History of Europe

In 1994, I hitchhiked to Ukraine. A long-haired high school student, I was eager to explore what my whole life had lain beyond the family’s holiday plans. For us, children of the Cold War, the Soviet Union was something colourless, menacing and intriguingly off limits. 

Bliss it was in that dawn to be naïve: no amount of reading could have prepared me for the surreal world of Russian politics. It was Alice in Wonderland meets A Clockwork Orange. But to understand what is happening in Ukraine and Russia today, we need to make some se...