSHKIN HOUSE PRIZE 2025 SHORTLISTED FOR THE SALTIRES DEBUT NON-FICTION PRIZE 2025 SHORTLISTED FOR THE SHERBORNE PRIZE FOR TRAVEL WRITING 2026 '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