From Chernobyl with Love
eBook - ePub

From Chernobyl with Love

Reporting from the Ruins of the Soviet Union

  1. 304 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

From Chernobyl with Love

Reporting from the Ruins of the Soviet Union

About this book

2019 Foreword INDIES Award, Gold for Autobiography & Memoir
Bronze Medal winner in the Independent Book Publishers Awards

In the wake of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the late twentieth century was a time of unprecedented hope for democracy and freedom in Eastern Europe. The collapse of the Soviet Union left in its wake a number of independent countries where the Scorpions’ 1990 pop ballad “Wind of Change” became a rallying cry. Communist propaganda was finally being displaced by Western ideals of a free press.

Less than two decades ago, young writers, journalists, and adventurers such as Katya Cengel flocked from the West eastward to cities like Prague and Budapest, seeking out terra nova. Despite the region’s appeal, neither Kyiv in the Ukraine nor Riga in Latvia was the type of place you would expect to find a twenty-two-year-old Californian just out of college. Kyiv was too close to Moscow. Riga was too small to matter—and too cold. But Cengel ended up living and working in both. This book is her remarkable story.

Cengel first took a job at the Baltic Times just seven years after Latvia regained its independence. The idea of a free press in the Eastern Bloc was still so promising that she ultimately moved to the Ukraine. From there Cengel made several trips to Chernobyl, site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster. It was at Chernobyl that she met her fiancé, but as she fell in love, the Ukraine collapsed into what would become the Orange Revolution, bringing it to the brink of political disintegration and civil war. Ultimately, this fall of idealism in the East underscores Cengel’s own loss of innocence. From Chernobyl with Love is an indelible portrait of this historical epoch and a memoir of the highest order.
 

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Yes, you can access From Chernobyl with Love by Katya Cengel in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Social Science Biographies. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Dedication
  5. Contents
  6. List of Illustrations
  7. Preface
  8. Part 1. Latvia
  9. 1. Journalists Invade Former Soviet Union
  10. 2. A Festive Welcome
  11. 3. The Elusive Dane, Friendly Canadian, and Other Post-Soviet Workers
  12. 4. Happy Girl and the Flasher
  13. 5. Big Bad Accidents
  14. 6. Exile
  15. 7. It’s Complicated
  16. 8. A God Other Than Lenin
  17. 9. Everything Is Normali
  18. 10. Pagans, Communists, and a Hill of Crosses
  19. Part 2. California/England
  20. 11. Back in the USSR
  21. Part 3. Ukraine
  22. 12. A Wife Named Katya
  23. 13. Downing Vodka Shots at Chernobyl
  24. 14. Pirates, Mobsters, and Other Eligible Bachelors
  25. 15. The Enemy Outside
  26. 16. Heroes and a Woman Named Hope
  27. 17. Darkness at Dawn
  28. 18. Radioactive Romance
  29. 19. Children of Tomorrow
  30. 20. Wet Dreams
  31. 21. Home Remedies
  32. 22. Paddington Bear Gets in a Brawl
  33. 23. Atonement
  34. 24. Justice
  35. 25. London Calling
  36. 26. A Western Town in Ukraine
  37. 27. An Internal Attack
  38. 28. A Chance Engagement
  39. 29. Ukraine Accidentally Enters the War on Terror
  40. 30. Shallow Graves
  41. 31. Homeland
  42. 32. Disappearing Acts
  43. 33. Taken
  44. 34. The Missing
  45. 35. Shot in the Butt
  46. Part 4. Kentucky
  47. 36. Loo-a-vul
  48. 37. A Revolution
  49. 38. Repeat Performance
  50. Afterword
  51. Acknowledgments
  52. Bibliography
  53. About Katya Cengel
  54. Illustrations