Book description
Two centuries ago, the Russians pushed out of the cold north towards
the Caucasus Mountains, the range that blocked their access to Georgia,
Turkey, Persia and India. They were forging their colonial destiny, and
the mountains were in their way. The Caucasus had to be conquered and,
for the highlanders who lived there, life would never be the same again.
If the Russians expected it to be an easy fight, however, they were
mistaken. Their armies would go on to defeat Napoleon and Hitler, as
well as lesser foes, but no one resisted them for as long as these
supposed savages. To hear the stories of the conquest, I travelled far
from the mountains. I wandered through the steppes of Central Asia and
the cities of Turkey. I squatted outside internment camps in Poland, and
drank tea beneath the gentle hills of Israel. The stories I heard
amplified the outrages I saw in the mountains themselves. As I set out,
in my mind was a Chechen woman I had met in a refugee camp. She lived in
a ragged, khaki tent in a field of mud and stones, but she welcomed me
with laughter and kindness. Like the mountains of her homeland, her
spirit had soared upwards, gleaming and pure. Throughout my travels, I
met the same generosity from all the Caucasus peoples. Their stories
have not been told, and there fame is not great, but truly it deserves
to be. A book that effortlessly mixes on-the-spot reportage and a
wide-ranging history . . . Let its fame be great
Oliver Bullough was born in 1977 and grew up on a sheep farm in
mid-Wales. He studied modern history at Oxford University and moved to
Russia in 1999. He lived in St Petersburg, Bishkek and Moscow over the
next seven years, working as a journalist first for local magazines
and newspapers, and then for Reuters news agency. He reported from all
over Russia and the former Soviet Union, but liked nothing more than
to work among the peoples and mountains of the North Caucasus.
He moved back to Britain in 2006, and has spent the following years
travelling for and writing this book. He now lives in east London. He
likes to travel, to take photographs, to watch Welsh rugby, to cook
and to read.
