zakuski—snacks to eat with vodka
zefir—nutty meringues
Acknowledgments
Many people were kind to me while I was writing this book. I am grateful to all those whose spare rooms and kitchen tables provided me with an office: to my father, to Jonathan and Heather, to Emma and Giles, and to Alexander Hoare, whose view ensured that my progress was slow but enjoyable. Selina encouraged me to begin. Will, Emily, Roly, Claire, and Vitali took the trouble to comb through the manuscript in the final stages. Sara Bershtel’s and Riva Hocherman’s thoughtful, detailed responses deserve an Order of Heroic Editing. And above all, Philip’s staunch support, his tact, wit, and literary intuition, have helped me more than I can say.
As for my friends from Voronezh, both Russian and English, it is because of them that this book exists at all. Discretion has led me to change most of the names and some of the details; otherwise I have done my best to capture our life together accurately. If there are mistakes, I hope they will forgive me. Thanks to all of you, and in particular to M.P., to whom this book is dedicated with affection.
Copyright
BLACK EARTH CITY. Copyright © 2001 by Charlotte Hobson. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address Picador, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
Picador® is a U.S. registered trademark and is used by
Henry Holt and Company under license from Pan Books Limited.
First published in the United States by Henry Holt and Company
eISBN 9781466822672
First eBook Edition : June 2012
The author and publisher would like to thank the following: Nadezhda Mandelstam: Extract from Hope Against Hope, first published in the United States by Atheneum, New York, 1970 © Nadezhda Mandelstam. English translation © Atheneum, New York. Osip Mandelstam, The Voronezh, Notebooks Poems 1935-1937, translated by Richard and Elizabeth McKane, Bloodaxe Books, 1996. Penguin U.S. for permission to extract two lines from The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, translation © Richard Peaver and Larissa Volokhonsky, 1997. Allan Sillitoe, “Love in the Environs of Voronezh,” Collected Poems, HarperCollinsPublishers, Inc., 1993. Aleksandr Blok, “The Scythians,” The Twelve and Other Poems, edited by John Stallworthy and Peter France, Random House, New York, 1970. D. M. Thomas, for two lines from his translation of “Requiem” by Anna Akhmatova; Stanley Kunitz and Max Hayward, for “Voronezh” by Anna Akhmatova from Poems of Akhmatova, Collins and Harvill Press, London, 1974. Madame Jarintsov, for the extract from The Russians and Their Language, 1919. G. M. Hyde, for lines from his translation of “A Cloud in Trousers” by Vladimir Mayakovsky in How Verses Are Made, The Bristol Press, 1990.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hobson, Charlotte, 1970—
Black earth city : when Russia ran wild (and so did we) / Charlotte Hobson.
p. cm.
Originally published: London : Granta Books, 2001.
ISBN 0-312-42061-7
1. Russia (Federation)—Social life and customs. 2. Russia (Federation)—Social conditions—1991—3. Hobson, Charlotte, 1970— —Journeys—Russia (Federation) I. Title.
DK510.32 .H63 2002
947.086—dc21
2001045031
First Picador Edition: March 2003