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A Terrible Country: Episode 8

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Episode 8

A Terrible Country

BBC Radio 4 - A Terrible Country, Episode 8

Andrei is busy doing translations, and he is now officially in the October Group.

With his time spent translating papers for the October group to publish in English, and his new relationship with Yulia, Andrei has little time for his other passion - hockey.

In the summer of 2008 as the global financial crisis erupts, Andrei Kaplan moves from New York to Moscow to look after his ageing grandmother - a woman who survived the dark days of communism and witnessed Russia's violent capitalist transformation, during she lost her beloved dacha.

She welcomes Andrei into her home, even if she can't always remember who he is.

Andrei learns to navigate Putin's Moscow, still the city of his birth but with more expensive cars and coffee. He looks after his elderly but surprisingly sharp grandmother, finds a place to play hockey, a cafe to send emails from, and eventually some friends - including a beautiful young activist named Yulia.

In Episode 8, Andrei's brother, Dima, calls him about selling the apartments.

Capturing with a miniaturist's brush the unfolding demands of family, fortune, personal ambition, ideology, and desire, A Terrible Country is a compelling novel about ageing, radical politics, Russia at a crossroads, and the difficulty - or impossibility - of actually changing one's life.


Written by Keith Gessen
Read by Trevor White
Abridged by Jill Waters and Isobel Creed
Produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4

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An academic leaves New York for his native Moscow to care for his ageing grandmother.

Keith Gessen's novel in which a struggling academic leaves New York for his native Moscow to care for his ageing grandmother.

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