Author Talks: In Putin's Footsteps: Nina Khrushcheva with Susan Glasser
In search of the soul of Russia, the great-granddaughter of former Soviet Union Premier Nikita Khrushchev travels the empire’s eleven time zones.
In 2000, after Vladimir Putin was handed the Russian presidency by Boris Yeltsin and then won it himself in a landslide election, he set out on a massive PR campaign with the intent to restore his country's lost status as a great power. He hopped around the world to nearly two dozen countries and almost a quarter of Russia's own 89 regions. Inspired by his nation's enormity, its "limitless land," Putin aimed to follow it up by traveling to every one of Russia's eleven time zones on New Year’s Eve to deliver a speech in all of them at the stroke of midnight.
As grand as the idea was, it was ultimately deemed a feat too impossible to accomplish in one night.
Nearly twenty years later, in the summer of 2017, Nina Khrushcheva and journalist Jeffrey Tayler set out to travel in what would have been Putin’s footsteps. Focusing on a town in each time zone, and examining how factors from politics to natural resources define each, the two create a portrait of the country, and in doing so measure the success of Putin’s presidency. Khrushcheva, who has made New York her home, speaks about her cross country journey and whether Putin’s promise to restore pride in Russia’s greatness has ultimately been fulfilled. She will be joined by New Yorker staff writer Susan Glasser.
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