The Secret History of Moscow by Ekaterina Sedia

You may have to use Wikipedia to understand everything (something that I really like) but you’ll get to see a series of wonderful images of Russia, although always through a militaristic point of view (is there any country whose history is not written in blood?) In their journey through the underworld, we get to know a cast of characters from every time and social class, such as Timur, a Golden Horde Mongol warrior, Elena the Decemberist wife or Koschey the Deathless, so we can see some aspects of the mythological history of Russia. Here I find one of the flaws of the novel, the plot is somehow weak, the side-stories are way more interesting. We will get to know the backstory of all three of them, but in my opinion, the best part of the book are the short stories that are told by the people they find in their way, in a very one-thousand-and-one-nights way.

Sedia tells us a story about a series of mysterious, impossible disappearances (there are no witnesses, no ways out, it’s like they have just vanished) that joins the life of Galina, a young woman with schizophrenia who is looking for her sister, Yakov, the policeman helping her and Fyodor, a street performer who seems to know how to go to strange places. I really like mythology but I know close to nothing about Russian folklore, so for me it was a new field to explore. The book I purchased was Ekaterina Sedia’s The secret history of Moscow. Some days ago I found myself with ten euros to spend in an online bookstore and I thought to buy some of the books that I’d have liked to read but never did buy it for whatever reason. Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Benin, Bermuda, Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Cape Verde Islands, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, Colombia, Comoros, Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Ecuador, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), Gabon Republic, Gambia, Germany, Ghana, Greenland, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Iraq, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Laos, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Macau, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mayotte, Mexico, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, New Zealand, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Saint Helena, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Somalia, South Africa, Suriname, Swaziland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Vietnam, Virgin Islands (U.S.(review by Leticia Lara, originally appeared at Fantastica Ficcion)

The Secret History of Moscow by Ekaterina Sedia