On the Way to Red Square

by: Julieta Almeida Rodrigues

Published by: Scarith Press

Reviewed by Dr. David Frisbie

Professor Julieta Almeida Rodrigues has taught at the University of Lisbon and also in the U.S. at Georgetown University. Her field of specialty is sociology.

With this book, a collection of short stories, she aims a journalist's curiosity and a sociologist's penchant for keen observation in the direction of Soviet life under the dreary domain of old-style Communism. Without political agenda or personal commentary, she escorts us into Moscow and out into the countryside of Russia, encountering characters that linger in our memories long after reading the book.

Her stories capture daily life in an uncertain world--standing in line for a bathroom at a dirty, cramped communal flat (apartment), or visiting homes at night, well after darkness, for fear of being followed and reported by the KGB. A soldier comes home from war in Afghanistan, proud of his clothing and his rank, which make him superior to anyone he meets among the Afghanis. An intellectual wearies of being unable to study any data from the Western world; his limited status in the Soviet System restricts him to those stacks of the common library that deal with Eastern Europe, only.

Attempted murder, unrequited love, perilous ambition--these and other themes present themselves in vignettes of daily life, Soviet-style. Some of these unfold with no attempt to interpret or explain their meaning: the facts simply rise up from the story as they are.

Professor Rodrigues has given us a useful gift here: a window (streaked with dirt,with several broken panes) through which we can look in onto another world.

Armchair Interviews says: A look at Russia most people have not seen.