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Expelled: A Journalist's Descent into the Russian Mafia State
In 2007 Luke Harding arrived in Moscow to take up a new job as a correspondent for the British newspaper, The Guardian. Within months, mysterious agents from Russia's Federal Security Service --the successor to the KGB--had broken into his apartment. He found himself tailed by men in leather jackets, bugged, and even summoned to the KGB's notorious prison, Lefortovo. The break-in was the beginning of an extraordinary psychological war against the journalist and his family. Windows left open in his children's bedroom, secret police agents tailing Harding on the street, and customs agents harassing the family as they left and entered the country became the norm. The campaign of persecution burst into the open in 2011 when the Kremlin expelled Harding from Moscow--the first western reporter to be deported from Russia since the days of the Cold War. Expelled is a brilliant and haunting account of the insidious methods used by a resurgent Kremlin against its so-called "enemies"--human rights workers, western diplomats, journalists and opposition activists. It includes illuminating diplomatic cables which describe Russia as a "virtual mafia state". Harding gives a personal and compelling portrait of Russia that--in its bid to remain a superpower--is descending into a corrupt police state.
320 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2011
About the author
Luke Harding
20 books306 followersLuke Daniel Harding is a British journalist working as a foreign correspondent for The Guardian. He was the correspondent of The Guardian in Russia from 2007 until, returning from a stay in the UK on February 5, 2011, he was refused re-entry to Russia and deported back the same day. The Guardian said his expulsion was linked with his critical articles on Russia, while Russia's foreign ministry said that an extended certificate of foreign correspondence was not obtained in time. After the reversal of the decision on February 9 and the granting of a short-term visa, Harding chose not to seek a further visa extension.
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February 27, 2022
Harassing activity against all embassy personnel has spiked in the past several months to a level not seen in many years. Embassy personnel have suffered personally slanderous and falsely prurient attacks in the media. Family members have been the victims of psychologically terrifying assertions that their USG [United States government] employee spouses had met accidental deaths. Home intrusions have become far more commonplace and bold, and activity against our locally engaged Russian staff continues at a record pace. We have no doubt that this activity originates in the FSB.There is a spectre loose in the world. An all too material force that has been making headway across the planet. The 21st century has seen a spike in the establishment of kleptocratic regimes. These tend to be autocratic governments in which power is centralized in one or at most a few individuals. The power of the state is then turned into a weapon with which the rich and powerful increase both their wealth and control, and intimidate or eliminate challengers. We have seen this in Erdogan’s Turkey, Zuma’s South Africa, Jinping’s China, to a lesser degree in Berlusconi’s Italy, and plenty more. It seems clear that the current (well, current when this was written in 2017) US president, Donald Trump, would like nothing more than to institute the form in the states. It is pretty clear that he is modeling himself on the top kleptocrat on the planet, the richest man in the world, with a worth estimated at over eighty billion dollars. That would be Vladimir Putin, of course. Garry Kasaparov, Russia’s chess legend, has said that if “you really want to understand the Putin regime in depth . . . go directly to the fiction department and take home everything you can find by Mario Puzo.” I have not seen this sort of thing referred to by this term, but if it has been, I apologize for my unintended theft. We are being haunted, night and day by a rising Mafiacrocy.
John Beyrle, US ambassador in Moscow, confidential State Department cable, November 9, 2009
You walk into your Moscow flat, and something is off. A window you know you closed, the one in your son’s room, in this 10th floor apartment, is ajar. When you watch a videotape you had recently brought home you find that parts have been mysteriously erased. Maybe the door lock has scratch marks that were not there when you left. A book you never bought appears on a coffee table. When you write pieces that are deemed critical of the regime, the frequency of these oddities increases, sometimes with a bit more physical damage being added. You can never know security. At any moment your home can be invaded. You never know what might be waiting when you turn the key in the lock. You never know when you will be prevented from doing your job by hard men in leather jackets, when you will be denied admittance to the country after a few weeks back home in England, when you will be accused of a mythical crime and expelled from the country for doing your job. You also never really know when people might spirit you away to places that are dark, cold and deadly.
Luke Harding - image from Interpreter Magazine
Luke Harding was the Moscow bureau chief for The Guardian. He tells us about working in the Russian capital from 2007 to 2011, reporting on the dark goings on there, political killings, a sophisticated form of state-sponsored terror, Russia’s relationships with its near abroad neighbor nations. He interviews some of the oligarchs for which Russia has become famous, visits depopulating rural areas, finds himself in war zones a bit too often, and checks out a market intended exclusively for the uber rich. One core of what Harding describes is the ongoing harassment to which he was subjected by the FSB (KGB 2.0)
Zersetzung is a technique to subvert and undermine an opponent. The aim was to disrupt the target’s private or family life so they are unable to continue their “hostile-negative” activities towards the state. Typically, the Stasi would use collaborators to garner details from a victim’s private life. They would then devise a strategy to “disintegrate” the target’s personal circumstances—their career, their relationship with their spouse, their reputation in the community. They would even seek to alienate them from their children.Clearly there are levels in this methodology beyond the prankish disruptions practiced on Harding. He reports on the experience of others who had been subjected to this treatment. A lot can be done to make someone’s life a living hell, and the worst part, for many, is that they are never aware that they have been targeted.
The other, and primary notion of the book, which was originally named Mafia State, is that Vladimir Putin has made himself, essentially, a Russian Czar for life. Having come up in the KGB, he learned well the techniques of state intelligence, and uses them at will on his opponents. Political competitors find themselves arrested and convicted on trumped up charges, if they are lucky. The unlucky face far more permanent downsides. Putin has all but killed off free media, and has allied with oligarchs, who rely on him to protect their assets. But when an oligarch fancies himself powerful enough to oppose Putin, he does not long remain at large. The government of Russia has been filled with Putin loyalists, who are well compensated for their loyalty. As a master manipulator of the media, and with the ability to stifle opposing (fake?) news, he has gained considerable popularity. With the demise of the USSR, and the obvious corruption and incapacity of Yeltsin, a strong man who could get the nation back on a straight path was welcomed. Putin has made the most of this, consolidating personal power, while selling off state assets for a pittance to his allies.
The structure of the book is a stringing together of articles about diverse elements of Russian life, while weaving in his personal tales of Zersetzung and the stunning corruption that pervades the nation. For example, he writes of the murder of Alexander Litvitenko, an FSB officer who had specialized in organized crime. He dared to accuse his superiors of assassinating oligarch Boris Berezovsky, and was subsequently hounded out of the country. Asylum in England was not sufficient, however, as Putin’s people murdered him there. Harding visits relations of Litvitenko, living in Italy, where, one would expect, they would feel free to speak their minds. Turns out not so much, and for surprising reasons.
He reports on Russia engaging in the ethnic cleansing of a piece of Georgia in order to incorporate it into an expandable, Russia-loyal, South Ossetia. While in Georgia he hears reports of atrocities by Russians, also by bands of Ossetian, Chechnyan, and Kossack thugs who follow the Russian troops and engage in widespread murder, kidnappings, rape and looting. He looks into the murders of several human rights activists, and checks out corruption in the lead up to the Sochi Olympic games. In addition he reports on what was probably an FSB atrocity, the false flag bombing of several apartment blocks, killing over 300 people, in order to fan outrage against Chechnyans, and offer justification for military action. There is plenty more.
I think there are very few of people in the west who do not recognize that Vladimir Putin is a monster. Whatever one may think of the actions of other nations, Russia has, under Putin, become a dictatorship in which human rights are virtually non-existent. Luke Harding has done us all a service to offer an on-the-ground look at what this horror looks like up close. It contains the chill one might have felt visiting Germany when you-know-who was on the rise. His book also offers a large flapping red flag.
Although this was written long before Donald Trump was anything more than an insignificant shade in the American political scene, one can look at the elements of Putin’s Russia and get an idea of what may lie ahead for the United States if enough people do not get wise to what Swamp Thing is all about. He may be doing Putin’s bidding because Puti has justiceable goods on him (almost certainly true). He may be overseeing the dismantling of America because he is smitten with Puti’s power (also probably true) and wants that for himself. Whether or not he can stand alone, once he absorbs enough of government into his control (questionable), it seems likely that the US president is eager to follow the Russian model. Accusing mainstream media, the ones who tell us about his crimes, of propagating fake news, is a step toward muzzling if not eliminating them. Threatening to sue (and suing) smaller media outlets is another step in this direction. Imagine an America in which the primary news outlets are Fox News and Breitbart, and it starts to look more and more like Russia.
In her study [of Zersetzen, Sandra] Pingel-Schliemann concludes: “These days a total dictatorship doesn’t need to use methods of open terror to subdue people for years and make them weak. Moreover, developments in technology and communications offer future dictators ever more subtle possibilities for manipulation.” Her comments strike me as prescient. In Herr J.’s case Stasi operatives had to creep round at night hanging individual notes in his village with the words: “Whore,” “Drunkard,” “Speeder” and “Bigmouth.” Today’s Kremlin bloggers and faceless state patriots have it much easier. They need only reach for their mouse.When calls are made by Trump surrogates to purge our considerable population of federal employees of those not put in by Trump, we can see the trail being marked from the state as a theoretically disinterested arbiter of public conflicts to the state as a weaponized mechanism for pushing through programs desired by our not so dear leader. When Trump insists that his reality is the only one that matters, he reminds us that Putin has been peddling a lie to his own people about how he has been modernizing the economy. Unfortunately, he really has not. The ruble is in decline and increasingly, people in Russia are more interested in using dollars. It has certainly been no stretch for Trump to build on his considerable base of daily misdirections and total falsehoods to grace us with larger ones. Like maybe how Mexico really will pay for the wall, or that the countries subjected to the Muslim ban are a real danger to our security, or that the proposed health care bill atrocity is better than the ACA. Beware most of all the big lie about our security, probably in the form of a false flag attack, like those committed by the FSB against apartment blocks in Moscow. If he opts to go in that direction, he will use the event as an excuse to eliminate any of the civil rights left unviolated by the Patriot Act. The right-wing minions of the Republican Party (with a few notable exceptions) will happily go along.
Luke Harding has given us not only a picture of Russia as a dark, dangerous place, but has also let us know that this might be what lies in store for the USA if we are not strong enough to push back. Marginalization of legitimate media, staffing government agencies solely with workers loyal to him, accusing all who oppose him of lying, and denying any facts that do not correspond with what he wants us to hear. You may not be afraid of no ghosts, but you should be. There is every possibility that America’s phantoms are becoming more and more corporeal. (Paul Manafort, the erstwhile Trump campaign manager was outed as having been on Putin's payroll, at $10 million per annum, to promote Putin's agenda in the USA. He did not report himself as an agent of a foreign power. Failure to do so is a crime. I guess he was a ghost lobbyist.) It will not be long before it is the spirit of democracy that gets proton-pack-zapped into a gold plated box, and the apparitions declare victory. Putin’s Russia is nothing to aspire to. Heed the warnings. Recognize Putin for the dark force he is. And attend to the signs in the USA. Trump and his allies must be stopped before they make a gulag of America.
First Published – September 29th, 2011 under the title Mafia State
Review first Posted – March 17, 2017
May 2021 - I left the above review as it was written, leaving in place things like references to "current US president Donald Trump." (I changed that in a minor February 2022 edit) Harding’s portrait of Putin’s Russia is a chilling look at what the USA was headed towards under the Swamp Thing presidency. Thank God, and committed Democratic campaigners, Trump is no longer in office. But the madness persists, as the GOP has been busy purging all dissenters from the Trump-uber-alles, stop-the-steal, Big Lie party platform. It will take some time to remove all the hacks Trump installed into our governing apparatus. Hopefully, that process can be completed before further, irreversible damage is done to our economy and our democracy. Unfortunately, insurrectionist-friendly, pro-sedition, voting-rights-hostile elected Republicans, which is most of them, cannot just be fired. But the image of the mafiacrocy that is Russia is the goal of today’s GOP, even without Trump. God help us if they find a charismatic leader with the moral vacuity of Trump, but with some brains to go along with it.
==========In the summer of 2019 GR reduced the allowable review size by 25%, from 20,000 to 15,000 characters. In order to accommodate the text beyond that I have moved it to the comments section directly below.
November 12, 2014
This is a bad book.
If you have been a hermit in a cave, don't read or remember foreign news stories, have no knowledge of Russian history or don't assume there is any continuity in human life or believe that life is rather like happy times at the My Little Pony paddock then you may, just, find the contents of this book surprising and revelatory.
Otherwise they read as man from the home counties of England discovers to his shock that foreign country is foreign.
There could be a certain charm to reading the musing of an innocent abroad, how Father Dougal might perceive life in contemporary Russia (and if you haven't watched Father Ted I recommend it as a good use of your time, unlike reading this book) but this is actually undermined by the author himself.
Firstly the author has the weird habit of undercutting their own argument. Yes I'm sure it wasn't nice that the FSB were breaking into the family flat and doing various things there as a form of psychological warfare but as a reader I can't take this terribly seriously when the author is also telling me about Russian journalists who are getting murdered for voicing criticism of the state. Yes I appreciate Mr Harding that your children were upset that they had to leave their school in Russia, but it's not comparable to those children left as orphans because Mummy or Daddy was murdered. Guess which gets lavish coverage in this book though. My heart somehow failed to bleed.
Throughout the book Harding insists on talking about the siloviki faction in the government even though an expert whose views he cites on page 26 makes it clear that talking in terms of a faction is rubbish. But never mind because Harding will then go on to ignore the views of the expert he himself has interviewed and cited for the next 268 pages.
Then of course there is the business with wikileaks which Harding hails as an exciting source just after he has pointed out that those US sources were as limited and uninformative as his own.
To make matters worse he also claims that the Russian material was the best to come out of wikileaks which makes me really sorry for Bradley Wiggins . The level of gossip revealed in this book is not worth even the risk of going to prison over. There would be nothing wrong with presenting the wikileaks material if somebody had done some investigating to corroborate some of the allegations. As it is Harding quotes amazing revelations like somebody saying 'I think there is some corruption' while a second person says 'I agree' which is then recorded in a diplomatic cable. I am actually surprised that Harding doesn't mention what his taxi drivers told him about Putin.
This all made me wonder if Harding actually read his book or decided himself the order the material should go in. I don't mean to be unduly critical but I do have the nagging feeling that if he had simply rearranged his chapters so the analysis followed rather than preceded the uncritical and enthusiastic presentation of data he might have actually made a better impression.
Although this book is called "Mafia State" (or "Expelled" in some editions) this isn't relevant to all the material. We get a chapter on football, one on the Georgian war, one on the Russian countryside, one on the construction of an estate of luxury houses in a Moscow suburb none of which are relevant to what - I assumed in my innocence given the title of the book - was the overarching theme.
This gives the distinction impression that the book was padded out with all this other material, which might have made for nice weekend magazine stories but never made the cut. The funny thing is though with a minimum of editing and perhaps a tinesy tiny bit of research he could have linked these chapters to the theme of corruption. He mentions FIFA, for God's sake, the goal is open, the ball is at the author's foot, allegations of corruption are in the public domain and Harding writes nothing, has the man no journalist instincts? Self respect? Respect for prospective readers?
There is even some discussion of Abramovich. It seems to me to be perfectly responsible to discuss the sources and means of acquisition of his fortune. Instead Harding simply tells us that his school teacher doesn't think that he was the brightest pupil that she had. Now I don't think that Roman Abramovich is Mr Clean, I don't imagine that anybody whose fortune was made during the break up of the Soviet Union has clean hands, but having only a middling school performance doesn't rule out and alone make suspicious later business success. And some of the story of how he made his money by exploiting his Komsomol connections is in the public domain.
Apart from being a lazy writer Harding is also uncritical. He uses the phrase Mafia state, but never defines it and ignores the obvious comparison with those kleptocratic regimes where the inflow of foreign aid is vastly exceeded by the outflow of money from the extraction of mineral wealth and the president's son, despite a modest payroll position owns a palatial home in Paris where he keeps his collection of sports cars. I'm also moderately annoyed by his use of words like opposition to describe people like Oksana Sobchak and Boris Nemtsov. Are these people really in opposition or just currently excluded from power? The allegation has been current since its creation that Vladimir Zhirinovsky's Liberal Democratic Party (neither liberal, nor democratic or the kind of party that you'd want to be invited to) was a Kremlin creature. Should we believe that other opposition figures are genuinely opposed to the regime or that given the opportunity would govern Russia in a substantially different way? Or are all these figures on the political scene rather like landscaping at a zoo - to give the impression of a plausible environment? Such questions and many others are never addressed in this book.
Anyway I'm rambling on as badly as Luke Harding himself. In short this is an impressive collection of journalism. Minimal research. Little analysis, no insight. Such analysis as there is isn't applied to the material in the book but sits in critical opposition to its assertions. This book is apparently targeted at readers who are ignorant but curious.
Golden moments include Hardings amazement at organised criminals being involved in committing crimes, rather than, as he apparently expects, working towards winning boy scout merit badges. And that he would have a pancake with condensed milk and a cup of black coffee for breakfast at a cafe for fifty five roubles (what every day! Was he never tempted to have a pancake with just butter or perhaps cottage cheese with a grating of black pepper?). And when he flew back to Britain the stewardesses on the plane were nice to him and gave him a cup of tea. That really sums it all up. And he tries to give plugs for the book(s) that his wife was working on.
There is an ok book in here, but editing, rewriting and research is required to bring it out. In the meantime as it stands this book is best appreciated read aloud to a circle of friends who feel free to interject their witty comments. Alcohol consumption advisable.
If you have been a hermit in a cave, don't read or remember foreign news stories, have no knowledge of Russian history or don't assume there is any continuity in human life or believe that life is rather like happy times at the My Little Pony paddock then you may, just, find the contents of this book surprising and revelatory.
Otherwise they read as man from the home counties of England discovers to his shock that foreign country is foreign.
There could be a certain charm to reading the musing of an innocent abroad, how Father Dougal might perceive life in contemporary Russia (and if you haven't watched Father Ted I recommend it as a good use of your time, unlike reading this book) but this is actually undermined by the author himself.
Firstly the author has the weird habit of undercutting their own argument. Yes I'm sure it wasn't nice that the FSB were breaking into the family flat and doing various things there as a form of psychological warfare but as a reader I can't take this terribly seriously when the author is also telling me about Russian journalists who are getting murdered for voicing criticism of the state. Yes I appreciate Mr Harding that your children were upset that they had to leave their school in Russia, but it's not comparable to those children left as orphans because Mummy or Daddy was murdered. Guess which gets lavish coverage in this book though. My heart somehow failed to bleed.
Throughout the book Harding insists on talking about the siloviki faction in the government even though an expert whose views he cites on page 26 makes it clear that talking in terms of a faction is rubbish. But never mind because Harding will then go on to ignore the views of the expert he himself has interviewed and cited for the next 268 pages.
Then of course there is the business with wikileaks which Harding hails as an exciting source just after he has pointed out that those US sources were as limited and uninformative as his own.
To make matters worse he also claims that the Russian material was the best to come out of wikileaks which makes me really sorry for Bradley Wiggins . The level of gossip revealed in this book is not worth even the risk of going to prison over. There would be nothing wrong with presenting the wikileaks material if somebody had done some investigating to corroborate some of the allegations. As it is Harding quotes amazing revelations like somebody saying 'I think there is some corruption' while a second person says 'I agree' which is then recorded in a diplomatic cable. I am actually surprised that Harding doesn't mention what his taxi drivers told him about Putin.
This all made me wonder if Harding actually read his book or decided himself the order the material should go in. I don't mean to be unduly critical but I do have the nagging feeling that if he had simply rearranged his chapters so the analysis followed rather than preceded the uncritical and enthusiastic presentation of data he might have actually made a better impression.
Although this book is called "Mafia State" (or "Expelled" in some editions) this isn't relevant to all the material. We get a chapter on football, one on the Georgian war, one on the Russian countryside, one on the construction of an estate of luxury houses in a Moscow suburb none of which are relevant to what - I assumed in my innocence given the title of the book - was the overarching theme.
This gives the distinction impression that the book was padded out with all this other material, which might have made for nice weekend magazine stories but never made the cut. The funny thing is though with a minimum of editing and perhaps a tinesy tiny bit of research he could have linked these chapters to the theme of corruption. He mentions FIFA, for God's sake, the goal is open, the ball is at the author's foot, allegations of corruption are in the public domain and Harding writes nothing, has the man no journalist instincts? Self respect? Respect for prospective readers?
There is even some discussion of Abramovich. It seems to me to be perfectly responsible to discuss the sources and means of acquisition of his fortune. Instead Harding simply tells us that his school teacher doesn't think that he was the brightest pupil that she had. Now I don't think that Roman Abramovich is Mr Clean, I don't imagine that anybody whose fortune was made during the break up of the Soviet Union has clean hands, but having only a middling school performance doesn't rule out and alone make suspicious later business success. And some of the story of how he made his money by exploiting his Komsomol connections is in the public domain.
Apart from being a lazy writer Harding is also uncritical. He uses the phrase Mafia state, but never defines it and ignores the obvious comparison with those kleptocratic regimes where the inflow of foreign aid is vastly exceeded by the outflow of money from the extraction of mineral wealth and the president's son, despite a modest payroll position owns a palatial home in Paris where he keeps his collection of sports cars. I'm also moderately annoyed by his use of words like opposition to describe people like Oksana Sobchak and Boris Nemtsov. Are these people really in opposition or just currently excluded from power? The allegation has been current since its creation that Vladimir Zhirinovsky's Liberal Democratic Party (neither liberal, nor democratic or the kind of party that you'd want to be invited to) was a Kremlin creature. Should we believe that other opposition figures are genuinely opposed to the regime or that given the opportunity would govern Russia in a substantially different way? Or are all these figures on the political scene rather like landscaping at a zoo - to give the impression of a plausible environment? Such questions and many others are never addressed in this book.
Anyway I'm rambling on as badly as Luke Harding himself. In short this is an impressive collection of journalism. Minimal research. Little analysis, no insight. Such analysis as there is isn't applied to the material in the book but sits in critical opposition to its assertions. This book is apparently targeted at readers who are ignorant but curious.
Golden moments include Hardings amazement at organised criminals being involved in committing crimes, rather than, as he apparently expects, working towards winning boy scout merit badges. And that he would have a pancake with condensed milk and a cup of black coffee for breakfast at a cafe for fifty five roubles (what every day! Was he never tempted to have a pancake with just butter or perhaps cottage cheese with a grating of black pepper?). And when he flew back to Britain the stewardesses on the plane were nice to him and gave him a cup of tea. That really sums it all up. And he tries to give plugs for the book(s) that his wife was working on.
There is an ok book in here, but editing, rewriting and research is required to bring it out. In the meantime as it stands this book is best appreciated read aloud to a circle of friends who feel free to interject their witty comments. Alcohol consumption advisable.
October 31, 2016
Книга сама по собі — нічого особливого. Стандартний нон-фікшн, із тих що мають на обкладинці рецензії з одного-двох епітетів, типу «Compelling... / The New York Times», «Extraordinary... / Reader's Digest».
І загалом нічого нового та викриваючого про росію чи путіна.
Але мені до того всього не пощастило читати її у перекладі видавництва Темпора, про який я хочу написати окремо і багато.
Переклад Темпори — просто огидний. Жодної вичитки та коректури. При тому, що навряд чи коректура дуже б допомогла. Перекладач Віра Кузнецова — повний дилетант. А редактор Лесь Белей та коректор Олександр Стукало отримують свої гроші ні за що і теж, вочевидь, дилетанти.
Ось кілька прикладів перекладацьких перлів в супроводі знайденого чи вгаданого мною оригіналу та моєї спроба відтворити хід думок горе-перекладача, яку я, читаючи, уявляв собі школяркою-двієчницею, яка перекладає текст з домашнього завдання, при цьому дивлячись вечірні програми по телевізору:
• картка ID (ID card): «мабуть ID — це якась абревіатура. Не знаю що значить, але читачі мають зрозуміти, раз читають цю книжку»;
• куртка "пілот" (pilot jacket): «ой, ну це мабуть якийсь такий фасон куртки, про всях випадок візьму в лапки»;
• телеграми Wikileaks (Wikileaks cables): «не знаю що таке Wikileaks, але мабуть це якась організація, яка відправляє телеграми»;
• капличка Суфі (sufi shrine): «так-с, в словнику пише що shrine це може бути "каплиця, святиня, гробниця". Sufi там немає, значить це не перекладається»;
• із дерев ... здіймається білий цвіт тополь (poplar blossom): «а, ну це легко, це я знаю. Poplar — тополя, blossom — цвіт»;
• …невідомі нападники в південному місті Волґоґраді випадково завдають ножових поранень темношкірому вірменському підлітку. Стенлі Робінсон, 18 років, з міста Провіденс, штат Род Айленд… (… unknown attackers in the southern city of Volgograd casually knife a black American teenager. Stanley Robinson, 18, from Providence, Rhode Island, has been in Russia on a school exchange): «гм, casually knife — що б це могло бути. Введу-но я в гугл перекладач і подивлюсь варіанти. Ага! Мабуть "випадково". Що там далі "black American teenager" — це понятно, арменіан — значить вірменський, а блек — бо на чурок кажуть "чорні". Дивно, вірменський підліток Стенлі Робінсон зі штату Род Айленд, мабуть якась помилка. А, ну може то вже про когось іншого. Хай буде.»
• футболка з зображенням Бена Шермана (Ben Sherman T-shirt): «не знаю, хто такий Бен Шерман, але мабуть хтось відомий, раз його портрет носять на футболках. Не моє діло, читачі розберуться»;
• віртуальна мафіозна держава (virtual mafia state): «ну тут все ясно virtual-віртуальний. Легко бути перекладачем!»;
• Тобольськ виявляється маленьким і чарівним … . У ньому мешкає багато монголо-татар — питомих мешканців Сибіру — мусульман (It has a large population of Tartars—Siberia's original Muslim inhabitants): «щось тут цей Люк Гардінг наплутав — всім відомо, що татари живуть в татарстані, а не в сибіру. Допоможу-но йому і виправлю помилку, мабуть мались на увазі монголо-татари, ті що з ігом та чингізханом — це мабуть вони в Сибіру живуть».
І це, повірте, лише дуже незначна частка того ідіотизму, яким частує нас пані Віра Кузнецова та її замовники з видавництва, вочевидь, маючи за ідіотів нас, читачів. Мабуть я таки ідіот, що купив цю книгу і ще більший ідіот, що змусив себе прочитати її до кінця. Я зробив це для того, щоб ви не мусили. Нехай ця жертва не буде марною! Не будьте ідіотами, не купуйте видань Темпори та перекладів Віри Кузнецової!
І загалом нічого нового та викриваючого про росію чи путіна.
Але мені до того всього не пощастило читати її у перекладі видавництва Темпора, про який я хочу написати окремо і багато.
Переклад Темпори — просто огидний. Жодної вичитки та коректури. При тому, що навряд чи коректура дуже б допомогла. Перекладач Віра Кузнецова — повний дилетант. А редактор Лесь Белей та коректор Олександр Стукало отримують свої гроші ні за що і теж, вочевидь, дилетанти.
Ось кілька прикладів перекладацьких перлів в супроводі знайденого чи вгаданого мною оригіналу та моєї спроба відтворити хід думок горе-перекладача, яку я, читаючи, уявляв собі школяркою-двієчницею, яка перекладає текст з домашнього завдання, при цьому дивлячись вечірні програми по телевізору:
• картка ID (ID card): «мабуть ID — це якась абревіатура. Не знаю що значить, але читачі мають зрозуміти, раз читають цю книжку»;
• куртка "пілот" (pilot jacket): «ой, ну це мабуть якийсь такий фасон куртки, про всях випадок візьму в лапки»;
• телеграми Wikileaks (Wikileaks cables): «не знаю що таке Wikileaks, але мабуть це якась організація, яка відправляє телеграми»;
• капличка Суфі (sufi shrine): «так-с, в словнику пише що shrine це може бути "каплиця, святиня, гробниця". Sufi там немає, значить це не перекладається»;
• із дерев ... здіймається білий цвіт тополь (poplar blossom): «а, ну це легко, це я знаю. Poplar — тополя, blossom — цвіт»;
• …невідомі нападники в південному місті Волґоґраді випадково завдають ножових поранень темношкірому вірменському підлітку. Стенлі Робінсон, 18 років, з міста Провіденс, штат Род Айленд… (… unknown attackers in the southern city of Volgograd casually knife a black American teenager. Stanley Robinson, 18, from Providence, Rhode Island, has been in Russia on a school exchange): «гм, casually knife — що б це могло бути. Введу-но я в гугл перекладач і подивлюсь варіанти. Ага! Мабуть "випадково". Що там далі "black American teenager" — це понятно, арменіан — значить вірменський, а блек — бо на чурок кажуть "чорні". Дивно, вірменський підліток Стенлі Робінсон зі штату Род Айленд, мабуть якась помилка. А, ну може то вже про когось іншого. Хай буде.»
• футболка з зображенням Бена Шермана (Ben Sherman T-shirt): «не знаю, хто такий Бен Шерман, але мабуть хтось відомий, раз його портрет носять на футболках. Не моє діло, читачі розберуться»;
• віртуальна мафіозна держава (virtual mafia state): «ну тут все ясно virtual-віртуальний. Легко бути перекладачем!»;
• Тобольськ виявляється маленьким і чарівним … . У ньому мешкає багато монголо-татар — питомих мешканців Сибіру — мусульман (It has a large population of Tartars—Siberia's original Muslim inhabitants): «щось тут цей Люк Гардінг наплутав — всім відомо, що татари живуть в татарстані, а не в сибіру. Допоможу-но йому і виправлю помилку, мабуть мались на увазі монголо-татари, ті що з ігом та чингізханом — це мабуть вони в Сибіру живуть».
І це, повірте, лише дуже незначна частка того ідіотизму, яким частує нас пані Віра Кузнецова та її замовники з видавництва, вочевидь, маючи за ідіотів нас, читачів. Мабуть я таки ідіот, що купив цю книгу і ще більший ідіот, що змусив себе прочитати її до кінця. Я зробив це для того, щоб ви не мусили. Нехай ця жертва не буде марною! Не будьте ідіотами, не купуйте видань Темпори та перекладів Віри Кузнецової!
November 20, 2011
‘Putin and his inner circle have no ideology,’ says one of Luke Harding’s useful informants in Mafia State. ‘They are simply interested in making money. They are, in short, kleptocrats.’ This is the central line of this book, written in 2011 and published in 2011. It bears the marks of hurried writing and rushed publication – typos, clumsy phrasing, cliché...Although, it has to be said, that clichés also abound in the quoted excerpts of articles that Harding printed in the pages of the UK newspaper, The Guardian, that employed him as their Moscow correspondent from 2007-2011.
In terms of the story Harding has to tell, of an amoral, kleptocratic Kremlin and its strong arm security services, the FSB (heir to the KGB), Mafia State is compelling. We believe it. Putin is determined to hang onto power because he has made a mint and wants to keep it. He has allowed his henchmen to amass their fortunes as well so the circle of people for whom remaining in power is crucial is large enough. What happens to the benighted Russian populace is, at it ever was, an irrelevance to those at the top. Let them just not get in the way.
The trouble is that Luke Harding himself gets in the way of his thesis. Because the FSB set about a campaign of psychological terror in an attempt (that finally succeeds) to get him to shut up or leave, he has written a revenge, which is fair enough. The FSB bump off Russian journalists but not yet western ones. Instead, they break into your house at will, and make no effort to conceal the fact. On the contrary, that’s the point: you should know that you have been broken into, and by whom, but what has been done is petty and deniable and therefore impossible to report. And anyway, to whom would you report it? Your things are moved around; your phone is left off the hook; your house is comprehensively bugged; your children’s bedroom windows are left open where you had carefully locked them because after all you do live on the fifth floor; people have shat in your toilet and not flushed. Time after time...It’s enough to unsettle anyone, and everyone knows they do it. The British embassy staff sigh in weary recognition, and other journalists do too. Beware the young men in leather jackets and carrying man bags who persist in sitting right next to you in otherwise empty coffee bars, their microphones in their bags. Harding sloppily characterises this as a ‘morally repugnant form of terror’ – as if there were a form of terror that is not morally repugnant.
Unfortunately he displays an oversimplifying them-and-us view of the world, reminiscent of Bush’s with-us-or-against-us stance: Russia is currently a nasty place, ergo those who also say so must be the good guys. ‘Putin – and the FSB – became convinced that Ukraine’s “orange revolution” had been triggered not by popular street protests but by CIA spies carrying bagfuls of dollars.’ But there is something to be said for that conviction. As there is for Putin’s assertion that the USA also fomented the revolution in Georgia, which is not say that there was not popular protest as well. But just because one state or system or administration is perverse and vile does not mean that those who oppose it are by definition always trustworthy and on the side of the angels. You do not need to support without question, as Harding seems to do, every enterprise taken by the USA with regard to Russia simply because what Russia under Putin does is undemocratic, violent and self-serving.
Much of this book uses American diplomatic telegrammes, released by Wikileaks, to bolster his arguments, and indeed, as evidence for his characterisation of Putin’s Russia as a Mafia state. I wouldn’t disagree with his thesis, but the leaked opinions of US diplomats, or of any diplomats for that matter, are just that – opinions, not proven facts. We should distinguish between them or we undermine the argument.
Harding litters his narrative with sceptical adjectives when he relates the suspicions harboured by the Russians, while cheerfully recycling the views of westerners unchallenged. ‘In January 2006 Russian state television broadcasts footage supposedly showed (sic) British intelligence officers retrieving information from an artificial “rock” concealed in a Moscow park...The FSB alleged that Moscow-based UK diplomats used the rock to communicate with Russian “agents”’. I remember at the time talking to a friend, now deceased, who had been a big player in MI6. He said that this rock could well have been, ridiculous as it might seem, a ‘drop’ , set up and used by British agents.
What is surprising at times is this author’s naivety. Harding has come back to Moscow after a home visit to London. He has brought with him a video recorded off TV in the UK of a programme about Litvinenko, one-time KGB/FSB agent who was murdered by the FSB, it is believed by the world outside Russia, for having defected and blown the FSB story. Harding is apparently astonished that bringing this video back with him in his baggage should be a reason for the FSB to step up their interference in his life: ‘I have a growing sense that we live in two opposing mental realities. In one, the Litvinenko tape is a harmless home recording from a friend. But in another, it’s evidence of a dark conspiracy to defame the Russian state.’ But Harding is a journalist for an established broadsheet. He is highly educated. He presumably has read up on the Soviet Union and its neuroses.
Can he really have been such an innocent as to suppose that there would no objection to bringing into a country the video of a programme that that country considers defamatory? What does he think would be the response to a journalist from, say, Pakistan who brought with him an Islamist video recorded at home about the infamies of the British or American governments? Not, perhaps, the tactics of the FSB, but not nothing either.
Similarly Harding raises incredulous eyebrows at Russian insularity: ‘All of them share an institutional phobia of the west, a place as remote for them as Europe must have been for Japan.’ But it doesn’t seem to cross his mind that Europe may not have been the centre of the world when Japan considered it remote; nor does it cross his mind that Japan may have seemed remote to Europe, or indeed that there may be institutional phobias among westerners for some things Russian. I repeat – not necessarily undeserved, but this is sloppy thinking nonetheless.
‘It’s not hard to admire the thoroughness of our FSB intruders. These guys are professionals.’ Well, duh! Of course these guys are professionals. It’s their job, isn’t it? Then we have, ‘I later discover that leaving pornographic material in the bedroom of a target was one of the KBG’s more extraordinary tactics, used frequently earlier in the cold war.’ Come on, man. So wide-eyed, yet so self-congratulatory as an investigative journalist, who prides himself – somewhat at the top of his voice – on being more courageous and dogged in pursuit of the Mafia state than any of his colleagues. In fact, as far as I can tell, the FSB were initially interested in Harding because The Guardian, his newspaper, had carried an interview with Boris Berezovsky, one of the oligarchs who had fled to London and is anathema to Putin. This association was enough to tarnish Harding in FSB eyes. The stain was, however, subsequently re-evalued. Then later, when The Guardian became the UK paper to carry the Wikileaks stories (until it lost patience with Julian Assange’s own self-aggrandizement), obviously Harding would be the man to write up the Russia-based stories, so equally obviously he would be the target of FSB ire. Another journo in his shoes would have found himself, well, in his shoes. But Harding is certain that it is he, as an individual, who has been uniquely targeted and is uniquely courageous.
All this is irritating and distracting because actually the information in the book is very interesting and persuasive much of the time. One can sympathise with the vengeful tone too. Which journalist wouldn’t let off writerly steam at a regime that has just deported him? I only wish the writer had not got so much in the way of his message and his evidence.
In terms of the story Harding has to tell, of an amoral, kleptocratic Kremlin and its strong arm security services, the FSB (heir to the KGB), Mafia State is compelling. We believe it. Putin is determined to hang onto power because he has made a mint and wants to keep it. He has allowed his henchmen to amass their fortunes as well so the circle of people for whom remaining in power is crucial is large enough. What happens to the benighted Russian populace is, at it ever was, an irrelevance to those at the top. Let them just not get in the way.
The trouble is that Luke Harding himself gets in the way of his thesis. Because the FSB set about a campaign of psychological terror in an attempt (that finally succeeds) to get him to shut up or leave, he has written a revenge, which is fair enough. The FSB bump off Russian journalists but not yet western ones. Instead, they break into your house at will, and make no effort to conceal the fact. On the contrary, that’s the point: you should know that you have been broken into, and by whom, but what has been done is petty and deniable and therefore impossible to report. And anyway, to whom would you report it? Your things are moved around; your phone is left off the hook; your house is comprehensively bugged; your children’s bedroom windows are left open where you had carefully locked them because after all you do live on the fifth floor; people have shat in your toilet and not flushed. Time after time...It’s enough to unsettle anyone, and everyone knows they do it. The British embassy staff sigh in weary recognition, and other journalists do too. Beware the young men in leather jackets and carrying man bags who persist in sitting right next to you in otherwise empty coffee bars, their microphones in their bags. Harding sloppily characterises this as a ‘morally repugnant form of terror’ – as if there were a form of terror that is not morally repugnant.
Unfortunately he displays an oversimplifying them-and-us view of the world, reminiscent of Bush’s with-us-or-against-us stance: Russia is currently a nasty place, ergo those who also say so must be the good guys. ‘Putin – and the FSB – became convinced that Ukraine’s “orange revolution” had been triggered not by popular street protests but by CIA spies carrying bagfuls of dollars.’ But there is something to be said for that conviction. As there is for Putin’s assertion that the USA also fomented the revolution in Georgia, which is not say that there was not popular protest as well. But just because one state or system or administration is perverse and vile does not mean that those who oppose it are by definition always trustworthy and on the side of the angels. You do not need to support without question, as Harding seems to do, every enterprise taken by the USA with regard to Russia simply because what Russia under Putin does is undemocratic, violent and self-serving.
Much of this book uses American diplomatic telegrammes, released by Wikileaks, to bolster his arguments, and indeed, as evidence for his characterisation of Putin’s Russia as a Mafia state. I wouldn’t disagree with his thesis, but the leaked opinions of US diplomats, or of any diplomats for that matter, are just that – opinions, not proven facts. We should distinguish between them or we undermine the argument.
Harding litters his narrative with sceptical adjectives when he relates the suspicions harboured by the Russians, while cheerfully recycling the views of westerners unchallenged. ‘In January 2006 Russian state television broadcasts footage supposedly showed (sic) British intelligence officers retrieving information from an artificial “rock” concealed in a Moscow park...The FSB alleged that Moscow-based UK diplomats used the rock to communicate with Russian “agents”’. I remember at the time talking to a friend, now deceased, who had been a big player in MI6. He said that this rock could well have been, ridiculous as it might seem, a ‘drop’ , set up and used by British agents.
What is surprising at times is this author’s naivety. Harding has come back to Moscow after a home visit to London. He has brought with him a video recorded off TV in the UK of a programme about Litvinenko, one-time KGB/FSB agent who was murdered by the FSB, it is believed by the world outside Russia, for having defected and blown the FSB story. Harding is apparently astonished that bringing this video back with him in his baggage should be a reason for the FSB to step up their interference in his life: ‘I have a growing sense that we live in two opposing mental realities. In one, the Litvinenko tape is a harmless home recording from a friend. But in another, it’s evidence of a dark conspiracy to defame the Russian state.’ But Harding is a journalist for an established broadsheet. He is highly educated. He presumably has read up on the Soviet Union and its neuroses.
Can he really have been such an innocent as to suppose that there would no objection to bringing into a country the video of a programme that that country considers defamatory? What does he think would be the response to a journalist from, say, Pakistan who brought with him an Islamist video recorded at home about the infamies of the British or American governments? Not, perhaps, the tactics of the FSB, but not nothing either.
Similarly Harding raises incredulous eyebrows at Russian insularity: ‘All of them share an institutional phobia of the west, a place as remote for them as Europe must have been for Japan.’ But it doesn’t seem to cross his mind that Europe may not have been the centre of the world when Japan considered it remote; nor does it cross his mind that Japan may have seemed remote to Europe, or indeed that there may be institutional phobias among westerners for some things Russian. I repeat – not necessarily undeserved, but this is sloppy thinking nonetheless.
‘It’s not hard to admire the thoroughness of our FSB intruders. These guys are professionals.’ Well, duh! Of course these guys are professionals. It’s their job, isn’t it? Then we have, ‘I later discover that leaving pornographic material in the bedroom of a target was one of the KBG’s more extraordinary tactics, used frequently earlier in the cold war.’ Come on, man. So wide-eyed, yet so self-congratulatory as an investigative journalist, who prides himself – somewhat at the top of his voice – on being more courageous and dogged in pursuit of the Mafia state than any of his colleagues. In fact, as far as I can tell, the FSB were initially interested in Harding because The Guardian, his newspaper, had carried an interview with Boris Berezovsky, one of the oligarchs who had fled to London and is anathema to Putin. This association was enough to tarnish Harding in FSB eyes. The stain was, however, subsequently re-evalued. Then later, when The Guardian became the UK paper to carry the Wikileaks stories (until it lost patience with Julian Assange’s own self-aggrandizement), obviously Harding would be the man to write up the Russia-based stories, so equally obviously he would be the target of FSB ire. Another journo in his shoes would have found himself, well, in his shoes. But Harding is certain that it is he, as an individual, who has been uniquely targeted and is uniquely courageous.
All this is irritating and distracting because actually the information in the book is very interesting and persuasive much of the time. One can sympathise with the vengeful tone too. Which journalist wouldn’t let off writerly steam at a regime that has just deported him? I only wish the writer had not got so much in the way of his message and his evidence.
August 3, 2021
First published a decade ago, this is Harding's intriguing and chilling account of the four years he spent living in Russia with his family while working as the Guardian's Moscow correspondent. His stories of FSB harassment through a variety of means, including break-ins and seemingly innocuous pranks played on the family sound very familiar indeed to anyone familiar with methods the Stasi were notorious for employing.
March 20, 2017
Russian politics is a cipher, rich with layers of history that include autocracies, ethnic conflict, wars large and small, assassinations, subterfuge, and subtexts. Current events are impossible to interpret without this context. I grew up reading the New York Times, a habit that has continued through my retirement and yet It is difficult to work out what is going on in Russia at any given moment. What Putin says is strategic rather than strictly true. What the government says it does is not necessarily what it is doing. How does one make sense of the news?
Luke Harding served as the Guardian's reporter in Moscow. His book provides the best context for Russian politics since Hedrick Smith's classic Russia. He is also a good writer with a gift for the odd anecdote that illuminates a political or economic transaction clearly. His account of Russian politics under Putin and the Medvedev rings true and provides both hard evidence and fascinating anecdotes about the continuity of practice between the old KGB and the contemporary FSB. As a confirmed institutionalist, this makes sense to me. Institutions don't change because of disruptions in the party in power. Spy craft has persisted through what has been billed as the transition to democracy. Actual change in standard operating procedures has been modest.
I loved Harding's book about the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko, but I love this one even more because it explains so much about Putin's behavior in 2017 and the reigning kleptocracy. Well worth reading.
Luke Harding served as the Guardian's reporter in Moscow. His book provides the best context for Russian politics since Hedrick Smith's classic Russia. He is also a good writer with a gift for the odd anecdote that illuminates a political or economic transaction clearly. His account of Russian politics under Putin and the Medvedev rings true and provides both hard evidence and fascinating anecdotes about the continuity of practice between the old KGB and the contemporary FSB. As a confirmed institutionalist, this makes sense to me. Institutions don't change because of disruptions in the party in power. Spy craft has persisted through what has been billed as the transition to democracy. Actual change in standard operating procedures has been modest.
I loved Harding's book about the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko, but I love this one even more because it explains so much about Putin's behavior in 2017 and the reigning kleptocracy. Well worth reading.
Read
January 18, 2018A rich recounting of journalist Harding’s account of the four years he spent living in Moscow on assignment as a journalist for the Guardian from 2007 - 2011. Subtitled “How one reporter became an enemy of the brutal new Russia” the book is slightly dated but was interesting insofar as it provides a critical account of his experience living as an ex pat journalist in Putin’s Russia and insight into the Putin-Medvedev relationship which Americans have thought was merely a place-holder relationship until Putin could return to power in 2012.
Things seemed to be going well for Harding and his family with language acquisition, housing, school and the like until strange things started happening while the family was out of their Moscow flat – a window in his son’s room was left open to the courtyard stories below, pictures on the wall might be rearranged, and on another occasion a Russian sex manual was left beside his bed. Although unnerving he seems to take these things in stride once he realizes he is being watched by the FSB, successor to the KGB where Putin learned (or at least perfected) these tactics working in collaboration with the Stasi (East German Secret Police) while stationed in Dresden as a KGB agent. These tactics known as profilaktirovat are designed to unnerve and ultimately drive him out of Russia although they seem to not have the desired effect.
Harding comes to refer to these nocturnal visitors as “ghosts” and on some level accepts that as a foreign journalist working in Russia he is inevitably treated as an enemy of the state, no different than if he were a member of Britain’s MI6. As a journalist there are several red lines that cannot be crossed – writing about the source of the wealth of Putin and his oligarch pals and the corruption endemic in the current regime that has made Putin one of the wealthiest in the world are among the lines he crosses.
For his unstinting journalistic efforts Harding is ultimately expelled from Russia but judging from the excellent reporting focused on Russia he has continued to produce for the Guardian and the books written subsequent to Mafia State including “A Very Expensive Poison” about the Russian states’ effort to poison former FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London and most recently “Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win” (2017) Harding is the one who has come out on top.
Things seemed to be going well for Harding and his family with language acquisition, housing, school and the like until strange things started happening while the family was out of their Moscow flat – a window in his son’s room was left open to the courtyard stories below, pictures on the wall might be rearranged, and on another occasion a Russian sex manual was left beside his bed. Although unnerving he seems to take these things in stride once he realizes he is being watched by the FSB, successor to the KGB where Putin learned (or at least perfected) these tactics working in collaboration with the Stasi (East German Secret Police) while stationed in Dresden as a KGB agent. These tactics known as profilaktirovat are designed to unnerve and ultimately drive him out of Russia although they seem to not have the desired effect.
Harding comes to refer to these nocturnal visitors as “ghosts” and on some level accepts that as a foreign journalist working in Russia he is inevitably treated as an enemy of the state, no different than if he were a member of Britain’s MI6. As a journalist there are several red lines that cannot be crossed – writing about the source of the wealth of Putin and his oligarch pals and the corruption endemic in the current regime that has made Putin one of the wealthiest in the world are among the lines he crosses.
For his unstinting journalistic efforts Harding is ultimately expelled from Russia but judging from the excellent reporting focused on Russia he has continued to produce for the Guardian and the books written subsequent to Mafia State including “A Very Expensive Poison” about the Russian states’ effort to poison former FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London and most recently “Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win” (2017) Harding is the one who has come out on top.
August 22, 2021
Vaikka sain kirjan ylioppilaslahjaksi lähes vuosikymmen sitten, oli se nyt luettuna edelleen ajankohtainen. Tavallaan teos oli jopa mielenkiintoisempaa lukea nyt: ne kehityskulut, joita Harding siinä maalaa Venäjän kehityksestä, ovat toteutuneet jopa synkempinä kuin mitä hän osasi aavistaa. Teos kuvaa osuvasti sitä millainen valtio Venäjä on pahimmillaan.
December 9, 2011
Mafia State is a gripping account of a corrupt government and how those in power will resort to unbelievable devious methods to deter anyone - including foreign journalists - from trying to expose the truth about life in modern Russia.
Luke Harding is an award-winning foreign correspondent with The Guardian. In 2007, the British journalist arrived in Russia to start work as the Guardian's new Moscow bureau chief. Three months after his arrival, he discovered someone had broken into his flat - which is on the 10th floor - and opened a window in the children's bedroom. Several hours later he is awakened by a mysterious alarm clock going off somewhere in the flat.
This disturbing incident was the start of an ongoing psychological campaign waged against Luke Harding and his family.
However, Luke Harding chooses to carry on with his work, despite the unsettling harassment - bugging his flat, disconnecting his phone calls, deleting his emails, a number of mysterious break-ins and even being stalked by thugs wearing leather jackets. Indeed, the author's detailed exposé about Russia reads like a spy thriller.
Luke Harding soon realizes that he and his family are under constant surveillance by the Federal Security Service of Russia. The FSB (formerly known as the KGB) is Russia's main domestic spy agency and state security organisation. Apparently, this sinister agency has Luke Harding in its sights because of his persistence in uncovering the truth about Vladimir Putin's regime in Russia, and writing about it. Hence the book's subtitle: How one reporter became an enemy of the brutal new Russia. Indeed, Luke Harding became the first western reporter to be deported from Russia since the Cold War days.
Mafia State is a comprehensive treatise that includes eight pages of photographs plus an extensive index. The book is informative as well as genuinely alarming. The author writes about the long list of human rights activists who have been murdered since Putin took power - and the mystery of who killed Alexander Litvinenko is addressed too. Luke Harding also provides front-line reports from the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia.
There are numerous jaw-dropping revelations in the book - including unpublished material from confidential US diplomatic cables, released last year by WikiLeaks. Luke Harding discovers he isn't the only victim of the FSB's domestic break-ins, when he reads about the daily difficulties faced by American diplomats in Moscow.
The author's determination to persevere with his work even when he knew the FSB had him under surveillance, is very impressive. Luke Harding is an incredibly brave and dedicated journalist. Mafia State is a real eye-opener and I'm grateful to Random House for sending me a copy.
Mafia State is a must-read for those who follow current events and is sure to appeal to those who are interested in politics and particularly to those who want to learn about the new Russia. I found it to be a fascinating and illuminating read.
Luke Harding is an award-winning foreign correspondent with The Guardian. In 2007, the British journalist arrived in Russia to start work as the Guardian's new Moscow bureau chief. Three months after his arrival, he discovered someone had broken into his flat - which is on the 10th floor - and opened a window in the children's bedroom. Several hours later he is awakened by a mysterious alarm clock going off somewhere in the flat.
This disturbing incident was the start of an ongoing psychological campaign waged against Luke Harding and his family.
However, Luke Harding chooses to carry on with his work, despite the unsettling harassment - bugging his flat, disconnecting his phone calls, deleting his emails, a number of mysterious break-ins and even being stalked by thugs wearing leather jackets. Indeed, the author's detailed exposé about Russia reads like a spy thriller.
Luke Harding soon realizes that he and his family are under constant surveillance by the Federal Security Service of Russia. The FSB (formerly known as the KGB) is Russia's main domestic spy agency and state security organisation. Apparently, this sinister agency has Luke Harding in its sights because of his persistence in uncovering the truth about Vladimir Putin's regime in Russia, and writing about it. Hence the book's subtitle: How one reporter became an enemy of the brutal new Russia. Indeed, Luke Harding became the first western reporter to be deported from Russia since the Cold War days.
Mafia State is a comprehensive treatise that includes eight pages of photographs plus an extensive index. The book is informative as well as genuinely alarming. The author writes about the long list of human rights activists who have been murdered since Putin took power - and the mystery of who killed Alexander Litvinenko is addressed too. Luke Harding also provides front-line reports from the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia.
There are numerous jaw-dropping revelations in the book - including unpublished material from confidential US diplomatic cables, released last year by WikiLeaks. Luke Harding discovers he isn't the only victim of the FSB's domestic break-ins, when he reads about the daily difficulties faced by American diplomats in Moscow.
The author's determination to persevere with his work even when he knew the FSB had him under surveillance, is very impressive. Luke Harding is an incredibly brave and dedicated journalist. Mafia State is a real eye-opener and I'm grateful to Random House for sending me a copy.
Mafia State is a must-read for those who follow current events and is sure to appeal to those who are interested in politics and particularly to those who want to learn about the new Russia. I found it to be a fascinating and illuminating read.
October 14, 2013
There is an excellent review of this book here on Goodreads by Jan Maat Landlubba (I think it is) which is hard to beat and has little in it which I can disagree with. So I am not going to add a lot to his excellent review.
This is a book of unbelievable naivete from an accredited journo with a growing reputation. It comes across as a series of bleating bleedings about how wrong it all is, and reads like a spoiled teenager shouting 'ITS NOT FAIR'. It is poorly researched and rests firmly on the truth/veracity or otherwise of Wikileaks on which Mr Harding appears to set great emphasis and belief. He needs to, as it appears to be his primary source for describing all of Russia as a 'Mafia State'. There really looks to be little analysis in this book on the situations which Harding is attempting to describe / bleat about for the daily table consumption of those nicely nice liberal soft-leftie Grauniad readers. Some of the writing is SOOOOOooo bad - appalling even - and exactly the kind of thing that you might expect of someone with an agenda. How on earth he got to be an accredited Grauniad journo is in itself a question worth asking.
What is Harding's agenda? Well he appears to believe that he can go into a country and write openly condemnatory and inflammatory articles which are poorly researched with little substance and proceed to live life as if he was in leafy Hertfordshire. It is the bleating of a nicely-nice liberal journo. The fact that THE STATE make the rules, they decide what rules are going to be played by appears to be so far away from his comprehension. No - its as if Harding believes the whole WORLD should be run on nicely-nice Grauniad rules, and where it is not the its just NOT FAIR.
Wake up, Harding. Life ain't like that. You want to show the naivete of a Greenpeace eco warrior then go and jump in a RIB and be a pirate. Pack the journo lark in, mate. Let's face it, despite your beliefs and your very high self opinion of your talents, you are never ever going to be Robert Fisk or any of the others that you quote (If anything you look as though you see yourself as the new Muggeridge). Join yer wifey writing about nicely-nice walking and living on holiday in yurts. Oh and PLEASE stop inflicting us with your bleating on how it affects your family. You took 'em there. You pay the consequences. Don't expect me to cry for you when your ambition involves clear knowledge if you were not so naive that you will be damaging your family.
This is a poor book from an adolescent idiot. Don't expect to find out much about modern Russia from it.
Which leaves the question 'What IS there out there, written by whoever (preferably Russian), which IS insightful and well written and researched on the rise of modern Russia post-Gorbachov and the break up of the USSR? The answer would appear to be 'very little'. I had high expectations of this book. It failed on every level.
This is a book of unbelievable naivete from an accredited journo with a growing reputation. It comes across as a series of bleating bleedings about how wrong it all is, and reads like a spoiled teenager shouting 'ITS NOT FAIR'. It is poorly researched and rests firmly on the truth/veracity or otherwise of Wikileaks on which Mr Harding appears to set great emphasis and belief. He needs to, as it appears to be his primary source for describing all of Russia as a 'Mafia State'. There really looks to be little analysis in this book on the situations which Harding is attempting to describe / bleat about for the daily table consumption of those nicely nice liberal soft-leftie Grauniad readers. Some of the writing is SOOOOOooo bad - appalling even - and exactly the kind of thing that you might expect of someone with an agenda. How on earth he got to be an accredited Grauniad journo is in itself a question worth asking.
What is Harding's agenda? Well he appears to believe that he can go into a country and write openly condemnatory and inflammatory articles which are poorly researched with little substance and proceed to live life as if he was in leafy Hertfordshire. It is the bleating of a nicely-nice liberal journo. The fact that THE STATE make the rules, they decide what rules are going to be played by appears to be so far away from his comprehension. No - its as if Harding believes the whole WORLD should be run on nicely-nice Grauniad rules, and where it is not the its just NOT FAIR.
Wake up, Harding. Life ain't like that. You want to show the naivete of a Greenpeace eco warrior then go and jump in a RIB and be a pirate. Pack the journo lark in, mate. Let's face it, despite your beliefs and your very high self opinion of your talents, you are never ever going to be Robert Fisk or any of the others that you quote (If anything you look as though you see yourself as the new Muggeridge). Join yer wifey writing about nicely-nice walking and living on holiday in yurts. Oh and PLEASE stop inflicting us with your bleating on how it affects your family. You took 'em there. You pay the consequences. Don't expect me to cry for you when your ambition involves clear knowledge if you were not so naive that you will be damaging your family.
This is a poor book from an adolescent idiot. Don't expect to find out much about modern Russia from it.
Which leaves the question 'What IS there out there, written by whoever (preferably Russian), which IS insightful and well written and researched on the rise of modern Russia post-Gorbachov and the break up of the USSR? The answer would appear to be 'very little'. I had high expectations of this book. It failed on every level.
March 7, 2012
I picked this book up in hardback with 75% off at Waterstones, after picking it up, changing my mind and putting it down almost every time I went into a book shop for about six months.
I'm glad I bought it in the end, because it is an excellent account of Putin's Russia, which is, as Harding, the former Guardian man in Moscow, says, a Mafia State. I studied Russia as a student, and wrote my dissertation on Gorbachev, but in the intervening years had not really paid much attention to Russian politics or society. I knew there were problems with corruption and nest-feathering at the top, but was not aware it was happening on such an enormous level.
All in all, a very good read. Only two minor niggling things keep it from being five stars.
Firstly, the edition I read had quite a few typographic errors, and had been sub-edited badly. Whether this is the reason it was in the 75% off, sale shelf, I don't know, but it was (very) mildly irritating.
Secondly, the subtitle to the book, "how one reporter became an enemy of the brutal new Russia" is a bit misleading. Harding does get repeated break ins at his home and office - the FSB playing psychological games - and in the end is barred entry to the country, having annoyed so many people, but the subtitle could lead you to believe the book to be primarily about this harassment, which it isn't, it is more an expose' of the corruption ridden Russia of today, and a very good one at that.
I'm glad I bought it in the end, because it is an excellent account of Putin's Russia, which is, as Harding, the former Guardian man in Moscow, says, a Mafia State. I studied Russia as a student, and wrote my dissertation on Gorbachev, but in the intervening years had not really paid much attention to Russian politics or society. I knew there were problems with corruption and nest-feathering at the top, but was not aware it was happening on such an enormous level.
All in all, a very good read. Only two minor niggling things keep it from being five stars.
Firstly, the edition I read had quite a few typographic errors, and had been sub-edited badly. Whether this is the reason it was in the 75% off, sale shelf, I don't know, but it was (very) mildly irritating.
Secondly, the subtitle to the book, "how one reporter became an enemy of the brutal new Russia" is a bit misleading. Harding does get repeated break ins at his home and office - the FSB playing psychological games - and in the end is barred entry to the country, having annoyed so many people, but the subtitle could lead you to believe the book to be primarily about this harassment, which it isn't, it is more an expose' of the corruption ridden Russia of today, and a very good one at that.
May 28, 2012
Best when he writes from direct experience, for example when he exposes the daily harassment the foreign community experiences from the FSB -- something everybody knows about and never talks about.
Not as good when he goes over the well-worn stories of the Kremlin's evil deeds like the Litvinenko poisoning because he isn't bringing any new actual investigated journalistic facts. However, I'm not done yet...
Not as good when he goes over the well-worn stories of the Kremlin's evil deeds like the Litvinenko poisoning because he isn't bringing any new actual investigated journalistic facts. However, I'm not done yet...
May 14, 2022
This is an excellent non-fiction book which describe very candidly what daily life is in post-Soviet Russia.
I have been to Moscow in the late 1990 and realized that people were still living in fear of the KGB, and reading Mr Harding's book, I think that things have not changed since my last visit to that country.
It is a pity that such a wonderful country continues to live in a condition which is not different from the days of all-powerful KGB,
I have been to Moscow in the late 1990 and realized that people were still living in fear of the KGB, and reading Mr Harding's book, I think that things have not changed since my last visit to that country.
It is a pity that such a wonderful country continues to live in a condition which is not different from the days of all-powerful KGB,
October 4, 2011
The field trip reports from Dagestan..Kyrgyzstan with historical/geographical notes are somewhat boring, but the "life of a Guardian reporter in modern Moscow" part compensates for that. I mean, it reads like some oldschool Aksyonov ("Скажи Изюм" with elements of "Московская Сага") -- it's amazing how some things never change in RU.
July 27, 2014
Якби можна було деталізувати рейтинг:
За переклад: 2 з 5. Це просто жах. Недолуго, невідредаговано, часом здавалось що гугл транслейт виринав між рядків і передавав вітання перекладачу
За стиль (наскільки він вгадався за перекладом): 3 з 5
За фактаж: 5 з 5
Дізналась багато нового, і згадала добре забуте старе.
За переклад: 2 з 5. Це просто жах. Недолуго, невідредаговано, часом здавалось що гугл транслейт виринав між рядків і передавав вітання перекладачу
За стиль (наскільки він вгадався за перекладом): 3 з 5
За фактаж: 5 з 5
Дізналась багато нового, і згадала добре забуте старе.
April 12, 2013
This book told me nothing about life in Russia that isn't widely known already. Waste of reading time.
February 25, 2023
Towards the end of the book, the author writes that after leaving Russia he gets in contact with a German author who has written about the methods of the infamous East German Stasi and their impact on Stasi victims. Harding and the German writer both agree that there are similarities in the Russian FSB's methods and those of the East German Stasi. The German author suggests to Harding that he write a book on his experiences, as "This is the best Therapie for you".
I feel Mafia State may have been the result of this suggestion. A lot of the book is about the harrassment he suffers from the Russian secret service. It may have been therapeutic for him to write about, but as a book subject it is only mildly interesting. It doesn't help that Harding isn't the most engaging of writers. The book is certainly earnest, but also a bit on the dour side.
I had bought the book because the title suggested it would be an investigative account of the Russian government's links with organised crime, or even of how the government has morphed into a criminal organisation itself. This is certainly covered in the book, but Harding's research is mostly just pouring through the Wikileaks cables on the subject, ie the analysis and musings of US diplomats and spies.
There are also a few chapters that cover particular events that occurred during Harding's four-year stay in Russia, including: the brazen murders of spy-turned-dissident Alexander Litvinenko and journalist Natalia Estemirova; the Russian war with Georgia; billionaire Alexander Lebedev's purchase of the UK newspaper The Evening Standard. These are for me the most interesting chapters, even if they feel like expanded newspaper articles.
It's interesting that at the end of the book, Harding and his family take a vote on whether they should leave or stay in Russia. Only his wife votes to stay. She has spent their four years in the country "writing about the other Russia". She has been exploring the churches, museums, markets and countryside, talking with the old grandmothers, the villagers, her intellectual Russia friends. It occurred to me then that I'd rather have read her book than her husband's. (His wife is Phoebe Taplin, who has a written a series of four books, "Moscow Walks").
I feel Mafia State may have been the result of this suggestion. A lot of the book is about the harrassment he suffers from the Russian secret service. It may have been therapeutic for him to write about, but as a book subject it is only mildly interesting. It doesn't help that Harding isn't the most engaging of writers. The book is certainly earnest, but also a bit on the dour side.
I had bought the book because the title suggested it would be an investigative account of the Russian government's links with organised crime, or even of how the government has morphed into a criminal organisation itself. This is certainly covered in the book, but Harding's research is mostly just pouring through the Wikileaks cables on the subject, ie the analysis and musings of US diplomats and spies.
There are also a few chapters that cover particular events that occurred during Harding's four-year stay in Russia, including: the brazen murders of spy-turned-dissident Alexander Litvinenko and journalist Natalia Estemirova; the Russian war with Georgia; billionaire Alexander Lebedev's purchase of the UK newspaper The Evening Standard. These are for me the most interesting chapters, even if they feel like expanded newspaper articles.
It's interesting that at the end of the book, Harding and his family take a vote on whether they should leave or stay in Russia. Only his wife votes to stay. She has spent their four years in the country "writing about the other Russia". She has been exploring the churches, museums, markets and countryside, talking with the old grandmothers, the villagers, her intellectual Russia friends. It occurred to me then that I'd rather have read her book than her husband's. (His wife is Phoebe Taplin, who has a written a series of four books, "Moscow Walks").
April 7, 2020
As far as memoirs go, Expelled: A Journalist's Descent Into the Russian Mafia State by Luke Harding, is an effective one, with plenty of drama, conflict, and sound plot structure. From the very first page of the prologue, a chilling scene is laid out, and the palaver only continues, from FSB break-ins to the Russo-Georgian War. Luke Harding had arrived in Russia in 2007, as The Guardian’s new Moscow bureau chief. Before long, the break-ins and phycological torment begin.
Just as with drama, conflict is presented early on, and continues throughout the memoir. It begins with a call from the FSB, the Federal Security Service, or in Russian, Федеральная служба безопасности Российской Федерации, asking to see Harding and suggest he brings a lawyer. Though, it is clear through the use of thinly veiled threats that it is a demand and not a request. This is just the first glimpse of what is to come.
The plot is well structured. Harding neatly lays out the events in chronological order, from the first months of his arrival in Russia, to his subsequent deportation, the months that follow, and the Moscow habits that die hard.
The accounts Harding’s memoir chronicles are without a doubt horrifying, chilling story. It is filled to the brim with cruel and inhumane acts. But if you take a step back, it is an intriguing memoir, very much worth the read.
Just as with drama, conflict is presented early on, and continues throughout the memoir. It begins with a call from the FSB, the Federal Security Service, or in Russian, Федеральная служба безопасности Российской Федерации, asking to see Harding and suggest he brings a lawyer. Though, it is clear through the use of thinly veiled threats that it is a demand and not a request. This is just the first glimpse of what is to come.
The plot is well structured. Harding neatly lays out the events in chronological order, from the first months of his arrival in Russia, to his subsequent deportation, the months that follow, and the Moscow habits that die hard.
The accounts Harding’s memoir chronicles are without a doubt horrifying, chilling story. It is filled to the brim with cruel and inhumane acts. But if you take a step back, it is an intriguing memoir, very much worth the read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 31, 2018
I had expected more. “Mafia state” as a title had promised a thesis with structure, focus and an evidentially supported exploration of how Russian works today. Instead it just drifts. Sometimes it reads like a gap year diary and more often than not it feels like a crass attempt by the author to establish his place in the journalist pantheon. This is a memoir, pure and simple. There’s nothing wrong with this but to call your memoir “mafia state” and to offer no new insights into modern Russia is just opportunism. Considering his experiences in Moscow, which I do not question were valuable, disturbing and important, he should have stuck to creating a incisive long read rather than banging out an largely pointless book. Unless he had something new to say. Which he didn’t.
September 9, 2017
Inglise ajakirjaniku meenutused tööst Guardiani korrespondendina Moskvas. Päris huvitav lugemine, samas on tegemist pigem mitmest eri loost, tegevustikust, kokkuklopsitud teosega, mis ei anna kahjuks seda ülevaatlikku ja analüütilist pilti Putini režiimist, mida siit raamatust otsisin. Tegemist ju siiski mehega, kes saadeti oma ajakirjanikutöö eest Venemaalt välja, ning võiks eeldada sidusamat kirjutamist ja põhjalikumat analüüsi. Praegu aga on tegemist rohkem ajalehekolumnite kogumikuga, millest on kahju.
May 7, 2017
“The threat of a terrorist attack in Moscow is real enough - a constant beneath the surface. But another, more palpable form of intimidation stalks the city's streets. It targets those from the Caucasus - no longer perpetrators but victims - as well as anyone of non-Slavic descent. This spectre is Russian nationalism, furiously asserting itself.”
July 4, 2017
Omakohtaisuudessaan hiuksia nostattava kertaus siitä, miten itärajamme takana luisutaan syvemmälle oligarkian ja kleptokratian syövereihin.
July 7, 2017
Might have been a good reading for a person who hasn't read much about about Soviet Union and current Russia. Nothing new to be true, just a slightly new angle.
February 26, 2018
Harding and his family are lucky to get out when they did.
May 21, 2022
... or the adventures of a western political journalist in Putin`s Russia.
October 2, 2022
A great read - fascinating account of the harassment and intimidation faced by journalists in Russia and the lengths the FSB go to to deter truthful reporting.
May 5, 2023
Really interesting read. Highly recommended.
May 21, 2015
A fair summary of many of the dubious things going on in Putin’s Russia; but scarcely great literature or necessarily incisive journalism. By the end it descends into something close to farce, in my book.
I picked up this book because I had a distant connection with Russia at the time myself; and indeed had some slight connection with one or two of the issues that Luke Harding describes here. There is always a certain narcissistic pleasure in reading about things one knows about already. He covers immensely more than the things I know of, for sure; but for what tiny amount it is worth I found his reporting of the things I knew about to be consistently accurate.
On the negative side, I found his style of writing a little irritating. The rat-tat delivery does not strike me as the kind of style the Guardian would normally countenance – it might have been better if he had used his Guardian persona. In particular, I did not find that his insistence on using the present tense all over the place (as in “I go to the shop, and then the soldier picks up his gun..”) was at all helpful, and if he intended to introduce a tone of immediacy, he failed. Nothing wrong with the past tense to describe past events!
Much of what he describes is indeed saddening – the way in which Putin mistakes posturing and bullying for diplomacy and ‘greatness’. But he tends to meander a little as the book progresses, and occasionally to become a bit partisan in the process. For example, the accounts of Uzbech-Kyrgistan conflicts are shamefully new to me (was this reported at all in the west at the time?) – but bear little relation to his theme of Russia being a mafia state. At the same time, he talks with sympathy of how difficult it was for America to make much headway in making the former Soviet colonies client states of its own, in the face of rotten old Russia reasserting itself. Well why wouldn’t it? Why shouldn’t it, smack in its own back yard?
When he does get round to the central theme – of Russian governance becoming an increasingly poisonous mix of state bullying and genuine gangsterism and so on, much of his source material is in fact Wikileaks. Nothing wrong with that one might argue (though in fact, I do: I’ve always found the self-righteousness of journalists, drunk with their self-proclaimed “right” to say what they please in the name of freedom of speech a little hard to swallow; and Luke H is as guilty of this here as any of them): but again it tends to drift away from the theme of how Luke Harding was made into a marked man.
The final chapters of the book, an account of the FSB playing cat and mouse with him in the saga of his removal from Russia: are, to my mind, almost preposterous in their missing of the point. To illustrate his disgust at being moved out of Moscow a year earlier than originally planned (possibly more), he plants a mawkish ‘article’ purporting to be by his daughter, expressing her disgust at being pulled out prematurely. It ends with the memorable closing remark (in the present tense of course, for immediacy) “I read Tilly’s article and weep”. Well yes I suppose you might have done Luke – if a pre-teen had written that, in all its adult grammatical correctness and sophistication of thought, I might have wept myself. But I daresay you wrote it yourself.
By the end, his self-importance and lack of self-awareness are little short of breath-taking. Stopped at the airport, he does not fail to slip in the tearful phone call from his son - ‘ When are you coming home Daddy?” – but goes quickly back to the central theme, which is that he is so important that they wouldn’t dare, would they. He spends far too much time analysing what the motives of the FSB might have been, and speculating whether they felt embarrassed into some of the backtracking they did as part of the process. In a book devoted to conveying how nothing, but nothing, embarrasses the FSB: this is really rather foolish.
Pity, because the first half of the book is not so self-seeking and is more interesting as a result. I can only speculate that – annoyed as he was entitled to feel that his work in Russia was ended – he decided to write a book and at least make a bob or two out of Putin, if nothing else. If so – it shows.
I picked up this book because I had a distant connection with Russia at the time myself; and indeed had some slight connection with one or two of the issues that Luke Harding describes here. There is always a certain narcissistic pleasure in reading about things one knows about already. He covers immensely more than the things I know of, for sure; but for what tiny amount it is worth I found his reporting of the things I knew about to be consistently accurate.
On the negative side, I found his style of writing a little irritating. The rat-tat delivery does not strike me as the kind of style the Guardian would normally countenance – it might have been better if he had used his Guardian persona. In particular, I did not find that his insistence on using the present tense all over the place (as in “I go to the shop, and then the soldier picks up his gun..”) was at all helpful, and if he intended to introduce a tone of immediacy, he failed. Nothing wrong with the past tense to describe past events!
Much of what he describes is indeed saddening – the way in which Putin mistakes posturing and bullying for diplomacy and ‘greatness’. But he tends to meander a little as the book progresses, and occasionally to become a bit partisan in the process. For example, the accounts of Uzbech-Kyrgistan conflicts are shamefully new to me (was this reported at all in the west at the time?) – but bear little relation to his theme of Russia being a mafia state. At the same time, he talks with sympathy of how difficult it was for America to make much headway in making the former Soviet colonies client states of its own, in the face of rotten old Russia reasserting itself. Well why wouldn’t it? Why shouldn’t it, smack in its own back yard?
When he does get round to the central theme – of Russian governance becoming an increasingly poisonous mix of state bullying and genuine gangsterism and so on, much of his source material is in fact Wikileaks. Nothing wrong with that one might argue (though in fact, I do: I’ve always found the self-righteousness of journalists, drunk with their self-proclaimed “right” to say what they please in the name of freedom of speech a little hard to swallow; and Luke H is as guilty of this here as any of them): but again it tends to drift away from the theme of how Luke Harding was made into a marked man.
The final chapters of the book, an account of the FSB playing cat and mouse with him in the saga of his removal from Russia: are, to my mind, almost preposterous in their missing of the point. To illustrate his disgust at being moved out of Moscow a year earlier than originally planned (possibly more), he plants a mawkish ‘article’ purporting to be by his daughter, expressing her disgust at being pulled out prematurely. It ends with the memorable closing remark (in the present tense of course, for immediacy) “I read Tilly’s article and weep”. Well yes I suppose you might have done Luke – if a pre-teen had written that, in all its adult grammatical correctness and sophistication of thought, I might have wept myself. But I daresay you wrote it yourself.
By the end, his self-importance and lack of self-awareness are little short of breath-taking. Stopped at the airport, he does not fail to slip in the tearful phone call from his son - ‘ When are you coming home Daddy?” – but goes quickly back to the central theme, which is that he is so important that they wouldn’t dare, would they. He spends far too much time analysing what the motives of the FSB might have been, and speculating whether they felt embarrassed into some of the backtracking they did as part of the process. In a book devoted to conveying how nothing, but nothing, embarrasses the FSB: this is really rather foolish.
Pity, because the first half of the book is not so self-seeking and is more interesting as a result. I can only speculate that – annoyed as he was entitled to feel that his work in Russia was ended – he decided to write a book and at least make a bob or two out of Putin, if nothing else. If so – it shows.
February 2, 2013
[Mafia State: How one reporter became an enemy of the brutal new Russia] is a great account of how Russia has fallen under dictatorial control of Vladamir Putin and the countries secret service, the FSB. It also covers the harassment the author, Luke Harding, suffered at the hands of the FSB while serving as the Guardian's Moscow correspondent. While the book is primarily an account of Harding's time in Russia, it provides excellent historical context of Russia transition from the USSR to the capitalist dictatorship and explores events that have occurred in Russia's "sphere of influence" which lays the foundation upon which the rest of the book is built.
My favourite parts of the book were the chapter's recounting the Russia's invasion of Georgia in 2008 and the chapter discussing Russia's growing ultra-nationalist movement. Harding's account of Georgian war is both entertaining and informative and provides extensive insight about the state sponsored paramilitary forces that terrorised Georgian civilians on Russia's behalf which I was unaware of before reading the book. The chapter on the ultra-nationalist movement within Russia is as fascinating as it is terrifying and highlights a growing movement that believes that Hitler's only mistake was invading the Soviet Union and is responsible for the murder of countless members of Russian's non-Slavic communities. Harding's coverage of Putin's flirtations with these groups is a particular highlight and provides a chilling insight to the decision making process of his regime.
The only issue that bothered me about this book is the inconsistency in tone within the book. Throughout the course of the book Harding recounts 2 cases of ethnic cleansing in Georgia and Kyrgyzstan with the stoic, emotionless tone that you would expect from an award winning journalist but toward the end of the book he includes a essay written by his 13 year old daughter which seemed like nothing more than a teenage rant (albeit a very well written teenage rant) caused by the actions of her father, which Haring talks about weeping over. This inconsistency is jarring, I'm guessing Harding did find the cases of ethnic tension emotional but the way he presents it in the book is as if the readers should feel greater empathy for his daughter and her angst-ridden adolescent outburst than they should for murdered and displaced civilians.
Overall though this book was a entertaining and informative read and if the author's intention was to quash any enthusiasm his readers have for travelling to Russia, I can can say that, in my case at least, he has 100% succeeded.
My favourite parts of the book were the chapter's recounting the Russia's invasion of Georgia in 2008 and the chapter discussing Russia's growing ultra-nationalist movement. Harding's account of Georgian war is both entertaining and informative and provides extensive insight about the state sponsored paramilitary forces that terrorised Georgian civilians on Russia's behalf which I was unaware of before reading the book. The chapter on the ultra-nationalist movement within Russia is as fascinating as it is terrifying and highlights a growing movement that believes that Hitler's only mistake was invading the Soviet Union and is responsible for the murder of countless members of Russian's non-Slavic communities. Harding's coverage of Putin's flirtations with these groups is a particular highlight and provides a chilling insight to the decision making process of his regime.
The only issue that bothered me about this book is the inconsistency in tone within the book. Throughout the course of the book Harding recounts 2 cases of ethnic cleansing in Georgia and Kyrgyzstan with the stoic, emotionless tone that you would expect from an award winning journalist but toward the end of the book he includes a essay written by his 13 year old daughter which seemed like nothing more than a teenage rant (albeit a very well written teenage rant) caused by the actions of her father, which Haring talks about weeping over. This inconsistency is jarring, I'm guessing Harding did find the cases of ethnic tension emotional but the way he presents it in the book is as if the readers should feel greater empathy for his daughter and her angst-ridden adolescent outburst than they should for murdered and displaced civilians.
Overall though this book was a entertaining and informative read and if the author's intention was to quash any enthusiasm his readers have for travelling to Russia, I can can say that, in my case at least, he has 100% succeeded.
April 13, 2014
The redoubtable and ever-readable Luke Harding delivers a comprehensive and often jaw-dropping expose of the modern Russian State which, according to him is more riddled with corruption and dirty dealing than the mould in blue cheese.
He is especially vitriolic about President Putin whom he deems has brought one of his old KGB operating manuals to bear on the task of (mis)governing the country, and has also signed off a shady Secret Service/Organised crime alliance to do much of his dirty work at arm's length. Putin is portrayed as a paranoid throwback, an arch-nationalist with a rabid counter-revolutionary agenda.
This book was written 3 years before Russia's 2014 annexation of the Crimea, but Harding's analysis of the earlier Russian-Georgian conflict reads the Ukrainian runes with chilling accuracy.
Harding unsurprisingly becomes the star of his own scathing journalistic despatches after someone in the higher eschelons of power decides his waspish journalism has gone far too far. The FSB have already warmed to the task, deploying their Kafkaesque 'operational psychology' (subtle and not-so-subtle dirty tricks) to unsettle Harding and his family. They then contrive for him to be be deported for trumped up bureaucratic irregularities. This stunt backfires on them spectacularly and Harding even gets a temporary reprieve. But he knows when he is beaten and pulls the plug.
The whole episode reads like a cross between theatrical farce and a cold war thriller. The most telling pages are surely those Harding gives over to his 13 year old daughter Tilley as she pens an eloquent teenage rant on the way these antics have turned her life in Moscow upside down.
Harding's researched critique of the power elites in Russia is so thorough-going and relentless it might be tempting to assume he is over-egging the pudding just to satisfy his customary 'Guardianista' audience. But of course his following book is all about the spying activities of the NSA in America, so he's not only even-handed, but pretty fearless too. I certainly wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of either the FSB or the NSA. How Luke Harding hasn't found himself on the business end of a polonium-tipped umbrella for his troubles beats me. Respect! (But minus one star for the shouty title.)
He is especially vitriolic about President Putin whom he deems has brought one of his old KGB operating manuals to bear on the task of (mis)governing the country, and has also signed off a shady Secret Service/Organised crime alliance to do much of his dirty work at arm's length. Putin is portrayed as a paranoid throwback, an arch-nationalist with a rabid counter-revolutionary agenda.
This book was written 3 years before Russia's 2014 annexation of the Crimea, but Harding's analysis of the earlier Russian-Georgian conflict reads the Ukrainian runes with chilling accuracy.
Harding unsurprisingly becomes the star of his own scathing journalistic despatches after someone in the higher eschelons of power decides his waspish journalism has gone far too far. The FSB have already warmed to the task, deploying their Kafkaesque 'operational psychology' (subtle and not-so-subtle dirty tricks) to unsettle Harding and his family. They then contrive for him to be be deported for trumped up bureaucratic irregularities. This stunt backfires on them spectacularly and Harding even gets a temporary reprieve. But he knows when he is beaten and pulls the plug.
The whole episode reads like a cross between theatrical farce and a cold war thriller. The most telling pages are surely those Harding gives over to his 13 year old daughter Tilley as she pens an eloquent teenage rant on the way these antics have turned her life in Moscow upside down.
Harding's researched critique of the power elites in Russia is so thorough-going and relentless it might be tempting to assume he is over-egging the pudding just to satisfy his customary 'Guardianista' audience. But of course his following book is all about the spying activities of the NSA in America, so he's not only even-handed, but pretty fearless too. I certainly wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of either the FSB or the NSA. How Luke Harding hasn't found himself on the business end of a polonium-tipped umbrella for his troubles beats me. Respect! (But minus one star for the shouty title.)
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