“To understand the ambiguities, contradictions, absurdities and complexities of the Russian soul, the advice was always to read Gogol. The advice now would be to read Jens Mühling. There is a shock of discovery and a shot of pleasure on every page.”

Times (UK)

“Jens Mühling is a brave man. . . . The spine of his narrative remains the quest for Agafya, for a woman whose ancestors, at each of ‘the crucial crossroads of Russian history’, had refused to follow the herd. . . . It won’t spoil the story to say that he and she (then 69) do finally meet, an encounter that Mühling describes movingly and elegantly. It’s a tribute to the translator, Eugene H Hayworth, that this never reads like a book that was first written in German.”

Telegraph

“A brilliant account of the Russian frame of mind.”

Süddeutsche Zeitung

“[Mühling] meets a bewildering variety of ‘old believers’ in a broader sense, from members of the sectarian Orthodox Church . . ., through stubbornly Leninist former Soviet citizens, to newly minted Slavonic pagans. They all want to tell Mühling their life stories which, in his empathetic retelling, provide glimpses into other lives that are vivid and frequently moving.”

Times Literary Supplement

“[A] rich, eclectic travelogue.”

Russia Beyond the Headlines