Jaunted

When writer Ingrid Bengis went to Russia, it wasn't to make a killing in Levis or learn to play the balalaika; rather, she wanted to experience the city where her parents had grown up and from where they had moved before she was born. That the trip happened to fall in one of the most tumultuous times in Russian history -- as the Soviet Union dissolved and the country took its first baby steps towards democracy -- well, that was just coincidence.

Bengis eventually decided to live half the year in St. Petersburg, the "Venice of the North," but her book Metro Stop Dostoevsky is as much a grim parade of the dark and disillusioned corners of the city as it is a chronicle of its man-made wonders. Bengis is at once fascinated and repelled by the damage that Soviet rule has wreaked upon the city, and not always hopeful about the New World Order to come. Instead of issuing these opinions in clouds of hot air (as, erm, we've just done), Bengis chronicles her new Russian life primarily through her close friend, confessor and one-time business partner, a native Russian whose personal difficulties entangle her friend to the point where Bengis no longer feels safe staying or leaving Russia.

Like the station the book is named for, the Russian experience is at once unique and impossible to capture -- guards on the underground try to prevent tourists from taking a picture of its unique iron grillwork and antique lamps. And Bengis' conclusions on the Russian state of mind ring true even ten years later.

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[Photo: FSG Books]