Once Upon a Russia

<p><em style=color: rgba(43 55 62 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>Once Upon a Russia: Voices From a Vanished Era</em><span style=color: rgba(43 55 62 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)> gathers over one hundred vivid personal accounts from foreigners who lived worked or wandered through Russia during a time that now feels irretrievably past. Edited by Steven A. Fisher who shared that journey with the contributors this anthology captures not only the country's strange beauty and contradictions but the emotional imprint it left on those who experienced it.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=color: rgba(43 55 62 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>From diplomats and dreamers to journalists bankers artists and students each voice offers a unique window into the texture of Russian life-its unpredictable rhythms ironies absurdities and quiet truths. These are not attempts to explain Russia but acts of remembering: a kitchen table conversation a snow-lit street a baffling official exchange a toast made in joy or defiance.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=color: rgba(43 55 62 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>Poignant humorous and deeply human these reflections reveal a country both maddening and magnetic-where memory and meaning continue to blur and where hope and disillusion live side by side. For those who were there this book may feel like a reunion. For others it offers rare insight into a vanished world that once marked them-and may yet mark you.</span></p>