Fardwor, Russia!: A Fantastical Tale of Life Under Putin

by Oleg Kashin, Will Evans (Translator), Олег Кашин

The forces of science, human error, and power run amok all collide in a wildly inventive, funny, and razor-sharp political satire about Putin's Russia, from one of the country's most fearless journalists.

When a scientist experimenting on humans in a sanatorium near Moscow gives a growth serum to a dwarf oil mogul, the newly heightened businessman runs off with the experimenter's wife, and a series of mysterious deaths and crimes commences. Fantastical and wonderfully strange, this political parable has an uncanny resonance with today's Russia under Putin.

Oleg Kashin is a famous Russian journalist and activist who, in 2010, was beaten to within an inch of his life by unknown assailants, in an attack most likely politically motivated by his reporting. The events of Fardwor, Russia! (the title is taken from a flag with a slogan—"Forward, Russia!"—gone wrong) could seem grotesque, if they did not so eerily echo the absurd state of affairs in modern Russia. Under Putin's regime, authors dare to criticize the state of affairs and affairs of the state only through veiled satire&—and even then, as Kashin's experience shows, the threat of repercussions is real.

A witty, playful, brave, and incisive work that blends science fiction with political satire, Fardwor, Russia! is a must-read for anyone interested in contemporary Russia&—or the hilarious and frightening follies of power.

Genres: Fiction, Russia, Literature, Humor

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set in Russia as it heads back into another Putin presidency and toward hosting the Olympics in Sochi, satirizing government officials and people who attacked the author when he was a journalist. Much of the information in the story is shared in LiveJournal, which made me laugh. It is a quick read but I didn't feel I understood all the references; satire is a bit of a struggle for me. I liked reading a Russia that combined peasants, social media, and magical serums.

[jeremy · Rating 3 out of 5]

a comical, but thinly sketched send-up of present-day russia, oleg kashin's fardwor, russia! (roissya vperde) is an entertaining blend of satire and the surreal. lively, spirited, and frequently quite fun, kashin's novel takes on the rapacious effects of corruption and oligarchy in a tale that's as much science fiction as it is sarcasm.

more compelling than fardwor, russia! is the story of the author itself. beaten within inches of his life in 2010 in retaliation for his political journalism (struck 56 times with a steel pipe in an attack recorded by a security camera), the perpetrators of kashin's assault have yet to be brought to justice. an interview with kashin about the incident was recently published in the washington post.

*translated from the russian by will evans (deep vellum publisher)

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mild frolic from one of Putin’s most fearless critics. The invention of a growth serum that helps rats become super-rats, dwarves achieve greater verticality, and turn meat into more meat is the comedic centrum of the novel. As the inventor-protagonist’s discovery is pounced upon by Putin’s oligarchiks, the potential for more scabrous satire increases, however Kashin chooses to plunge the novel into aimless farce for the latter half, removing the teeth from his concept in favour of scattershot antics and a plot that loses interest in itself.

[Deborah · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.5 stars

I'm a fairly fast reader, so it says a lot that it took me 16 days to get through Fardwor, Russia!'s 115 pages. Its Goodreads description notwithstanding, the midget billionaire Mefody Magomedov plays a very small role (no pun intended), and of the many deaths which occur, only one has any connection to Mefody. The real focus of Fardwor, Russia! is the growth serum itself and the effects it has, not only on the subjects (animal and human) injected with it, but also on the dangers it poses to Russia's economy and political structure. The book feels more like a series of very loosely connected vignettes than a cohesive novel, and its intended satiric effect was lost on me, perhaps because I am not well-informed about the realities of Putin's Russia.

I was also a bit confused about the book's title. Referring again to the Goodreads description, "the title is taken from a flag with a slogan - "Forward, Russia!" - gone wrong[.]" In fact, the slogan went wronger than that: in the text, we learn that "Forward, Russia!" actually became "Fardwor, Ruissa!" Why did the title not retain the misspelling of "Russia"? After reading the book, I suspect "Russia" was spelled correctly to give potential readers some clue as to what the book is about (at least it has something to do with Russia), but to me, the title felt like a cop-out, diminishing the real significance and pathos of the incident to which it alludes.

I read a lot of works in translation, and Restless Books, with its mission of "bringing out the best of international literature," is one of my favorite publishers. Oleg Kashin's Fardwor, Russia! is but a single false step.

I received a free copy of Fardwor, Russia! through Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.

[Charles Dee Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Is there a Russian tradition of writing science fiction novels that are barely science fiction? The Strugatsky brothers have turned out one or two of them. Victor Pelevin establishes an sfnal or fantastic premise and then gets on with his satirical program. Karpov, Kashin's protagonist, is a kitchen sink chemist who invents a growth serum that actually works. He is a naïf, delighted to be getting results but woefully unequipped to deal with the consequences of his discovery. The oligarchs who control the wholesale meat industry will not be pleased with the prospect of abundant livestock and the cut rate prices it will bring. A billionaire, confronted by his midget younger brother transformed in a reasonably good-looking, mid-sized man sees unwanted competition rather than a newly minted boon companion. When professional scientists get hold of the formula, they make a tragic mess of things.

Kashin's short tale swings from being laugh-out-loud funny to saddening, but as with Pelevin's works I assume that the Russian audience is getting more from the satire than I am. That said, it still makes for an entertaining afternoon read. It's a variety of clear-headed and unrelenting satire that American novelists seem to take little interest in. And God knows the material is there. Maybe I just read the wrong books.

Kashin is a journalist whose outspoken criticism of the Putin government got him almost beaten to death some years back. Fardwor, Russia! has been published in Moscow, but Kashin now lives in Switzerland. Sounds like a wise move.

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

My friend Will Evans translated this so I'm biased...

It was awesome. Did not want to put it down. Laugh out loud funny in parts.

[Dmitry Malikov · Rating 5 out of 5]

ряска путинского безвременья сомкнулась над их головами

[Stuart Rodriguez · Rating 3 out of 5]

An exceptionally bleak and farcical look at Putin’s Russia.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Captivity was great. It spans the interesting life, in interesting times, of a Roman Jew. Really immersive and fun to read I got a great feeling of life in those times. The level of detail is incredible and it seems quite cohesive and accurate. The detail of the Roman life really soaks in to the reader and allows the meatier topics of spiritual and political value of religion come to the front quite naturally. It does become pretty dense with chewy stuff about politics and religion, ethics and ambition. Occasionally the book drags through pages of transitional stuff where basically years or even decades pass before the narratives dives back into more detail.

I got this edition at the public library and It was for the complete work of Captivity, not just book 2: Judaea.

[Tonstant Weader · Rating 4 out of 5]

The loudest, longest laughter is born out of the need to keep from crying. That is the well that Oleg Kashin plumbed for Fardwor, Russia!, his wildly satirical novel, assuming that it is possible to satirize Putin’s Russia. The full title is “Fardwor, Russia — A Fantastical Tale of Life Under Putin,” and there’s enough truth in the fiction to make this a satire that cuts down to the bone.

Oleg Kashin is a journalist and since honest journalists lose their jobs in Putin’s Russia, he’s also a blogger. Shortly after he finished Fardwor, Russia! , he was beaten and left for dead. His assailants are known. They have even been arrested, though released and have not been prosecuted. Nor has there been any investigation of the politician who hired them to punish Kashin for insulting him. Such is life in a gangster oligarchy.

In Fardwor, Russia! , Karpov and his wife Marina move to Karpov’s hometown so he can perfect an invention he has bubbling in his head, a growth serum that can make little people tall and grow a baby animal into an adult in a week. His grandfather has worked on something similar back in the day when adherence to Lamarckian genetics starved the Russian people. His grandfather failed, but Karpov succeeded. He dreamed of striking it rich, but that’s not how things work in Putin’s Russia. If anyone is going to get rich off his serum, it won’t be Karpov who is promptly detained.

Things have a way of not working out. The brother (and co-inheritor) of a famed oligarch who lived in obscurity because of his size ran off with Karpov’s wife. Worse, his loving brother who was happy to share the wealth with a brother who never left his house was not going to welcome a full-sized, handsome brother–a competitor in his eyes. So he killed him. A lot of people die, quickly, easily, and unremarked.

Meanwhile, there’s the Sochi Olympics, government grants for science research, and all sorts of other opportunities for graft, thievery, corruption, and mayhem. There’s also a mysterious institution caring for a lot of very childlike adults. It’s fantastical, funny, and the blend of fact and fiction is almost too painful.

I enjoyed Fardwor, Russia! It is a short book, something you could gobble up in one sitting. It’s a very informal book, with an occasional authorial interruption. There’s also the usual conspiracy of great inventions stifled in order to protect the status quo or a particular industry. That is a well-traveled trope in American literature, with the auto industry the usual bad guy suppressing cars that run on water, get 99 miles to the gallon, or as in real life, blocking the production of the safer, more efficient, Tucker Torpedo.

This is a satire, so don’t expect complex characters or profound character development. Man y of the characters are stand-ins for real people or segments of society. There is a madcap speed to events. The book moves quickly, never pausing for breath…and that works because if you stopped to think to long, your suspension of disbelief would fail. Fardwor, Russia! creates an impression of Russia. It does not paint a picture or take a photograph. It conveys the emotional damage of living in a country where the only thing you can count on is that everything, and nearly everyone, is corrupt.

★★★★
http://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpres...

[Ostap Bender · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Russian scientist comes up with a brilliant invention, a serum that can rapidly grow animals to larger sizes. Instead of being hailed as a national hero and his invention used for the greater good, he’s faced with jealousy from other scientists who have no real research going on but are vying for public grant money, individuals whose financial positions would be threatened if it were to become public, and the government which would rather use it to secretly increase political power. This is Oleg Kashin’s satirical portrait of Russia under Putin, guised in science fiction as ‘Definitely Maybe’ by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky satirized life in the Soviet Union in the 1970’s, and ‘Heart of a Dog’ by Mikhail Bulgakov did in the 1920’s, among others. It’s a world of kickbacks, corruption, oligarchs with shell companies, and secret murder of those who don’t fall into line. All is cynical, everything down to mean-spirited posts on the Internet, with the exception of the scientist himself, who remains clear-eyed throughout, and in him perhaps Kashin signals a small ray of hope for the future.

In heavy symbolism, a ‘midget’ oligarch seeks to grow to normal size, and then later the government seeks to develop a ‘modernizational majority’ by giving it to children they’ve found on the streets, the latter a reference to ‘Putin’s majority’. The title satirizes Dmitry Medvedev botching his first tweet after getting on Twitter to bring Russia into the digital age, and in more brazen commentary, Kashin asks the question as to whether the FSB blew up the building in Moscow in 1999 which was blamed on Chechen terrorists in advance of the second war. He also has one character say “the scum of Putin’s stagnation closed in over their heads”, which seems to capture his view of life in Russia in present times.

I don’t know if Kashin is quite as successful as the authors who preceded him in this tradition; his writing style is a little too informal and lacks grace, but on the other hand, he was quite brave to hold a mirror up to Russia, and this seems like a book which will be referred to by future generations as the spirit of the time, hopefully when the current political situation passes. Kashin’s personal story is also compelling. Two months after he submitted the manuscript, he was severely beaten, possibly as a result of having profanely insulted the governor of the province of Pskov in a blog post. One wonders if he’s at risk for his life even in Switzerland, where he currently resides. My last point – I loved the form factor of this edition, and the concept behind publisher Restless Books, and hope to see more from them in the future.

[Kriegslok · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this satirical work certainly had its moments I didn't feel it was really on a par with Soviet era dissident literature or contemporary work by many Russian based authors. In a way it felt like I was reading the flesh stripped bones of something that should have been much bigger. Quite a quick read with expected quirks and absurdities of life in modern Russia where power and powerful interests meet and those who aren't powerful do best to stay out of the path of those who are.

[Крюкокрест · Rating 5 out of 5]

Все мы - сыворотка "Иван Ильин".

Достойная попытка вникнуть в глубинную суть эпохи путинизма. По прочтении вспомнил хорошее перестроечное кино "Город Зеро" - неспроста это один из любимых фильмов Кашина. Ну и проза Булгакова конечно приходит на ум. А сюжетная ветка с изменением внешности одного из персонажей (не буду спойлерить) до боли напоминает сюжет рассказа Беляева "Человек, потерявший лицо". Интересно, Олег знал о нём, когда писал книгу? Надо будет спросить на стриме..

[Nadine · Rating 3 out of 5]

The introduction is helpful for context but I think more knowledge about the Russian political system in the past 15 years would have made this book even more interesting for me. Still, that's no fault of the author and the translation was pretty wonderful. There were good chuckles, it's a quick read, and there's a lot to learn from the book. It's enjoyable.

[Noah Skocilich · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was highly enjoyable.

I feel like I’d have to know more about recent current events in Russia to really see what this humorous extended parable is trying to convey, but nonetheless I feel like I learned a fair amount about contemporary Russia by reading it.

[Toni · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not totally sure what happened in this book. The story skips around quite a bit and is some kind of weird political SciFi...something. Worth reading, but I imagine the story is a bit more cohesive and deep in the original Russian.

[Everett · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is 224 pages long with very little text per page, but somehow it took me weeks to get through this book. This story is commentary on Russian politics written by a Russian journalist who was famously beaten nearly to death because of his journalism, and I will say, the story about the attempted murder and the investigation that came from it was more interesting to me than anything in the story itself. I've always heard a lot about censorship in Russian media, so it was interesting to read this story that Kashin had used to not just push back against his attackers but to Russia and it's stereotypes as a whole.

The book starts out as a work of science fiction following a scientist who creates a growth serum that he eventually gives to a human. I particularly enjoyed the first half of the book as it followed this man as he worked on his experiments on various animals and we got to see as the side effects of this serum played out and the consequences that came from it. I enjoyed the drama that came from this plot, and I would have been happy if the entire book had just been about this serum because it was by far the best part of the story. I was intrigued with this plot and all the romantic and familial drama that came from it. There were several parts that were quite humorous and I found myself laughing out loud at certain parts. If the whole book had been like this I probably would have rated it at least four stars because I did really enjoy it.

It's safe to say I was let down around the half-way point when the book shifted into a different direction. It focused less on the serum and became more about various political figures and business heads and the shady things they were doing. Although I understand how the two parts were connected, as it does loop back around by the end, however, it felt like a very sudden and jarring shift and the two halves felt a bit disconnected from each other up until the end. For around a good third near the end of the book, the whole thing felt muddled, and it felt like I wasn't even reading the same book as I had started. The blurb made the book out to be some sort of sci-fi crime thriller, but it ended up not feeling like one, which was a bit dissappointing. And of course this is one of those books that ends up ending in the same place it starts, and although it was not extremely satisfying and I did really want to see positive outcomes for some of the characters, I understand why it ends this way. It's just commentary on the government and reminds us that the government, of any country really, is not your friend.

I will say, I am not Russian nor do I know very much about Russian politics, so there were a lot of references that I just did not understand at all. Now I don't put that as a fault of the book because that is on me, but if you don't have a good understanding on Russian history, politics, and social life going into this book, you will probably end up being rather confused early on. In fact, I didn't even realize that there was a point when it shifted from satirical commentary on the present to a point where it begins to be a bit more of Kashin's predictions about what the future of Russia will look like. This book came out in 2010, and it wasn't until Kashin (wrongly) predicted that the 2014 Olympics would not end up happening in Sochi and instead get pushed to Pyeongchang. Now obviously this prediction of Kashin's did not end up coming true, however I am curious to know what the outcomes are of his other predictions.

If you're looking for a fun story, I would very much not recommend this. Even though the blurb misleads you into thinking it's a story about this scientist, it's really just political commentary. It's clearly very personal to Kashin and his story, and I think it works in that way, but as a story it really just falls flat. The whole thing is confusing with a lot of names and organizations thrown around without being ever mentioned again, and as a story it's choppy and not satisfying. If you're someone who's really interested in political commentary and satire then I'd say to to go ahead with it, but I think there's better written stuff from this genre out there. And I would only really recommend it if you know a lot about Russian politics and life, because otherwise it's confusing and no amount of research is going to catch you up to speed. I've realized that this book has a very specific demographic, and although I appreciate it, I don't think this works for readers who aren't in that specific demographic. And although that isn't necessarily a bad thing, even the story itself isn't that great and I think Kashin is a more talented writer outside of fiction. Again, if the story was just like the first half and it was a silly work of sci-fi I would have liked it more, but the second half was so all over the place and confusing that it made the second half very hard to read. Once I was finished all I thought was "what was that?" and felt rather let down with how it went because it started out quite strong and intriguing. Maybe this would have been better as simply a short story that didn't try to talk about so many subjects and provide so much commentary at once.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Satirical tale of biological sabotage gone awry in Putin-era-Russia, from a Russian journalist.

[Tracey Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Easy read and interesting enough on the sentence level. Satire sort of went over my head because I don’t know that much about Russian politics…and Russian humor is perhaps untranslatable.

[Mason Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting book, but I have to say that it didn't end up as compelling as I hoped given the description. Maybe it was my expectations, who knows. It's billed as "fantastical" and "wonderfully strange" but when applied to a Russian novel by a notorious Russian journalist and activist, I imagined something along the lines of Victor Pelevin, who I love. This is far more straight-forward than Pelevin despite being the tale of an inventor who creates a serum that makes living things grow. It goes off on odd tangents and we even lose the main character entirely for the last third of book. It has elements of satire, for sure, but it's surprisingly mild, or so it felt to me. It was still entertaining enough, but I was left somewhat disappointed, or perhaps unsatisfied is a better way of putting it. I wanted more...something...than I got, even though I enjoyed what I got well enough.

[Richard Thompson · Rating 2 out of 5]

The plot was thin and the characterizations were thinner. Oleg Kashin should stick to journalism. Maybe this would have funnier to someone more closely acquainted with the characters who fill the pages of the popular press in Putin's Russia, but I tend to think that a more informed perspective would not have been enough to make up for the weak writing. Next time I want to read Russian satire, I'll back to Zoshchenko or Saltykov-Shchedrin.

[Michael O'Donnell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Кусок дерьма литературы

Не все чтение - литература

Храбрый автор, но сообщение не новый или неизвестный

Или атакуйте Putin или сделайте нет

Журналистский блог с историческими ссылками

Никакой огонь в животе оппозиции

Снимок эры с населением в полном одобрении, под которым это - система, чтобы жить

[Glenn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up because of a great review I read in the paper. It was ok, but I was expecting more and much funnier.

[World Literature Today]

This book was featured in the Nota Benes section of the Sept/Oct 2016 issue of World Literature Today Magazine.

http://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2...

[Restless Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

"A brisk read that will nevertheless leave one with a disquieting picture of contemporary life in that cursed country.… The book is a hilarious and heartbreaking portrait of a country whose demons rarely pause in tormenting its populace, as its author found out before it was even published.”

—The Chicago Tribune

“In Fardwor, Russia!, Kashin succeeds at depicting the absurdity and corruption of 21st-century Russia.”

—The Dallas Morning News

“Compelling and gruesome… Excellent translation… Its plot is rewardingly absurd… Enjoyable.”

—openDemocracy