Sophie Pinkham

There were some interesting elements here, but ultimately it just wasn't that great. It's really a 3.5, I'm being generous because there really aren't a lot of other accounts of the 1991-2016 period in Ukraine told by a westerner.

The author worked in (IMO, largely ineffectual) NGOs (harm reduction, HIV mitigation), and saw the fucked-up post-Soviet culture of Ukraine. Then the book goes a bit into the periphery of Maidan, the ATO, Russian invasion, etc. There were some good insights into the national character of the different people of Ukraine, but it didn't really present events from a particularly cohesive framework (of course, a lot of it was just chaos, and the ending still isn't known) -- it was still pretty on-the-ground vs. information about high level actors, though.

Overall, decent, and rather depressing. Took me forever to finish because every chapter seemed like the place was getting worse (my contact with Ukraine is a very select infosec subculture which is actually doing pretty well, although there's a shortage of investment capital; those people are pretty insulated from a lot of this.)… (mer)

Although I learned a lot about the culture and politics of Ukraine from reading Sophie Pinkham’s memoir-expository piece, this is probably not the best place to start if you want to learn about recent events in that nation. If now slightly dated, Tim Judah’s In Wartime: Stories from Ukraine is a far better introduction to the tensions in the eastern European country, providing a good discussion of events around the time of Euromaidan (the wave of demonstrations that began in November 2013), Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014, and the early days of the war between pro-Ukrainian-government fighters and Russian-backed, anti-government troops in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine.

Pinkham’s book is rather unfocused. It is so full of stories about the young people she meets through her work with NGOs dedicated to the epidemic of drug abuse and HIV in Ukraine that I could barely keep track of her seemingly innumerable, eccentric “friends” and acquaintances, many of whom are musicians, artists, hippies, and drug addicts themselves. In the first half of the book, Pinkham presents, in quick succession, her many “adventures” attending one festival after another in various regions of the country. The reader is given a smattering of details on Ukrainian culture—including language, customs, and food. Always, always, always there is alcohol flowing. (I looked it up: Ukraine ranks sixth in the world for alcohol consumption per capita, and the five nations that come before it on the list are all located in eastern Europe and associated with the former Soviet Union.)

Pinkham highlights the rampant corruption in the government, legal, education, and medical systems in Ukraine. At the time she visited, lived, and worked in the country, it was not uncommon for physicians to expect bribes from young, drug-addicted mothers. Many doctors and HIV-and-drug-addiction “harm reduction” outreach workers were themselves abusing drugs, which began flowing into Ukraine in the 1990s. Opioids were often cheaper than tobacco. The sex trade, sex tourism, and Ukrainian bride-buying businesses also flourished.

Later in her book, Pinkham turns to the political situation in Ukraine. She was not in the country at the time of the 2013-2014 demonstrations in Independence Square, but she was well informed by her many acquaintances who participated, and she’s evidently done a great deal of additional research—there’s an extensive “sources” section appended to the book. Her discussion of the major events of the time is nuanced, diverging from the simplified (good guys vs. bad guys) impression that the mainstream Western media has promoted.

It was interesting for me to have read this book right after finishing the second volume of Doris Lessing’s autobiography, which focuses on the writer’s time and activities as a Communist Party member. Lessing observes in her memoir that many people engage in political demonstrations for the drama and emotional intensity of the experience; political conviction may be incidental. Pinkham seems to intimate the same thing.

While I enjoyed this book, I was occasionally frustrated by its impressionistic nature. Among other things, Pinkham’s overview of Crimean history confused me, she never actually defines what she means by “harm reduction”, and—I’ll say it again—there are just too many names and anecdotes about eccentric acquaintances.… (mer)