The Volga

An academic and meticulously researched exploration of the Volga river, which in spite of its scholarly approach manages to be at the same time an accessible and very readable text, and an enjoyable read.

Well, I'm very glad to report this book is both very heavy in its subject matter – starting with pre-Norman city states with their varying influences on the locals – and highly readable. It serves as a great source for historians genning up on a lot of Russian (and indeed pre-Russian) history, and as a great time-passer for the general browser who might perchance stumble this way.

So the lower Volga, the half of it nearer its end at the Caspian Sea, was a spread of different regional influences, at least until one from slightly further north was in the ascendant – the Rus. They couldn't have it all their way, with Genghis Khan's grandson and the Golden Horde invading and staying around for generations. But they finally did, once they were more recognisably what we'd call Russians – they soon captured the key city-states of the river, and made it theirs with their monasteries and their kremlins. Two insurrectionists were major blips, but only showed why the Volga is still such a key note in the flavour that is Russia – a melting pot of ethnicities, tradesmen, brigands, whose banks combine a series of large river-port cities surrounded by days' sailing through wilderness, with agricultural success on one side and empty poverty on the other... Nothing seems at times more Russian – it even grows to be "an obedient subject of the Russian empress" in at least society thinking.

The book manages to swerve almost into geography (and a bit of psycho-, with the river's perception in the culture and psychology of Russians), and ecology, before hitting us and the region with serf rights and land reforms, and then all of the twentieth century and all that that entailed.

There's no doubting the book's heft, with almost a third given to notes, bibliography etc, and commendable maps and more. I only asked for it on an inkling that it would teach me something about a corner of the country I've not been privy to before (having only been to Russia the once), but my intuition was right. With all the possible authority or proof in possession of a non-historian, I can declare my assumption this takes an almost post-doc level of historical focus, and makes it as readable as if the whole thing were an A-level set text. I can only see myself giving it five stars as a result.