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A Terrible Country: Episode 10

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Episode 10

A Terrible Country

BBC Radio 4 - A Terrible Country, Episode 10

Andrei's future is decided. Written by Keith Gessen and read by Trevor White.

Andrei's brief incarceration might have had some unexpected benefits for his career, but this is by no means a good outcome for his relationship with the October Group.

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 10, Andrei's brief incarceration might have had some unexpected benefits for his career, but this is by no means a good outcome for his relationship with the October Group.

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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