For Lena, childhood summers meant training to be a good socialist at Pioneer camp, singing songs in praise of Lenin. But when perestroika shatters her world, all must be unlearned. Lena’s corner of the USSR is suddenly Ukraine: there is a McDonalds in Moscow’s Red Square and certified foreign whisky, but no food in the shops.

For her friend Tatyana, survival in her changing homeland requires new skills: bullet dodging, business sense and a knack for bribery and corruption.

When both women head West in search of new beginnings, their homesickness for a vanished land is inherited by their rebellious daughters, caught between forging their own identities and untangling the rich histories of the mothers who raised them.

Format: Paperback
Published: 2025
Publisher: Pushkin Press
Pages: 336
Language: English
ISBN 10: 1782279504
ISBN 13: 9781782279501