Russia’s Happiness by Johan de Boose

Het geluk van Rusland (Russia’s Happiness), the latest book by Johan de Boose, has been presented this week in Les Nouveaux Russes - Le doucha bar, in Brussels. In Het geluk van Rusland. Reis naar het eenzaamste volk op aarde (Russia’s Happiness. A Journey to the loneliest People on Earth), Johan de Boose tells the fascinating story of modern Russia.

President Medvedev succeeded president Putin. Did anything change at all in Russia?
Johan de Boose draws up the balance of an expanding empire. He looks into how the situation evolved since the end of the Soviet Union. He fits his many journeys to Russia together into one continuous story, digs deep into the Russian soul and describes his encounters with famous and unknown Russians.
De Boose takes the reader on a trip through space and time. He travels many thousands of kilometres, from Moscow to Vladivostok and from Saint Petersburg to the Caucasus. The story told by de Boose covers more than a millennium. Naturally, the brilliant Russian literature is never far away.
What could be Russia’s happiness? Why are the Russians the loneliest people on Earth? De Boose looks for the answer in a land of ambiguities.

Johan de Boose is a doctor of Slavonic studies, a globetrotter and a poet. His much-praised work comprises books such as Alle dromen van de wereld. Een sentimentele reis door Polen (All the World’s Dreams. A sentimental Journey through Poland) (2004), De Grensganger. Reis langs de ruïnes van het IJzeren Gordijn (Along the Border. A Journey along the Ruins of the Iron Curtain) (2006) and the novel Noem het middernacht (Call it Midnight) (2007). For De Grensganger (Along the Border), he was awarded with the Henriëtte Roland Holst-van der Schalk prize.