Ten years ago journalist Jens Muhling met Juri, a Russian television producer whose job it was to sell stories to TV stations in Germany but who always maintained that 'The true stories are more unbelievable than anything I could invent.' Ever since, Jens Muhling has been travelling through Russia in search of stories that appear too unbelievable to be true: a hermit from the Taiga who only recently found out that there was a world beyond the woods, a priest who ventures into the exclusion zone around Chernobyl to preach to those that stubbornly remain there, and many more. Jens Muhling shows us a country whose customs, contradictions, absurdities and attractions are still largely unknown beyond its borders.

Prizes

Short-listed for Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year 2015

'To understand the ambiguities, contradictions, absurdities and complexities of the Russian soul, the advice was always to read Gogol. The advice now would be to read Muhling. There is a shock of discovery and a shot of pleasure on every page.' -The Times; 'A compelling story of an author's journey into deepest Siberia in a quest to meet a woman determined to remain cut off from the outside world ' - Daily Telegraph

Jens Muhling edited a German newspaper in Moscow and has been working for the Berlinnewspaper Der Tagesspiegel since 2005. His journalism has seen him awarded the Axel-Springer-Preis and the Peter-Boenisch-Gedachtnispreis.