I really love Elena's perspective on the average Russian citizen and how the last ten years has impacted them. I saw Elena speak at an event and it made me appreciate her and her work even more, so much so that I purchased my own copy!

Highly recommend this if you're at all interested in the Russian people.

You can both love and hate your country at the same time. A few negative reviews want to make this book out to be "bad" because apparently everyone in a country at war agrees with the war (and if you can't tell that's sarcasm). We see through Elena's lens the normal and everyday of Russia. Stories include those who made a home out of an abandoned hospital building, to many people stuck in an Internat (institutions for mentally disabled.) It is a tough but enlightening read.

Warning: This is not an easy read, and not something you can (probably) speed through. As a captivating, immersive, and unique read about contemporary Russia, it is quite a knockout. However, it's also quite depressing, melancholy, and rather hopeless at times. If you're looking for a no-holds barred read about Russia, don't miss this one.


Many thanks to Penguin Random House and NetGalley for a digital review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Modern Russia as I experience it usually gets filtered through my regular news sources, or through the country's state media and various sanctioned cheerleaders who are quite focused on specific narratives. So in other words, my perspective gets quite limited on several different levels. Hence why I appreciated "I Love Russia" so much - through Elena Kostyuchenko's words, I was able to take an intimate look into the nation and its people and be provided a privileged depth and complexity of perspective that feels increasingly difficult to find.