Goodbye to Russia: A Personal Reckoning from the Ruins of War - Sarah Rainsford

A unique, personal insight into Vladimir Putin's Russia and the devastating impact his rule has had on his own people and those of neighbouring Ukraine.

In 2021, BBC journalist Sarah Rainsford set out to write a book about how Russians who dared to think differently to the Putin regime were being labelled as enemies, foreign agents and even traitors. It was to chart Russia's slide from democracy and warn of where the crushing of liberties could lead. She had experienced something of that herself when she was expelled from Moscow as a supposed 'security threat'. Then, in February 2022, Putin began his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, moving faster than her worst fears.

This is the story of how Vladmir Putin changed Russia so deeply that he was able to launch the biggest conflict in Europe since the Second World War. Sarah's focus is on the extraordinary characters she has encountered, from the Russians such as Boris Nemtsov and Alexei Navalny who paid with their lives for challenging Putin, to the Ukrainians she found burying their dead in Bucha. It is also her own personal reckoning with Russia, where she first lived in the 1990s: a country she saw emerge from decades of authoritarian rule to embrace new freedoms, that has now quashed internal dissent and declared a ruinous war on its neighbour.

The culmination of many years of on-the-ground reporting, Goodbye to Russia shines a light on the attacks on freedom that she has witnessed and paints an intimate portrait of the individuals who have tried to resist.

Review

Goodbye to Russia is a harrowing and haunting, heartbreaking and humbling testament to lives torn and blown apart by the evil that men do, and the fear and complicity that makes others do nothing, and quite simply the best and most powerful book I've read this year -- David Peace

This is an extraordinary book, one of the most evocative portraits of Vladimir Putin's Russia I have ever read. It's the story of how the hopes of the early 1990s rotted and died, and how intimidation and deception triumphed over truth and freedom. Rooted in the lives of the brave men and women who dared to defy Putin's regime, it's beautifully written and passionately argued - and all the more powerful because Sarah Rainsford so clearly loves Russia's people and culture. A magnificent book -- Dominic Sandbrook

A poignant personal farewell to a country lost to dictatorship and a vivid testimony to the bravery of those who tried to stand in the way. Sarah Rainsford's book is a remarkable eye-witness account of Russia's descent into authoritarianism and war, as well as a wonderful feat of storytelling threaded with quiet humour and grit -- Catherine Belton, author of PUTIN'S PEOPLE

An astonishing book. Elegiac, personal, passionate. A unique eye-witness account, spanning decades and capturing the hopes and despair of families grappling with the brutal realities of Putinism. If you want to understand how Russia lost its way and invaded Ukraine, read this heartfelt, heart-breaking tale of ordinary people caught up in the madness of the Kremlin's thuggery -- Andrew Harding

Epic and yet intimate: a definitive portrait of hopes, fears and a changing Russia, as observed over three decades -- Mishal Husain

Goodbye to Russia is a powerful personal memoir woven with stories of remarkable individuals of uncommon courage. Sarah Rainsford chronicles major moments of our time through extraordinary encounters, and inspiring individuals - stories from Russia and Ukraine that will stay with you. A poignant elegy to a lost Russia written with great authority and deep affection -- Lyse Doucet, BBC Chief International Correspondent

Sarah Rainsford has crafted a masterwork of feet-on-the-ground journalism. She boldly explores the reality of Putin's Russia up close so that we don't have to. Future generations should be grateful for this unflinching account of a dictatorship drunk on its own diabolical myth-making, misinformation and machismo -- Benjamin Myers

A compelling and moving read; it is a lament for a lost Russia, and a poignant look at the suffering inflicted on Ukraine. It's also a personal take on a country and a war that has profoundly affected Europe. I can't recommend it highly enough -- Reeta Chakrabarti

Sarah Rainsford's long association with Russia gives a special intimacy to her stories of those who have suffered from the country's descent into autocracy. Being forced to leave the country caused her great pain, but enabled her to write this affecting and honest account for which we are all the richer. -- Lindsey Hilsum, International Editor, Channel 4 News

Excellent . . . a vivid and moving chronicle of Russia's dysfunctional slide into mass murder . . . A compelling study of Russia's post-Soviet transformation into a fascist dictatorship -- Luke Harding ― Observer

Goodbye to Russia is an elegy for a lost country - the warm, chaotic Russia of unlimited possibility that welcomed the 18-year-old Sarah Rainsford in 1992 . . . Structured as a patchwork of scenes from her experiences, personal and professional, the book is suffused with affection and self-deprecating humour as well as the pain of this final rejection . . . but, as the narrative builds, so does its undoubted emotional power -- Charlotte Hobson ― Spectator

Excellent reporting . . . Rainsford's self-effacing instincts make the book's personal passages all the more powerful. For optimists, Goodbye to Russia will be a poignant read . . . Her forte is telling stories on the ground . . . [with] many excellent pen portraits -- Edward Lucas ― The Times

About the Author

Sarah Rainsford is an author and BBC foreign correspondent whose reporting career in Russia has spanned Vladimir Putin's two decades in power. After stints as BBC correspondent in Istanbul, Madrid and Havana, she returned to Russia in 2014 and was based in Moscow from then until her expulsion as a 'security threat' on 31 August 2021. She is now the BBC's Eastern Europe correspondent.

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