Russian Dolls

Canberra-based teacher Gail Ford first visited Russia in 1989, when she took a group of Australian students on a “Goodwill Tour” to the Soviet Union (as it was then). The aim of this, her first of 18 trips to Russia, was to try to improve the understanding between the young people of the two countries, the USSR still being somewhat demonised in the West despite the thaws under Mikhail Gorbachev. During this visit, which took the group across Siberia and to Samarkand en route to Moscow and Leningrad, they had many “misadventures”, but what they did not realise at the time was that they were witnessing the Soviet Union in a state of collapse.
The student contacts made were so positive that Gail then established a school exchange. In August 1991, however, just one month before her next visit, the USSR was torn apart with the attempted military coup and fall of Gorbachev, and the subsequent demise of communism. Eventually the group went ahead and witnessed the changes taking place in Russia not only from their own experiences, but also through the eyes of their host families as they watched their country disintegrate. The school exchanges continued until 2003. From 1995 to 2008 Gail also led annual adult music and art tours.

Crown of leaves

The Lure of Russia is the distillation of all that Gail experienced and the insights she gained over 20 years of momentous change in Russia. But it is more than this. The political and economic changes are recounted not just in the abstract but through stories that reveal the enormous affects such upheaval had on Russians’ daily lives and their very sense of identity. The book also delves deeply into the country’s dramatic history and rich culture, with separate chapters devoted to literature, music, and art. Featuring extensive use of anecdotes from the author’s travels, many of which are very amusing, this multilayered story of Russia benefits immeasurably from the inside insights of the author’s Russian friends, who recount their own experiences and express some deeply felt thoughts about the extraordinary developments their homeland has undergone.

Covering one of the world’s most important countries during a period of remarkable change, The Lure of Russia is a multi-dimensional book encapsulating travelogue, history, fine arts, and politics.

Commended ⎯ 2011 Australian Capital Territory Book of the Year Awards.

Published by Citrus Press.

Available in hardcover from bookshops or through various on-line sites or for download on iPad with iBook or on computer with iTunes.

Any profits by the author will be donated to a charity for children in Russia.