In 1991 Mariusz Wilk, a Polish journalist long fascinated by the mysteries
of the Russian soul, decided to take up residence in the Solovki islands, a
lonely archipelago lost amid the far northern reaches of Russia's White
Sea. For Wilk these islands represented the quintessence of Russia- a place
of exile and a microcosm of the crumbling Soviet empire. On the one hand,
they were a cradle of the Orthodox faith and home to an important
monastery; on the other, it was here that the first experimental gulag was
built after the 1917 revolution. Over the course of years Wilk came to know
every single one of the islands' 1000 or so residents. From his remote
home, from which he sent regular despatches to the Paris-based Polish
newspaper Kultura, he attempted to observe and come to terms with the
complexities and contradictions of Russian history, its glorious past and
the cruelty of Soviet Communism. In the process, he has written a most
unusual travel book, a beautifully descriptive work that belongs in the
best tradition of writers such as Norman Lewis, Patrick Leigh Fermor and
Claudio Magris.