I grew up during the Cold War, taught to fear and despise the evil Soviet empire, where no one was free and whose main goal in life was to obliterate the United States of America with a nuclear attack. We had drills in my elementary school for that imminent moment when the bomb dropped, on our knees, heads to the floor and hands over our little heads, as if that would prevent us all from immolation. I knew the shelves in Soviet stores were barren, the women all dressed like peasants, and the protestors were either sent to Siberia or outright killed.

What I did not know about was how the children in the Soviet Union lived, what they were taught about the United States (though I did know we were their enemy, too), and what they did for fun. Was there fun in the Soviet Union? The Orchard introduces us to a few of those children who, it turns out, had adolescent crushes, favorite singers, and parents who just didn’t understand them…just like us.
Narrated by Anya, The Orchard gives us a glimpse into the waning years of the Soviet Union as it begins to crumble around the true believers and the skeptics…Anya’s father the former and her mother the latter, who are in constant battle over the socialist ideals of the Bolsheviks. What the children were taught is best summed up by the principal of their school, lecturing them after the defection of the parents of one of the students. “As future Communist leaders…you must always choose community over self. Responsibility over desire. Sacrifice over gain. What the Ruchnik family did is shameful and irresponsible. You must always remember that your decisions don’t just impact you, but generations…Only together can we overcome personal difficulties and capitalist aggression and not be turned into slaves. That’s what they do to people in America, turn them into slaves.”

Heavy stuff for a 14-year-old who dreams of getting out of Russia and seeing other parts of the world, including the hated America, whose most treasured item is a bootleg tape of Freddie Mercury singing We Are the Champions. She and her best friend Milka are joined at the hip, living their lives together as nearly all early teen girls do. They bring Lopatin and Trifonov into their circle who are “as different as earth and sky”, one interested mostly in vodka and girls, the other in poetry and literature.

The Orchard has been compared to Anton Chekhov’s last work, The Cherry Orchard, and there is indeed a cherry orchard featured in this captivating novel. But one does not need to be familiar with the Chekhov work to be drawn in by this coming of age, sometimes tragic, tale. Gorcheva-Newberry grew up in Moscow and had a brilliant, rowdy, feisty friend who practically lived at her house. One day she and her family disappeared, never to be heard from again. Tormented by the loss, the author made up a story to preserve the memory of her friend. The Orchard is the outgrowth of that story and is a beautifully written, compelling testament to the power of friendship, no matter where it is.

Thank you to Ballantine Books and NetGalley for the eARC.

In the 1980's, Russia is seeing its end of days as the USSR, but the inhabitants don't know that yet. Beginning during the era of Brezhnev, this account is at its most intriguing when recounting the lives of everyday Russians as experienced by two teenaged girls, Anya and Milka. Anya, a fictional version of author Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry, lives with her parents, both committed and passionate lovers of the existing regime. Ironically, their lives reflect those of middle-class Americans, who they believe are living in Capitalist horrors. They even have a summer house with an apple orchard, and therein lies the similarities to the Cherry Orchard which is evoked enough so the reader gets the point. The orchard and its destruction = change which may or may not be for the best, but which in any case heralds a life that will never be the same again. I really loved the chapters that dealt with Anya's memories of life in the country she loved, all the food, the rituals, the clothing -- also the viewpoint from someone who lived on that side of the Iron Curtain, who, prior to glasnost and perestroika, was thought of as "them."

The Orchard by Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry is a fabulous, unique, and fascinating novel that follows several youths as they grow up and apart during the fall and transitions that take place in the USSR in the 1980s.

This is a very intriguing novel where the reader is able to follow a group of two females and males as they navigate relationships, their own lives, growing up, and the political and societal upheavals of the Soviet Union during its latter years.

As with the rise and fall of the Soviet, we see Anya, Milka,Trifonov, and Lopatin as they rise, fall, and change with the times.

The book is in two timelines/periods. The first is in “the past” where we see these youths growing up, and the second is the latter part of the 1980s where Anya needs to return to Russia for personal and business purposes and we all find that despite trying to forget and forgive the past, one’s history becomes part of oneself and one has to accept, learn, and overcome our past and present so that we can find our future.

There was most definitely a parallel between these characters and the transitions that take place with the country in which they grow up in. So many different facets, and rays of hope and optimism are mixed with loss, sorrow, disappointment, and despair. Adaption and moving onward despite the obstacles are what is needed for Anya and others as as well as for the other inhabitants of this vast and historic land. Extremely thought-provoking.

4/5 stars

Thank you NG and Random House Publishing/Ballantine for this wonderful arc and in return I am submitting my unbiased and voluntary review and opinion.

I am posting this review to my GR and Bookbub accounts immediately and will post it to my Amazon, Instagram, and B&N accounts upon publication.

Firstly, thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an ARC!
The Orchard chronicles the Soviet girlhood of Anya Raneva, following her narrative as she comes of age in a period of uncertainty and flux. Right by her side is her best friend Milka, with whom she is nearly inseparable, and the two boys they later end up becoming intimate with, Trifonov and Lopatin. The book is divided into two parts — the first describes Anya's time in Russia, and the second part relates her return to Russia after a separation of nearly twenty years.
I enjoyed the first half so, so much. The prose is elegant and evocative, and the passages are colored with both untainted innocence and fond nostalgia. The political landscape shapes Anya and Milka's youth — they listen to Anya's parents argue over ideals, and as they develop, take up passionate debates in place of her parents, with perspectives of their own. The dacha, where Anya's parents own an orchard, similarly plays an important role — it is where Anya and Milka spend luxuriously carefree summers, and is a place that's cemented with assuring connotations even during the coldest of winters. Throughout their years together of weathering the snow, having sex, smoking, and sneaking shots of Milka's stepfather's vodka, Anya and Milka's relationship is revealed to be intensely deep-rooted — we don't see much of Milka's domestic situation, but what we know of it isn't pretty, and the only person she seems to really love is Anya. What they feel for each other is the purest and fiercest of emotions. The first section of the novel is really a love letter to Milka, and an homage to all the times they spent together. There are boys, and the boys do take up time and space with their bodies and opinions, but in the end it is Milka and Anya, Anya and Milka.
Of course, all good things must come to an end, and we are confronted with the second half, where an Anya we're unfamiliar with comes home to a motherland that she's not exactly familiar with. A few chapters in and readers realize that the motherland has become a stranger to us, too — notably, its people are changed, either dead or too different. I felt a little desolate, finding all these answers to the questions I hadn't wanted answered. But the writing is still beautiful. The ending, lonely and wistful, will stay in my mind for a long time.

First and foremost, thank you to Netgalley and Ballatine Books for the eARC of <i>The Orchard</i> by Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry in exchange for an honest review. I went into this without having too many high expectations. I have been in a bit of a reading slump, and I wanted something like a one-off literary fiction novel to get some reading done. I was not disappointed by this and in many ways, my expectations were exceeded.

This is a story of friendship and how a group of inseparable friends during the fall of the Soviet Union have managed to drift apart. It’s not quite a coming of age but it’s close to it in the way that things start off so hopeful only for things to end so tragically. <i>The Orchard</i> is told from the perspective of Anya who recounts her life with her best friend Milka. While Anya’s family runs an orchard and has a country house, Milka’s family life was always different which caused her to be more mature and sexual than Anya. I was able to call a lot of Milka’s issues early on, but Anya’s childhood innocence and naiveté kept her from seeing the sexual abuse Milka’s faced.

The first part of the book consists of twenty chapters as we go through Anya and Milka’s teen years and the many regimes that contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union. Along the way we meet the boys, Lopatin and Trifonov who develop sexual relationships with Milka and Anya respectively. Like the girls, the boys are different to. Lopatin is a boisterous, glorious, attractive picture of strong old-Russian vigor while Trifonov is softer, nerdier, and a bit more of a classic noble with delicate features and is sickly. I consider Anya the most passive of all the characters in a sense because all the other characters have strong personalities and bigger hopes for their future.

During this, there is the obvious change that Russia goes through in the 80s as the backdrop to all the teen angst and development. Sex, exploration, drinking, and pursuing other teen pleasures make up a bulk of the story in addition to the subtle thread of plot similarities with Chekhov’s <i>The Cherry Orchard</i>. I haven’t read that play yet but it’s on my list to complete because I want more context here.

Tragedy starts to befall on the foursome, and they are torn apart just as how Russia is by the end of the decade. Part two is made up of the final ten chapters which explains that Anya moved to the United States in 1988, married an American, and teaches with a PhD in comparative literature. It’s been almost twenty years and Lopatin wants to buy her family’s orchard and her parents are aging with a feeling of hopelessness. Anya must return to Russia and confront not only ghosts of her past but put together a viable future for herself and her family.

I expected more of this book to focus on the conflict between Anya’s parents and Lopatin trying to buy her family’s orchard instead of so much detail on the teenage years. I don’t mind that, but I do think that for the conflict to take up so much of the book’s synopsis, it kind of happened quickly. I don’t have many complaints about this book. I thought it was crushing, honest, raw, and emotional. By the end I felt myself starting to cry and it introduced me to a history that I heard a very one-sided viewpoint on as an American citizen. I am fascinated with this culture and I want to know more about it if I can.

A totally vivid and raw story. This blew me away with the story telling.
I would consider this a pretty heavy read, which I do love. This writing was fantastic.
Thank you for letting me read this story.