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The Bunker – News without the nonsense

Daily: BACK IN THE USSR? Author Sergei Lebedev on Russia’s unquiet past

The Bunker – News without the nonsense

Podmasters

News, Government, Politics, Society & Culture

4.61K Ratings

🗓️ 5 March 2021

⏱️ 22 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Novelist Sergei Lebedev writes forensically detailed books which uncover how Soviet history still exerts its power on modern Russians. According to the New York Review of Books he’s “the best of Russia’s younger generation of writers.” He talks to Alex Andreou about his latest novel, the COVID-relevant thriller Untraceable; precarious life in the new Russia; and how the Soviet Union might be dead but it’s never truly buried.   “I’m witnessing my country returning to its past. And I wouldn’t want to be a person who does nothing about it” Presented by Alex Andreou. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers Jelena Sofronijevic and Jacob Archbold. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

My name is Stan. I'm at. Nice to meet you. So you took up photography where? I've always loved

0:05.5

photography but I turn it into earning a living at 60. I enrolled on a day course.

0:11.8

Well college. I loved going to college. It's good you can retry. I'm enrolled on the day course. But college?

0:13.0

I loved going to college.

0:14.0

It's good you can retrain and do something.

0:16.0

Yeah, yeah.

0:17.0

Let's talk about working, learning, saving and making the most of living longer.

0:22.0

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0:28.0

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0:30.0

Pets brings so much joy.

0:32.0

From those happy greetings at the door to the warm cuddles on the sofa

0:36.7

so give a little love back with dental life from Purina a range of delicious chues made for dogs and tasty snacks for cats that help clean and support your pets, teeth and gums, essential for their overall well-being and a happy, healthy life. They give you plenty of smiles so

0:55.3

look after theirs with dental life. Pick up dental life in the pet food aisle. Hello and welcome to another edition of the bunker daily. I am your host Alex Andro. My guest today is the author and poet Sergei

1:17.6

Lebedev, who is one of the most translated contemporary Russian novelists and has been lauded by the New York review of books as the best of Russia's younger generation of writers.

1:29.0

In a 2018 interview, he was asked what he might advise people to read he refused to give a list

1:37.0

if you do not live a random life he said the right books will find you and so it was for me when at a dinner some years back we were discussing

1:45.8

gulags, not a reflection on the quality of the food I assure you, and my host left the table

1:52.2

and returned with a copy of Sergei's first novel,

1:55.4

oblivion, put it in my hand and commanded, read this. His latest book

2:01.8

untraceable could not be more timely, being as it is about a chemist

2:06.7

who creates a lethal and untraceable agent, being blighted by his own creation like a modern Dr. Frankenstein.

2:15.0

Welcome Sergei.

...

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