Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia by Peter Pomerantsev

Jan 01, 2016 Hadrian rated it really liked it

Shelves: russia, society-culture-anthropology-etc, nonfiction, media-communications

"If there is no God, everything is permitted."
-Smerdyakov, The Brothers Karamazov

"Before your eyes rises the hero of Gogol's story who, in a fit of aberration, imagined that he was the King of Spain. Such is the fate of all megalomaniacs."
-Joseph Stalin, 1905

Who better else than a reality TV producer to describe the future of Russia? Mr. Pomerantsev worked behind the lens of reality television, and he was involved in creating these few stories which Russian citizens are allowed to digest - only ...more

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Sep 14, 2015 Maciek rated it liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, reviewed, 2014-releases, read-in-2015

I recently saw a great Russian film, "Дурак" - Durak, meaning "The fool". The protagonist, Dima, lives together with his wife, son and parents in a single apartment in an ordinary Russian town; although he works as a plumber, he studies architecture in hope of entering university and improving his situation - much to the chagrin of his mother, who doesn't believe that learning alone can get him anywhere. One day, the chief of a local repair group is absent and Dmitri is called in his place to in I recently saw a great Russian film, "Дурак" - Durak, meaning "The fool". The protagonist, Dima, lives together with his wife, son and parents in a single apartment in an ordinary Russian town; although he works as a plumber, he studies architecture in hope of entering university and improving his situation - much to the chagrin of his mother, who doesn't believe that learning alone can get him anywhere. One day, the chief of a local repair group is absent and Dmitri is called in his place to investigate a burst pipe in one of the buildings - where he discovers a much large problem: the entire construction is faulty, and the building has started to tilt. Dmitri calculates that the construction will collapse in less than 24 hours, killing all 800 residents. Although the building is not in his district, Dmitri takes it upon himself to ensure that all residents are evacuated, but soon discovers that the entire town's bureaucracy is corrupt to the bone - and that revealing the dire condition of the building would also expose years worth of embezzlement of public funds by various council members. Although "Дурак" tells a familiar story - a single, honest man struggling against an entire network of corrupt officials - it does so with class, style, and honesty. It's a dark film, and depressing one - but very well made, and I definitely recommend it.

Which brings me back to the book - Nothing is True and Everything is Possible is a collection of anecdotes gathered by Peter Pomerantsev during his 10 year long experience of working in Russia. Although Pomerantsev was born in Kiev during the Soviet era, he was raised in England, for which his parents left as political refugees in the 1970's. In the 2000's Pomerantsev returned to the country of his parents to work in the media industry, which at the time was booming because of high oil prices - money seemed limitless, and so did the opportunities. The dark underside of this is that media have been largely co-opted by the state, which uses them to shape the views and opinions of its citizens and consolidate their support.

Majority of Russians and Russian speakers watch Russian television for information, but only in recent times Russian television has begun to successfully conquer the global market. Russia Today aka RT is a state-owned television network which broadcasts the "Russian point of view" in three languages - English, Spanish and Arabic - and attracts millions of viewers. RT has often been accused of being a Kremlin propaganda outlet designed to spread disinformation and anti-Western sentiments, while at the same time remaining consciously uncritical and apologetic towards the Russian government. RT has offices in Moscow, London, Washington, Los Angeles, Havana and Buenos Aires, and also runs the the most watched news channel on YouTube.

Pomerantsev has many stories to tell about his experience with the Russian media - including RT - but his book is largely anecdotal, and not academical. It is not a study of the current situation of television and other media in Russia, but the author's private and therefore ultimately limited experience with it - there is no bibliography or citations, and most of the book is concerned with Pomerantsev's memories of conversations that he held with various people that he encountered during his stay in Russia.

Pomerantsev brings attention to important issues which many readers might otherwise have not known about - one of them is the destruction of Moscow's historic architecture to make space for new, modern skyscrapers. Another is the case of Yana Yakovleva - a Russian entrepreneur imprisoned on trumped-up charges, who bravely resisted police extortion and corruption, and eventually created an organization devoted to helping other entrepreneurs harassed and threatened by corrupt authorities. Yakovleva's case is just one of raids on entrepreneurs, where businessmen are jailed by the authorities and their companies are wrested from them.

However, much of the book is focused on the "surreal" aspect of its title, and focuses stories of people who are deemed by the author to match the description but somehow are still reminiscent of old Russian stereotypes - Siberian gangsters, beautiful but suicidal models, oligarchs and the new rich...all of these people exist in Russia, but this country contains millions and millions of perfectly ordinary people who are living their day to day lives exactly like you or I: they go to school and work, play with their kids, enjoy being with friends, love and die. Russia is not a freakshow containing only characters like those that the author describes - I think it would be much more interesting to hear ordinary citizens live, and how their lives are affected by the government - but this would require a much longer and more detailed book.

Although There is nothing wrong with personal observations, I expected the book to contain a more thorough research of these issues - what I got is more of a personal memoir rather than a serious academic study of contemporary Russia, its media and political system. The fault is largely mine, as I approached the book with these expectations instead of reading any reviews - but while I appreciate the insights into the country that it gave me, I can't help but feel a bit disappointed.
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May 23, 2016 Bettie☯ rated it liked it

Recommends it for: BBC Radio Listeners

Recommended to Bettie☯ by: Traveller

Shelves: slavic, lifestyles-deathstyles, filthy-lucre, nonfiction, true-grime, gangsters, slit-yer-wrists-gloomy, sleazy, politics, under-500-ratings, published-2014, journalism, games-people-play, winter-20142015, tbr-busting-2015

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23.05.2016: 'Anti-travelogue' on Putin's Russia wins 10,000 Ondaatje prize : read about the win here

The shelving, status updates and star rating constitute how I felt about this book. ...more

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Oct 22, 2015 Paul rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: baillie-gifford-prize, books-read-2015

Russia is an enigma. For the last over a century it has been under some form of autocratic control, first with the Tsars, then the communists and after a brief dabble with democracy, now has an elective dictatorship under Putin. Each time a new Russian doll is revealed, it is a more intense form of what they have always had. It is into this new Russia that Pomerantsev, a British TV producer with Russia parents, steps.

The Russian TV industry is booming, having removed the shackles of communist pr Russia is an enigma. For the last over a century it has been under some form of autocratic control, first with the Tsars, then the communists and after a brief dabble with democracy, now has an elective dictatorship under Putin. Each time a new Russian doll is revealed, it is a more intense form of what they have always had. It is into this new Russia that Pomerantsev, a British TV producer with Russia parents, steps.

The Russian TV industry is booming, having removed the shackles of communist propaganda, they now have more freedom to experiment with new shows to entertain and captivate the masses. But there is still control; the Russian media machine has tentacles running deep into the TV industry, as he discovers when he attends meeting in smoky rooms where he is told exactly what he can and cannot show and always to have positive stories.

As he travels through this new surreal Russia he meets all manner of bizarre people. There are the oligarchs, as you would expect, professional mistresses, stunning supermodels driven to suicide by the latest self help cults, hell angels who think they are holy warriors and hoodlums who now make hit TV series with real guns and blood in the action scenes. These changes reflect the country now; the ebb and flow of ideologies are refracted from the splinters left after communism, perestroika, the financial shock therapy, the rise of the oligarchs to the present virtual democracy that they have now. There are tales of the way that the Kremlin asserts its control of the public too; Yana Yakovleva was a business woman who had been importing cleaning chemicals for years, until one day her life is turned upside down after her arrest as the authorities deem these to be narcotics now. She fought back , but many languishing in the prisons have very little chance against the false charges and corrupt officials.

Like a shot of neat vodka, it’s a powerful book, and chilling too; Pomerantsev has brushed aside some of the mysticism surrounding modern Russia and has shown us what is going on. The way reality can be blurred and distorted by the autocrats in charge is quite shocking as well. This fragmentation is not just Putin’s doing, but a result of the instability of the Russian state post communism. There reach is huge too; with London now home to a number of the Russian ultra rich, they are not afraid to dispense their own form of justice in the UK, including murder.

Well worth reading for anyone with an interest in modern Russia.
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Feb 08, 2015 Paul rated it really liked it

Shelves: travel, general, politics

Nothing is True and Everything is Possible - Well Informed Account of Modern Russia

Peter Pomerantsev is one of the most assiduous observers of modern Russia that there is at the moment, who always gets to the heart of the matter with his observations and comment. Nothing is True and Everything is Possible is yet another wonderful example of his work and one of the most important commentaries on modern Russia and Moscow of the moment. If this were a work of fiction you would think it was a dystop Nothing is True and Everything is Possible - Well Informed Account of Modern Russia

Peter Pomerantsev is one of the most assiduous observers of modern Russia that there is at the moment, who always gets to the heart of the matter with his observations and comment. Nothing is True and Everything is Possible is yet another wonderful example of his work and one of the most important commentaries on modern Russia and Moscow of the moment. If this were a work of fiction you would think it was a dystopian fantasy, unfortunately for the world it is true.

As someone who has a cynical view of Russia, probably because over the centuries Russia has had a large bearing on my Polish family from taking land to murder at Katyn and exile in Siberia. This book will upset a lot of apologists for Putin’s Russia but Pomerantsev takes a look at the Russia that has emerged from the failure of the Soviet Union to the oil rich new oligarchs where the richest seem to have gathered most of the riches where there are many beautiful people who live very dangerous lives. What we do see is that everything changes quickly where there is a vacuum due to a political and ethical bankruptcy.

If this were a novel you would not believe the list of characters that appear throughout this book we see performance artists, gangsters, models, prostitutes, gold – diggers and oligarchs. Being chased around by European development consultants, who seem to be chasing a fast buck.

Pomerantsev describes Moscow as a ‘city living in fast forward’ with new modernistic buildings changing the sky line of the city but also of the destruction that takes so these new buildings can take their place. One feels the changes in Moscow happening so fast that there is a constant flux around the city for change.

I was surprised to see so few mentions of Putin in the book but you can feel that he is behind everything that happens, just like big brother. That the regime that Putin leads from the Kremlin can come across as schizophrenic, with the able assistance of the TV Channels who make Putin the saviour of modern Russia the great statesman and hero. This makes it hard for the opponents of Putin to take up against him as you do not clearly see what you are up against, especially so when the organs of government can suddenly change direction and take against you.

This is a fascinating account of modern Russia, even without Putin being mentioned to often you feel his hand in many things, protecting his new empire like Caesar. The messages in this book resonate especially when considering events in eastern Ukraine and the influence of modern Russia there. We are able to see the sleight of hand through the illusions of glamour, but where money is king and there is a very dangerous core bubbling under the surface.

Nothing is True and Everything is Possible is a wonderful but terrifying account of modern Russian that if you want to know more about the country then one needs to read this book. One of the best books on post-Soviet Russia and the influences it has over certain areas of Europe through money, glamour and corruption.

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Jan 14, 2016 Caro M. rated it liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, journalism, 2016-reads

This book didn't shock me as much as it probably was supposed to, I guess it makes a stronger impact on a western reader, who hears less about Russia every damn day of his life than I do, or one who lives under the rock or in some fairyland and isn't aware of today's world in general. Because of course western world has its own problems (for example Donald Trump, gun un-control, and other fun things you have, America). It's just that in Russia, modern or not, everything comes to gargantuan ...more

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Oct 12, 2015 Antonomasia rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: politics, society, russia, decade-2010s, 2015

'Adventures' is the right word. This is exhilarating narrative non-fiction based on the author's experiences of over ten years living and working in Russia; if it's a referenced academic study you want, this may not be the right place to start. I wouldn't be surprised if, to the avid Russia-watcher, there's little new here, and that it might trade in cliches; one phrase, that unique Moscow mix of tackiness and menace sums it up pretty well. But, surprised how little of this I'd heard in detail b 'Adventures' is the right word. This is exhilarating narrative non-fiction based on the author's experiences of over ten years living and working in Russia; if it's a referenced academic study you want, this may not be the right place to start. I wouldn't be surprised if, to the avid Russia-watcher, there's little new here, and that it might trade in cliches; one phrase, that unique Moscow mix of tackiness and menace sums it up pretty well. But, surprised how little of this I'd heard in detail before - bar the inevitable news stories about Putin and Ukraine and Sochi, a BBC programme, Rich, Russian & Living in London, and the documentary Vlast (the rise and fall of Khodorovsky, available on some flavours of Netflix) - I found this a frightening and enthralling trip; Alice hurtling down a glittering rabbit-hole. The fascination with Russia, maybe more so to those who have roots in nearby countries that feel the Great Bear breathing down their necks, sometimes strikes me as similar to being hypnotised by the mingled beauty and danger of a large predator. Russia is not a topic I'm consistently into, as the ignorance indicates, but sometimes I'm focused enough to notice the unusual and compelling nature of it as an interest. (It's one of those countries, isn't it? There are Francophiles, Anglophiles, Russophiles: few nations have the long history of cultural reach that means there's a ready made word for interest in them.)

This is a short book and a fast, exciting read; the author worked predominantly in TV, including reality shows; whilst the subjects are screen-friendly, potential for sensationalism is offset to an extent by good writing and a reasonable amount of depth and understanding of complexity. I had two books around from the Samuel Johnson Prize longlist for 2015; wanted to finish one of them before the shortlist announcement tomorrow - and much as I love Bruce Robinson's writing, this stood a better chance than an 800-pager. Whilst reading Pomerantsev, I thought 'wow' and 'phew' every now and again, thinking there's no way they can't shortlist this; but several hours after finishing it, I thought it perhaps could have explored more aspects of the country (there's very little on the lives of poorer Russians, apart from young girls hoping to bag a 'Forbes'), or looked for anti-stereotypical subjects. So far it's sticking in my mind in the same way a light TV documentary would.

As the book fleshed out what I already knew, its contents is already starting to feel familiar; well of course, naturally that thing was there. Yet whilst reading it felt so topsy-turvy.
Desperate school leavers compete to become a millionaire's or expat's mistress, in a world like the football WAG nightclubs, turned up to twenty and with greater threat of violence. (One girl, from Dagestan lived with the ultimate contrast that her sister was a hijab-wearing jihadi wannabe - Wahabi fundamentalists are actively recruiting in Central Asia.) But what are these girls' other options? What do their "sensible" classmates do?
And what about strong, stern women in their forties and fifties, the real foundations of the Russian state? They flit past once or twice, but we never meet any. Have they been replaced in reality as well as national image by these coltish, highlighted, whatever-he-wants dollybirds? (Surprisingly, a new sitcom is described as the first show in Russia in which women are stronger than men. Yet the formidable matriarch has long seemed part of the country's image in the West, and I've noticed it in not a few Russian films.)

The Kremlin's network of influence has co-opted most ideologies and aesthetics, with pet oppositionists (an idea taken literally in one of the communist-era satirical stories in The Elephant) of all stripes who are never too successful - made to look a bit silly and out of touch, in a world where one can apparently *say* almost anything, but it won't *change* anything unless it dovetails with a bigwig's intentions. However, if you start digging up the trails of corrupt money, you're in very big trouble, very quickly. Having undoubtedly read their Debord, Huxley & Orwell, they've got the society of the spectacle, the co-opting of the language of democracy for undemocratic ends, and the mass entertainments down pat. The TV station where Pomerantsev worked (he's the son of Soviet parents who emigrated to Britain in the 70s) runs on hyperactive bright colours and positive stories meant to appeal to ordinary young Russians. I was probably more ignorant of Russia Today than many of my friends, but now it makes sense - the way some of the content is considered interesting, and at other times it's denigrated as crude propaganda: they deliberately intersperse the pro-Putin stuff with Westerners who appeal to politics outside the mainstream (including Julian Assange, Nigel Farrage and George Galloway), in order to widen their audience with foreigners dissatisfied with their home status quo, and give an illusion of a general freedom of speech that doesn't apply to any of their Russian journalists who think of running anti-Putin stories.

There are oligarchs and gold-diggers here, and of course also gangsters. The gangster hegemony has been over for a while - most of the guys are dead, in prison or in more respectable professions. Some of them got rich, but one very entertaining example of Pomerantsev's acquanitance, Vitaly Djomotchka, taught himself filmmaking via watching classic films whilst living out in the Siberian sticks near Vladivostok, made a TV series about gangsters with a cast of his mates, threatened a station into showing it, and when it turned out to be surprisingly good, became a director and popular novelist (I was reminded somewhat of Jimmy Boyle as described in Sebastian Horsley's Dandy in the Underworld, though Djomotchka sounds more commercially talented and not quite so chaotic) ... But the Kremlin decided it didn't want so many gangster stories on film any more: now he's down on his luck, living in a jeep, albeit still with some underworld pull. (This was not the first occasion when I wondered if the author was burning his bridges by writing about people, and how much his book cost him in contacts and friendships.) Gangsters themselves may no longer be in fashion, but as Pomerantsev puts it, their behaviour has become the norm among powerful people in New Russia: dictatorial pressure, threats, violence, whims turning on a sixpence and woe betide those who don't keep up like good little chameleons. I like it when writers manage to describe psychological states without resorting to terminology; good jargon free description can also convey experience and atmosphere more - but, breaking my own rule about casual use of these terms, it's as if the system runs on psychopathy and narcissism. (It's widely agreed that there is a certain amount of those in politicians and business leaders everywhere, but in dictatorships like Russia it's blatant and uncontrolled with little attempt to window-dress or play nice.) Ordinary, potentially decent Russians are cynical, resigned to the idea that things are bad everywhere else anyway; the masks they repeatedly switch between for different areas of life seem more pervasive and oppressive than those many Westerners also need. It's sad given the great artistic history of the country, and all those people stuck there, the promise of the perestroika years not having paid off. Pomerantsev makes it sound as if the country has rarely been different. (Another continuity is popular interest in mysticism, cults and alleged healers - and there seems to be no equivalent of Dawkins keen to debunk.) A TV poll to find the country's greatest leader in history was being won by Stalin, so the station rigged it. (Other candidates like Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great were also autocrats of one stripe or another. Incidentally, when I was a kid I read the story of Peter the Great cutting beards and saw it as mischievous: now that response rather horrifies me - regardless of my being less of a fan of beards than most people in 2015 - and it sounds like a violation of physical integrity, the ruler even controlling the subject's body, and a particular shock to people who would not have expected it.) The winner of the rigged poll was Aleksander Nevsky, ostensibly a gallant medieval knight from too long ago to be controversial: but he was involved in tax farming and quelling and killing other rebellious Russian princelings for his Mongol suzerain. I've seen it said elsewhere that it's wrong to suggest that Russians don't quite know how to be ruled by anyone other than a dictator, will always revert to type (like a person whose patterns of abusive relationships are ingrained by repetition throughout life), and that it's impossible for the place to change. (One individual can do therapy - but millions?) Pomerantsev is no fatalist, though he shows a country with such deep and widespread habitual corruption that it implicitly seems impossible to change given the vast size of the place. But practical possibilities for reform are not what this polaroid book even pretends to deal with.

Social issues that take up a lot of time in our media only get a brief mention here, though Pomerantsev does echo what's heard in greater detail elsewhere. Those officially permitted to speak out about LGBT rights (without changing anything) include a pet-oppositionist TV channel called SNOB, acronym almost certainly intentional, deliberately characterised as young urban hipsters who are out of touch with the concerns of ordinary Russians. Racism comes up via the story of one of my favourite characters in the book, who also has a mixed-race marriage and children. They are a tiny minority and there are no other black kids at their school, despite living in the capital, and bullying sounds frequent. I thought of The Underground by Hamid Ismailov, in which a mixed race Russian boy in the 80s and 90s is even more isolated and mocked, without the advantage of educated parents or stable home. The father discusses emigrating so his kids can have a better life with less discrimination, although when the book was written he was still in Russia. Racism against the much larger Central Asian population is also frequent and faces few repercussions: the growing Russian nationalist right, increasingly favoured by the Kremlin, has [oxy]moronic opinions whereby they want 'Greater Russia' to regain her historic lands, yet they regard Central Asians as dirty 'churoks, who should go home - the usual crap one hears from neo-fascists - and that implicitly casts them as foreigners. Grassroots anger at this attitude fuels the growth of Muslim fundamentalism; and according to one college lecturer, young people in the region, religious or no, don't feel Russian in the way that his generation felt Soviet.

There weren't a whole lot of people to like among the cast of Nothing is True but three heroes stood out.
In vain, probably, I'd wanted to be shown someone nice I could kind of understand, someone more thoughtful than brash, imaginable perhaps as a friend of a friend. Finally: Alexander Mozhayev, the guy with the mixed-race family, a historian, psychogeographer and campaigner to save Moscow's old buildings from rapacious developers - and their paid arsonists - who use construction for money laundering and who don't even give a fuck about the tourist interest of the old structures, beyond replacing them with the occasional new-build replica. Few of the buildings are saved, because there are no useful legal remedies and those in power don't care about 'officially protected monuments', but Mozhayev at least writes about them beautifully. This book has no pictures, sadly.
‘Mozhayev is the city’s memory,’ a girl with orange pigtails tells me when I ask her why she has come [to a campaign]. ‘Before I had no idea about the city I grew up in.’
The following is the sort of life and person I and, doubtless others, would love to hear about in a book on Russians, but he has been swept off screen by the oligarchs, only present in this quote from one of Mozhayev's essays:
there was one first-floor flat, whose windows looked directly out onto the bench, which was pure Old Moscow, with a yellow low-hanging lampshade, and books stacked up to the ceiling where they seemed to be keeling over, and a big man with a big beard moving about with tea inside, and a cat that would fling itself repeatedly at the wood-framed windows.
...says Mozhayev as we walk. ‘To anyone familiar with Prague or London or Rome or Edinburgh, these old Moscow courtyards are probably of little interest. But he is too modest; the best enticement in the book to visit Russia is this, in Pomerantsev's words: the web of little lanes, courtyards, and alleyways that spreads in a horizontal swirl between the great trunks of the gargantuan Stalin-era avenues...The light is different here, darker and softer, the fresh snow reflecting back the remains of the day to underlight the crumbling lions and angels stuccoed onto buildings. Everything here is scuffed, textured, tawny, ragged, and lived in. Even the language here is different, full of sing-song and caressing, affectionate diminutives: ‘Come here my dovelet’; ‘My little bluebell.’ An almost rural mood of childhood, soft snow, and sleds. Here is the Moscow that existed before the Soviet experiment. Back in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries St Petersburg was the capital, the city of power, regime, order. Moscow was a backwater, the holiday city where you could sleep in late and spend the day in your pyjamas. Yet There isn’t a building that we walk past that wasn’t the scene of execution squads, betrayals, mass murders. The most gentle courtyards reveal the most awful secrets. And when such oppression has never been consigned to the past for more than a handful of years, you can't make spooky allure, ghost tours and the likes of the London Dungeon out of it: it's simply tragedy.

Pretty much the only Strong Female Character (TM) here is Yana Yakovleva, an entrepreneur who was imprisoned after a Kafkaesque regulatory change, resulting from a feud between two apparatchiks, made the standard cleaning products her firm imported illegal. She was lucky in being able to get out of this bureaucratic nightmare because her lawyer knew how to organise a campaign against the bigwigs, and Putin had decided to get rid of the officials because they were slipping up publicly and also presented a future challenge to him. Many others fall foul of powerful people who aren't out of favour and get consigned to jail for years, despite having done nothing wrong. It's a great story well told, and we're allowed to see different sides of Yakovleva, when she can't cope and when she can: Black is white and white is black. There is no reality. Whatever they say is reality. Yana began to scream. The more Yana screamed, the more guilty she looked: she saw herself for a second, a redhead with red eyes screaming in a cage in a courtroom. It's not just the heroics of ending up as a de-facto fitness instructor to her dozens of cellmates (doing things for others is a very fulfilling displacement activity), it's the white-knuckled clinging on: If she even started to negotiate, it would be like giving away a part of her sanity, letting them own and dictate what the truth was. And then everything would start to slip., and the tactical use of daydreams about a relationship that carried little hope if she'd probed the reality - yet without losing touch with what was real.

Near the end of the book, lawyer Jamison Firestone is introduced, via the story of his executed former colleague, Sergey Magnitsky, an anti-corruption hotshot who had got too far for the authorities' liking in uncovering signings-over of wrongly confiscated businesses and the state employees who profited. He says one of the problems I have living in London is that if I actually tell the truth about my story people just assume I’m lying. They never call me back. I’ve learned to just talk pleasantries...It’s just too weird - unless it's a context where he can show them corroborating news articles. Someone should make a movie about this guy. His father was a dodgy entrepreneur who tried to muscle in on his first Russian venture, hiring gangsters to threaten to break his colleagues' legs; he instead resigned, and the dad thankfully left Russia after the gangsters got out of control and stole company cars. He got away for a long time with not keeping his mouth shut, in a country where few can: The minister expected a polite answer, but Firestone told him publicly that while ministers and oligarchs were above the law, the country was fucked. He sacked clients' protection racketeers: ‘“You’re quite right. We didn’t understand. And I’m sure it’s our fault – but now that we understand the services you offer we don’t need them any more.” This balls-of-steel enterprise ended when Magnitsky was arrested and the rest of the firm fled down fire escapes at night, on to trains to Ukraine and planes west. No matter how good you are as a lawyer, you can't face down Putin when his machine has turned on you.

Whenever I read or watch something about Russia, I feel the weight of the hypothetical question: would I go there if I actually could? None of the other countries I have a yen to visit have undemocratic regimes. If I did go, I'd want to be very fit and know the language well (cue sitcom-style training montage with 'Eye of the Tiger', gym gear and headphones, including sudden yelp and hopping on one leg, clutching a knee in pain). Then there are the paranoid concerns like if it's better to leave laptops at home; even if only a Kinsey 2, make sure clothes are feminine, not potentially dykey, but easy to move in; and am I acquainted with too many journalists to be a random pleb. Which paranoia probably makes one more suspicious. But imagining being that person who feels just about tough enough (and that all the preparation and worry would probably mean an ordered, spectacularly uneventful touristy holiday) I find myself thinking that perhaps I wouldn't want to give my money, unflashy hostel fees and whatnot, to that country after all. But never quite sure, because it could be so interesting. ...more

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Apr 03, 2015 J. rated it really liked it

Shelves: russia, non-fiction

For the reader that chooses his writing on the elegance of its phrasing, the precision of its language, maybe this isn't a great book. Even for the reader who just wants a lively narrative venture-- maybe this isn't the book. (In fact, I read an Advance copy, unadorned by notes or index though complete with typos and awkward grammar at points).

But for the reader whose idea of Writing consists of witnessing the author engaged in a death struggle with his themes, perhaps even not knowing what a gi For the reader that chooses his writing on the elegance of its phrasing, the precision of its language, maybe this isn't a great book. Even for the reader who just wants a lively narrative venture-- maybe this isn't the book. (In fact, I read an Advance copy, unadorned by notes or index though complete with typos and awkward grammar at points).

But for the reader whose idea of Writing consists of witnessing the author engaged in a death struggle with his themes, perhaps even not knowing what a given theme might be called-- watching the elements of a million unrelated threads weave themselves into a worldview, and a record of a time and place-- Pomerantsev's Nothing Is True is a miraculous, if unwieldy, construction. And something not to be missed.

No plot, of course, a parade of characters that are perhaps not even real people, but what stunning atmospherics, the vibe of a vast dystopian novel put into terms that are disconcertingly for real.

It is Pomerantsev's thesis, one of many, that Russians were privy to a kind of inside track to Millennial Insanity, long before the turn of the century, or anything historical-iconic like the Internet or the world polarization of the 9-11 disaster. His book reads a little like the wry multi-voices of T.S. Elliot, another chronicler of ruined empire and consequent diaspora.

And as Russia can now be anywhere, as much in Paris or New York with the waves of outbound travelers, Pomerantsev finds London to be the exile of choice, the most compelling illustration of the New Moscow, and what has become of his country, his culture :

Past the bouncers outside and the girls smoking long, skinny cigarettes, past the tinted glass doors ... There are three floors. One floor is 'Asian', all black walls and plates. Another floor is 'Italian', with domino tiled floors and a faux thatched cottage in the corner. Downstairs is the bar-cum-club, in the style of a library in an English country house with wooden bookshelves and rows of hard-cover books... a series of quotes, of references wrapped in a tinted window void, shorn of their original memories and meanings (but so much colder and more distant that the accessible, colorful pastiche of somewhere like Las Vegas). This had always been the style and mood in the 'elite' 'VIP' places in Moscow, all along the Rublevka and in the Garden Ring, where the just-made rich exist in a great void where they can buy anything but nothing means anything because all of the old orders of meaning are gone. Here objects become unconnected to any binding force. Old Masters and English Boarding Schools and Faberge eggs all floating, suspended in a culture of zero gravity.

But now it's not just Moscow any more where this style resonates. Over in Bernie Arnaut's Bulgari Hotel, on the corner of Hyde Park, the most expensive hotel in London (rooms start at ₤850 a night, the penthouse is ₤14,000), the floors are black granite and the walls are black glass, with older men and younger women in the blackness hard, scowling and sparkling. The lost-in-new-wealth world of Moscow rises and blends with the sudden global money from all the emerging, expanding new economies. And the Russians are the pace-setters. Because they've been perfecting this for just a few years longer, because the learning curve was so much harder and faster when one Soviet world disappeared and they were all shot into cold space. They became post-Soviet a breath before the whole world went post-everything. Post-national and post-west and post-Bretton-Woods and post-whatever-else. The Gagarins of the culture of zero gravity.

Pomerantsev doesn't set up models or hypotheses about the concept of Russia; he gets out the shovel and finds where the bodies are buried. Describing as he goes, the layers of mystification and disorientation as the truth is disinterred. Bitter, rueful, yes, and no conclusion to ruin the macabre scenery; Nothing Is True is a picaresque without a center, a grim account of lost souls.

...more

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Nov 11, 2014 Ted Lehmann rated it it was amazing

I fear that Nothing is True and Everything is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia by Peter Pomerantsev (Public Affairs, 2014, 254 pages, $25.99/14.49) will not be widely enough read nor deeply enough covered by the main stream media to have it gain the sort of attention it deserves. This is an important book presenting the world of contemporary Russia in all the vivid complexity and corrupt duplicity which everyone should be aware of and seek to bring to heel. Since Russia is a land wo I fear that Nothing is True and Everything is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia by Peter Pomerantsev (Public Affairs, 2014, 254 pages, $25.99/14.49) will not be widely enough read nor deeply enough covered by the main stream media to have it gain the sort of attention it deserves. This is an important book presenting the world of contemporary Russia in all the vivid complexity and corrupt duplicity which everyone should be aware of and seek to bring to heel. Since Russia is a land working without a moral compass, a place where how things look and are presented have become reality for those living and working there, its ability to morph to meet current circumstances and to insert itself into supposedly sacrosanct institutions in the “free” world like London banks, world fashion, film, and the NBA always gaining power and weakening free institutions, appears inevitable and almost unlimited. Pomerantsev, a documentary film maker, worked for Russian TV during the first decade of this country, writes with cinematic vigor and intense personal detail, using the reality of his subjects to document the moral and spiritual corruption of Russia's recovery from the collapse of the Soviet Union and Vladimir Putin's emergence as a new and ever more powerful twenty-first century dictator committed to restoring Russian power and influence.

Pomerantsev is a British journalist/film maker of Russian heritage who spent a decade mostly in Russia working as a producer for Russian TV network TNT, which is one of Russia's top five television networks specializing in portraying a light and humorous view of life. During his years in Russia, Pomerantsev produced a series which profiled the lives and experiences of the rich and glamorous Russians who emerged on the world scene among the beautiful and powerful people. His profiles of individual lifestyle and fashion leaders become increasingly dark as Pomerantsev realizes he's participating in helping create a vision of beauty, success, and happiness in a world dominated by corruption, greed, and an ethic emphasizing that PR, how things appear, eventually becomes the reality the masses believe in, masking the real abuses of freedom, power, expression, and liberty now dominating the reality of Russia and finding their greatest expression in the annexation of Crimea and the current efforts to reclaim ethnic Russian portions of the Ukraine. Perhaps the most frequently used word in the entire book is “corrupt” and its variations.

In Nothing is True and Everything is Possible, Pomerantsev describes the constant remaking of Moscow, historic buildings and neighborhoods torn down to replace them with series of cheesy upscale high rise towers mimicking the posh buildings of Paris, London, New York, and Monte Carlo. Young entrepreneurs, often former gangsters, live in luxury while always on the edge of having it all pulled out from under them if they stray too far from the currently emerging version of 21st century Russia. The power of Pomerantsev's writing lies in the vivid profiles he writes of a number of representative individuals who become metaphors for the corruption of the whole. He pictures unbelievably beautiful Russian girls who've come to Moscow to find a “Forbes” (rich business men who will enter their lives and make them over). Fueled by sex and booze in Moscow's steamy night spots, the girls, who are known as “cattle” to the Forbses, make themselves fully available and are cast aside when the next one comes along. He profiles Vitally, a former gangster whose school was prison. Vitally rises and falls at the Kremlin's will, but he is a chameleon whose colors change fast enough for him to, perhaps, survive. This isn't a portrait of a country in transition, but some sort of post-modern dictatorship using the language and institutions of democratic capitalism for authoritarian ends. The horrors of double think and double speak bring Orwell's 1984 to life a generation after the year has passed. The remainder of my review can be found on my blog (Google: Bluegrass Ted) as well as a portal to Amazon where you can purchase it to help support my blog. Thanks ...more

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Apr 28, 2016 Anna rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I remember reading an article about this book, probably in the Guardian, at some point in the past. The title was particularly memorable and is very apposite. Pomerantsev takes the reader on a disorientating mini-tour of 21st century Russia, with a focus on the media. It isn’t a linear or thematically structured narrative so much as a series of extended anecdotes connected by meditations on Russian society and culture. The overall effect is unsettling, as well it might be. 'Nothing is True and I remember reading an article about this book, probably in the Guardian, at some point in the past. The title was particularly memorable and is very apposite. Pomerantsev takes the reader on a disorientating mini-tour of 21st century Russia, with a focus on the media. It isn’t a linear or thematically structured narrative so much as a series of extended anecdotes connected by meditations on Russian society and culture. The overall effect is unsettling, as well it might be. 'Nothing is True and Everything is Possible' depicts a country unmoored, with no rule of law, no economic policy, and no real political opposition. All this has become normalised and accepted, through skillful Kremlin manipulation.

That’s a bald and tedious summary of the book, though. I read it in one sitting, as the journalistic style is very digestible and the content so incredible. The people and events Pomerantsev recounts include catwalk models in strange cults, self-mythologising gangsters, internecine political warfare that causes ordinary people to doubt reality, oligarchs (of course), and the surreal world of Russian TV. The latter is the most fascinating aspect of the book. The 'Russian point of view' advanced on the Russia Today channel apparently involves co-opting all kinds of potential opposition, presenting a range of commentary to create confusion, and simply repeating bald lies. Pomerantsev notes that the channel uses Western media cliches in a reducto ad absurdum, a triumph of subjectivity in which truth becomes a meaningless concept. It's also pretty clear that there's no separation between politics, the economy, and the media. The rulers of each are the same and proximity to the Kremlin is everything. As Pomerantsev puts it:

The victims I meet never talk of human rights or democracy; the Kremlin has long learned to use this language and has eaten up all the space within which and opposition could articulate itself. The rage is more inchoate: hatred of the cops, the army. Or, blame it all on foreigners. Some teens, the anarchists and artists, have started to gather and protest, rushing out of the metro and cutting off the roads and the main squares. They call their gatherings ‘monstrations’ and carry absurdist barriers:

‘The sun is your enemy’
‘We will make the English Japanese’
‘Eifiyatoloknu for president’

The only response to the absurdity of the Kremlin is to be absurd back.

The book ends by recounting the export of Russian money and mores to London. Whilst reading, I couldn't help thinking that the situation in Russia is only a more extreme manifestation of neoliberal politics in the UK. (Moreover, the pervasive Russian use of the term 'effective' reminded me of the ubiquitous 'efficient'.) There is definitely a continuum between the two and I don't think the UK is moving in the right direction along it. Certainly, reading this makes you doubt the comfortable feeling that such things could never happen over here. In my view, the most unsettling element of the book is this quote from a member of the Kremlin youth group:

"Politics is the ability to use any situation to advance your own status," Sergey told me with a smile that seemed to mimic Surkov’s (whose in turn mimics the KGB men's). "How do you define your political views?" I asked him. He looked at me like I was a fool to ask, then smiled, "I’m a liberal… It can mean anything!"

...more

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Ilse Fascinating review, Anna, I’m adding this as a next read when done with Figes’ Revolutionary Russia 1891-1991. Your observation on the vexing omnipres ...more
Dec 01, 2015 07:58AM

Anna Thanks Ilse. I definitely recommend 'Nothing is True and Everything is Possible' and it should make a great companion to 'Revolutionary Russia'. Hope ...more
Dec 01, 2015 04:26PM

Chas Without Russia there would be no Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, no From Russia with Love. The history of Europe would be extremely lopsided, 'Bleeding ...more
Dec 14, 2015 01:26PM

Apr 07, 2015 Dianne rated it really liked it

Shelves: best-of-2015

A revealing look at the trippy nightmare that is modern Russia. Riveting - a bit much by the end and it's hard to keep all of the players and their various incarnations straight but very, very interesting.

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Sep 02, 2014 Christopher May rated it it was amazing

Shelves: first-reads

When looking at the "new" Russia and its leadership, I can't help but wonder about the country sometimes. What's going on over there? What is the story with Putin? Is the real Russia the one of beauty portrayed during the Sochi Olympics or the one that is supporting rebels that shoot down passenger planes? When I read about Peter Pomerantsev and his background, I had a hope that he would be uniquely positioned to tell the story of today's Russia. I wasn't disappointed.

Nothing Is True and Everyth When looking at the "new" Russia and its leadership, I can't help but wonder about the country sometimes. What's going on over there? What is the story with Putin? Is the real Russia the one of beauty portrayed during the Sochi Olympics or the one that is supporting rebels that shoot down passenger planes? When I read about Peter Pomerantsev and his background, I had a hope that he would be uniquely positioned to tell the story of today's Russia. I wasn't disappointed.

Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible proved to be a very, very fascinating read. Pomerantsev provides a series of vignettes during his time in Russia working for the television industry. The stories are fascinating, but also a little scary. Everything seems to be corruption and spin. They also highlight an interesting aspect of modern Russia. In this country flush with new money, searching for a national identity seems to be the standard. I was particularly struck by a quote from Alexander Mozhahev -- a crusader trying to save historical buildings in Moscow that all too often are casualties of this identity search:

"Every new regime rebuilds the past so radically. Lenin and Trotsky ripping up the memory of the tsars, Stalin ripping up the memory of Trotsky, Khrushchev of Stalin, Brezhnev of Khrushchev; perestroika gutting the whole Communist century...and every time the heroes turn to villains, saviors are rewritten as devils, the names of streets are changed, faces [are] scrubbed out from photographs, encyclopedias [are] re-edited. And so every regime destroys and rebuilds the previous city."

I highly recommend picking up a copy of this book, especially when you watch the news and see stories about downed Boeing 777's and a new era of East-West face-offs in places like the Ukraine. It'll be enlightening and fascinating, although possibly a little frightening. I'll close this review with another quote from the book -- this from lawyer Jamison Morrison:

"We used to have this self-centered idea that Western democracies were the end point of evolution, and we're dealing from a position of strength, and people are becoming like us. It's not that way. Because if you think this thing we have here isn't fragile you are kidding yourself."

Maybe it's time to take a closer look at Russia? ...more

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Apr 10, 2015 Bill rated it it was ok

Disjointed accounts of how screwed up Russia is linked by some pretty weak pop psychology. A few interesting stories keep this book from being a total waste if time.

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May 11, 2016 Linda rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, journalism, russian-literature

The journalist Peter Pomerantsev describes a Russia where the boundaries have become blurred and surrealism rules. So-called city engineers corrupts, gangsters have become actors and so-called gold diggers live in a district near rich men's residential areas to be available (they get a salary and free accommodation). Police change laws over night to frame companies. Buildings are demolished and rebuilt. There is a world of bribes, threats, oligarchs, mafia, mystics and glittering super models.

Pe The journalist Peter Pomerantsev describes a Russia where the boundaries have become blurred and surrealism rules. So-called city engineers corrupts, gangsters have become actors and so-called gold diggers live in a district near rich men's residential areas to be available (they get a salary and free accommodation). Police change laws over night to frame companies. Buildings are demolished and rebuilt. There is a world of bribes, threats, oligarchs, mafia, mystics and glittering super models.

Peter Pomerantsev was born in Kiev in 1977. The family emigrated to London, but he returned to Moscow, and after graduation he began working as a producer of entertaining documentaries on the TV-channel TNT. Through his work, he has many acquaintainces, everything from powerful people to previous gangsters who play themselves in movies.

Peter Pomerantsev describes how the politicians insinuate themselves into ideologies and movements, exploit them and make them totally surreal. He claims that even the opposition is part of the propaganda, ”constructed and financed in a way that actually strengthens the Kremlin” (my translation).

People have learned to play different roles. "The Soviet stagnation led to perestroika, which led to the collapse of the USSR, liberal euphoria, economic disaster, oligarchy and a mafia state." (my translation). What was left? A world where nothing is true and everything is possible. Moscow is described as a changing shape, "an oligarchy in the morning and a democracy in the afternoon, a monarchy during dinner and a dictatorship at bedtime.” (my translation). The corruption apparently knows no boundaries, and the people that adapt are the ones who survive. They changed from communists to capitalists, but it is not enough. Bribes are needed for everything from receiving driving license to be able to avoid military service, according to Peter Pomerantsev.

The architecture testifies to Russia's multiple identities. "The city writhes in pain, while twenty-first century Russia seeks, flees, returns, denies and invents itself again." (my translation). Countless buildings have been torn down and rebuilt, but often remain empty because "real estate is the most effective way for moneylaundering” (my translation).

The book depicts the uncertainty in a society without guarantees. The chemist Jana Yakovleva, who runs a business with cleaning agents, was arrested for drug dealing. Peter Pomerantsev claims that FSKN, the Federeal drug control service of Russia, had changed the rules for chemicals over night to be able to frame her. He states that business competitors or bureaucrats' pay security services to seize a company; while they are in prison they seize their registration documents, the company is re-registered with other owners, and when the original owners are released, the company has been bought and sold and broken-up by new owners. ”It is the most common way to take over companies in Russia”, and it is the way the Russian elite earned their first money, he claims.

One of the most frightening parts of the book is that of the media. "There is no such thing as objective journalism," claims the editor of Russia Today. One of the producers of the channel Ostankino explains: "During the past twenty years we have lived through a communism we never believed in, a democracy and economic collapse and mafia government and the oligarchy, and we have realized that everything is an illusion, that everything is PR " (my translation).

At the end of the book, the influence of Russia is described. Approximately 400 billion are exported from Russia every year and London is regarded as "a perfect hangout for money laundering: there are brilliant lawyers who protect the stolen assets, great bankers who move money, and police officers who don’t ask where it came from." (my translation).

The book is very interesting, but there could have been more information about certain people. But, never the less, it's fascinating to read about Russia from this perspective. Peter Pomerantsev is critical, but he is equally critical of himself (which is positive, because certain topics are sensitive and easy to attack and exaggerate). "Despite all our claims to depict the real, documentary filmmakers are always manipulators, viziers in miniature who seduce, shape, invent our protagonists ... Afterwards, we will be persecuted by those holograms that we have created. The feelings that our protagonists once poured out remains within us. And we begin to live in the parallel reality of the video ghosts." (my translation). A player in the world of surrealism. ...more

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Nov 08, 2015 Dasha rated it it was amazing

Пітер читається пожадливо. Шляхом вегетативного розмноження російська реальність розщеплюється на численні паралельні виміри сенсів і переконань, витвореними найефективнішим тут альянсом політтехнологів і кінорежисерів, але найвлучніший образ, що застряг у мене в голові - це завершення комп’ютерного пасьянсу: щойно всі карти складені, їх, немовби у наркотичному рейві, випльовується ціла множинність, королів і королев безперестанку лихоманить. І цей процес ніяк не зупинити, хіба розпочати нову Пітер читається пожадливо. Шляхом вегетативного розмноження російська реальність розщеплюється на численні паралельні виміри сенсів і переконань, витвореними найефективнішим тут альянсом політтехнологів і кінорежисерів, але найвлучніший образ, що застряг у мене в голові - це завершення комп’ютерного пасьянсу: щойно всі карти складені, їх, немовби у наркотичному рейві, випльовується ціла множинність, королів і королев безперестанку лихоманить. І цей процес ніяк не зупинити, хіба розпочати нову партію, знаючи, що вона закінчиться тим самим, чи зовсім вимкнути гру.
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Коли я питаю своїх російських начальників, старих телевізійних продюсерів і представників ЗМІ, які керують цієї системою, що означало рости в пізньосовєтську епоху, чи вірили вони в комуністичну ідеологію, яка їх оточувала, вони завжди відповідали сміхом.
- Не будь дурним, - казала більшість із них.
- Але чи ви співали пісні? Чи були хорошими комсомольцями?
- Звісно, співали й отримували від цього задоволення. А одразу після цього слухали “Deep Purple” i BBC.
- То ви були дисидентами? Ви вірили у крах СССР?
- Ні. Все було не так. Ти просто одночасно розмовляєш кількома мовами - і так увесь час. Існувало нібито кілька твоїх особистостей.
З цієї точки зору, велика драма Росії - це не “перехід” від комунізму до капіталізму, від одного завзято сповідуваного набору переконань до іншого, а те, що протягом останніх десятиліть СССР ніхто не вірив у комунізм, але всі й далі поводилися так, немовби вірили, а тепер вони можуть лише створити суспільство симуляції. Тому це залишається поширеною, щоденною психологією: останкінські продюсери, які вдень створюють новини, де обожнюється Президент, а потім, тільки-но йдуть із роботи, перемикаються на опозиційне радіо; політтехнологи, що з неабиякою легкістю змінюються від ролі до ролі - націоналісти-автократи в один момент, а наступного вже ліберали-естети; “православні” олігархи, що співають гімни російському консерватизму - і тримають свої гроші та родини в Лондоні. В усіх культурах існують відмінності між “публічною” та “приватною” іпостассю людини, але в Росії суперечність між ними сягає крайнощів.
І йдучи Москвою, що задихається від диму, я бачу, як топографія міста артикулює ці поділи: агресивні проспекти з їхніми баронами-чиновниками, хабарами і перевертнями в погонах, де єдиний спосіб виживання - стати такими ж корумпованими, як і вони, а за кілька метрів від них - тихі дворики з майже буколічним настроєм і провінційним уявленнями про порядність. Раніше я думав, що ці два світи конфліктують, але правда в тому, що вони перебувають у симбіозі. Майже так, немовби однієї миті вам рекомендують мати одну ідентичність, а наступної - другу. Таким чином ви завжди розщеплені на на невелечкі фраґменти, і зовсім ніяк не здатні серйозно поставитися до зміни ситуації. Як наслідок, ви дедалі частіше стикаєтеся тут із дещо агресивною апатією. Цей базовий світогляд лежав в основі СССР і тепер підтримується в новій Росії, навіть попри те, що СССР уже давно офіційно не існує. Але це розщеплення також надзвичайно зручне: ви всю свою провину можете списати на свою “публічну” іпостась. І це не ви розкрадаєте бюджет / створюєте пропаґандистські шоу / схиляєте коліна перед президентом, а це просто роль, яку ви граєте. Насправді ж ви добра людина. І тут не йдеться про самозречення. І навіть не про притлумлювання страшних таємниць. Вам видно все, що ви робите, всі свої гріхи. Ви просто реорганізовуєте своє емоційне життя так, щоб не турбуватись. ...more

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May 05, 2015 Tanja Berg rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction

The author is a British TV journalist with Russian parents. He lived many years in Russia and this books gives insight to some of the people he met. The society as a whole can be seen as reflection in the individual stories shown here and it is a bizarre world.

"This isn't a country in transition but some sort of postmodern dictatorship that uses the language and institutions of democratic capitalism for authoritarian ends."

And furthermore:

"The Kremlin has finally mastered the art of fusing real ...more

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Oct 16, 2015 Athena Matisse rated it liked it

3.5/5
-It took me 2 months to read this book.
-I found that this book had only one point and it stretched it out for as long as possible.
-I felt that the narrative style made it sound like it wasn't real, but then it was based on his actual experiences and real events so it was hard to tie that together in my head.

However, I absolutely loved some of the stories. I found the actual content of the book to be incredibly interesting and insightful. The stories of the women in particular peaked my int ...more

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Nov 17, 2015 فهد الفهد rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction-politics

لا شيء حقيقي، وكل شيء ممكن

كتاب كتب كتقرير صحفي طويل عن الواقع الروسي، مع التركيز على شخصيات روسية من رجال عصابات وعارضات منتحرات. لا شيء مميز.

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Aug 20, 2016 Myra rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: best-of-2016, homo-sovieticus

Šią ir kitas mano apžvalgas galima rasti štai čia: http://knygoholike.blogspot.lt/2016/0...

Aš jau ne kartą esu minėjusi ir dar sykį pasikartosiu: klaidą daro tie, kurie bijo negrožinės literatūros. Jokio rašytojo sukurtas pasaulis neprilygs realybei, savo pagreičiu lekiančiai nežinia kur. Kaip, pavyzdžiui, dabar Rusijoje. Tai tik įrodo Peterio Pomerantsevo knyga "Niekas nėra tiesa ir viskas yra įmanoma. Nuotykiai naujojoje Rusijoje".

P. Pomerantsevas - Rusijos išeivių vaikas, augęs Londone ir kur Šią ir kitas mano apžvalgas galima rasti štai čia: http://knygoholike.blogspot.lt/2016/0...

Aš jau ne kartą esu minėjusi ir dar sykį pasikartosiu: klaidą daro tie, kurie bijo negrožinės literatūros. Jokio rašytojo sukurtas pasaulis neprilygs realybei, savo pagreičiu lekiančiai nežinia kur. Kaip, pavyzdžiui, dabar Rusijoje. Tai tik įrodo Peterio Pomerantsevo knyga "Niekas nėra tiesa ir viskas yra įmanoma. Nuotykiai naujojoje Rusijoje".

P. Pomerantsevas - Rusijos išeivių vaikas, augęs Londone ir kuriam laikui grįžęs į Rusiją. Jis - žurnalistas, prodiuseris, dokumentinių filmų kūrėjas. Rusijoje jis įsidarbino televizijoje ir kūrė laidas bei filmus apie neįtikėtinas asmenybes, įvykius, reiškinius. Šioje šalyje įmanoma viskas.

Ne Amerika turėtų būti laikoma neribotų galimybių šalimi, o Rusija. Sėkmės recepto čia nėra. Prabanga, sektos, machinacijos. Profesionalios vyrų medžiotojos, nusikaltėliai, kuriantys filmus, kaimiečiai, kuriantys Kremliaus propagandą. Regis, kuo keistesnį planą sugalvosi, tuo jį sėkmingiau įgyvendinsi Rusijoje.

Kartais pradedi skaityti naują skyrių ir galvoji, kad čia P. Pomerantsevas pristato kokio nors šou ar filmo scenarijų. Bet ne - paaiškėja, kad tai realybė. Pavyzdžiui, kaip skyriuje apie vienos Rusijos chemijos įmonės vadovę Janą, kuri tapo valstybės machinacijų auka. Kremlius kartais "pravalo" privatų verslą, nacionalizuoja įmones arba perduoda savo patikėtiniams. Taip atsitiko ir Janai, kuri buvo apkaltinta narkotikų laikymų ir pardavimu. Narkotiku buvo įvardinta medžiaga, bet kurios chemijos įmonė dirbti negalėtų. Tas pats, kas batų parduotuvės savininką į kalėjimą uždarytum už tai, kad jis pardavinėjo batus.

"Greitai, - rašė Jana, - kalėjimas atrodys kaip universiteto absolvenčių susitikimas. Aš vėl bijau. Kam turėčiau ruoštis? Blogiausiam? Ar man jau reikėtų su visais atsisveikinti? Laikas eina, o niekas nesikeičia. Aš čia tokia pat, kaip visos kitos. Čia visai nesvarbu, ar tu turtinga, ar vargšė. Ši sistema grobia žmones iš gatvės, iš darbo, iš namų ir juos suėda. Niekas nežino, kada taip gali atsitikti jiems."

Pasaulis šioje knygoje toks keistas ir siurrealus, kad negali atsikratyti minties, kad skaitai romaną. Kokį Peleviną ar Gavelio "Vilniaus pokerį". Tiesiog keista, viskas žiauriai keista. Tai tikras darniai veikiančios visuomenės antonimas.

Šiek tiek yra ir spragų: pasakojimas ne itin sklandus, šiek tiek padrikas. P. Pomerantsevas nesiūlo jokių gelbėjimo planų, nedaro ir išvadų. Panašu, kad jis neturėjo ir plano: tiesiog norėjo papasakoti "apie viską ir apie nieką": tą, ką jis pamatė per savo gyvenimo Rusijoje metus, kas jį patį stebino ir glumino.

"- Ko jūs norite iš Maskvos, Piteri? - paklausė jis manęs kitą kartą, kai gėrėme ryškiai mėlyną kokteilį.
- Tai kylantis miestas. Vis aukštyn ir aukštyn.
- Tik užsienietis taip gali galvoti. Šis miestas ryja pats save."

Man teko gyventi metus musulmoniškoje šalyje, bet aš ten nepatyriau kultūrinio šoko. Jį aš patyriau per mėnesį Rusijoje. Ir, padedama šios knygos, aš tą kultūrinį šoką išgyvenau iš naujo.
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Feb 09, 2015 Jakey Gee rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2015

Excellent.

No great surprises here for the seasoned Russia-watcher, but this book captures the general awfulness of contemporary Russia and of the Putin era very well. All told, it’s the kind of thing you want to buy for anyone who hasn’t been and still thinks Russia - as it generally runs in the UK - as either a) all Pushkin and balaikas and Hermitage or b) some sort of pre-1989 prison camp.

At many points I found myself thinking: yes, exactly. Exactly.

He’s spot on when it comes to everyday li Excellent.

No great surprises here for the seasoned Russia-watcher, but this book captures the general awfulness of contemporary Russia and of the Putin era very well. All told, it’s the kind of thing you want to buy for anyone who hasn’t been and still thinks Russia - as it generally runs in the UK - as either a) all Pushkin and balaikas and Hermitage or b) some sort of pre-1989 prison camp.

At many points I found myself thinking: yes, exactly. Exactly.

He’s spot on when it comes to everyday living in a Mafia state: the pervasive sense that ‘this is for show’, that ‘nothing is real’ and that real power is happening way beyond you. That everything done and said is ‘just PR’. Talking the talk during the day, then mouthing off about the regime in the evening. He also gets the cultural landscape very well. Tackiness and menace - bravo. A good eye for Russian racism too - the hilarity of wanting an empire back, but hating the people that happen to live in that empire.

At the higher level, it’s damning too. Government co-opts the language of democracy and consensus, while using all the tools of the personality cult and high Stalinism. So, fake politics and fake parties. State-sponsored homophobia. A corrupt judiciary. Corrupt driving tests. Fabricated TV news. Watching 120+ people choke to death after a theatre siege by not getting round to letting anyone know how they’d been gassed - and not being taken to task.

Whence the dreadful Russia Today, currently being gobbled up by the European far right and far left and imploring us to look for that 'second opinion' (from a regime that kills second opinions in their apartment elevator if they're persistent enough). It’s brilliantly awful - ingeniously exploiting the moral relativist, moral equivalent-seeking, ‘whatabout’ tendency that’s afflicting the impressionable among us. Putin lies? Tony Blair lied! Russia invaded Ukraine? Well, The UK invaded Iraq! Russia jails dissidents? Assange is a dissident! That 21st take on the Soviet ‘А у вас негров линчуют’ / ‘And you are lynching blacks’ gambit (forgetting for a moment that if you’re not white and have blue eyes in Russia, you’re a ‘black’ too).

It’s all particularly refreshing and compelling as it all comes from a man who has been able to function day to day there and who is in some respects completely at ease at establishment parties and in government-run TV firms. He’s a brave man.

I studied Russian in the nineties. The academics were for the most part wildly, wildly deluded about the place - thinking of Russia as this sweet Mediterranean romance of apple-cheeked babushki, wooden huts and Akhmatova. Utter saps, really. This is the kind of book you’d want to force them to read at gunpoint. ...more

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Feb 01, 2015 Laura rated it liked it

Shelves: memoir-biography, audio-books, russian-fiction, history, russia, read-2015

From BBC Radio 4 - Book of the Week"In the early 2000s, Peter Pomerantsev (Kiev-born, raised in England; the son of Russian political exiles) came to Moscow to work in the fast-growing television and film industry. The job gave him first hand access to every nook and corrupt cranny of the country. He was perfectly placed to witness the transformation of the New Russia on its journey from communist collapse to a new form of dictatorship.

In a series of character studies, the subjects of Pomerantse ...more

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Sep 15, 2014 Christine rated it it was amazing

What great timing for the publication of this book. I kept recounting bits that I read to anyone near me as I found new and amazing items of information.
Russia is portrayed in a variety of ways that we westerners do not fully understand in spite of the massive changes over recent years: we think we know about the young women like Oliona, looking for a rich billionaire like Berezovsky, but it is still a complex society with fear and mistrust running through it, as well as a well-established cult ...more

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Aug 19, 2015 Daniel Simmons rated it really liked it

"Soviet stagnation led to perestroika, which led to the collapse of the Soviet Union, liberal euphoria, economic disaster, oligarchy, and the mafia state. How can you believe in anything when everything around you is changing so fast?" (p. 84). Pomerantsev's answer: well, you can't, really. He offers here a wide-eyed (but far from naive), fizzy, fascinating look at modern Russia's elites and trendsetters that tickles and disturbs in equal measure, as his cast of supermodels, TV producers, cult ...more

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Mar 23, 2015 David Dinaburg rated it really liked it

Everything is thawing in New York City and all I want are long distance runs. It is easy to forget the traffic lights and crowds of tourists and the fluctuations in body temperature as you dart between the scorching blasts of sunlight and the frigid shade cast by the monumental, tomb-like superstructures dotting the skyline and idealize the act of outside running during the long, silent winters.

“Silent” is a rhapsodic, non-applicable term for running in the winter—though one may hold an image o Everything is thawing in New York City and all I want are long distance runs. It is easy to forget the traffic lights and crowds of tourists and the fluctuations in body temperature as you dart between the scorching blasts of sunlight and the frigid shade cast by the monumental, tomb-like superstructures dotting the skyline and idealize the act of outside running during the long, silent winters.

“Silent” is a rhapsodic, non-applicable term for running in the winter—though one may hold an image of a soft step through the lyrical verse of a Robert Frost poem as it fills with snow—the practical reality contains the whirr of conveyor belts and thudding of stride-checked, treadmill-hobbled footfalls filling the terrarium-esque air of a crowded gym with a disconcerting cacophony.

Lusting after spring during the cold dead winter is only one step removed from days of illness; all thoughts swirl around an idealized healthy body with which to attempt physical activities when fatigue and weakness overtake the spirit. It is in these twilight periods where one affirms a desire to never take for granted the ability to run five miles, a desire which usually lasts up until the vagaries of the injury or sickness have been replaced by the dulcet tones of tedious wellbeing. “I’ll never take my health for granted” is the mantra of the sick and injured; if you’ve got it, you don’t even acknowledge how wonderful or tenuous it might be.

And what is it? It can be, and often is, anything. Air. Water. Shelter. Roads. Schools. Fire Departments. Traffic lights. Social contracts. Things you really, really don’t know you need until all of a sudden, they aren’t there:

Gangsters became the establishment, the glue that holds everything together. In this new world no one knew quite how to behave: all the old Soviet role models had been made redundant, and the “West” was just a store far away. But the gangsters had their own prison code, which had survived perestroika. And this made the gangsters more than just feared bullies. They were the only people in this lost, new Russia who knew who on earth they were and what they stood for.

Structure is required. It doesn’t really matter what the structure is. People live in patterns and create habits and fill in blanks and extrapolate thoughts like we extrapolate breath. Does anyone live in the moment, survive and thrive solely within each single breath? Not particularly; we string together a thousand-thousand single breaths, reorder our own minds into a great tapestry of meaning and coherence. Structure is applied to the inherently structureless. Such is life.

So while my heart is filled with thoughts of half-marathons and PRs, my head is clearly stuffed with Nothing is Real and Everything is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia. It has the kind of scripted surprises of the reality TV genre, which is fitting since the author has been a reality TV producer for years. It flits around from pointless musing to structured narrative; the pointlessness supporting and giving meaning to the entire endeavor:

Meet the Russians is about the new, post-Soviet rich in London, and the ad promises to take the viewer “into a world of wealth he has never before witnessed.”

The show rates well and feeds a double appetite. The local audience gets to titter and feel pleasantly superior to the new rich they are selling parts of their country to: “Meet the most vulgar reality characters ever on TV,” explains the Daily Mail. But beyond this there is a deeper comfort in the thought that though the new Russian rich might be wealthier than any English person could ever hope to be, though the Sunday Times rich is topped no longer by the queen but by Abramovich, Usmanov, and Blavatnik, at the end of the day these global nouveaux all yearn to fit into “our way of doing things.” Instinctively, out of habit, the editorial producers on Meet the Russians reach for some version of Vanity Fair, My Fair Lady, the myths the English grow up with. The Victorian compromise, the traditional marriage between new money and old class, is extrapolated to the era of globalization.

The whole book wraps the techniques of voyeurism and schadenfreude into an intellectual dissection of modern Russia. Widen out, and it offers a look at the organization and reorganization of modern life, a post-Burroughs discussion of the discussionlessness that we’re all obliquely, overtly blind to—the abundance of dialectics and polemics obscuring how tenebrous the undercurrents of inevitability that permeate the conception and propogation of a Western Empire of Thought. How did society hoist itself to this meaningless-is-meaningful quest for something? Or is it meaningful-is-meaningless:

The lost-in-new-wealth world of Moscow rises and blends with the sudden global money from all the emerging, expanding new economies. And the Russians are the pacesetters, the trendsetters. Because they’ve been perfecting this for just a few years longer, because the learning curve was so much harder and faster when their Soviet world disappeared and they were all shot into cold space. They become post-Soviet a breath before the whole world went post-everything. Post-national and post-West and post-Bretton-Woods and post-whatever-else. The Yuri Gagarins of the culture of zero gravity.

Nothing is Real and Everything is Possible is good. Really good. Readable. Interesting. Sometimes too convenient; the tightness plot that reality shows ostensibly rebel against while actively employing. Characters, concepts, locations all tie back into each other in a woven script of brilliant, terrifying reality. There’s nothing here to latch onto, nothing to say you’ve learned. Just things to experience. Thoughts to think. Words to read. Nothing is Real and Everything is Possible comes into your life, offers a few hundred pages of distraction and thoughts and startling admissions:

The President’s credibility was based on quelling the rebellion in Chechnya. In the late 1990s. when he was still prime minister, he had been transformed from gray nobody to warrior by the second Chechen War, suddenly appearing in camouflage sharing toasts with soldiers on the front. The war had been launched after a series of apartment buildings had been bombed in mainland Russia, killing 293 people in their homes. Nowhere, nowhere at all, had seemed safe. The perpetrators were announced on TV to be Chechen terrorists— though many still suspect they were working with the Kremlin’s connivance to give the gray nobody who was meant to become president reason to start a war. Many in the Russian public, cynical after living among Soviet lies so long, often assume the Kremlin’s reality is scripted. There were indeed some grounds for skepticism: the Russian security services had been caught planting a bomb in an apartment block (they claimed it was a training accident); the speaker of the Duma had publicly announced one of the explosions before it had taken place.

Then it becomes just another speck in the distance, a faint memory that shades your perception ever more softly the further life takes you.
...more

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Mar 16, 2016 Paul rated it really liked it

I remember when I added this book to my Goodreads "to read" shelf, ordered it to my parents' house, and waited for months with great anticipation until my parents could ship it to me in Kuwait. I had already read snippets of the book in online journals (about Surkov and about the Night Wolves). By the time I received the book in the mail, I had already projected so many of my own expectations onto the contents that I wasn't totally prepared for what I would read.

Pomerantsev is a TV producer who ...more

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Sep 12, 2014 Kellie rated it liked it

Disclosure: I was given an advance copy of this book through a LibraryThing in exchange for an honest review of the book.

In Nothing Is True and Everything is Possible, Peter Pomerantsev shares a sprawling, panoramic look at his experiences working as a reality TV producer in Russia, introducing us to a diverse cast of characters who help to illuminate the inner workings of the culture, economy, and politics of contemporary Russia. While some of these characters offer stories that are more grippi Disclosure: I was given an advance copy of this book through a LibraryThing in exchange for an honest review of the book.

In Nothing Is True and Everything is Possible, Peter Pomerantsev shares a sprawling, panoramic look at his experiences working as a reality TV producer in Russia, introducing us to a diverse cast of characters who help to illuminate the inner workings of the culture, economy, and politics of contemporary Russia. While some of these characters offer stories that are more gripping than others, the book held my attention well, and Pomerantsev's narration led me to both emphasize with and interrogate the motivations of these people.

I appreciated Pomerantsev's openness about his experiences working in television, and the clarity with which he presented TV as an explicit site of cultural production linked to national politics/ideology - it is obvious here that entertainment is produced not just for the sake of entertainment. However, I felt that that the linkage between culture and politics was sometimes lost in the book's sprawling narrative structure; sometimes it was not clear to me how one story related to the next, and the three sections of the book felt more disparate than I would have liked.

My reservations about the book's wandering structure is probably personal; because I spend so much of my professional life reading about globalization, neoliberalism, and the political economy, I wanted a clearer set of takeaways that I could easily situate within that theoretical framework. So much work on those subjects assumes popular culture as entirely outside them, and I wanted this book to more clearly disrupt that assumption rather than just gesturing toward it here and there. (But, of course, I also understand that the primary audience for this book is not necessarily an academic one.)

Despite these reservations, I would definitely recommend this book if you are looking for a deeper understanding of how Russia looks to situate itself within economic/cultural globalization and global politics. It is both fun and informative in its comprehensive depiction of the various institutions in which the Russian state tells particular stories about itself. ...more

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Oct 22, 2014 Lianne rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, arcs-and-galleys, lt-early-reviews

I received a copy of this novel through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers programme in exchange for an honest review. This review in its entirety was originally posted at caffeinatedlife.net: http://www.caffeinatedlife.net/blog/2...

This book was a real eye-opener. The author’s insight into this particular segment of Russian society was a strange, curious, sad, scary, and different account, where material possessions and monetary stability reign supreme and illusions are key. It’s like the Potemki ...more

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Oct 11, 2015 Наталія rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, journalistic, biography-memoir, russia, ukrainian-edition

Пітер Померанцев на презентації "Нічого правдивого..." у Львові кілька разів повторив, що дивується чому його книжка зацікавила українців. Для себе я це розтлумачила двояко: 1) йому дивно, бо ми як така ж пострадянська країна мало відрізняємося від Росії, а отже в нас відбуваються речі схожі; 2) ми настільки наближені географічно/політично/культурно, що давно повинні бути в курсі всього, що у сусідів. Що б не мав на увазі автор, книжка таки виявилася провокаторкою інтересу, а деякі висновки Пітер Померанцев на презентації "Нічого правдивого..." у Львові кілька разів повторив, що дивується чому його книжка зацікавила українців. Для себе я це розтлумачила двояко: 1) йому дивно, бо ми як така ж пострадянська країна мало відрізняємося від Росії, а отже в нас відбуваються речі схожі; 2) ми настільки наближені географічно/політично/культурно, що давно повинні бути в курсі всього, що у сусідів. Що б не мав на увазі автор, книжка таки виявилася провокаторкою інтересу, а деякі висновки автора були просто несподіваними. Ні, як українка я не живу у цих реаліях, вони не є близькими мені, це не те, що відбувається з моїми сусідами в місті, це таки інше. Це про Росію.
"НП..." – це, перш за все, підбірка перебільшень, парадоксів і окремих історій росіян з різних соціальних верств. Якщо відібрати тільки колоритні випадки за десять років роботи на російському ТБ, поставити їх поруч і не розбавляти чимось буденним та пісним, то в результаті отримуємо гротескну картину. Ефект вражаючий. Тому в якийсь момент здається, що читаєш вже не про країну, про яку знаєш з новин, а про якийсь її виворіт, темну сторону, коли хочете. Але найважливішим і найціннішим у книжці, нмд, є тло на якому відбуваються історії - Померанцеву вдалося побачити глибші соціальні процеси, наблизитись до того, що "умом не понять". Є тут кілька цікавих умовиводів і алюзій, але спойлерити не буду, краще почитайте. А читається книга швидко і легко, вона повністю кінематографічна. Автор сам зізнався, що писав її після перегляду відеоматеріалів до програм, які знімав колись про цих же персонажів. Відтак мозок малює яскраві зображення жаскі і карнавальні.
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Jan 30, 2015 Christine rated it did not like it

Shelves: non-fiction, biography-memoir, country-russia, 2014-releases, radio-bbc-4, 50-non-fiction-books-in-2015, rlftci-challenge-2015, tower-team-wind-dancers

BBC Book of the Week

In the early 2000s, Peter Pomerantsev (Kiev-born, raised in England; the son of Russian political exiles) came to Moscow to work in the fast-growing television and film industry. The job gave him first hand access to every nook and corrupt cranny of the country. He was perfectly placed to witness the transformation of the New Russia on its journey from communist collapse to a new form of dictatorship.

In a series of character studies, the subjects of Pomerantsev's reality TV d ...more

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Jul 14, 2015 Marc Nash rated it it was amazing

my knowledge of Russia had stopped pretty much with the fall of Communism so this book adroitly filled in the lacuna in my post-Soviet understanding. The example of corporate corruption is expertly rendered so you realise how the oligarchs rose to power and how corruption greases the wheels of all business. It really is a mafia-like state. Then there were the tales of wannabe supermodels, gold-diggers, religious sects, ugly right-wing nationalism and homophobia that we see quite a lot portrayed ...more

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