Metro Stop Dostoevsky: Travels in Russian Time - Hardcover

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In the early 1990s, Bengis decided to go to Russia to teach literature. Idealistic and curious, she moved in with her friend, whom she calls B, and began to look for a university position. But neither her friendship with B nor her search for a job went as well as she'd hoped. The university she contacted was more interested in her teaching a course on American capitalism than a Russian literature course. And B's marriage to A was on the rocks, putting her living situation in jeopardy. When B lost the apartment they were living in, she and Bengis had to get a new one, but this is no easy task in Russia. But when Bengis was hospitalized with intestinal problems, she was amazed by the kindness of the doctors as well as the low costs (compared to American health care) she had to pay. Bengis vividly calls up post-cold war Russia in this contemplative, striking memoir. Kristine Huntley
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"What has socialism... killed in the Soviets, and what has it created?" wonders Bengis (Combat in the Erogenous Zone, 1972) at the opening of this episodic memoir about her life in Russia in the 1990s. Bengis, the American-born daughter of Russian emigres, searches for an answer during a series of trips she takes to St. Petersburg between 1991 and 1996. During her visits, which often last many months, Bengis shares an apartment with her Russian friend B, a seamstress recently separated from her husband. Bengis observes the shifting mood as the Soviet Union collapses and B's crowd encounters new freedoms and insecurities. A group of Bengis's Russian friends, well educated and in their late 30s and early 40s, find themselves working as unofficial taxi drivers and illegal smugglers, or not working at all. By the mid-1990s everyone has a half-baked money-making scheme, including B, who cajoles Bengis into bankrolling an operation to sell handmade silk and cashmere shawls in the West. B is a memorable figure-proud, elegant, alternately protective and cruel-and alongside the story of Russia's transformation, Bengis traces the deterioration of her relationship with B, who ends up effectively stealing thousands of dollars from her. This relationship is both the most fascinating and the most frustrating part of the memoir. Bengis doesn't fully examine her and B's friendship. She seems to take for granted B's sudden, intense currents of hostility, which come as a surprise to the reader, and her calm acceptance of B's attacks can be baffling. Still, Bengis is a fine portraitist who creates wonderfully vivid and intimate scenes pulsing with the suppressed frustration, passion and fragile hope of the people whose lives she chronicles.
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