Cary Johnston opened a new page about Russians and their comparison. While reading this book, I found many jokes that were a little rough but also entertaining. The author compares Russian, English, Canadian and others.
The author tries to peek more clearly about Russians. But sometimes the results are disappointing. Until sometimes the writer feels he doesn't know why he should do that. In essence, the story of the travel of writers in Russia really makes the reader know what really happened there.
The obvious thing is that this book is not about politics. The ideas in this book are interesting, funny and charming. I don't regret reading it.

Okay, so I tried, I really did. I don't like to give up on an author. I love a good travel story. But there's the part missing, a GOOD travel story. This author, unfortunately, just stuck to stereotypes of the Russian people...and well everyone and everything, really. It could have been used for humor, but it wore thin after awhile. And enough about the Russian women, I get it - you like them. I really wanted to like this one but just couldn't get past the constant stereotyping of everything that moved.

I found this book extremely irritating. Apparently Cary Johnston is giving us a “no holds barred” true story of his life in Moscow working for the state-sponsored television channel Russia Today. Certainly he describes his life in Russia, which rather tediously seems to consist of little else than going to bars, picking up women and getting drunk. There is remarkably little about his work for RT, which would have been interesting, and as for his descriptions of Russia and the Russians he doesn’t seem to be at all concerned to find out about either, relying instead on the well-worn stereotypes. As a fairly frequent visitor to Russia myself, I must admit I recognise much of what he talks about – the absurdities, the contradictions, the frustrations – but his approach is so shallow and superficial that little is to be learnt here. For example, he arrives in Moscow in the depths of winter woefully unprepared for the cold. Surely as a journalist he would have done at least a little preparation for his new venture – but no, it seems it’s better to make jokes about the weather. He doesn’t, it is true, pretend to be giving an in-depth analysis of contemporary Russia, and admits he’s above all looking for a Russian bride, but his attitude to the Russian women he actually meets is really quite misogynistic and he makes no attempt to understand them. Russia is a country rich in history, culture and the arts, but Johnston dismisses them all. Now, I’d be the first to concede that it’s not necessary to be interested in culture and history. No one has to enjoy the arts. If bars are more appealing than museums, that’s absolutely fine. But don’t dismiss those who do enjoy them. It is on these matters that he is at his most crass. He visits the Bolshoi, and can see that the audience is moved, but makes no attempt to understand why, merely dismissing the ballet as “all that spinning around, tip-toeing and hoisting in the air”. So why go? He suggests walking tours are pointless, and in fact that history in general is pointless. He finds Saint Petersburg mediocre. Mediocre? “People rave about Saint Petersburg. They say it’s cultural, enigmatic, beautiful and lots of other complimentary stuff. Well, sorry but I disagree. The thing is, there are two types of city break travellers. Those who want to endlessly visit churches and museums, and those who don’t. I am in the latter group, which makes it difficult to actually find anything to do in Saint Petersburg, as the place is full of churches and museums.” Indeed – and if you’d been a bit more open-minded, Mr Johnston, plenty of bars and restaurants and night-life, too. Then there are the inaccuracies. The strange spelling Caucuses instead of the Caucasus. Soviet times “when no one was allowed out of the country and no one was allowed in”. Wouldn’t have taken much research to discover this is patently untrue. And what about this? “I knew that the last Tsar of Russia was called Nicholas the Second, although curiously the one before that was not Nicholas the First. I never found why.” Really? So on that logic the monarch before our present Queen was Elizabeth the First? You’re a journalist, Mr Johnston, find these things out. But no, he prefers to play it all for laughs and the result is a wasted opportunity to give the reader some insight into what contemporary Russia and contemporary Russians are really like – especially as he had the privilege of working there and the opportunity to gain that insight.

"At the time, what did I know?" And yes, that's the problem with the book right there. Russia TV's British presenter of colour writes a mediocre travelogue/autobiography around what he will just not stop calling "the world's biggest country", offering a snapshot of life in Moscow in some recent year, although he seems to not want to admit it was 2010 and all this is out of date. He's great when he actually opens a window to the quirks of the city and Russian life based on experience, but so often he has to admit to none, and boy he's naive – no currency, no idea of the language, no whereabouts, no proper clothes, no savvy or anything when he arrives (shows what Putin TV is happy to employ, then…). He also plays the race card too early and too often, he gets too much of a kick out of foreshadowing what's to come, he seems to love a generalisation (all the while pretending to dislike them, of course) – and is too readily randy for a bit of female Russian company. Oh, and he clearly hasn't read Kafka. It's not awful, but it really deserved to be better.

Enjoyed this fast-paced run through a journalist's few years based in Moscow, although I could have done with a little less on dating and a bit more on politics.. The writer's rudimentary Russian makes the book look rather superficial in places and his almost complete interest in Russian culture is a deficit. While it complements Pomerantsev's Nothing is True and Everything is Possible, that book gives you a much fuller and richer picture of contemporary Russia.

This story takes us into a part that we don't hear much about. A search for a bride and work sends Brit Cary Johnston to Russia. We learn about the feelings of the Russians of the West. Love, loss, humor and life lessons.

If you are looking for a book of stereotypes about Russia, you have just found one. That, and a lot of bellyaching. Some people find it comical but to me it was an attempt to cover disgust with sarcasm. The attempt to understand the Russian people was really only skin deep, mostly looking through a prism of lust and materialism. The author is complaining that the locals did not invite him over to their homes, and they were right because those homes would be described in this book in ugliest of ways. He did not bother to get to know them, share their story with us, he was only interested in snooping around the house and find flaws.

Cary Johnston is so proud of the British politeness, but this charm is elusive when he smiled to peoples faces and trashed them in the book. His thoughts of other people and places were like this - Canadians are daft, Americans (he says Yanks) are rude, Russians are pallid, ugly, fat, stupid, miserable and rude, Russian women are prostitutes who sleep with guys for presents. Moscow is ugly, Riga is ugly, Kiev is blah, St.Petersburg is unimpressive, only Rostov on Don was somewhat OK. Why leave the UK?

The author is looking for a real relationship in seedy places like bars and night clubs, and then he finds himself disappointed, not realizing that they are birds of a feather. Otherwise, he would be looking more at a girl's personality first and not the length of her legs.

Here are some of the amusing quotes:

"It was January. I had just landed in the middle of the night at Moscow international airport and a brief look out the aeroplane window revealed what I had always suspected. A metre of snow and ice on the ground, blizzard-like conditions and a temperature of minus twenty-five, or at least that's what the captain had just said." You don't say! And what did one expect to see in January? A hot summer day and hot girls in bikinis under a palm tree?

"As I looked around the cabin at the ugly rough-cut Russian blokes..." - And Brits are especially famous for having graceful bodies?

"... I knew that the last Tsar of Russia was called Nicholas the Second, though curiously the one before that was not Nicholas the First. I never found why." I will share a secret that can be easily found on Wikipedia: Tsar Nicholas the First was the great grandfather of Tsar Nicholas the Second. There were two tsars named Alexander in between them. Mystery solved!

But the biggest joke of the book that made me laugh was a complaint from a Brit about how the Russian food is bland!

The author, a 40-something British journalist, takes a job in Moscow with Russia Today TV. That alone sounded interesting, but throw in his interest in the whole "Russian bride" phenomena, and it really appealed to me!
Johnston discovers that life can be strange as a black man in Russia. He finds racism, as well as "a strata of young Russian adult males who were deeply nationalist, bordering on fascist'. He also found growing tensions between the nationalists and young migrant workers from Central Asia and the Caucuses. I found his observation that "in times of economic crisis, it's the migrants who get the blame for everything when things go wrong, especially when it comes to unemployment", to be spot on for those of us in the United States also. (Dare I say that our current president has taken this Russian tactic and applied it to his own political strategy? But, there was no collusion, of course!).
The author writes about how the Russians feel about "the West". He found that Russians are concerned "about saving face. They do not, above anything else, want to appear weak-from an apartment landlord, right up to the President. Weakness is not an option, and haggling is seen as a sign of weakness". He describes talks with Russians about how they felt about Boris Yeltsin, and how, "when he was in charge, there was complete chaos in the streets", "there were gangs, shootings, mafia, and complete lawlessness and fear on the ground". He describes, despite all his faults, "Putin's rise to power brought the one thing which Russians revere above all else-stability". One young lady explains that she craves "all the good things from the West as well, it's just that the spectre of instability haunts the Russian psyche like nothing else".
Part of the book I really enjoyed was reading about the author's experiences with dating in Russia. Some of them were hilarious! I liked his observation that "any preconceived cliches I had garnered over the years about Russian women, were turning out to be basically true - many did seem pretty much hooked on the idea of getting married to Western guys, and real quick. This was strangely disappointing, but the truth is the truth, and there you have it".
The ending of the book explains how the author see the Russians. It's a very thoughtful section, and the author wraps it up very well. I won't give the ending away, but I will say it's worth your time to read it.
I received a copy of this book from NetGalley, in exchange for a fair review. I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed it, and learned a great deal from it. Give it a try!

A very readable and relatable book about living in Russia as a foreigner. While the book wasn’t super political, it seemed timely. I thought the bits about dating were a little awkward but cute.

That full Churchill quote "I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest." is as prescient now as when delivered in a radio broadcast in October 1939, To gain an increase understanding of the possible Russian mindset I turned to Cary Johnston's story of his life in Moscow where he worked for the state funded Russia Today TV station (RT) widely perceived as a propaganda vehicle for the Russian government. Firstly if you are looking for an expose into its workings and manipulative nature then you will be disappointed for there is in reality very little space devoted to events at the television station. Indeed Cary Johnston is somewhat protective of it disingenuously liking it to the BBC. What you will get from the book will be an insight of what it is like being a foreigner living in Moscow.

After leaving Spain where his career was somewhat stalling Cary applied for a job at RT and after telling a (rather unfunny joke) he finds himself hired and on the plane to Moscow. Also it must be said the lure of finding a Russian Bride is also a significant factor in his choice of work venue and the pursuit of women (both successfully and unsuccessfully) is a constant theme throughout the book possibly too much for my liking as I would have liked to learn more of Russian culture rather than the goings on in endless nightclubs and bars. A visit to the world famous Bolshoi Ballet is dismissed in rather disparaging terms. This theme of cultural blindness is continued with less than raving reviews of Kiev (comparing it to Moscow he writes ' a prettier city with a less macho atmosphere, but that was about it.' and St Petersburg which again fails to impress. A Patrick Leigh Fermor he is not.

Of course Moscow is not Russia and a greater understanding of what the "real Russia" might be is encountered when he leaves Moscow for outlying areas. There are though a few insightful comments and if you are intending to move to Moscow this book will undoubtedly help when dealing with Taxi drivers and buying a train ticket. This book is more of a comical Bill Bryson type travelogue than political commentary but it made me laugh and was nevertheless an enjoyable read. It just was not what I expected.

I was attracted to this book by its promise of revelation. Even in the modern age, Russia is still 'a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma', and its role on the international stage is becoming ever more complex, fascinating and not a little worrying. Recent news has cast it as a country of hackers, oligarchs, corruption and assassins; but how true is all of this? What's it actually like to be in Russia right now, as a Westerner? What makes the Russians tick? How open is modern Russia to the West and what it stands for? I hoped to find the answers to some of these questions, and hopefully many others, in this book. Unfortunately, though, I was disappointed. Johnston's account offers little beyond a memoir of partying, vodka-drinking and his eternal and somewhat wearying quest to find his ideal 'Russian Bride'. For a reporter, it shows a profound lack of curiosity.



When he finds himself at a lull in his early forties, still single and eager for adventure, Cary Johnston leaps at the chance to spend a year in Moscow working for the English-language TV station Russia Today. He's keen to see what Russia is like from the inside and sets off, full of optimism, to embark on his new career. What he notices first, of course, is the cold: it's winter and the temperatures have plummeted to levels that he's never even imagined before. But he tries to settle into this strange new life, looking for an apartment with the aid of a friendly, rather motherly estate agent (and then moving on several times in quick succession when he realises that DIY at unsociable hours is a favourite Russian hobby). He gets to know his colleagues, goes to bars, and tries to figure out how one gets a social life in Moscow. And this is where the real theme of the book takes off.

Johnston comes across, deliberately or not, as desperate for a relationship. From the very beginning he's making nudge-nudge, wink-wink comments about the gorgeous Russian women and dropping hints about his desire to get one to marry him. Every time he goes into a bar or attends an event, we're treated to a reminder that all the women in the room are tall and thin and gorgeous and blonde and, even more amazingly, they're all open to the idea of going home with a hopeful Brit. But, Johnston confides, all is not that simple. His Ekaterinas and Olgas and Yelenas expect something in return for spending the night: ideally a shopping trip, but at the very least a present of some kind. Much of the book is spent trying to puzzle out whether this makes them proponents of self-directed prostitution or whether it's a legitimate approach to a relationship.

There was way too much drooling over Russian women for my liking - and a very one-dimensional attitude to women in general. We're told on maybe two occasions about female friends that Johnston has, but otherwise his attitude towards the female sex verges on the predatory. Hope springs eternal, as he can't understand what these Amazons could possibly see in the stumpy, solid, ugly men that Russia produces. Up against these goddesses, of course, we puny, bland and pasty British women don't stand a chance. Johnston offers a word of advice to those poor wives waiting at home for their errant husbands who are away 'on business': 'And what of all you women back in the UK who have husbands being sent to Eastern Europe and beyond for short business trips - should you be worried? From what I could see, hell yes!' Sadly I think that says more about the incontinence of the people he knew in Moscow than it does about the likely behaviour of men in general. Or at least, I would hope so.

And yet, despite Johnston's extensive dating experience, chronicled in far more detail in these pages than any real insights into Russia itself, his experiences haven't left him with much generosity towards the women of Moscow. 'Going out with a Russian girl,' he writes, 'is like going to see a magic show - you know you're being tricked, you just can't work out how.'

When we do leave the subject of Russian women for a few pages, there are some illuminating vignettes. Take the aftermath of the Metro bomb attacks in Moscow, for example. Johnston was news anchor at the time the bombs went off, and he writes with great sensitivity and compassion about the city's mourning, and the trauma suffered by a colleague of his who was in the Metro at the time. He also talks of how grief and anger were channelled into violence against foreigners, who were made scapegoats for the attacks. Several of Johnston's colleagues were attacked and he himself reports a rather scary story of being pursued through snowy streets by two strangers. He also recounts stories of shocking racism, to which he responded with what I consider to be remarkable poise and restraint, and yet which must have profoundly unsettled him. These were glimpses of the world that he must have come to know better through his time on the news desk at Russia Today, but I really wish we'd had a bit more of that thoughtful analysis and rather less of the girls in bars. It's possible to see that Russia can be a scary and unpredictable place, but unfortunately we don't really get to see enough of the bigger picture to understand any better why that might be so.

I suspect part of my problem with Johnston was a clash of personalities. He is utterly dismissive of pre-20th-century Russian history and general culture. Whenever he talks about anything remotely cultural, the book acquires a self-conscious shield of coolness, as if to reassure us that he really doesn't care about any of this. Get him to a club, quickly, with a vodka in his hand and a blonde woman in a short skirt on his knee! That's life! For example, he goes to the Bolshoi Ballet and is less bothered by 'all the spinning around, tip-toeing and hoisting into the air' than by the fact that 'I'm sure a couple of the male dancers were sporting mullets'. Though he can see how moved his Russian fellow ballet-goers are, Johnston doesn't use this as a clue about the Russian relationship with art and beauty, but simply crosses it off as something that's not his thing and thus not of interest. Further indignation was provoked, I'm afraid, by his wilful disregard of anything vaguely historic in other places he visited. On Kiev: 'It was like a slightly more sophisticated Moscow: a prettier city with a less macho atmosphere, but that was about it.' And on St Petersburg:

People rave about Saint Petersburg. They say it's cultural, enigmatic, beautiful, and lots of other complimentary stuff. Well, sorry, but I disagree. The thing is, there are two types of city break travellers. Those who want to endlessly visit churches and museums, and those who don't. I am in the latter group, which makes it difficult to actually find anything else to do in Saint Petersburg, as the place is full of churches and museums.

At this point, I lost my temper, shook my Kindle furiously and shouted aloud, "So why bloody go there then?!" It continued with an explanation of why walking tours or any form of historical study is completely pointless ('They were all just people like you and me, trying to earn a living or just doing the weekly shopping. Why tourists find this sort of thing interesting is a mystery to me') and eventually concluded with a general rant against museums in general, which I feel compelled to quote with comments:

Why do they always have to be so dull? It's as if the curators are making every effort to make the art as non-interactive as possible. [Curator here. So, how would you like to interact with this painting by Monet? Pick it up? Rip it in two? Poke it? Rub out any sections you don't like? Or perhaps write your name in the corner, to be properly interactive?] Paintings hanging neatly on white walls, all pristinely and clinically labelled and dated [Isn't it a bore when you're actually told what you're looking at?], with security guards watching your every move, waiting to pounce if you have the audacity to touch anything [Why do you need to touch anything?!], while tourists tramp around staring at everything as if they have any clue at all what each piece of art is all about [Maybe they do, because they're reading the labels].

Yes, I was much vexed. I'm not saying that people aren't allowed to find history and culture boring. Of course they are, each to their own. But I can't help feeling that the idea of Russia we get here is a very blinkered one. Perhaps that's what it's like in Moscow? I can't judge: I've never been, and that's why I hoped to get a slightly more varied picture from this book. One comes away with a feeling that Johnston actually feels rather bitter about Moscow and its people, and that's borne out by some odd sections, digs directed at persons unknown, perhaps some of his colleagues in the Russia Today office. These feel more like score-settling than journalism: 'No matter how legitimately ill you are, you still feel guilty about not showing up for work (except for people who have had consensual sex with the boss and can therefore get away with doing virtually nothing all year round - every company has one of those, don't they?)'. And there's an even longer venting of spleen against the unnamed person whom Johnston suspects of having been the 'mole' in the office, passing information to the authorities. 

There are several amusing stories here and it's something of a picaresque tale, as Johnston ricochets from club to club in search of the love of his life, always hoping she'll turn up on the next night. You learn a lot about the methods of Russian women when sizing up a prospective partner. But, if you've come to this book hoping for an insight into Russian culture, history and society, rather than Johnston's ultimately unsuccessful Moscow dating experiences, you're probably in the wrong place.

For the review, please see my blog:
https://theidlewoman.net/2018/05/25/the-madness-of-moscow-cary-johnston/

I love the cover, it's very attractive. The Madness of Moscow is a cheeky, amusing, and enlightening look at a British journalist's sojourn into living for a while in Moscow. Johnston never reveals any dates for the time period he resided in Russia. He entertains readers with the foibles of Russian life and dating Russian women. The two hilarious, albeit rather gross, stories involve he Russian "plumbers", and the aftermath of the author's hernia surgery. Do not say must to reading this entertaining tale.